Zodiac Movie and Scorpionic America

March 12, 2007--I had initially resisted going to see the new movie Zodiac because I was concerned that it would portray astrology in a negative light. However, I found it to be an excellent film. Astrology is barely mentioned in the movie, and a passing reference to eclipses and solstices around the time of the Zodiac murders turned out to be another red herring lead that went nowhere. The killer probably took the name Zodiac from a totally innocuous, and non-astrological, source.

What made the movie so good was the way it captured the cultural zeitgeist of the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Zodiac killer began his serial murder spree shortly before the Charles Manson killings shocked the nation. At the time, Neptune was, appropriately, in Scorpio, and the film itself is about obsession without resolution, a lifetime without answers.

Zodiac is parsed into chronological segments that give the illusion of progress. Some of the segments last just a few seconds. At such-and-such a time on this date, this happened: short, two-line re-enactment. The movie begins in 1969 and ends in irresolution 23 years later; yet I found the plot totally engrossing. This seems very Saturn-Neptune. Time passes. The obsession with finding meaning slowly dissolves the very meaning it seeks. It’s very existential, like Sisyphus pushing his huge rock up the mountain, only to have the boulder roll back down every time.

More than that, however, Zodiac showed something about American culture that is reflected in the national horoscope. The movie opens with a Zodiac murder that was committed on July 4. The film maker did not make that up--it's the actual date. The opening shot of the movie is of Fourth of July fireworks over small-town Vallejo, California.

The movie constantly presents various icons of American culture: the intrepid gumshoes; the quietly devious psycho on the loose; the crime-obsessed media driving the citizenry into a mad frenzy; government offices’ dirty, bare, and beige walls; a cityscape of nameless, faceless, grey multi-story storage buildings (what exactly do these "12th houses" store?) and sad neon store lights that speak only of anonymity; the old-fashioned city press room; referential homages to cop shows and Dirty Harry—our common language of violence and protection.

Thanks to Dharmaruci over at AstroTableTalk, I’ve started to pay more attention to the Scorpionic America chart (the link is to AstroDataBank's explanation and data for the chart; I have posted the horoscope with this article--see below). The Scorpionic America chart is rectified for the supposed time of the passage of the U.S. Articles of Confederation in 1777.

Neptune, at the time of the early Zodiac murders, as well as the Manson murders, was moving over the U.S. Sun in the Scorpionic America chart. (Neptune has lately been moving over the Ascendant of this U.S. horoscope, dissolving our national image, while Saturn will soon cross over the Descendant). Of course, there was a lot more happening in 1969 and the early 1970's than the Zodiac murders—the Vietnam War, for one, with America's secret bombings of Cambodia.

The Scorpionic America 12th house of secret enemies and the collective unconscious has Capricorn on the cusp and it is ruled by Saturn. Saturn in the 9th house conjuncts Mercury, planet of communication. As a nation, our “free” press (Mercury in the 9th house) is controlled (Saturn) by a symbiotic need to both feed and reflect collective fears (12th house). In addition, Pluto is in the 12th house of the Scorpionic America chart, adding to the symbolism of hidden violence and serial killers operating behind the scenes until brought out into the open by 12th house ruler Saturn in the 9th house. Sure, other countries have their serial killers, but no other nation has so many guns and so many nuts who own them.