WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness with Clarissa Dolphin

Oh, kids these days, says every generation. But how do kids and moms actually show up in America’s birth chart? In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, astrologers Megan Green and Sara Murray join me to map out the third, fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth houses of the Sibley chart — children, parents, sex, and power — and what they say about this country’s relationship to its families. We get into the US Moon-Venus-Mars-Uranus midpoint and why this country keeps producing women patriarchy can’t actually contain, the surprisingly recent history of women’s financial independence, and some real raw personal moments that ground the whole conversation in the gravity of lived experience on this subject. Heavy in places, genuinely funny in others, despite it all, there’s hope for a brighter future.

Biggest Takeaways

• My own house breakdown to frame the conversation: the fifth house (children, procreation, recreation, teaching), the fourth house (father, roots), the tenth house (mother), and the third house (the kids themselves, naturally ruled by Gemini)
• My own harmonic read: the US Mars-Venus-Uranus midpoint (22' orb) is why this country produces unstoppable, boldly sexual women — Josephine Baker, Madonna — patriarchy has never actually managed to lock that down
• My own historical throughline: child abuse runs through this country’s entire history — Native American genocide, enslaved people’s families torn apart, child labor and up through the Epstein files — it has been a pattern, not an aberration
• Sara’s read: Ceres conjunct Nessus in Pisces in the third house points to a kind of invisible, collectively-agreed-upon abuse — if we don’t name it, it doesn’t exist, the same logic that let slavery and Epstein both hide in plain sight
• A fact worth sitting with: American women could only get credit in their own name without a husband’s permission starting in 1974 — full female financial autonomy is barely a generation old
• Megan’s framing: abuse of children is inseparable from how mothers themselves are treated — the patriarchal trickle-down means a kid’s wellbeing tracks with how supported their mother is
• A moment in the conversation gets genuinely personal, and it changes the stakes of everything we’d just been discussing from chart theory into something very real
• The hopeful close: both Megan and Sara read the current Saturn-Neptune-Chiron transit as dismantling before rebuilding — more freedom of expression for the next generation, and real optimism about where kids raised now are headed

Connect with Megan Green: mercurialmegan.com

Connect with Sara Murray: TheSensibleAstrologer.com

Connect with me: clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Evergreen Mid-Roll – General CTA

If any of this is hitting you in the chest right now, that's not a coincidence; that's the astrology doing its job. No vague guidance or love-and-light platitudes here. Find horoscopes, readings, and real spiritual work that gives you clarity, power, and a precise vision for what's next all at clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com.

Clarissa Dolphin Explains It All

Is American education a tool of liberation or assimilation? In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, historian-astrologer Alex Mikinaak and punk astrologer Duna Haller join me to dig into the third house (basic education) and ninth house (higher education/ideology) of the Sibley chart. We trace Indigenous boarding schools' brutal history alongside the Native lawyers and leaders they inadvertently produced, connect Mars-Uranus in Gemini to the WWII code talkers and compare American gun violence in schools to Duna's experience growing up in Spain. Heavy history, real astrology, but we are left with genuine hope by the end.

Biggest Takeaways

• Duna and Alex's core framing: the third house (basic/mandatory education) and ninth house (higher education/ideology) are in constant conversation in the Sibley chart — the norms universities set filter down into what children get taught
• Alex's history: Indigenous boarding schools were built to strip culture and language from Native children through real abuse. And those same schools produced the first Native lawyers, doctor and leaders who later rebuilt tribal sovereignty from the inside
• My own family history: as a third-generation master's degree holder on my Black side, descending from a formerly enslaved great-grandfather who became a successful businessman and invested in HBCUs — education as both a wound and a genuine path to survival
• Alex's read on Mars-Uranus in Gemini: knowledge as literal weapon of war, most strikingly embodied by the Navajo code talkers of WWII, beaten for speaking their language in school, then called on by that same government to win a war with it
• Duna's parallel between the Black Panthers' community education programs and the May 1968 student movements in France, both emerging under a similar Uranus-Pluto signature that's echoing again right now
• My addition: the US's high 5th and 12th harmonics point to education as both creativity/invention and a place where society's outcasts can finally receive real care — the hopeful flip side of everything else discussed

Want to go deeper into harmonics?

The 5th and 12th harmonics came up again in this one — creativity, invention, and care for the overlooked. Harmonic Astrology 101 walks you through finding these layers in your own chart. Self-paced, $155, yours forever, 15% off for podcast listeners with code WTFUSA15. Harmonic Astrology 101

Connect with Duna Haller: dunahaller.pb.studio

Connect with Alex Mikinaak: ishpimingastrology.com

Connect with me: clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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Can you even see queerness in an astrology chart — and should you try? In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, astrologer Colin Bedell joins me to dig into repression, chosen family, LGBTQ+ history and the contradictions baked into the American story. Colin makes the case for never diagnosing someone's identity from their chart. We dig into the paradox that the states with the most restrictive anti-trans laws also search for trans content the most and we talk about ballroom culture and chosen family as a living expression of Jupiter in Cancer. It's emotional and beautiful.

Biggest Takeaways

• Colin's stance: he deliberately doesn't diagnose queerness from a chart — a person's own self-identification always leads, not the astrologer's interpretation
• A striking paradox Colin points to: the states with the most restrictive anti-trans laws also have the highest search rates for trans content — repression and desire, tangled together
• My own read: the Sagittarius rising and the Jupiter-in-Cancer/7th-house-ruled-by-8th-house placement both point to a chart built on multiplicity and contradiction — the exact terrain queerness in America has had to navigate
• Colin's framing of chosen family: ballroom culture, born from Black and brown queer communities, as one of the clearest living expressions of Jupiter in Cancer in the 7th house
• My parallel: the same "protect the children" rhetoric shows up in both anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ politics — claiming to protect kids while gutting the support that would actually help them
• Colin's closing line, and the one that stuck with me most: "None of us have a monopoly on truth... put the predictions down, put the people skills up"

Connect with Colin Bedell: colinbedell.com

Connect with me: clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Evergreen Mid-Roll – General CTA

If any of this is hitting you in the chest right now, that's not a coincidence; that's the astrology doing its job. No vague guidance or love-and-light platitudes here. Find horoscopes, readings, and real spiritual work that gives you clarity, power, and a precise vision for what's next all at clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com.

Clarissa Dolphin Explains It All

Are dating apps actually killing American romance, or just exposing what was already broken? In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, sexologist and astrologer Stefanie Iris Weiss and Professional Matchmaker and Muse miz Charli join me to dig into sex, power and relationship dynamics tied to commodification in the American chart. We trace Pluto's return through the second house since 2008 and what that says about capitalism infecting our relationship to literal bodies. I bring in the Mars-Venus-Uranus midpoint (in the 30th harmonic) to explain why this country is so overtly, boldly sexual and we get into the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at 0° Aries as a possible turning point away from patriarchy. This episode is raw, funny and it does not hold back.

Biggest Takeaways

• Stefanie's read: Pluto's return through the second house since 2008 tracks with how capitalism has infected Americans' relationship to their own bodies and desire — we have to consciously strip that commodification out to access anything authentic
• miz Charli's stat: after an estimated 30,000-50,000 conversations with people nationwide as a professional matchmaker, her consistent finding is that dating apps feel "trash"
• My own read: the US Mars-Venus-Uranus midpoint (in the 30th harmonic) explains why this country is so overtly, boldly sexual — from Josephine Baker to Madonna — and it's the same placement underneath the current "national pussy drying" energy around American masculinity
• Stefanie and Charli's shared theory: the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at 0° Aries this past February may mark the start of a multi-year reset away from patriarchy as a structuring force
• My synthesis: sex lives in both the fifth house (casual, playful) and the eighth house (merging, power, coercion) — and the eighth house's darker themes of coercion, extraction, repression and secrecy map disturbingly well onto everything from the Epstein files to closeted political hypocrisy

Want to go deeper into harmonics?

That Mars-Venus-Uranus midpoint I kept coming back to lives in the 30th harmonic — one small example of how much a chart holds beyond the basics. Harmonic Astrology 101 teaches you how to find placements like this in your own chart. Self-paced, $155, yours forever, 15% off for podcast listeners with code WTFUSA15 Harmonic Astrology 101

Connect with miz Charli: mizCharli.com

Connect with Stefanie Iris Weiss: stefanieirisweiss.com

Connect with me: clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com

Mentioned in this episode:

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You know your sun sign. Maybe your moon, rising and other placements, but something's still missing. You know there is more and if that's where your astrology education stopped, you're working with just a fraction of your chart. Harmonic Astrology 101 explains the sh*t you've been through, the complex interdimensional forces that make you, you, and shape every facet of existence. $155, self-paced, yours forever — 15% off with code WTFUSA15

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Oh boy, America just had its 250th birthday. In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, I sit down with OPA-certified astrologer Celeste Brooks to break down the United States' 2026 solar return chart, which took place on July 5th with a 15° Gemini rising. We discuss what it means for the economy, the midterm elections, the ongoing war in Iran, immigration, and the wild, unstable "roller coaster" energy so many of us are feeling right now. We get into Mercury retrograde in the money house, the Mars-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto configuration behind the country's institutional upheaval, the Leo solar eclipse that Celeste calls "the fall of kings". I bring in my own historical parallel – Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) as a ninth-harmonic leader whose New Deal answered a moment eerily similar to this one – and call out exactly what harmonic is running the current administration. And yes, there's an impromptu tarot reading for the soul of the nation.

Biggest Takeaways

• The 2026 solar return's Gemini rising + retrograde Mercury points to a "herky-jerky," communication-and-tech-driven year: AI, data centers and surveillance are spotlight themes
• Mercury retrograde in the nation's money house, paired with Saturn in its fall, signals real financial strain ahead: Celeste doesn't sugarcoat the economy concerns
• The Mars-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto lineup in the chart ties directly into institutional upheaval and secrecy: Celeste calls it "the emperor has no clothes" energy
• The August 12th Leo solar eclipse is "the fall of kings" whiplashing a potential turning point for high-profile leaders
• My own historical parallel: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was a ninth-harmonic leader (Lunar North Node in the ninth harmonic) whose New Deal and Social Security emerged directly out of a Great Depression-era crisis – the same harmonic now activated in this year's solar return
• When Celeste asked what harmonic the current administration is running on, my answer: an 11th harmonic – chaos, entropy, insatiable restlessness
• The chart's ninth-harmonic-dominant energy triggers community, healing and pooling of shared resources, it is the throughline of hope in an otherwise heavy outlook

Connect with Celeste Brooks:

• Website: https://www.astrologybyceleste.com/

Connect with me:

• Website: https://www.clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com/

Want to go deeper into harmonics?

The ninth harmonic we talk about in this episode (the one behind the community-and-healing thread I keep returning to) is the novile and is prominent in all of our lives. Harmonic Astrology 101 teaches you how to read this in your chart and beyond. If this conversation made you want to understand how your harmonics vibe, that deeper layer of how you’re wired, HA101 is self-paced, $155, yours forever — and as a podcast listener you get 15% off with code WTFUSA15. https://wtfusapod.captivate.fm/ha101

Mentioned in this episode:

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You know your sun sign. Maybe your moon, rising and other placements, but something's still missing. You know there is more and if that's where your astrology education stopped, you're working with just a fraction of your chart. Harmonic Astrology 101 explains the sh*t you've been through, the complex interdimensional forces that make you, you, and shape every facet of existence. $155, self-paced, yours forever — 15% off with code WTFUSA15

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In this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, astrologers Tasha Beg andDiana Vanessa join me for a wide-ranging, unflinching conversation about race and power in America and the astrology underneath it. We dig into transit Pluto in Aquarius conjunct the USA's South Node, which is occurring as the demographic makeup of the country shifts into a direction triggering racist backlash. We trace a direct astrological line from the 1950s Saturn-Neptune cycle in Libra (Brown v. Board of Education) to today's Saturn-Neptune in Aries squaring the US natal Sun, and we talk about whose story the Sibley chart was really built to tell. It's heavy, it's honest, but it ends somewhere hopeful.

Biggest Takeaways

• Transit Pluto conjunct the USA's South Node in Aquarius tracks with a real demographic shift: by the end of this transit, the country's racial majority changes and much of the current political backlash reads as a subconscious reaction to that
• The Sibley chart itself carries a non-neutral perspective: Tasha frames it as the chart of "whoever's in charge," built by and for the people who broke from Britain. Conceptually, it wasn't a chart that was ever built to represent everyone demographically speaking
• My point of view on narrative control: Hans Christian Andersen (the source of nearly every fairy tale we grew up on) who had his Lunar North Node in Capricorn speaks to a bigger pattern of whose stories get framed as THE quintessential cultural story and whose don't
• The Saturn-Neptune in Aries transit squaring the USA natal Sun directly echoes the 1950s Saturn-Neptune cycle in Libra that produced Brown v. Board of Education and integrated schools. This current transit seems hellbent on upending what came before
• Diana's framing of the USA as "an eighth house country" sustained by resources extracted from others, historically and presently
• The hopeful counterpoint: New York City. With its Cancer Lunar South Node and this year's prior Jupiter-in-Cancer transit, Mamdani's win and the cultural momentum there is a real, live example of where seeds of change are already taking root in the whole country and where Cancer’s tribalism can actually be unifying

Connect with Tasha Beg:

• Website for 1-on-1 sessions: https://www.agentofpluto.com/

Connect with Diana Vanessa:

• Website for discovery calls and sliding scale sessions: https://www.dianavanessa.com/

Connect with me:

• Website: https://www.clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com/

The Lunar Nodes Are Running This Whole Episode.

Pluto on a Lunar Node, generational nodal shifts this episode is saturated in nodal astrology, and if that's got you curious about what your own Lunar Nodes are actually pointing you toward, The Lunar Nodes: Unstoppable Living is where I break that down. It reframes the nodes as points where you are unstoppable in life, not karmic debt. $99, self-paced, original research, yours forever, 15% off for podcast listeners with code WTFUSA15 https://wtfusapod.captivate.fm/lunarnodes

Mentioned in this episode:

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Astrologer Rachel Lang says there's no such thing as a "bad money chart" and in this episode of WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness, she breaks down why. I connect Chiron's upcoming move into Taurus — the sixth house of the US Sibley chart, ruling jobs and service work — to a very specific history: the 1971 Powell Memorandum, where corporations organized to fight back against civil rights-era gains, and the 2010 Citizens United decision that opened the door to unlimited dirty money in elections. We dig into transit Pluto hitting the USA's Lunar South Node sitting in the second house of the Sibley chart. The second house of national resources says so much about corporate power, wealth concentration, and who's really running the show when it comes to economic disparity. Rachel connects Pluto in Aquarius to historic political upheavals (1776, the Copernican Revolution) that reshaped how humanity understood its place in the cosmos, shares her own Mars-Uranus story of running for Ojai City Council and out-hustling opponents who underestimated her, and leaves us with genuine, hard-won optimism about where the country is headed by the 2030s.

Biggest Takeaways

• My read on the sixth house and Chiron in Taurus: the throughline from the 1971 Powell Memorandum's corporate response to civil rights, straight through to 2010's Citizens United, is how corporate money ended up controlling government policy
• Pluto and the Lunar South Node in the second house of the US Sibley chart map directly onto corporate power and the concentration of national wealth
• Rachel's core reframe: "there is no such thing as a bad money chart"
• Pluto in Aquarius has historically coincided with massive shifts in how humanity organizes itself politically, tied to breakthroughs in how we understand our place in the cosmos
• Rachel's own city council campaign is a real-world case study in Mars-Uranus energy: written off as "a young weak female," she won by knocking on every door in her district
• The long view we both land on: Uranus moving into Cancer in 2032, conjunct the US natal Venus and Jupiter, points toward a cultural shift away from military spending and toward care, connection and collective wellbeing

Connect with Rachel Lang:

• Website: https://rachellangastrologer.com/

Connect with me:

• Website: https://www.clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com/

Mentioned in episode:

• Spirit Stomach: https://wtfusapod.captivate.fm/spiritstomach

Mentioned in this episode:

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What if you could ask 19 different astrologers what's actually going on with America right now. WTF USA? The Astrology Behind the Madness is a deep-dive podcast bringing in experts, thought leaders, provocateurs and full astrologer panels to decode the culture wars, the economy, the climate and the collective unraveling, with an emphasis on what it actually feels like to live through it all. This trailer gives you a taste of what's coming: dating apps and the second house, race in America through the Sibley chart, an astrologer's run for city council, and the culture war over queerness nobody's decoding through astrology but us. Full season launches September 22, 2026.

Connect with me: clarissadolphinexplainsitall.com | Instagram: @clarissadolphin | Threads: @clarissadolphin | YouTube: @ClarissaDolphinExplainsItAll | TikTok: @clarissadolphin | Facebook: @ClarissaDolphinExplainsItAll | BlueSky: @clarissadolphin.bsky.social | LinkedIn: in/clarissadolphin