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I love America.
I love that we are called the United States.
Did you know that other countries are united states—as in they are countries made up of states that agreed to be united? Germany, Italy, and Mexico are a few that come to mind, but I know there are plenty more. So why are we the only country that gets called The United States?
For example, in French and Spanish, the country is referred to exclusively as les États-Unis and los Estados Unidos, respectively. We would never call it simply America in those languages.
During one of my regular deep dives, I discovered our name represents something we must always remember (as in our own personal name). In America’s case, it’s that we need to remember to stick together no matter what.
Do you know how we even got the name America?
We are named after an old white guy, Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer. Born on March 9, 1454, he is a Pisces Sun, Moon, and Mercury (and I’d bet a Pisces Rising too). Pisces is the sign of union—it’s a water sign so it acts just like the ocean uniting all the continents.
If he were a Pisces Rising, Amerigo Vespucci would have Leo in the sixth house meaning that it is all in a day’s work to bring light to new places. It would also mean that he had Sagittarius right between the ninth and tenth houses, which would represent an expansion of knowledge and leaving a strong legacy for it.
While we don’t know his exact birth time to know his rising sign, we do know that he had a Sagittarius North Node in the first degree! The North Node on the birth chart is like True North on a compass: it shows the “right” way towards growth, purpose, and new potential. The first degree indicates that he was meant to be the first to do something. And Sagittarius is the sign of travel.
Can you believe people used to think that we were part of Asia?
People like Christopher Columbus lol.
Our guy Amerigo Vespucci was like no this is a whole new continent. He saw us for who we truly are! One could say it was his North Node that led him to the Truth, another Sagittarius trait.
He said this in 1501. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published a world map and a book called Cosmographiae Introductio. In it, he named the new continent “America” in Vespucci’s honor, using the Latin version of his first name Americus feminized to America (to match the convention of using feminine names for continents).
Source:
Of course, Spanish historians of the time opposed the new name and offered Columbia or Columbus as alternatives, since Columbus sailed here first in 1492. (This is why we have names like “Columbia” in the United States — think of District of Columbia or Columbia University.) Alas, it was too late and the name America stuck.
We didn’t choose the name America, it was given to us, but we did choose to be called The United States of America.
We were proud to be members of a new world, named after the first guy who saw it as such. We believed America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Each one of our families came here to feel free. Each one of our families had to be brave to come here. Each one of our families chose to be American.
What about the Natives who lived here for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years ago? They didn’t have a choice.
Actually they did. They too felt free on this land (before the colonizers) but if they felt here once before, it is possible to feel free again. We are already starting to see a revival of Indigenous ways of life through culture, knowledge, and even language. And they had to brave. Yes to fight the colonizers stealing their land, but also the bravery to stay alive and keep the traditions alive.
We have all chosen to be here.
It was no coincidence that the bald eagle was chosen as our national emblem in 1782—partly for its majestic presence, fierce independence, and perceived nobility, but also because they’re seen as messengers between Earth and the Spirit realm.
Early Americans really believed that God had led them here, hence, Manifest Destiny— the belief that Americans are divinely destined and justified to expand its territory across the North American continent, regardless of who already lived there.
Spiritually, they were led here by the Divine. The Divine had to show that abundance was real. Only the courgeous, the ones that got the nudge, the ones that listened to their intuition, came here. They came here with the core belief that this land would grant them a better life.
The problem was that they were wounded by their motherland that they thought that they had to work hard to receive that abundance. They thought that they had to steal, kill, and commit other horrendous acts to gain that abundance.
Indigenous teachings demonstrate that when connected to the natural rhythms of the Earth, abundance finds you.
We’re still learning this today.
We’re still learning how to come together.
What if the Divine led the wounded here to be healed?
What if all our families were drawn here to this land to be healed?
What if we, the descendants, of the colonizers are meant to help heal the indigenous by learning their ways and keeping their traditions alive?
What if being American means that we are the polymaths of the world? That we have the great honor of getting to learn not just about indigenous cultures, but also every immigrants’ culture.
What if being American meant we were a little of everyone?
And if we’re all a little of everyone, wouldn’t that mean that everyone is equal, as they are all us?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” is stated at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence.
Through my research, I have learned that striving to become a polymath is also a path to self-actualization. Aren’t Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness all encompassed in self-actualization?
Most, if not all, Founding Fathers were polymaths. Could it be that they were on to something on a soul-level, even if their minds didn’t agree, that this country they were creating, would be the land of cultural polymaths?
Turning to the Constitution,
“We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Founding Fathers, many of whom owned slaves, wrote the Constitution. Although they did not explicitly include or exclude minorities, the document itself does not deny their place in the nation.
Given the vital role these minority groups played in early America’s economy and society, it’s fair to understand that they were meant to be part of the more perfect Union the Constitution aims to create.
Because exclusion isn’t written into the text, regardless of the Founders’ personal intentions, the Constitution carries the spirit of inclusion and provides a foundation to expand freedom and justice for all.
This is the United States of America that we need to fight for.
How do we fight to preserve the Union?
By not only really getting to know and love ourselves, but getting to know and love others, especially those that are most different than us.
That is the only requirement to be American.
One may say, can’t other people from different countries meet these requirements?
Sure, if they move to America haha.
It is only here where you feel the energy that you have to protect yourself — an undercurrent of guardedness that makes the task of truly knowing and loving one another so difficult.
This is described in the USA’s mundane chart — its national birth chart — which shows a double stellium in Cancer. A stellium means there’s a concentrated cluster of planets in one sign, intensifying its traits. Cancer’s energy is deeply protective, tribal, family-focused, and defensive when threatened. It clings to what feels familiar and safe.
So, woven into the country’s very foundation is this paradox: a nation built on radical openness and constant mixing, yet driven by an instinct to guard ourselves and our loved ones from strangers.
This push and pull — between fear and belonging, protection and inclusion — is the tension we’re still trying to resolve every day.
Other countries, for the most part, live with people who are less different from them — at least culturally, historically, or linguistically. Many who felt like they didn’t fully belong left those places and came here, bringing with them that restless, searching energy that still shapes America’s identity today.
This is reflected in the USA’s Aquarius Moon in its mundane (national) birth chart. In mundane astrology, the Moon represents the people — their emotional core, their instinctive needs, their habits.
Aquarius is the sign of the outsider, the innovator, the one who lives ahead of their time and rarely feels fully at home in the present. It wants freedom, difference, and a future that hasn’t yet been built. This is also why we have the American Dream.
So woven into the American psyche is this collective feeling of not fully belonging — an unease that drives invention, reinvention, migration, and constant questioning of the status quo.
Our Aquarius South Node echoes this too — the South Node represents what we come from, what feels familiar but must evolve. For America, the old comfort is that Aquarian restlessness: radical individuality, rebellion, and the tension of communities made of people who never quite felt at home anywhere else.
Maybe cultural polymathy — the ability to hold many identities, languages, and ways of being at once — is the future America points toward. To be American, then, is to know what it means to struggle with belonging — and to make something new out of that struggle. We must be the example to the world on how to overcome struggle.
After all, the United States has its North Node in Leo — and in astrology, the North Node shows where we’re meant to grow. Leo is about self-expression, recognition, and the courage to be fully seen. For America, this means that true peace and unity can’t come from suppressing voices — everyone must feel seen and heard, no matter how uncomfortable their truths may be.
That’s part of why someone like Trump draws such intense support: he gave a voice — for better or worse — to people who felt silenced, mocked, or forced to wear a polite mask for too long. They’re hungry to be heard. And while the way this energy comes out can be destructive, it also serves a purpose: it brings the hidden tensions up to the surface where they must be faced.
It may be messy, but it’s necessary. For America to grow into its Leo North Node, the nation must let its people roar — to move through the anger and division until something honest and creative can rise from it.
Creativity and curiosity is the only way forward.
Get to know what you love to do, what you love to learn about, and what you love to create.
Get to know what different people than you love to do, love to learn about, and love to create.
Over Memorial Day weekend, my Mexican husband and I went to our first country concert. We went to see Hardy.
During God’s Country, a song he wrote for Blake Shelton, everyone started chanting USA, USA, USA.
At first, it invigorated me. I was filled with pride that people were giving America love, who so desperately needs it. Everyone is always saying how horrible America is, so it was refreshing to see the pride.
Then it hit me. Would these country fans see me as American? I felt a knot in my stomach. Should I even be chanting USA? Am I, as a Mexican, allowed to chant? Would they accept me?
I also thought, Should I even be chanting? If I chant, does that mean that I am in support of the atrocities that Americans are committing?
I felt so awkward, I stopped chanting.
But then, I looked around.
The joy and the love that these country concert-goers had for our beautiful country was awe-inspiring. They were all there just having a good time jamming out with Hardy.
This is America.
I saw all races out there coming together and having fun. Of course, they accepted me and my husband. Of course, because we’re all Americans. All loving this land we call home and truly does heal us.
This is America. Not what you see on the news or on social media.
America was made by the people for the people.
Stop allowing those who do not hold these Constitutional ideals take the United States of America, away from us.
Let’s celebrate the day that intuitively-led people came together to sign the official declaration that we would no longer be following the rules of kings, that we are now free to be ourselves.
That is worth celebrating.
Happy Fourth of July!
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Laura Alyn is an educator, PhD researcher, astrologer, spiritual practitioner, and founder of the ILA Institute. She blends spiritual insight with academic curiosity to build new pathways of knowing—for individuals and for the future of education. To learn more about her, click here or browse the other pages on the site!
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