Midlife Transits

Now let’s take a closer look at the parallels and differences between the astrology of the 1930s and the 2010s.

1929: Wide square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Cancer. Saturn enters Capricorn, setting off a wide cardinal T-square. Jupiter and Saturn are in a wide opposition in Gemini and Sagittarius much of the year. Signs of economic trouble are on the horizon, but no one does anything to avert it. In October the stock market crashes, effectively beginning the Great Depression.

2008: Wide mutable T-square with Saturn in Virgo, Uranus in Pisces, and Pluto in Sagittarius. Jupiter in the contraction sign of Capricorn. Signs of recession and economic trouble are all around, but no one does anything notable to avert it. In September, the global financial system makes a strong effort to melt down completely. Almost succeeds. Panicked worldwide measure are taken. World economy starts to contract significantly.

1930: Wide cardinal T-square continues. Jupiter is in Cancer, making 4 outer planets in cardinal signs. Drought begins in middle America farm country. The country is in a deep recession; the money supply contracts significantly, unemployment shoots up, and protectionist measures make things worse. Government tries not to do much; Hoover, following Saturn in Capricorn’s ethic, tries for a balanced budget. Doesn’t work, maybe makes things worse.

2009: Saturn opposes Uranus Virgo to Pisces. Stock market crashes again. Jupiter and Neptune are conjunct in the summer; things seem to get better. Saturn moves into Libra, squares Pluto. Sets up the beginning of what will be our own time’s cardinal T-square. Country is in deep recession. Unemployment shoots up. Government passes stimulus. Individuals, following Pluto in Capricorn’s ethic, worry about budget deficits, protest government growth. Saturn/Uranus opposition puts health care reform in the spotlight. War in Afghanistan deteriorates. Issues of terrorism and workplace violence become strangely mixed when shootings at Ft. Hood are interpreted as both. Economy seems to be recovering.

1931: Saturn in Capricorn opposes Pluto in Cancer and squares Uranus. One of the deadliest natural disasters in human history occurs when as many as 4 million Chinese are killed by floods. Jupiter squares Uranus and is conjunct Pluto. The European banking system collapses. The economy is still in a deep recession and unemployment has reached 16%.

2010: Saturn and Uranus will oppose each other again in April. Another chance for health care to arise as an issue. Or perhaps something else. Uranus will move into Aries in late May, officially creating a repeat of the wide cardinal T-squares of the 30s. Jupiter will track Uranus from Pisces to Aries. Saturn in Libra will oppose both Uranus and Jupiter in July. Jupiter will square Pluto. In August Saturn will square Pluto again. In September, Jupiter will be conjunct Uranus again, this time in Pisces.

An entire summer of rather close aspects, with Jupiter involved. Will another major natural disaster occur? The individual (Aries) and government (Capricorn) will again be in conflict. Saturn in Libra adds the possibility of war. Will the relationship between individuals and government be re-worked again, so that individuals and small groups are the agents of war rather than nations? That’s the current trend. It was when Saturn was in Libra and Pluto was in Capricorn that the American Revolution began. That was part of a pretty significant restructuring of the relationship between governments and individuals. We can expect something significant to happen in our own times.

Jupiter in Aries will be egging things on from the individual’s side. The betting money is still on governments, though. Governments may get more repressive, a la Iran and the opposition protesters. The possibility for sporadic violence is strong. Saturn in Libra also highlights the divisions between various elements of the public, so that internal divisions within nations become more problematic.

1932: Uranus finally makes an exact square with Pluto, actually two, one in April and one in September. Saturn starts to move into Aquarius. As Saturn moves out of the way, the economy starts to improve. The stock market hits bottom and then begins to recover. Unemployment and taxes are both very high. Roosevelt is elected. The violence of Uranus square Pluto makes itself felt. Deadly riots break out in many corners of the world, and authoritarian governments (mostly notably the Nazis) gain traction. In the US, thousands of veterans march on Washington, and President Herbert Hoover turns the Army on them, forcing them out of the city. Strikers are fired up and fired upon.

2011: Jupiter moves back into Aries. Saturn is still in Libra, Uranus in Aries, and Pluto in Capricorn. 4 planets in cardinal signs again. None of the cardinal planets make exact aspects. Will the governments and individuals be paralyzed, unable to take action? Parts of the 1930s were like that. Things were not good, but no one knew what to do.

1933: Uranus and Pluto make two more exact squares. A banking panic in the US causes Roosevelt to temporarily shut the banks. Adolf Hitler officially comes to power in Germany. The economy is both still terrible, with unemployment high, and beginning to recover, partly perhaps as a result of measures Hoover took in 1932. With Saturn out of Capricorn, the worldwide phobia about deficit spending finally gives way and economies willing to spend and to go off the gold standard see benefits.

2012: Uranus and Pluto finally make an exact square, two of them. The first is in June of 2012, the second in September. Saturn finally leaves Libra in October, marking the end of the cardinal T-square. Neptune enters Pisces. 2012 marks the bottom of the cycle and the beginning of the turnaround. The Uranus/Pluto square becoming exact should release some of the pent-up energy. Saturn’s official move out of Libra should reduce tensions toward the end of the year.

It takes until March 2015 for the Uranus/Pluto squares to resolve themselves, but in 2013 Saturn moves into a more harmonious angle with Pluto, easing some of the strain. Still, Uranus and Pluto will square each other 7 times in the coming cycle and that’s a lot of squares. In history, and in astrology, some conflicts take a long time to resolve.

The 2010s will have global aspects that are similar in a number of ways to the aspects around the time of the Great Depression and the 1930s. One of the reasons the news was filled with phrases like “worst since the Great Depression” around the time of the economic collapse in late 2008 was that the astrology was similar. People don’t have to know astrology to be able to detect the similarity in an historical cycle.

Back in 1929, when the stock market crashed and essentially set off the Great Depression, Uranus and Pluto were in a wide square with each other, Saturn was in a wide square with them both, and Jupiter was in wide opposition to Saturn. In 2008, when we had our own meltdown, Uranus and Pluto were in a wide square with each other, and Saturn was in a wide opposition to Uranus. Jupiter was in the contraction sign of Capricorn.

To put this in perspective, Uranus square Pluto is not one of those aspects that happens regularly. In fact, we hadn’t seen that aspect since the 1930s. This is a mighty planetary dispute that takes years to play out and is associated with major historical trends. In other words, we are living the so-called Chinese curse of living in interesting (and rare) astrological times.

Although we won’t see a repeat of the events of the 1930s in the 2010s, it’s still instructive to look back a little. In the 1930s, the astrology was dominated at first by a cardinal T-square formed by outer planets. That means outer planets were in cardinal signs: Saturn was in Capricorn (contraction); Uranus was in Aries, and Pluto was in Cancer. Jupiter also played a role in triggering events.

During that decade, 2 separate but related things were  going on. One was the severe economic contraction symbolized by Saturn in opposition to Pluto. In the US, the Federal Reserve let the money supply shrink at an amazing rate, which put the economy in a stranglehold so that unemployment shot up. Saturn in Capricorn worries about deficit spending, so Hoover tried to keep a balanced budget. This was not good, and his attempt to raise taxes only made things worse (by the way, scholars disagree about the causes of the Depression; I’m talking about the astrology here, not the historical debate).

It took until late 1932 for Saturn to move out of Capricorn. Around that time, the economy bottomed out. Roosevelt was elected, the mood began to change, and the economy began a long slow climb out of the pit it had fallen into. The US economy was not out of the woods yet, but the trend was reversed.

As it so happened, during 1932 Uranus and Pluto also made their first 2 exact squares. When two major outer planets form an exact ‘challenging’ aspect, it often functions like an earthquake. That is, it relieves the strain that has been building up, and releases some of the energy. Uranus and Pluto made 2 more exact squares in 1933, and one more in 1934. In 1934, Uranus moved into the money sign of Taurus, effectively ending the clash of cardinal signs. Economies around the world begin to recover.

It took about 4 1/2 years for the astrological economic cycle to play out back then. With Pluto in the sign of nourishment (Cancer), one of the major developments of that time was widespread hunger. There were crop failures and, in the US, a severe drought in farming country that eventually culminated in the Dust Bowl disaster that drove thousands of poor farmers from their land.

With Uranus in the violent sign of Aries, another major development was widespread rioting and protest. In the US, a group of veterans sometimes called the Bonus Army marched on Washington to demand bonuses that had been promised them for their service in WWI. Hoover wouldn’t pay, and essentially chased them out of town by turning the army on them.

The other major development occurring at that time was the rise of extremely repressive government structures in the forms of fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism. Fascism was so widespread that there was an attempted fascist coup in the United States in 1934 (as reported by Smedley Butler, a highly decorated military figure of the time).

The rise of fascism and Nazism and Stalinism was symbolized by the square between Pluto and Uranus. Cancer is the sign of nationalism, Pluto the planet of brutal power. In this case the brutal power was exercised by nationalist and repressive governments that gained some of their power partly as a result of the upheaval caused by the economic contraction. Drastic Uranus was in Aries, the sign of the individual. There was essentially a war between individuals and their governments, with individuals rioting and protesting, and governments brutally repressing them.

In any conflict between outer planets, the betting money is on the planet furthest out, in this case Pluto. Pluto, representing government, won virtually all of the battles between governments and individuals. Individual freedoms were crushed in this decade. The US  and Great Britain were notable exceptions that showed it was possible to successfully resist totalitarianism. Government power and its relationship to the individual were still transformed (Pluto) in the US during this time, but in a different way than in much of Europe.

The clash between governments and individuals did not resolve until Pluto left Cancer and entered Leo. In 1940, Jupiter and Uranus and Saturn all ganged up in Taurus to wage a massive fight with Pluto in Leo. That fight manifested as World War II. By 1945, Uranus and Pluto were in astrological harmony again, and WWII was over.

A long period of peace between Uranus and Pluto began and the world settled down considerably for a long time. It took about 16 years for Uranus and Pluto to decisively settle their differences.

It won’t take as long this time. But it will take a good 7 years. Uranus and Pluto will reach exact square in 2012 and will make a series of squares all the way into March 2015. Part II gives a blow by blow of the aspects for astrology wonks. A look ahead at the 2010s will give more general information about the trends for people who don’t want to know about all the aspects.

I went to the Jay Leno taping on October 30 and saw John Cusack. He’ s the star of a movie coming out in November about 2012 being the end of the world. There are lots of predictions floating around the Internet about that year these days. Here is part 1 of my own expert predictions. Enjoy!

THE MOVIE: I predict the movie will be a big hit, with lots of neato special effects, a so-so story line, and, with all due respect to Mr. Cusack, generally mediocre acting overwhelmed by the visuals. Basis for prediction: the buzz is strong and the advertising extensive; the special effects really do look cool; these kinds of movies tend to do big box office; knowledge of the generally weak storylines of these kinds of movies and the difficulty of making lines like “whatever happens, we’re still a family” Oscar-worthy.

THE END OF THE WORLD: will NOT occur in 2012. Basis for prediction: The historical record for predicting the end of the world is quite poor. As of this writing, every single individual or organization who has ever predicted the end of the world has been wrong. This is the safest prediction I could make because, if by some chance, the world did come to an unlikely end in 2012, there would be nobody left to care about my prediction.

All right, I’m being glib. Let’s look at a couple of the reasons why a movie about the world ending in 2012 would even be made. Reason #1: is the Mayan Long Count calendar. The Mayan Long Count calendar begins in August of 3114 B.C. and, according to the latest interpretations, ends on December 21, 2012.

However, as you may notice, the world itself did not begin in August of 3114 B.C. and the end of the calendar does not indicate that the even the Mayans thought the world would end in 2012. The Mayans had an ingenious and complex system of counting time periods, one that gave them the ability to create numerical symbols for a series of days lasting over 5,000 years. That’s impressive.

At the end of the cycle, the digits in the Mayan calendar can roll over, sort of like a car’s odometer, so that you get the equivalent of a bunch of zeros. Our own system does something similar when the digits roll over at the end of a millennium. We get excited when digits roll over, and the Mayans that came up with the calendar may well have gotten excited when the digits on the Long Count Calendar rolled over, but that is different from the world ending.

The Mayan world ended (to the extent that the civilization that achieved so much essentially collapsed) in the same way that most things in this world end, rather slowly. It did not take place in accordance with the end of any calendar. If history is any guide (sometimes it is), our own civilization will eventually collapse, rather slowly. But not by 2012. Ecological degradation poses a far greater threat to our civilization than the Mayan calendar does.

Even if 2012 sees a gigantic volcanic eruption (could happen at any time) that causes massive problems, or an asteroid strike (could happen, although we would probably be able to see it coming if it was large enough to cause major damage), or an extremely large earthquake, the world would not end. Human civilization has seen a number of really huge volcanic eruptions (e.g., Krakatoa), massive earthquakes, and even the occasional asteroid strike. Human civilization has seen a whole bunch of really major disasters, but thus far, not only does the world refuse to end, but human beings refuse to die out. Things can get bad, and sometimes they do, but human beings take a licking and keep on ticking. For some, this is undoubtedly disappointing, but it’s true.

Take, for example, the Black Plague in the mid-1300s. That was big. It killed close to a hundred million people, and cut the population of Europe about in half over the course of a couple of years. That’s huge. Think of a hundred million people dying in the US now; that would be a big deal. Yet, the world did not end. Europe didn’t even end. And the Mayans, for all their skills, apparently didn’t have a lot to say about it.

The bottom line is that we humans tend overestimate dangers and underestimate our own resiliency to deal with things, both large and small.Whatever happens in 2012, we will deal with it.

Reason #2 for predictions of the end of the world can be found in religious and spiritual sentiment. Most cultures and religions have some way of accounting for the beginning of the world and the end of the world. Maybe not all, but most. One of the things that sometimes goes along with strong spiritual or religious feeling is a longing to escape the boring realities and struggles of life here on earth to more quickly join God or experience the afterlife. A desire for justice against all the bad people in the world (and there are always plenty of those) plays into this as well.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who is religious or spiritual is worried about the end of the world in 2012. Most aren’t. In fact, some devout Christians emphatically speak against such talk on the basis that we humans are not given to know when the end of days will occur. But….among those who do worry about the end of the world, the reasoning often has a distinctly religious, spiritual, or ‘prophetic’ cast. There is the belief that something otherworldly, mysterious, and uncannily accurate is at work, and that we have only to look for the coded signs to see unprecedented disaster ahead.

Astrologically, you could call this too much Neptune or drinking the Neptune kool-aid. Neptune is notorious for misleading people. Whatever validity such feelings may have on an emotional, symbolic, or even spiritual level, they do not translate into literal physical events. Again, the record on these predictions is incredibly poor. Disasters happen that aren’t predicted, and those that are predicted don’t. No matter how strongly we may feel about things, we haven’t exactly unlocked the code yet.

Finally, there is the hodgepodge factor. Lots of people who are worried about 2012 aren’t especially spiritual or even prophetic. But they hear about all kinds of theories, including Planet Nibiru or other things, and it just increases their already present sense of worry.When people are exposed to a hodgepodge of evidence that seems to trend in the same direction, people have a tendency to place a lot of weight on that evidence and to believe that the evidence must be true. In other words, the fact that there are supposedly lots of different, unrelated reasons to think about 2012 makes it seem to people more likely that something really huge will happen then.

Since there is legitimately plenty to worry about in the world today, some people just take the hodgepodge all the way over into imagining a doomsday scenario. Give people like this a firm date, and they’ll latch onto it.

Then people get locked into a kind of reasoning in which they say to themselves “why would I be thinking or feeling such things if they weren’t true?” As one person quoted in an ABC News article said: “[My predictions] are so spectacular, they can’t possibly be wrong.” Most of our worries and fears, however, are wrong. And thank goodness for that!

BUT WHAT ABOUT PREDICTIONS FOR SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT?

My predictions for that are in the next post.

Among the many predictions for 2012 are predictions for a kind of mass spiritual enlightenment, a sort of anti-end of the world, more like a new beginning of the world. That’s a certainly a cheerier way of looking at things, although less likely to result in a blockbuster movie.

Although you never know…some of the spiritual enlightenment proponents also talk about things like confirmation of extra-terrestrials (and they aren’t thinking of bacterial fragments on the moon), so maybe you could make a movie out of that. But most just believe there will be some sort of more intangible positive transformation that will either usher in a new era or improve humanity in some way.

They could be right. Shifts in consciousness are not only frequently predicted, they frequently occur. The world had a shift in consciousness in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. There was a shift in consciousness when the Internet became the World Wide Web. There was a shift in consciousness with the mass production of the automobile, during the Industrial Revolution, at the end of World War I, during the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, when the US successfully implemented a revolution against the a colonial power and the French Revolution brought down monarchical power.

There was a shift in consciousness when slavery became unacceptable to the Western world, when the age of European colonization began. There was a shift in consciousness when television spread to the average home and when AIDS burst onto the scene. There was a shift in consciousness when antibiotics and vaccines became common. The light bulb ushered in a shift in consciousness and so did democracy and Communism.The use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a shift in consciousness and so was 9/11. The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine was the beginning of one of the largest shifts in consciousness ever.

Shifts in consciousness are a dime a dozen. We are constantly undergoing them. For example, we are currently undergoing a global shift in consciousness in relation to gay rights.

It may seem to idealists that here on the ground shifts in consciousness take place in far too spotty and slow a manner. Some people long for a REALLY BIG shift in consciousness that will affect everyone all at the same time in the same way toward something that the idealist imagines would be preferable to the current situation, such as a world without guilt, fear, war, hunger, etc. So far that’s never happened, but of course that doesn’t stop people from hoping.

Astrologically and even physically that isn’t the way things happen. Sometimes there are little jolts or even fairly large jolts (the global economic meltdown at the end of 2008 was a semi-large jolt), and then the real work of integrating the new reality begins. It takes time.

Astrologically, this is represented by the slow revolutions of the outer planets. The outer planets do not, as far as we know, cause events, but their orbits give us a relatively decent symbol of the time scales and timing of the inevitable changes and evolution that we undergo. It’s understandable to wish it would all go faster–but it doesn’t.

To put it another way–our evolution, and our shifts in consciousness go astonishingly fast if we look at things from the perspective of how long life on earth has existed. We just fail to be impressed with our own progress. Think of how little time it has taken us to establish the rule of law, women’s rights, democracy, a repudiation of slave labor, global communications, and so on. In terms of the history of the earth, or even our own history, it’s less than a blink of the eye. Our progress seems so slow perhaps because our own lifespans are so short, or because our natures are so impatient.

The flip side is that our progress is so fast it scares us. We worry, for example, that our technological achievements outstrip our ability to cope with them emotionally and spiritually. And perhaps they do. I see no reason to stop wishing that we were all a lot better than we usually seem to be.

But what strikes me is that regardless of the challenges of a given age, humans remain human. We give our own age too much credit for both violence and bad behavior as well as progress and enlightenment. The humans of yesteryear had their technological and emotional and spiritual challenges. They had their wars, their natural disasters, their loves and their hates. They were violent and mean; they were spiritual and kind. They fought for a better world and they fought against a better world.

There’s never been a Utopia, in spite of all our efforts, but there has been progress. And sometimes that progress has crept in through the cracks left by the very things that idealists understandably dislike–fear, chaos, hostility, and war. As the now dwarf planet Pluto often says: “In destruction, there is rebirth.”

2012 will undoubtedly see its share of destruction, rebirth, and even impressive spiritual enlightenment. It’s just that most of us will be too busy complaining and just living to notice.