Midlife Transits

Saturn

Note: This article will form part of the International Astrology Day Blog-a-thon, March 19-21. There will be links to an entire collection of articles on Saturn on March 20 at the following URL: http://mandilockley.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-after-saturn-saturn-will-look.html. Check it out!

If you were born between late November 1950 and late October 1953 and your natal Saturn is in Libra, you are either experiencing your second Saturn return or will experience it soon. The second Saturn return is a predictable astrological phenomenon that occurs for everyone between the ages of approximately 58 to 60. It marks the time when Saturn returns to the sign it was when you were born.

One of the issues that almost inevitably comes up during the second Saturn return is aging. Saturn rules the aging process, and it is obviously pretty normal for a person approaching their 60s to think about getting older. For the generation experiencing the second Saturn return in Libra during the next couple of years (Saturn will be in Libra, with the exception of a short break in spring and summer 2010, into October 2012), the second Saturn return will be impacted by the presence of Pluto in Capricorn and Uranus in Aries. Both of these other energies clash with Saturn in Libra and therefore throw issues into sharper relief.

Let’s look briefly at how Pluto and Uranus can affect, although not fundamentally change, the dynamics of the second Saturn return.

Potential dynamic #1: Uranus in Aries represents, among other things, a rush of youthful impulsive energy, the desire for heedless, even reckless change. You may feel that events in society are making you all the more aware that things are changing faster than you’d like. You may feel like, or even be accused of being, a fuddy-duddy who wants to stand in the way of change. On a more personal level, the opposition between Uranus and Saturn could make you even more aware that your body isn’t what it used to be, and maybe your outlook isn’t either.

Potential dynamic #2: Saturn is a pretty lonely planet by nature, and in Libra, the fear of aloneness can be quite acute. You might think about being lonely if you retire, about not having a spouse or companion, about losing friends to death or illness. You’re ‘supposed’ to think about these things during the second Saturn return, because Saturn, a realistic and self-reliant planet, wants you to understand your own resources and to plan for a deeper confrontation with yourself, now that typical life tasks such as raising children or building a career are essentially complete. With challenges coming at you from two important outer planets, you may even feel a bit isolated in your point of view on things, as though you have accidentally stepped out of the mainstream.

Potential dynamic #3: Confronting mortality. At the second Saturn return, you realize your actions have consequences because you will not be living forever. You need, in essence, to make the most of the time you’ve got. With Pluto in Capricorn closely squaring Saturn in Libra off and on during this cycle, you may feel that death and mortality are getting all up in your face these days.

So…how to confront these things? I have a few suggestions that should apply regardless of when your second Saturn return is. I’m not saying they will make the current times wildly fun or that they substitute for the hard work of being yourself. But at least they can give you something to think about as you face this important transition in your life.

Suggestion #1: Face the fact that you’re not going to be who you used to be and that’s a good thing. Do the Saturnian thing and prepare for your future. If fear of loneliness and isolation are creeping around the edges of your thoughts, run a movie of your future in your mind. Make it come out with a happy ending.

How wonderful could it be to be able to do what you want, instead of what everyone else wants? How wonderful could it be to be a mentor instead of an employee, part of a girls’ trip to Las Vegas instead of a doting wife, and so on. Play around with the pictures in your head. I can almost guarantee you that there are parts of your subconscious mind that are just itching to shed some elements of the identities you’ve built up. Remember, if society’s values seem to be morphing away from what’s familiar to you, that your values count too. It’s okay to speak up for your own Saturn perspective. Goodness knows, we’ll likely need it.

Suggestion #2: Learn something. Not something easy. Something hard. Something that could be of benefit in your community. Like how to be a volunteer mediator or arbitrator (great for Libra energy). How to speak Spanish if there are many in your town who do so. How to program a website. Okay, I know these kinds of things could be daunting, but there’s a big payoff. You will grow new connections between your neurons. Literally. New connections will help keep your brain healthy and your mood stable.

The key to Saturn’s heart is contributing your fair share to society (it rules the community-minded 10th house). It wants so much for you to leave some kind of a tangible contribution or legacy. Make it happy. Step up to the plate and make a contribution of a type you’ve never been able to make before. Not only will you make Saturn feel useful, you’ll soak up some of that restless Uranus in Aries energy, energy that also cares about society, learning new things, and making changes. It won’t exactly make you feel young again, but it will alter your understanding of what aging really is. Furthermore, since the clash between outer planets indicates that society is going through some fundamental shifts, any contribution you can make to the larger community helps us all by easing the transition a bit.

Suggestion #3: Confront mortality as directly as you can. Okay, this is hard for a lot of us, including me. But Saturn has every right to be curious about it, and so do you. It is only natural to want to prepare for something none of us are going to be able to escape. I’ll give an example of a woman I met who made exquisite use of the second Saturn return. She went to school to take classes in biomedical ethics. She learned how to give counseling to families who have to make end-of-life decisions for their family members. Talk about confronting an issue in a useful way. Talk about making a contribution to society. She got to satisfy the Saturnian (and Plutonian) urge to find out what death is all about and to prepare, but she also got to help other people in a very important way. And…she kept her brain, heart, and soul sharp by challenging them with a new activity. She participated in the changes in society rather than hiding from them.

You can do these things, too. Maybe in a slightly different way than I’ve suggested, but you can do them too. You just might find, as many of my clients do, that when the second Saturn return is over, you actually feel like you have a whole new lease on life.

Blogger Victoria Bazeley specializes in the astrology of midlife, the key time periods between age 38 to age 60. She has written for ThirdAge.com, started the website Practical Astrology and now blogs here at Midlife Transits. Become a Facebook fan!

Other Articles on Saturn and Saturn in Libra:

Got Natal Saturn in Libra?

Saturn in Libra Horoscopes for Aries through Virgo

Saturn in Libra Horoscopes for Libra through Pisces

What Changes Will Saturn in Libra Bring?

This article is featured in Look After Saturn and Saturn Will Look After You as part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The 2010 International Astrology Day Blog-A-Thon.

The URL for the Saturn collection is: http://mandilockley.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-after-saturn-saturn-will-look.html
The URL for the main blogathon collection is: http://2010astrologycarnival.wordpress.com/

A lot of people know that there’s an outer planet cardinal T-square coming up this summer. What that means is that Pluto will be in early degrees of Capricorn, Uranus in early Aries, and Saturn in early Libra. These energies clash with each other, creating a lot of stress. What not as many people know is that the stress from clashes between outer planets often manifests when there’s a considerable distance between the outer planets, often around 8-10 degrees from a square or opposition.

Right now, Pluto and Uranus are about 10 degrees from a square. Uranus is in late Pisces and Pluto is in early Capricorn, creating in effect what is a wide out of sign square. Saturn and Pluto are much closer to squaring each other, less than a degree apart.

Today, a man in Austin, Texas apparently deliberately flew a small plane into an office building that housed IRS workers. This link shows what was in his mind just before he did that.

You can see how his mind was banging around multiple points of conflict and couldn’t seem to find a resolution. Here are some of the planetary themes in his rant:

Laws and justice:  Saturn in Libra.

Government and taxation: Pluto in Capricorn.

Freedom: Uranus.

Greedy, powerful corporations: Pluto in Capricorn.

Healthcare, the drug companies, unions, and the American medical system: Uranus in Pisces with a little of bit Saturn in Virgo energy thrown in.

Accusations of totalitarianism: Pluto in Capricorn.

The corruption of big religious entities: Pluto in Sagittarius and Uranus in Pisces.

Grudges from the past: Pluto.

The system is based on lies: Saturn and Pluto.

The futility of trying to be independent: Uranus in Aries vs. Pluto in Capricorn.

Engineering: Uranus.

Anger over work and career issues: Pluto in Capricorn.

Time to revolt: Uranus in Aries.

Violence as an answer: Uranus in Aries.

Note that with an out of sign square, two signs are represented for each planet. In other words, if Uranus is at 24 degrees Pisces and Capricorn is at 4 degrees Capricorn, the square behaves as if it is both Uranus in Pisces and Pluto in Sagittarius, and Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn.

Note also that the man refers to patriotism, a concept associated with the remaining cardinal sign Cancer. Cancer is the release point of the cardinal T-square, the point at which a person can find some relief from the ‘storm’ of planets in his head. In this case, the concept of patriotism didn’t offer any relief. In fact, it only seemed to make things worse.

Obviously, most people are not going to do something as terrible as fly a plane into a government building as the pressure of the outer planets mounts. But people are going to be under pressure, and some vulnerable people will feel that there is a storm in their heads. It will feel to some people like there is no way out.

It is important to remember that these squares do not last forever. It is not a good idea to reinterpret your entire past in the light of current bitter or despairing feelings.

Yes, there will be problems in our collective and in our personal lives. We do need to address them. And we can’t do that if we let the storms override our basic sanity.

If you’ve got your natal Saturn in Libra, your Saturn return is staring you in the face these days. Today I’ll talk about the social and even personal importance of your second Saturn return in this sign.

If you were born between late November 1950 and late October 1953—you picked a heck of a time to have your second Saturn return. The second Saturn return is a much commented upon astrological phenomenon that occurs for everyone around the ages of 58 to 60. It signifies the time when Saturn returns to the sign it was when you were born.

Saturn’s been in Libra since November 2009, and it will stay there (except for a brief retreat into Virgo during spring and early summer 2010) into October 2012. So why is this a heck of a time for a second Saturn return? Because during most of Saturn’s current stay in Libra, Pluto will be in Capricorn and Uranus will be in Aries. Uranus opposes Saturn during this time and Pluto squares it. In blunt astrological terms, this means we are looking at a time period when three important planets are fighting each other tooth and nail.

What does this mean to you? Let’s look first at a really simple idea of what the second Saturn return can mean. The first time in your life that Saturn returned to Libra, you were close to 30 years old and you were asked to realize that you’re not going to die anytime soon and that what you do has consequences because it affects your future. You were supposed to grow up in a certain sense.

At the second Saturn return, you are asked to realize that you’re not going to live forever and that what you do has consequences because you only have a certain amount of time left to do what you came to do. You need to secure your legacy, fulfill your responsibilities as a member of the human community, and grow up into a hopefully wise elder.

Piece of cake, right? Of course not. The second Saturn return can be difficult because lots of people are not all that anxious to face mortality, don the mantle of wise elder, and accept their responsibilities to the rest of humanity.

One of the main issues during the second Saturn return is often challenges from the outside world to your particular Saturn style. No matter what sign your Saturn is in, part of the task of the second Saturn return is to use your innate Saturn gifts wisely, the ones that come with your Saturn sign. For your generation, society as a whole is scheduled to very overtly challenge your particular Saturn in Libra gift—and you need to stick up for that gift and do your part to help us all get through this rather momentous time of astrological transition.

For example, Libra is the sign of indecisiveness because its mission is to think through every decision with excruciatingly precise thoroughness, balance all factors, take into account all options, contemplate all ramifications and generally take forever to come up with the best possible decision. Saturn in Libra natally works real hard at this task, practicing it and practicing it until you think you are going to go crazy. It practices it until it gets good at it, better than all those other placements that breeze through to decisions without a second thought.

During your second Saturn return, people under the influence of Uranus in Aries are going to be manifesting the opposite approach. They’re going to be bursting with youthful impulsive energy, disinclined to think anything through, overly enamored with new technology while casting nary a glance at the potential implications, and they’ll be in a big hurry. They will look at you as hopelessly old-fashioned, excessively cautious, and as a stick in the mud.

Too bad for them. At your second Saturn return, it becomes your responsibility to stick up for the virtues of making considered, precise decisions, and worrying about the future impact of today’s rashness on tomorrow’s society. Saturn wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to thrust himself into the big planetary debate of these few years if he didn’t know that sometimes you’ve got to slow the pace of change the heck down and think about what you’re doing. For the next few years, your Saturn contribution is important.

Libra is also extremely concerned with fairness. Saturn in Libra worries about justice, the rule of law, negotiating through disputes, mediating conflicts, and generally using codified procedures to keep people from indulging their instincts to blow each other up and commit acts of violence. Pluto in Capricorn meanwhile, is going to be urging people to use sheer force and power to impose their wills, under the guise of necessity. Pluto in Capricorn will try to convince everyone that we don’t need the rule of law, fairness, and due concern with true justice because our collective security is in danger.

Tough. Your job as a member of the Saturn in Libra generation is to hold out for justice, law, and fairness anyway. To play up the importance of negotiation, procedure, and deliberation even when people want to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, shouting for vengeance, and making earnest mob-like efforts to manifest their baser instincts.

That’s a big important job you have there Mr. or Ms. Second-Saturn-Return-in-Libra. Now I’m not going to tell you that world leaders are going to phone you up and ask for your advice during troubled times. I’m not even implying that you need to be especially politically active. Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn will find you even if you’re hiding in a peaceful stone cottage in Vermont. You will feel the unrest in the skies no matter where you go.

Maybe it will be your spouse who goes off the Uranian deep end or the corporation where you work that will trot out spectacular displays of Plutonian injustice. Maybe your investments will go south when you don’t want them to and you’ll need to keep your head, even as your children have decided that now is a good time to suck you financially dry by laying guilt trips on you.

Or maybe nothing all that dramatic in your life will happen at all. Maybe the Uranus and Pluto influences will be subtle.

It doesn’t matter. Your chart has been waiting all your life to call upon the very Saturn in Libra qualities it has worked so hard to develop. If you’ve lost touch with your Saturn in Libra gifts, you will get back in touch with them now and learn to use them.

And that’s important. It’s part of your legacy. No matter what happens, this is your moment, your crowning moment perhaps, to display the integrity and values you’ve always had inside.

Go for it.

Take a look at this announcement from Donna Cunningham’s blog, SkyWriter. The blog-a-thon in March will focus on practical solutions to the personal problems associated with the cardinal T-square we’re all staring at in 2010. (The cardinal T-square consists of Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto all in early degrees of cardinal signs getting into something of a massive planetary fistfight, with Jupiter jumping up and down near Uranus to add to the hubbub.)

Donna is one of the best astrology writers out there. Her book Healing Pluto Problems is still a classic, and I know some of her writing on transits has inspired me. I’m sure the blog-a-thon will provide a lot of useful information,  and Donna’s taste in articles is impeccable.

I believe Barack Obama’s campaign slogan was ‘Change You Can Believe In.’ As the recent election of a GOP senator from blue state Massachusetts proves, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. It never does for presidents, at least not in my lifetime. Reality intrudes.

In Obama’s case, the belief in change may have been real enough, but the astrological universe was not on the same page. In fact, it has been downright opposed to many of Obama’s efforts. Literally.

Pluto opposed his natal Venus until near the end of November. That’s not good for one’s popularity, and his poll numbers may not recover from the effects of that for quite some time, especially with Saturn now squaring that same Venus.

Uranus has been opposing Obama’s natal Mars in Virgo (the Mars that wants health care reform, the Mars that has made that a signature issue), and it just stopped doing that at the end of December 2009. So much for rapidly getting consensus on that issue.

Even worse, Neptune has been opposing Obama’s natal Uranus since March 2009. It won’t stop doing that until after mid-term elections in 2010. November 2010.

Uranus is the change part of the equation. Obama’s personal change equation is somewhat hampered by the fact that there’s an inconjunct (150 degree angle) between his natal Uranus and his natal Saturn in Capricorn. He may present himself as a change agent, but in his soul he’s quite conservative and cautious. Liberals are finally figuring this out, although if they’d been paying attention they could have figured it out during his campaign.

Neptune meanwhile is the universe’s gigantic ‘pause’ button. When Neptune opposes you, there ain’t much you can do. Nothing’s going to happen until Neptune is good and ready for it.

The frustrating thing about a Neptune opposition is that you are ready, or at least you feel ready, to express whatever planet is being opposed. But the universe isn’t. You have to wait for the universe to catch up. You have to wait for the time to be right.

In many cases, a transit from an outer planet indicates that the universe thinks you’re ready to grow when you think you’re ready to stay right where you are. The opposite is the case in a Neptune opposition, at least much of the time. You are ready to grow, but the world you live in isn’t quite ready for you to reach the next stage. Something external has to move into place before you can make your next move.

Thus we get change you have to wait a long time for. Neptune is associated with hope. And hope is the response humans often have when they have to wait for external conditions to change before they can get what they want. Something has to occur that is outside of their control.

For the moment, whatever Obama may have meant when he talked about change, the US or perhaps the world is just not ready for it yet. Change comes much more slowly and in a much more confusing, chaotic, and messy manner than anyone’s natal Uranus would really prefer.

The various people who voted for change they could believe in are probably not liking this one bit. The change they wanted hasn’t come, or somehow or another it seems to have gotten all messed up. It’s going to stay all messed up or nonexistent for virtually all of 2010. People are going to be disappointed with Obama. Obama may be disappointed with Obama, although I doubt his huge ambition will fade much.

The truth is, various planets will be attacking his Venus until 2012, and Neptune will be making him wait for one thing or another for the rest of his term. Some good things will happen in his chart and the truly vicious oppositions of 2009 have faded. But the waiting will continue…

It’s eclipse season. The news out of Haiti is sobering, disturbing, sad and tragic. But on the homefront, it has caused nothing but absurdity in the sudden soap opera “As The NBC Late Night Schedule Turns.” You need a scorecard to keep track of all the players, so here goes.

Conan O’Brien: Aries. The current eclipse series affects his solar career/home life axis. The one on January 15 is the career one. Boy, did he get knocked upside the head by that one (they can affect a person early).

Not only did he get the news from NBC in a hurry, he was supposed to make a decision in a hurry. That’s what eclipses often do; they make you jump through their hoops before you have a chance to tie your shoes. This is a solar eclipse, intended to signify a new beginning. The last eclipse in Capricorn in this series takes place in early 2011, so the universe has another year to mess with his career.

But it looks like he comes out all right, maybe even better than all right. Pluto’s on his side, trining his Ascendant. Of course, it is also squaring his natal Jupiter, indicating that none of this is easy for him. He probably feels (as do many others) that he totally got screwed by NBC.

Uranus is jumping up and down on his natal Venus in the 7th house, giving him a sudden and perhaps unexpected jolt of support from many members of the public. Neptune will assist him later this year, and Uranus will make an opportunity angle with his Midheaven (career point). In the end, he’ll come into his own. He probably will not appreciate the process of coming into his own, as it looks a bit rough, but ultimately, he should land in a spot that actually suits him better than The Tonight Show. Hopefully at least.

Carson Daly: Cancer. Poor Carson Daly. He went from being a nobody on the late night talk show scene (airing after Jimmy Fallon) to being mocked for being a nobody on the late night scene. The eclipses affect his Ascendant/Descendant line, wreaking goodness knows what effects on his life. But even worse, he’s got a cardinal Grand Cross going as Pluto makes a mean angle to his sun, his natal Pluto, and his natal Mars all at the same time. Pluto’s passed the one degree mark where so many of his planets fall, but it probably won’t stop bedeviling him until the next round of eclipses this summer. He’s not out of the woods then, either. Once Pluto stops pounding him, Uranus will. If he’s lucky, at least they’ll stop making jokes about him.

Craig Ferguson: Taurus. Eclipses fall in his solar 3rd and 9th houses, typically not a very exciting place for them to occur. If you’re a fan of Craig Ferguson (on after David Letterman) as I am, you could at least hope all this nonsense would end up being good news for Craig, but alas the stars do not support him. Neptune’s busy squaring his sun and opposing his natal Uranus. He has started beating Jimmy Fallon in the ratings recently I hear. In the interests of promoting Craig and piling on NBC, I hope that continues. But Craig’ll probably have to wait for really big progress.

David Letterman: Aries. Eclipses affect his career and home life, as they do Conan. Dave’s already had some jolts, and he’s having a ball with this latest round of foolishness at a rival network. He may get a lucky break (ratings boost) out of all the hoo-hah, but he’ll have his hands full with his own concerns most likely. For one thing, in addition to eclipses, he’ll have Uranus on his Mars this summer. That’s an explosive combination.

Jay Leno: Taurus. The man being blamed for all this mess, perhaps unfairly. Eclipses in his 3rd and 9th houses, generally not too powerful, although they’ll apparently have him moving time slots. Jay’s probably as confused by the whole debacle as anyone else. Neptune’s been squaring his Mercury for quite some time, and that’s about as confusing as things can get. The move to 10 p.m. was a nightmare from a chart standpoint (Pluto square Uranus plus Uranus on Mars), but he comes out both lucky and powerful with Pluto supporting his Jupiter. His less than edgy personality and style probably have something to do with that.

Jeff Zucker: Aries. The NBC executive who dreamed up this crazy dance, perhaps the man most realistically to blame for the whole fiasco. Eclipses affect his career/home life. For some time, there have been a fair number of creative types in Hollywoodland who’ve wished that Mr. Zucker didn’t have a career any longer since he seems to specialize in hacking off creative types. I don’t have his birth time, so I don’t know if any of the angles of his chart are affected. At the moment, however, it all seems to be up in the air chart-wise as Neptune and Uranus are scheduled to weigh in with contradictory advice. My guess for the moment is that whatever ends up happening won’t go as planned from Zucker’s standpoint.

Jimmy Fallon: Virgo. Eclipses affect his 5th and 11th houses. The 11th house does relate to one’s long-held dreams. Mr. Fallon got a big break when Leno was pushed into prime time, but his chart’s in a pretty bad mood now. Pluto’s soon to square his Mars, not a happy thought, just as Uranus opposes his Virgo sun. He’s got a little help from Neptune, but his chart is seething. I don’t have his time o’birth, so I can’t guess how he’ll react outwardly, but his chart is stressed out.

Jimmy Kimmel:Scorpio. Eclipses affect his 3rd and 9th houses, not too energetic a place to host them. It can’t make ABC’s late night star too happy to hear people speculating that Conan could go to ABC. And Kimmel’s chart has been in the throes of mid-life transits. They seem to be affecting his personal and romantic life (e.g., with his ex, Sarah Silverman) more than his career though. Although he’s gotten some good jokes out of the mess, that’s probably all that will happen on the career front. Probably.

Strangely, many of these late night players share all kinds of resonances between their charts. Aries, Taurus, and Pisces are all quite prominent. The 11 degree mark seems to show up over and over again as well as Venus in Pisces. It never occurred to me that there might be chart signatures for late night hosts. Who knew?

P.S. If you can donate even a small sum by text message for the victims of the Haitian earthquake, you would be doing so much good. Earthquakes are perhaps the most devastating natural disasters, and one cannot help but feel for those brave souls trying desperately to dig out their loved ones without equipment and to cope with the aftermath of such a cataclysm.

Who knew there was a word for the mixture of “anxiety and unrealistic optimism”? According to an article in USA Today it’s called ‘hypomania’ and the current generation suffers from it. According to the article, the young people suffering through the Great Depression may have had it rough, but at least they had their mental health. Today’s high school and college students, on the other hand, are supposedly 5 or 6 times more likely to suffer from some sort of an anxiety or depression disorder. And a quarter of those surveyed had what might be called an attitude disorder–they didn’t think ‘the rules’ applied to them.

There are probably all kinds of reasons for the results found by the study cited in the article, including, perhaps, today’s young people being more willing to be honest about how they feel. I’ll focus on the astrological reasons only.

In 1969, a man named Nathaniel Braden published a book called The Psychology of Self-Esteem and started the self-esteem movement. (It wasn’t a very good book, by the way. My mother got it for me and I was not impressed.) The timing of Braden’s book wasn’t a coincidence astrologically.

In 1970, shortly after the book was published, the skies ushered in the Long Era of Sagittarius, patron sign of unrealistic optimism. From 1970 to 2008, with a short break in the 1990s, one of the big outer planets (Pluto, Neptune or Uranus) was in Sagittarius. These planets glommed right on to the notion of self-esteem because it fit their Sagittarian bias toward believing that failure either doesn’t exist or is irrelevant. So for 40 years almost, American children (perhaps children worldwide, the phenomenon was not limited to the US) were fed on a steady diet of self-esteem and unrealistic optimism. No wonder they’re anxious.

Unrealistic optimism is a recipe for anxiety as it is, by its nature, unrealistic. Much like the financial system was, children were taught to balance themselves on a house of self-esteem cards they knew could not stand forever. Another study, summarized in this article, explains why unrealistic self-esteem is so anxiety-provoking. The Pluto in Leo parents of these children fed the phenomenon because the sign of Leo places a great premium on confidence, assertiveness and even, one could argue, on a sense of entitlement.

After 40 years of almost non-stop Sagittarius influence on our culture, we were probably all a bit hypomaniac by 2007 (when the hypomaniac students were surveyed). We’d have been weird if we weren’t. We may have subconsciously known that the Pluto in Capricorn era was coming, that the center wouldn’t hold, that we had to get our piece of the pie before the pie disappeared.

The pie has disappeared now or at least gotten a lot smaller. A new sign is the Big Man on Campus for the moment, Capricorn. Capricorn loves to think about failure and is suspicious of success. I read an article in Vanity Fair this summer about an elite girls school, and the new headmistress summed up the new regime. She takes the attitude that we’re all a bunch of softies, afraid to hurt each other’s feelings.

Her name is Kate Windsor and she says “This idea of a structure of hierarchy or power has been really dismissed as being not part of the American way or the American Dream. We can all do, we can all be, and we’re all successful.” Ms. Windsor dislikes the idea that we can all be successful. She is in favor of formality, matter-of-factness, losers as well as winners, traditions, and purposely making people anxious so they can learn to be tough.

She could be the PR spokesflack for Pluto in Capricorn. Capricorn is hierarchy and Pluto is power. Ergo, Pluto in Cap is all over the concept of a hierarchy of power. It loves formality, unsentimentality, tradition, fear, and toughness. Given that the hypomania-inducing concept of self-esteem has been apparently scientifically discredited now, Ms. Windsor’s view will probably become increasingly widespread.

So I suppose we should all learn that the self-esteem idea was idiotic and that the people who bought into it were equally stupid? I’m not so sure.

The idea was of the times. The Great Depression was long gone. Things were, in many respects, undeniably economically and socially better than they had been a few short decades ago. It would have been foolish to retain the Depression-era stoicism in an era of abundance. People needed to adapt to a new reality.

It was only natural to attempt to articulate a psychology of feeling good in a set of circumstances in which there was every reason to feel good. How foolish would it have been to force an ethic of ‘don’t enjoy anything and don’t be optimistic’ when there was lots to enjoy and seemingly good reason for optimism?

The self-esteem idea and the hypomania that accompanied worked for quite awhile and then it didn’t. The Ms. Windsors of the world with their Capricornian attitudes will work for awhile and then they won’t. Times change and so do our maladies. I’m not entirely sure the Sagittarian generations didn’t get a good deal out of the bargain–hypomania may be a more pleasant malady than a grindingly depressing world in which there are far more losers and far fewer winners.

Someone asked a good question recently. If all these people have learned how to tune into the Law of Attraction to attract wealth, why did we fall into the worst recession in decades? It is kind of ironic, isn’t it? All those people believing in infinite abundance, busy trying to attract riches of all sorts, witnessing the single greatest loss of wealth in human history (in absolute not relative terms). Literally trillions and trillions of dollars of wealth were lost during the financial collapse a year ago. I guess you could call it a cosmic joke. The universe does seem to love a good laugh at human expense.

Or you could say it was those Law of Attraction folks themselves that precipitated the crash. You could speculate that their mass of thoughts of abundance just tipped the financial system right over into collapse and revealed it for the house of cards it was. You could say they thought us into a terrible recession. And they did.

Sort of.

Of course, most of the people scooping up false riches during the run up to the collapse weren’t practicing Law of Attraction folks. At least, they didn’t know they were. But they were believing in a world of infinite abundance just the same. They believed housing prices could never fall. That their mathematical models could never fail. That money was just there for the taking and it would never go away. That the economy would never stop growing. They didn’t believe in limits. They believed in infinite wealth.

They believed us right into collapse–because people aren’t supposed to believe in things like unlimited abundance. Housing prices do fall. Mathematical models do fail. No market economy grows uninterrupted forever. There is no unlimited wealth.

Everybody knows this. By the time the average person is two, he or she figures out that unlimited abundance isn’t feasible or realistic and he or she starts hearing and using the magic word ‘no.’ Because there are limits. The toddler can’t do everything and have everything. It’s precisely because everyone knows this that Law of Attraction gurus worked so hard to convince people to overcome their poverty consciousness.

Everyone sensible has a poverty consciousness and is supposed to. Because everyone has known deprivation. No one has ever gotten everything. (Not even Brad Pitt.) That poverty consciousness is not supposed to go away. It is supposed to inform our experience of life, not determine it, but inform it.

Astrology knows this. Astrology is a lot older than any of the Law of Attraction gurus and it is all about the human attempt to figure out and remember (often with great difficulty) what the average two year old knows. Which is what human life is really like.

Abundance thinking in astrology is indicated by the planet Jupiter. Everyone has one in his or her natal chart. We’ve all got abundance thinking and we’ve all got some form of abundance in our lives. Sometimes we recognize it; sometimes we don’t.

Poverty consciousness, or more upliftingly, the knowledge of limits, is represented in astrology by Saturn. We’ve all got Saturn in our natal charts. We all have a sense of limitation. Of scarcity.

The rule of thumb in astrology is that the further away from the sun a planet is, the more powerful it is. (More or less.) Saturn is further out than Jupiter and Saturn trumps Jupiter. We can fly high in our higher minds (Jupiter is the symbol of the higher mind), but we’ve always got to come back to reality (Saturn). What goes up, must come down. Saturn grounds us. He’s real life.

Consider that until the late 1700s, Saturn was the furthest planet known in the solar system. Saturn and its rings bounded human consciousness. Awareness of scarcity was the final arbiter of human destiny.

Then Uranus was discovered and science opened up the doors to further perspectives on the human situation. Collectively, we smashed through some of our previous limits, endured the Industrial Revolution, and learned to live with never-ending change (Uranus is the symbol of rapid change). Neptune and Pluto opened further doors.

But Saturn never went away. The principle of limits didn’t stop being valid. The awareness of scarcity is still an important part of our human legacy and we ought to respect it. If we don’t, quite frankly, we will probably do as many a previous species has done, and destroy the habitat that supports us. It is the awareness of scarcity that allows us to treat our resources and planet as precious and worth saving.

We’ve just finished up, in 2008, a long cycle of Jupiter abundance thinking, due to outer planets (Uranus through Pluto) transiting through the sign of Sagittarius since the 1970s. Sagittarius (ruled by Jupiter) is followed in the zodiac by Capricorn (ruled by Saturn). Knowledge of scarcity follows knowledge of abundance. None of us will see these outer planets in Sagittarius again in our lifetime. An era is over.

We’re now going through the last 16 years of outer planets in Capricorn. When Pluto leaves Capricorn in 2024, another era will end. Neither abundance nor scarcity will resonate in quite the same way.

But that doesn’t mean that Jupiter and Saturn will go away, nor the human imagination of abundance or fear of scarcity. Without the ability to imagine more, we’d never even try to create what doesn’t already exist. But without the knowledge that nothing is infinite, we don’t have the wisdom to responsibly use what we create.

Someone asked me the other day about transits being more powerful when the transiting planet is stationing, why this seemed to be so. I don’t have the answer to that question, but I think it often has to do with the fact that a stationing planet seems to move so slowly that it has plenty of time to deliver a blast of energy.

But if you don’t care about the jargon and just want to know what happens when a transiting planet stations in angle to one of your personal planets–take a look at Tiger Woods’s life these days.

In his case, Uranus in Pisces is squaring his Sagittarius moon. Uranus is the planet of ‘hey, let’s unexpectedly disrupt everything!’ and a Sagittarius moon tends to think to itself: ‘I’m really not sure I can be satisfied with just one person.’ When Uranus wants to disrupt a Sagittarius moon, outing it would be as good a way to do that as any.

Dropping the wife bomb on a philandering husband would probably be enough for a Uranus square that didn’t have much time to get juice in its grid. But Uranus stationed at the degrees of Tiger Woods’s moon (22 degrees) and is spending not quite 8 weeks there. That’s plenty of time to get juice in the system.

Tiger’s public troubles started when Uranus had only a few weeks at 22 degrees under its belt. It didn’t actually station until the beginning of December (right around the time when everyone figured out what was going on). It’s got another few weeks before it even gets to 23 degrees. The flaming spears of devil Uranus still have some heat on them.

The turning point has already come, though. Right around the time Uranus’s apparent motion stopped and then switched direction from retrograde to forward. The entire (very energetic) transit, which stretches back to 2008, will be over relatively soon. But the public’s perception of him has probably been forever altered. It’s not actually scheduled to stop getting altered until February 2010. For ol’ Tiger is not just facing Uranus’s wrath in square to his moon, but also in square to his Midheaven (reputation). The financial ramifications could stretch well beyond that, as Neptune is getting into the act and will square his Scorpio Venus in 2010. When it rains, it pours.

Supposedly, there’s a point to all this, at least from the point of view of Tiger’s chart. The point would theoretically be something like this:

Uranus in Pisces to Sagittarius Moon: Dude, grow up. Seriously. You’re playing around like an adolescent while people are making sacrifices for you. Namely, the person you are married to. Get a clue.

Moon in Sagittarius: I don’t want to grow up. You only get old once, but you can be immature and heedless forever!

Uranus in Pisces: The mother of your children is being betrayed here. You are warned.

Moon in Sagittarius: I don’t listen to warnings. That’s my nature! I’m Sagittarian. I have lots of good qualities and carelessness of danger is one of them.

Uranus in Pisces: ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Moon in Sagittarius: What just happened? One minute I was having Thanksgiving dinner, the next minute I was lying in street and featured prominently in the tabloids.

Uranus in Pisces: Perhaps you’d like to reconsider whether it is time for you to grow up a bit?

If Tiger is smart, his moon will grow up a bit. That’s what transits do for us. They update our birth chart placements. What was fine and dandy for a young man or a teenager perhaps, is not so fine and dandy for someone with two kids and the net worth of  a small country to worry about. When Uranus comes around to update your birth placements by square or opposition, let’s hope you get the message before he destroys your car.

One final note: the supposed astrological marker for an athlete is Mars in the 9th house near the Midheaven. Sure enough, Tiger’s got it.

I’ll admit that I really haven’t known much about Glenn Beck. About 6 months ago, I was searching for something on Google and stumbled across what must have been his website. I thought I saw a factual error and fired off an email, not realizing he was a popular broadcaster. I found out later when he started getting a lot of media coverage by Time magazine and so on.

I started seeing snippets on TV of controversial statements he made & saw other coverage, but didn’t investigate too much. I’ve seen his latest book, too. The cover makes me vaguely uncomfortable because the uniform on it reminds me of Nazi brownshirts. Every time I see it out of the corner of my eye, I think “Why are Nazis being prominently featured in America’s fine retail establishments?”

Then today I saw a quote from what Mr. Beck is billing as The Plan. Here’s the quote:

“I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.”

And I thought–is he an Aquarian? Turns out, he is. February 10, 1964. The clue is this: “unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.” You can’t get more Aquarian than unconventional thinking, radical plans, maximum freedoms, and the battlefield of ideas. The sign of Aquarius eats that stuff up.

Turns out he’s practically the astrological twin of another popular pillar of post-Bush conservatism, Sarah Palin. They’ve both got Mars conjunct sun, at least three planets in Aquarius, and natal Neptune squaring the Sun, Mars, Saturn triple conjunction.

Aquarius is billed as a ‘progressive’ sign, but the Aquarian interpretation of progressive is rather idiosyncratic. Lincoln was an Aquarius; FDR was one, and Reagan was one. Quite different approaches to government. The highest-ranking Aquarian politician of late has been Dick Cheney, and he’s not high on the progressive’s most admired list.

So, a few words about the Aquarian approach (although Cheney is something of an outlier in the Aquarian pantheon). It tends to be populist and popular, bold, divisive, stubborn, and counter-intuitive. Aquarius has a bit of a superiority complex, and with it an often successful habit of playing dumb. They play the ‘just folks’ card quite often; perhaps it is true, perhaps not.They tend to be good communicators, although in an unconventional way.

Beck and Palin are Aquarians that share a feisty thirst for combat, due to the Mars conjuction. Both are hemmed in by a strict and conservative Saturn. Both, due to Neptune transits, have been perhaps a bit insane of late, quite lucratively so in both cases.

Both have had a nice long bout of Jupiter in their sign this year (economic success) squaring Neptune in Scorpio (conspiracy theories and irrational fears). Both perhaps have a tendency to delude themselves (Neptune square sun in the birth chart, also shared by our current President) as well as considerable charisma. Both also have Jupiter in Aries, which contributes to a philosophy of self-reliance and aggression.

Neptune has been melting the Sun, Mars and Saturn placements of Beck and Palin over the past couple of years. In combination with Jupiter in Aquarius this year, there’s been perhaps a bit of grandiosity and over-estimation of self, although it probably seems quite justified to both of them given their rapid rises to center stage. Until Neptune leaves their Aquarius conjunctions, both will likely have a somewhat distorted view of the world and themselves, perhaps coupled with strong idealism.

The thing that’s interesting to me about Beck is how overtly Aquarian he is in his idea for The Plan. Although Beck is seemingly a free-market type (bills himself as a libertarian), Aquarius is actually the sign of the collective, of socialism and communism, of an ideal of rational planning combined with The Support Of The Masses. Only an Aquarian would have the chutzpah to come up with a 100 year plan.

Most people are lucky if they can keep their plans on track for a week, let alone 100 years. Only an Aquarius would even think it’s a good idea to come up with such a plan on the belief that things wouldn’t change so much in a hundred years that all your former assumptions wouldn’t be outdated. Aquarius can be a very fixed sign, unwilling to admit the possibility that it would have to change. Even though individual Aquarians, like Beck and Palin and even Reagan, FDR and Lincoln, can change key details of their strategies in the blink of an eye.

A 100 year plan is the kind of idea that a socialist or old-style Marxist would eat right up. The masses will shake off the shackles of tyranny vested in The Powers That Be. They will not be held down by the economic elites but will take their rightful place through enlightenment and collective action. And an Aquarian will tell them how to do it–according to the Master Plan. Everything will be reformed and renewed and we’ll just all start over with a fresh slate and the errors of the past will gradually wither away. Everyone will be free once the nasty current structures are abolished.

In some ways, it’s a powerful and touching vision. It never works, though. Neptune, with its promise of Nirvana once restrictions are melted away, is a notorious liar. Things don’t go according to plan; the masses are fickle and contrary, and most of them are actually much more interested in the nuts and bolts of a semi-decent life than the battlefield of ideas.

I can’t blame Beck for succumbing to Neptune’s lure, though, and his ideas may prove influential. We’ll find out the real consequences of them when Pluto enters Aquarius in about 16 years, but til then, I admire the guy’s willingness to dream, if not his grounding in reality.

What can we expect and prepare for in the 2010s?

Here are some of the themes I think we’ll be confronting:

Bad: A sustained economic downturn that doesn’t really bottom out until 2012-2015. Things not really picking up economically on a world scale until 2015 or 2016. There has already been a significant loss of worldwide wealth and it may not be over yet, nor even for a long time.

Good: Infrastructure rebuilding. During the long transit of Pluto through Capricorn (until 2024), we will probably see an effort by nations to regenerate their core infrastructures, including traffic and power systems, etc. Long overdue and sorely needed.

Good: Scientific breakthroughs in alternative energy and other disciplines. Uranus in Aries is traditionally quite good for science. New and world-changing ideas will ultimately emerge.

Maybe Good, Maybe Not: War. War somewhere is a safe bet in any era, but I’m talking about dealing with the roots, the reasons nations declare war in the first place. We can sort of see this in the delay in Obama’s decision regarding next steps in Afghanistan. Saturn in Libra square Pluto creates a sort of compulsion to examine ‘why’ – ‘why are we doing this?’

Maybe Good, Maybe Not: Decreased immigration and global travel. Rates of travel exploded during the Pluto in Sagittarius era. In the US, rates of immigration exploded too. Both will level off, now that the long Sagittarius era is over. The move toward a focus on ‘local’ sources of goods and services will probably increase.

Probably Not Good In The Short Run: Clashes between prudent and cautious governments and impulsive or freedom-seeking individuals and groups. Pluto in Capricorn makes governments want to be security-conscious and cautious. Uranus in Aries makes individuals and groups want more freedoms or to engage in spontaneous demonstrations. This may be helpful in the long run, but often leads to tighter government clampdowns in the short run.

Not Good: More invasive, intrusive, and repressive governments around the world. This combination of Pluto and Capricorn is as potentially pernicious as the combination of Pluto and Cancer was.

Not Good: Potential resource shortages. Pluto in the restricting sign of Capricorn signals the opposite of abundance. Making do with less may become the new norm.

Probably Good: More investigations of the military. In the wake of the Ft. Hood shootings, there are calls for investigations already. The clash between Pluto (likes to get to the truth of things) and Saturn in Libra (one symbol for the military) will create an urge to re-think how the military approaches a number of things.

Partly Good, Partly Not: More rules and regulations. First up for examination is the financial system that caused the crash of ’08. Probably won’t be the only sector of the economy and society to be put under the microscope, though.

Potentially Good: More determined and forceful efforts toward peace. The upcoming clash between cardinal signs is quite warlike, but during times of planetary clash, greater efforts toward peace are often made. On the other hand, peace can come at quite a price, as Neville Chamberlain can tell you. There may be quite fierce animosity between those who would pursue a policy of something like appeasement and those who favor all out war.

Disruptive: Internal clashes within societies between rationality and emotionality, systems vs. individuals, conformity vs. rebellion or individuality. Expressions of open hostility and even hatred will likely increase. The current lack of civility in discussion will probably only get worse. Tension between governments and their own peoples, as was common during the 1960s as well as the 1930s.

Nerve-Wracking: Very tense foreign relations among nations. Saturn brings to light problems between nations that have been being papered over.

Impressive If It Happens: Major agreements and initiatives. When a cardinal T-square breaks up, a sudden release of energy often leads to significant initiatives and changes. Since this T-square looks to me like it pits countries against one another, it may be followed by impressive and far-reaching treaties or a real agreement to deal with global climate change and other international issues.

Unpredictable Effects: Major Changes in Business and Corporations. Global business has been evolving for a long time; the changes during the next 16 years may be the most extensive ever. Permanent changes in how people work. Cost-consciousness, cost-cutting, efficiency, even ruthless efficiency will probably rule the day. Possibly the Wal-Mart-ization of business and the workforce.

Mixed: Changing values. Virtues like competence, thrift, responsibility, and hard work will become the new black. This is already beginning to happen. Pragmatism will gain traction over ideology. Integrity and reputation will become even more important. Individual households will probably engage in sustained cost-cutting, and a lot of things once considered necessities will become luxuries.

Mixed: Changing demographics. Aging populations in the developed world due to increases in lifespan will probably create new opportunities for developing nations with younger populations. Issues relating to the elderly will become more and more prominent.

Mixed: High-rises and urban density. Cities will become more and more important as rural areas are abandoned and high-density housing gains precedence over suburban sprawl.

Most of these things are continuations of existing trends, which is generally how history works. Things that have been slowly gathering steam under the surface become more and more prominent. Of course, some of these things happen to some extent during any era; it is just likely that some of them will become more noticeable in the years ahead.

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.