Her­mes checks in with Saturn…and your mind just ran into a “real­i­ty-check”.

Mer­cury rules your thoughts and com­mu­ni­ca­tions; Sat­urn rules author­i­ty and real­i­ty. With Mer­cury Squar­ing Sat­urn you will prob­a­bly be not as wit­ty, quick or at your best when it comes to your per­cep­tions and mes­sag­ing ear­ly today.

But remem­ber, things are not as “bad” as your think­ing is; your per­cep­tions are skewed and this neg­a­tive “bump” will soon pass. But actu­al­ly you should use this moment to stop and re-con­sid­er what the uni­verse is show­ing you.

Mer­cury in Capri­corn has kept you pre­oc­cu­pied with the respon­si­bil­i­ties of your life, of where you stand in the hier­ar­chies of your world. But Sat­urn is remind­ing you that there is noth­ing more impor­tant in life than fair, bal­anced authen­tic rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er. Yes, work and duty real­ly matter…you do need to keep part of your focus on ful­fill­ing your­self. But you also need to share your­self with those who mat­ter to you and you to them…Saturn is just remind­ing you about that…

It is all about…The Balance.

Then lo and behold Mer­cury glides into Aquar­ius and every­thing changes…everything.

Your mind sparkles, you are all lit up by and recep­tive to new ideas; you are orig­i­nal, inventive…it’s the time for “think­ing out­side of your box”…that’s the ener­gy at play on those airy, men­tal planes for the next cou­ple of weeks. 

Your mind that was “stuck”, well that is over…done. Mer­cury is at home, danc­ing in the sign of the Water Bear­er; your thoughts of duty and suc­cess give way to friend­ship, com­pan­ion­ship, your mind is suf­fused with the hopes and dreams for the good life.

How do you reach it, how do you go to the Good? Shar­ing and car­ing for one anoth­er’s future…that is always the way, the way the dream becomes pos­si­ble. For when two or more com­bine their dreams, com­bine their thoughts and efforts for a bet­ter world…magic happens!

Gath­er togeth­er, think together…

Make mag­ic!

Tran­sits to the chart of the Unit­ed States of America

The Unit­ed States has been expe­ri­enc­ing quite a few seri­ous align­ments over the past sev­er­al years, includ­ing some Plu­to tran­sits which have nev­er been encoun­tered before. In 2009-10 there was the Plu­to oppo­si­tion to Venus com­bined with Sat­urn square Venus. Then in 2010-11 there was Nep­tune con­junct Moon. This past year I ana­lyzed in my 2011 fore­cast the twin align­ments of Plu­to oppo­si­tion Jupiter com­bined with Uranus square Venus.

Uranus Square Jupiter (April 19 — Octo­ber 14 — Feb­ru­ary 21, 2013)

For 2012 the most sig­nif­i­cant tran­sit the USA will expe­ri­ence is the plan­et Uranus form­ing a square to the USA Jupiter. Jupiter is said to rule the prin­ci­ples, beliefs and laws of a nation. By rul­ing such mat­ters Jupiter pro­vides an under­stand­ing as to how any peo­ple will relate to one anoth­er with­in their nation and also how that nation will relate to the rest of the world in gen­er­al. This is because those very Jupi­ter­ian prin­ci­ples and beliefs form and guide the atti­tudes and actions for that country.

Dur­ing 2011 Plu­to was in oppo­si­tion to the USA Jupiter and brought about fun­da­men­tal chal­lenges to our “way of relat­ing” to one anoth­er and to the world. Plu­to, which rules the Will and the exer­cise of Pow­er, forced a reex­am­i­na­tion of and strug­gle over our truths and our conduct.

This year…it will be dif­fer­ent, lit­er­al­ly. Uranus is the “Awak­en­er” whose role is to break down the old assump­tions and struc­tures so as to bring about wider ranges of self-real­iza­tion and free­dom; it is the plan­et of indi­vid­u­a­tion, help­ing to release that which is for­ev­er seek­ing to be more true to itself, of becom­ing more excep­tion­al, of being “dif­fer­ent”. It does this most often through shocks and sur­pris­es, bursts of ener­gy that reveal anoth­er path and anoth­er way of being, that expos­es the lim­its of the old forms (the forms that were once ful­fill­ing but now are lim­it­ing), and that leads from the “Uh Oh!” expe­ri­ence to the “Ah Hah!” expe­ri­ence. When­ev­er Uranus is active it is best to be pre­pared for the unexpected…

As with pre­vi­ous analy­ses, it is prob­a­bly help­ful to exam­ine pri­or Uranus/Jupiter align­ments to see what the effects were and so be bet­ter able to under­stand what might be expe­ri­enced this year. The pre­vi­ous strong aspects of Uranus to Jupiter were the Con­junc­tion of 1950–51, the Square of 1969–70 and the oppo­si­tion of 1990.

In 1950–51 sev­er­al Uranus/Jupiter effects were expe­ri­enced as might be expect­ed from the con­junc­tion which implies a release of new ener­gies and forms. Uranus often man­i­fests in some sur­pris­ing, even dis­turb­ing man­ner and it is impor­tant to note that Jupiter is locat­ed in the USA’s house of rela­tion­ships, so this would espe­cial­ly have even stronger impli­ca­tions for rela­tion­ships to oth­er enti­ties. In June 1950 North Korea invad­ed the South start­ing a war (that real­ly has nev­er real­ly “end­ed”). The USA respond­ed with a counter-offen­sive and was “sur­prised” again when in Novem­ber 1950 Chi­na launched a mas­sive counter-attack that drove allied forces to the edge of defeat.

Inter­nal­ly the rise of Joseph McCarthy, (lead­ing to a new term, “McCarthy­ism”) and the pas­sage of the McCar­ran Act inau­gu­rat­ed a type of “Salem witch hunt” fer­vor of anti-com­mu­nist laws and actions, lead­ing many to fear for the ero­sion and loss of indi­vid­ual lib­er­ties that are for­mal­ly pro­tect­ed by the Bill of Rights. The prin­ci­ples of the coun­try (Jupiter) were being fun­da­men­tal­ly chal­lenged (Uranus) and/or re-interpreted.

Uranus often man­i­fests in the unfold­ment of new tech­nolo­gies that in this instance (through con­tact­ing Jupiter) trans­form the way we relate to one anoth­er. 1951 was the year that true nation­wide broad­cast­ing of tele­vi­sion became a real­i­ty and a new way com­mu­ni­cat­ing and con­nect­ing emerged for the USA (and the world).

1969–70 and Uranus in a wax­ing square to Jupiter released sev­er­al social and tech­ni­cal trans­for­ma­tions. Dur­ing the sum­mer of 1969 a num­ber of events changed the way in which Amer­i­can’s (and the world) relate to one anoth­er. In June the Stonewall riot led to the birth of the Gay Rights Move­ment. Lat­er in July, the whole world watched as Neil Arm­strong took the first steps upon the Moon. Humans stand­ing upon anoth­er celes­tial body watched the Earth rise over the horizon…and our per­cep­tions about our world would nev­er be the same again. Then a few days lat­er there was a spe­cial gath­er­ing in upstate New York that defined a gen­er­a­tion, Wood­stock. Lat­er that fall, the true begin­nings of what con­tin­ues to trans­form the world today, what will become known as the Inter­net, is invent­ed called Arpanet.

The grow­ing resis­tance to the war in Viet­nam led to the “March on Wash­ing­ton” with over 250,000 pro­tes­tors gath­er­ing in Novem­ber 1969. Then in May 1970 the Nation is stunned when 4 stu­dents protest­ing the war’s esca­la­tion into Cam­bo­dia are shot and killed by Nation­al Guard troops at Kent State University.

In 1990 Uranus opposed Jupiter and more shock­ing events and dis­cov­er­ies changed US rela­tion­ships and per­cep­tions again. Much like in 1950–51 one of the great shocks in 1990 was the sud­den start of a war, this time it was the inva­sion of Kuwait by Iraq lead­ing to what is now known as the “First Gulf War”. Ear­li­er in the year the divi­sion that had defined the post WWII era was healed as East and West Ger­many were re-unit­ed; the “Cold War” had end­ed and a new chap­ter in the US rela­tion­ship with the world was opening.

The begin­nings of net­work­ing in 1969 had now grown so much that its orig­i­nat­ing exam­ple, Arpanet, is turned off and the true World Wide Web (“www.”) is born. Where­as in 1969 we were able to look back at our own home plan­et from the Moon, now the Voy­ager space­craft took the first ever pho­to­graph of our entire solar sys­tem as it made its way out into deep space…and we saw our entire home plan­e­tary sys­tem for the first time. The social progress to elim­i­nate dis­crim­i­na­tion reached anoth­er mile­stone as sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion was rec­og­nized as part of the human expe­ri­ence of self-deter­mi­na­tion; the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) removed homo­sex­u­al­i­ty from its list of “dis­eases”.

2012–13 Uranus Square Jupiter

So what might we look for or expect from Uranus con­tact­ing Jupiter this time? What are the changes that might be expe­ri­enced inter­nal­ly as far as our prin­ci­ples, beliefs and ways of relat­ing to one anoth­er? And what might we expect to see with regard for the US rela­tion­ship to the rest of the world?

This Uranus/Jupiter square fol­lows last year’s Plu­to oppo­si­tion to Jupiter and we should real­ly see this as a some­what two-step process. Last year, the Plu­ton­ian theme of Will and Pow­er man­i­fest­ed in a num­ber of strug­gles over the path the USA should fol­low. One major strug­gle over Truths and Prin­ci­ples (Jupiter) wit­nessed var­i­ous groups con­tend­ing over the cor­rect way in which to restore growth (which Jupiter rules too) and secure the well-being of the coun­try. Plu­to (which also rules debts and financ­ing) helped to shape a bat­tle of wills in the strug­gle over rais­ing the debt ceil­ing (as well as the over­all attempt to forge an agree­ment on reduc­ing the fed­er­al deficit), a bat­tle of wills that led to threats to shut down the gov­ern­ment. The end result was a deval­u­a­tion of US cred­it wor­thi­ness. The gath­er­ing and grow­ing threat was evi­denced in a world los­ing faith (Jupiter) in our abil­i­ty to ful­ly back or ful­fill our debts (Plu­to).

Where­as Plu­to will man­i­fest its ener­gy as a con­test or bat­tle of wills, Uran­ian ener­gies are more excep­tion­al (unique, unusu­al and very often unex­pect­ed) and so that much hard­er to fore­cast. Since this is a square aspect like 1969–70 (but wan­ing this time), the effects of the tran­sit should be expe­ri­enced more inter­nal­ly or with­in the coun­try. (Where­as both 1950–51 and 1990 evi­denced the largest shocks as ema­nat­ing from “out­side” in the form of the Kore­an and Gulf Wars, the 1969–70 wax­ing square was more of a strug­gle within).

The oppor­tu­ni­ty offered by Uranus Squar­ing Jupiter is that the USA will be “shocked” or “sur­prised” by some cir­cum­stance or series of events, which will bring about a need­ed and nec­es­sary re-eval­u­a­tion of the way we under­stand and then act on our prin­ci­ples, truths and beliefs. The USA has its Jupiter in Can­cer in the 7th house and so those beliefs, that gen­er­ous spir­it and the source of her good for­tune is expressed by the ever-unfold­ing qual­i­ty of our rela­tion­ships to one anoth­er and with the world. But that also means that the expe­ri­ence of Uranus over our Jupiter will most direct­ly impact the nature and qual­i­ty of these relationships.

Much as Uranus Squar­ing Venus in 2011 jolt­ed the ever-unfold­ing under­stand­ing about our val­ues, Uranus over Jupiter will act to quick­en the devel­op­ment of our beliefs, atti­tudes and ulti­mate­ly our laws (which are the objec­tive embod­i­ment of our truths). Uranus in Aries is chal­leng­ing those Jupiter in Can­cer truths, not so as to over­turn or deny them as much as to con­tin­ue their nec­es­sary evolution.

USA Jupiter in Cancer

Jupiter in Can­cer holds the USA to this essen­tial truth:

That we are bound to one anoth­er through hon­or­ing the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of the dig­ni­ty, worth and sacred nature of each and every indi­vid­ual as equals. Amer­i­ca was found­ed upon this sacred com­pact that here any­one could come and seek to ful­fill them­selves by join­ing in this tru­ly new form of soci­ety based upon free asso­ci­a­tion. Our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er are found­ed upon this essen­tial truth; which means that we relate to one anoth­er from this cen­tral tenet, this expe­ri­ence of hon­or­ing the essen­tial spir­i­tu­al core of each of us, a spir­i­tu­al core which is sacred and free, behold­en to no oth­er pow­er, to no lord, to no mas­ter or king. The only “lord” that we acknowl­edge is what we have togeth­er agreed to be bound by, our sacred com­pact with one anoth­er which is embod­ied in the law. 

But as much as each per­son, (and as much as a peo­ple), must unfold, grow and become some­thing more, so too must unfold their under­stand­ing of, and the actu­al­i­ty of being in a rela­tion­ship with one anoth­er. Most gen­er­al­ly this unfold­ment and change occurs slow­ly, halt­ing­ly with­in and with­out. The devel­op­ment of our beliefs, prin­ci­ples and truths become reflect­ed in the grad­ual and unfold­ing refine­ment of our covenant and con­duct with one another.

Role of Uranus

But there are moments, moments like this year, when a dis­rup­tive but lib­er­at­ing ener­gy is released that quick­ens the pace of spir­i­tu­al growth. In 2012 Uranus will bring its cat­alyz­ing cur­rent of electric/eclectic forces to bear upon those under­stand­ings and struc­tures which can no longer sup­port, sus­tain and extend the unfold­ment of spir­it. As before these dis­rup­tive forces will ulti­mate­ly help to enhance and expand the social frame­work for spir­i­tu­al self-real­iza­tion; Uranus will help to bring about cir­cum­stances which advance the cause of free­dom, self-unfold­ment and the spir­i­tu­al poten­tial of all.

Uranus does this by reveal­ing which exist­ing forms and frame­works for relat­ing, that in an ear­li­er peri­od were a true advance and allowed for a greater range of self-expres­sion, it reveals which of these very forms of advance­ment are now restric­tive and lim­it­ing. To hon­or the core prin­ci­ple of Jupiter in Can­cer, (which is the sacred­ness for each and every mem­ber to be able to real­ize their poten­tial), Uranus shocks and reveals the now exis­tent divide between a greater “ide­al” and the less­er “real­i­ty”. It forces a re-adjust­ment that allows for a fuller real­iza­tion of spir­it so that the Jupiter in Can­cer prin­ci­ple is upheld and advanced.

But his­to­ry also shows us that there will be dis­rup­tive, dis­so­nant forces which, though often veil­ing them­selves in those Uran­ian robes of “lib­er­ty and free­dom”, will actu­al­ly seek to per­pet­u­ate or expand their priv­i­leged pow­ers, (to pro­tect their “free­doms”), at the expense of the greater soci­ety. Most often they will cham­pi­on an unchang­ing form of the core prin­ci­ple rather than acknowl­edg­ing the ever-unfold­ing, vibrant­ly alive spir­i­tu­al truth which must of neces­si­ty evolve through con­tin­u­al­ly expand­ing forms of expression.

How could it be oth­er­wise? The orig­i­nal for­ma­tion of our core spir­i­tu­al “truth” cod­i­fied the enslave­ment of an entire race, denied par­tic­i­pa­tion in the right of self-deter­mi­na­tion to over half of the pop­u­la­tion, as well as jus­ti­fied the near exter­mi­na­tion of the orig­i­nal inhab­i­tants of this land. Any pleas that are made to the so-called sacro­sanct “orig­i­nal intent” of our found­ing doc­u­ments can­not be met with any­thing less than absolute repu­di­a­tion. Yes, it was an “advance”, but it was inher­ent­ly flawed and lim­it­ed by the nature of the pre­vail­ing state of con­scious­ness at that time.

Ancient Wis­dom

One of the Three Fun­da­men­tal Truths of the Ancient Wis­dom is that the core Prin­ci­ple of Spir­it, the fun­da­men­tal Foun­tain-Source of the Uni­verse, is GROWTH. Spir­it will con­tin­ue to ever unfold because Spir­it is ever Self-Becom­ing, Ever-Unfold­ing from within…And so too then will our aware­ness and con­duct towards one another…it is the Way of Spirit…it is our way…

We begin as unself-con­scious sparks of this Divine and spi­ral up and out through the end­less ages and uncount­ed forms of self-realization…so that through us and all oth­er forms of exis­tence the Divine seeks the expe­ri­ence of its own Self-Becoming…which is our becom­ing too.

Lis­ten now to Uranus. The Awak­en­er is call­ing again, call­ing upon each and every one of us to do our part to advance our present expres­sion of this core prin­ci­ple (and prin­ci­ples) through which we have come togeth­er in this cre­at­ed sacred space.

We must chal­lenge one anoth­er to be guid­ed by and con­duct our­selves in such a way that the spaces of free­dom for each and every spark of the Divine con­tin­ue to unfold and devel­op, so that we may become more ful­ly con­scious co-cre­ators of this, our won­drous space with­in Space.

Uranus is call­ing, call­ing you to your greater destiny…Arise and Awake!

This is your time to Cre­ate a bet­ter World of Wonder!

This is your path, your destiny.

As men­tioned in my overview for 2012, today begins the ret­ro­grade of Mars until mid-April. Here is what I said then:

Mars Ret­ro­grade (Jan­u­ary 23 till April 13–14)

Where­as Mer­cury moves ret­ro­grade 3 times a year for about 23 days each time, and Venus ret­ro­grades about every 1.5 years for about 40 days, Mars will move ret­ro­grade about every 2 years and 2 months for about 80 days or so…it is the plan­et that goes ret­ro­grade the least so you should take advan­tage of this opportunity.…what opportunity?

Mars rules your actions and desires, it serves your “self” (the Sun) by pro­vid­ing the dri­ve to secure your needs and wants. But when it turns ret­ro­grade it sig­nals a time for you to turn inward, and offers you the oppor­tu­ni­ty (neces­si­ty) to re-exam­ine what exact­ly you do desire, and, just as impor­tant­ly, re-con­sid­er how you should secure it. This time Mars is ret­ro­grad­ing through Vir­go, so the review of your desires and aims will be upon your need for greater clar­i­ty, order and peace of mind…

I would add that when­ev­er a plan­et is mov­ing ret­ro­grade it is actu­al­ly mov­ing clos­er to the Earth; Mars and Earth will make their clos­est approach to one anoth­er at such a time. The influ­ence and effects of Mars will not dimin­ish while ret­ro­grade but actu­al­ly grow until ear­ly March. That is when Mars is exact­ly oppo­site to the Sun and its bright red light will be like a shin­ing bea­con in heavens.

As Mars grows brighter, night after night, as you move towards that moment of greater rev­e­la­tion, take time to re-con­sid­er where you are going and how you are get­ting there. Look more deeply with­in your­self and ask “Is this what I should aim for, is this my way to move towards it wisely?

The theme of Mars in Vir­go (the sign of heal­ing and whole­ness) will focus these reflec­tions so that you may dis­cern more clear­ly what aims and which actions move you along your bet­ter path of Inte­gra­tion, Sim­plic­i­ty and Well-being.

Vir­go is the sign of the Vir­gin, (prob­a­bly the most mis­un­der­stood sym­bol of our cul­ture); to be Vir­ginal accord­ing to the First Teach­ings or the Ancient Wis­dom means that one is whole and com­plete, bal­anced and inte­grat­ed in Body, Feel­ing, Mind and Spir­it. It is only when a per­son becomes so inte­grat­ed are they tru­ly ready and pre­pared to enter into ful­ly func­tion­al relationships.

With Mars ret­ro­grade in Vir­go you are learn­ing to Act with greater Vir­tu­os­i­ty, to be guid­ed by clear inten­tions and graced by con­sid­er­ate acts. Nei­ther dis­trac­tions of mind, nor wast­ed efforts for you…now you are the will­ing appren­tice seek­ing only self-mas­tery. This is the true path of the Spir­i­tu­al Warrior.

The one true and only goal…is to find and secure that great­est of trea­sures, a trea­sure sought by many and found by few…

To be at Peace.

Cel­e­brate the gift of Mars who lifts you up to your high­est aspirations…

This, the path you must walk, the path of self-mas­tery and peace…

This is your path.

You have passed beyond that peren­ni­al sum­mit; your year-long jour­ney is wind­ing down. Ten Moons have bestowed their gifts upon you; these sacred ways, those eter­nal truths.…here to guide you while you walk the jour­ney of light.

Now near­ing the final chap­ter, you lift your eyes once more; you lift your gaze from the path of des­tiny as you behold the stars above…And, you’ll find anoth­er watch­er watch­ing, the one who is wait­ing there; a com­pan­ion for the journey…someone who is ever ready, who lends a help­ing hand…

Here at the 11th Moon of the Astro­log­i­cal Year you find your­self beyond those sto­ried hier­ar­chies of ful­fill­ment and duty, beyond the con­cerns of suc­cess and acclaim. You may pause and ask, “What comes after the grand per­for­mance, what else could be at hand?”

And then you see it, the sim­ple smile and the laugh­ter in the eye…And, you remem­ber, and you smile to yourself…You look around and see, of course, it is so sim­ple, so true…It is the greater life you have lived with this one, and anoth­er and another…To be with your com­pan­ions, to find belong­ing in community…to call to one anoth­er and say “I see you, I see you my friends!” And it is good, it very good indeed…

For in the 11th hour, you come to appre­ci­ate that each and every oth­er who jour­ney on this path, that all of these sparks of the divine are your com­pa­ny, your com­pan­ions in this won­drous path­way to per­fec­tion that is Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it. And, it is togeth­er that you enjoy, that you make this won­der of co-cre­at­ing the world that is to be…

Cel­e­brate this spir­it of Aquar­ius dawning…

Live the Truth that “We are all related”.…

And smile, and laugh and lend a help­ing hand…

For you are among friends…and it is good.

Here in the final of four, in the sea­son known as win­ter, you enter the mid­dle pas­sage and you must hold…you must not waver. Through every sea­son there is a time for begin­ning, and a time for an end…but here, at the sacred cen­ter, you must stand with­out waver­ing for your dreams of bet­ter days.

For the next 30 days the Sun will move through Aquar­ius, the last of the Air Signs and the final of the Fixed. All the Air signs take their delight in the realm of ideas and ideals, of thoughts, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and con­nec­tions. Focused now through the fixed nature of Aquar­ius these ideas become sub­ject to the clear­est of think­ing, the coolest of rea­son­ing and the most orig­i­nal of form.

Where­as the point and pur­pose of Capri­corn is to bring you to your moment of great­est real­iza­tion with­in a present real­i­ty, (to be ful­filled), Aquar­ius comes in with a sim­ple ques­tion, “Per­haps we can make it bet­ter, per­haps we should do it differently…maybe we can grow freer?” And so you must, you must stretch your­self and your mind’s eye and dream of a bet­ter world… a more just and beau­ti­ful world for you and yours…

It is said of Aquar­i­ans that they are nev­er “in” their time, that they dream and wan­der in a land from a thou­sand years ago, or in a thou­sand years to come, that they are in the world but not of it…

But remem­ber this, each and every one of you has Aquar­ius some­where in your chart, some­where in you there is that laugh­ter in the eye and song in your heart that says that you, me and we, that all of us togeth­er can and will make the world a bet­ter place…we just have to believe and then join together…as con­scious­ly aware com­pan­ions in the great work of being the cre­ators of a new world…

This is the month for join­ing together…

This is the time for dream­ing together…

This is your way to make a bet­ter world…together.