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.

Four times a year, you meet four turns in the wheel of life. Four moments of deci­sion, you find four ways to make it “real”.

The Sun is your pure poten­tial wait­ing to unfold, wait­ing to be brought forth into real­i­ty. Sat­urn rules Real­i­ty; it is what you and every­one else have so far made into the “real”.

When­ev­er the Sun aligns with Sat­urn in one of the quar­ter turns of their cycle, (Con­junc­tion, Wax­ing Square, Oppo­si­tion and Wan­ing Square), you will find your­self at some impor­tant moment of decision. 

You will look at what you have so far made of yourself.…and you will com­pare this to your potential…and then you will have to decide…what is to be your next step. To turn left or right, go up or down, in or out…you must decide and so con­tin­ue to become.

Today you are at the next turn­ing of your wheel. Most like­ly, what­ev­er you may have start­ed, released or unfold­ed 3 months ago has now reached a piv­ot point. You have to choose what to cleave to and what to let go of.

With the Sun in Capri­corn and Sat­urn in Libra, the deci­sion and action to be tak­en will con­cern and com­bine Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Rela­tion­ship. You will need to decide how to inte­grate your need to ful­fill your pur­pose (self-ful­fill­ment) while hon­or­ing your rela­tion­ships (which make your ful­fill­ment pos­si­ble and mean­ing­ful). It may appear as if there is a con­test or choice between duty and love, but it is a false choice.

The only way for­ward, the only path pos­si­ble is the path of integration…you need to be both respon­si­ble and respon­sive, to be ful­filled and considerate…you need to be a whole person…

You need to choose.…Duty and Devo­tion, together.