Deep thoughts ahead! When Mer­cury “the mes­sen­ger” teams up with Plu­to “the will­ful” you are going to greater depths of think­ing. We are talk­ing x‑ray vision, pierc­ing through the veil of illu­sion vision. You will uncov­er and dis­cov­er what is real­ly real.

Now it comes, your test and chal­lenge. If you try and push the truth on anoth­er, you com­mit a great untruth in spir­it. Like­wise, if some­one is push­ing a thought onto you they vio­late your space, it is tres­pass­ing and you must not yield to force. Your space is sacred, their space is sacred. Self-con­trol is the only con­trol that matters.

Instead turn the ener­gy around and reform, rebuild and renew your own thought pat­terns. Self mas­tery begins with your mind; the “men­tal” diet is the hard­est but most reward­ing. Right think­ing leads to right action. It’s not about winning…it’s all about understanding…which leads to accep­tance and grace.

Dive deep if you want the “pearl of great price”!

We turn our atten­tion now to the oth­er major “Tran­sit to Tran­sit” align­ments of 2011 and oth­er phenomena.

Jupiter Square Plu­to (Feb. 25)
The cycle of Jupiter and Plu­to, again from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, is rough­ly 12 years long. Their last con­junc­tion (New Moon) occurred at the end of Decem­ber 2007. That con­junc­tion released a new poten­tial for inte­grat­ing our Will (Plu­to) and Beliefs (Jupiter) with­in the con­text of the sign of Sagit­tar­ius, the seek­er of truth.

We arrive at their wax­ing square on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2011, and again we face a choice. Now we are at cross­roads, we must find a way to inte­grate Jupiter in Aries, which seeks to pur­sue new and ide­al­is­tic forms of rela­tion­ship, with the demands of Plu­to in Capri­corn, which seeks to main­tain con­trol as demand­ed by tra­di­tion and estab­lished author­i­ty. The spir­it of Jupiter yearns to bring about new forms of per­son­al and social advance­ment, but the will of the sta­tus quo as expressed by Plu­to may lead to a dif­fi­cult reck­on­ing. The way through is to hon­or what has worked but not to yield to those who mere­ly wield pow­er with­out hon­or­ing their responsibilities.

Jupiter Sex­tile Nep­tune (Jun. 8)
The cycle of Jupiter and Nep­tune is about 12 to 13 years long. Their last con­junc­tion was dur­ing 2009. With Jupiter pro­vid­ing the prin­ci­ples to guide our rela­tion­ships, the align­ment to Nep­tune in Aquar­ius cre­at­ed a renewed sen­si­bil­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ty and com­pas­sion. It was no acci­dent that the biggest push to uni­ver­sal health care in the US was attempt­ed dur­ing this time.

Now at the wax­ing sex­tile on June 8, 2011 the more prac­ti­cal work­ing out and man­i­fes­ta­tion of this impulse is seen. What were once inti­ma­tions, ideas and pro­pos­als have become real pat­terns of how we now see we must relate to one anoth­er. There is a sense that we have come to under­stand that fol­low­ing the path of truth requires that we must con­duct our affairs with tol­er­ance, com­pas­sion and for­give­ness. This under­stand­ing will be chal­lenged, and we will have to choose which path to fol­low, a year lat­er, in June 2012, when our present beliefs and dreams about our future face a test.

Jupiter Trine Plu­to (Jul. 7, Oct. 28, Mar. 13, 2012)
The cycle of Jupiter and Plu­to moves into this more pos­i­tive phase for the next 9 months. Hav­ing faced the chal­lenge in late Feb­ru­ary, we will find our­selves able to expand more effort­less­ly now in our mate­r­i­al life and spir­i­tu­al under­stand­ing. Because Jupiter has moved into Tau­rus (Earth) and Plu­to is in Capri­corn (Earth), this cre­ates very pos­i­tive con­di­tions for real eco­nom­ic growth. Though there are always expand­ing and con­tract­ing forces at play in any year, this is cer­tain­ly a strong fac­tor sup­port­ing those areas that are capa­ble of growth, espe­cial­ly those which have read the signs of change and adapt­ed. Spir­i­tu­al­ly, to the extent the right choic­es were made in Feb­ru­ary, the oppor­tu­ni­ty now is to bring about a real evo­lu­tion in our moral affir­ma­tion of one anoth­er. We are will­ing to seek accom­mo­da­tion with each oth­er as an expres­sion of our under­stand­ing for one another.

SOLAR ECLIPSE/LUNAR ECLIPSE
The Solar and Lunar Eclipses pro­duce effects that draw our atten­tion to the lessons to be learned in the signs of their occur­rence. In a way, they pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty, through dra­mat­ic and visu­al excla­ma­tion, to have a deep­er expe­ri­ence and con­nec­tion to either a new release of ener­gy (Solar) or rev­e­la­tion of mean­ing (Lunar). Much more exten­sive analy­sis will be offered when the eclipses occur. Here is a sum­ma­ry of what to expect.

Solar (Jan. 4)
The Solar Eclipse of Jan­u­ary 4 was already cov­ered in my post­ing for that event: Solar Eclipse (Jan 4)

Solar (Jun. 1)
The Solar Eclipse of June 1 her­alds a new series of lessons for us since it occurs in Gem­i­ni. The Lunar nodes are mov­ing from Cancer/Capricorn to Gemini/Sagittarius. Yes, that’s right, these points in space move “back­wards” through the Zodi­ac. They are estab­lished by two inter­sect­ing “spheres” formed from the orbital paths of the Earth around the Sun, and the Moon around the Earth. Where those two orbits inter­sect is the time, every 6 months, where the Sun, Moon and Earth line up with one anoth­er. This is what allows for there to be the phe­nom­e­non of the Moon’s shad­ow pass­ing across the Earth (Solar Eclipse), or the shad­ow of the Earth pass­ing across the Moon (Lunar Eclipse).

The June 1 Gem­i­ni Solar Eclipse is say­ing that in order to use this new release of ener­gy that comes at a New Moon, you will first have to go back and repair, cor­rect or fin­ish some aspect of your think­ing. Gem­i­ni rules intel­li­gence, but true intel­li­gence is found­ed upon crit­i­cal self-aware­ness. Just hav­ing the “right” answer does not make you spir­i­tu­al­ly intel­li­gent; the real issue is are you ask­ing the right question?

Lunar (Jun. 15)
The Lunar Eclipse on June 15 is in Sagit­tar­ius and we ordi­nar­i­ly expect that a Full Moon would pro­vide some new rev­e­la­tion about the rela­tion­ship between our low­er mind (Gem­i­ni) and high­er under­stand­ing (Sagit­tar­ius), between our Future and our Past. But with the eclipse our present real­i­ty is obscur­ing the mes­sage. We must con­front some­thing in our present state of mind in order to receive the Full Moon message.

Solar (Jul. 1)
Back to back Solar Eclipses adds an urgent tone to the mes­sages from the stars. This time the New Moon is in Can­cer, and the new begin­nings for how we can secure our lives requires we more deeply under­stand where secu­ri­ty real­ly comes from first.

Solar (Nov 25)
The Solar Eclipse of Novem­ber 25 is in Sagit­tar­ius. The release of a new ener­gy in under­stand­ing must first address the need to repair our notions of truth­ful­ness. Do you know where you are going? Oh, then you know from whence you came? Remember.

Lunar (Dec. 10)
The Lunar Eclipse on Decem­ber 10 is in Gem­i­ni. The illu­mi­na­tion pro­vid­ed at the Full Moon is inter­rupt­ed by our present cir­cum­stances. Though we wish to think more clear­ly (Gem­i­ni), old pat­terns and assump­tions need to be con­front­ed. The issue is “how intel­li­gent are you?”

PLANETARY INGRESSES
The move­ment of a plan­et from one sign into the next is called an ingress. The Moon is in sign for about 2 ½ days, the Sun for rough­ly 30 days, and an out­er plan­et, like Uranus, for about 7 years. As these shifts occur we expe­ri­ence a new melod­ic blend­ing of and mes­sage from the stars.

Jupiter Enters Aries (Jan. 22)
Jupiter has gone into and back out of Aries in the past year. We have already felt its mes­sage of new begin­nings, which were quick­ened and height­ened by the pair­ing with Uranus. Now until June, we feel the urge to race ahead because we want to be in the future already!

Jupiter Enters Tau­rus (Jun. 4)
Jupiter moves into Tau­rus for a year on June 4. With sol­id foun­da­tions and patience there is tan­gi­ble progress now. There is steady growth, and phys­i­cal secu­ri­ty will increase for many. With the end of the Jupiter/Saturn oppo­si­tion, com­bined with the trine of Jupiter and Plu­to lat­er, Jupiter in Tau­rus should cre­ate a much more pos­i­tive result for those economies posi­tioned to ben­e­fit. The gen­er­al US eco­nom­ic fore­cast will be revised upward.

Uranus Enters Aries (Mar. 11)
Just as with Jupiter, we have already had a taste of Uranus in Aries in 2010. Now the plan­et of inde­pen­dence, orig­i­nal­i­ty and inven­tive­ness moves into the first sign to stay for 7 years. The pre­vi­ous swing through Aries occurred from 1928 to 1934. Now that may look a lit­tle omi­nous to some, but there were many oth­er fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the social and eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions that took place then.

Uranus in Aries brings about sig­nif­i­cant advances in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. There is an urgency and eager­ness to make new begin­nings in many aspects of life. The pace of life quick­ens, but impa­tience will also be stoked. The rise of pro­gres­sive lead­ers and move­ments advo­cat­ing change will go head to head with the old order as Uranus and Plu­to line up with one anoth­er from 2012–2015.

Nep­tune Enters Pisces (Apr. 4, Aug. 4, Feb. 3, 2012)
Just as with Jupiter and Uranus last year, Nep­tune dances back and forth between one sign and the next this year. It has been in Aquar­ius since 1998 and it will stay in Pisces start­ing next Feb­ru­ary 2012 until March 2025. This is a com­ing home event, since Nep­tune is said to rule Pisces.

The last time Nep­tune was here was 1848 to 1862 and the pur­suit of dreams (and fan­tasies) grew apace. In the US, the west­ward expan­sion was accel­er­at­ed as the vision of gold sparkled in the eyes of “forty-nin­ers”. In the spir­i­tu­al world, on the heels of the “Sec­ond Great Awak­en­ing”, a grow­ing reli­gious fer­vor spurred the calls for jus­tice as abo­li­tion­ists strug­gled to make our coun­try con­front the great evil and shame of slavery.

For the next 13 years, a path­way has been offered for a renew­al of under­stand­ing, com­pas­sion and sac­ri­fice. We are mov­ing into a peri­od of spir­i­tu­al revival and growth. Dreams, romance and the imag­i­na­tion will take flight.

Be pre­pared to wonder…be ready to embrace… and be able to sur­ren­der, so that the gifts of Spir­it may enter our hearts and so remind us that we are one. “E Pluribus Unum”

What’s Next?
In the next Gen­er­al Fore­cast post­ings we will begin to look at spe­cif­ic play­ers on the stage of his­to­ry and see what the align­ment of the plan­ets has in store for them, and us. In this tech­nique, we will look at what are called Tran­sits to Natal; that is observ­ing the plan­e­tary motions as they inter­sect with and influ­ence the birth charts of nations, world lead­ers and notable fig­ures, orga­ni­za­tions and many oth­er “birthed” entities.

In addi­tion, dur­ing the year when inter­ests, cir­cum­stance or whim indi­cate, I will look at these and oth­er rel­e­vant charts to illus­trate the astro­log­i­cal per­spec­tive. More­over, I will also respond to rea­son­able requests for sub­jects for analy­sis dur­ing the year as well.

Part Three

As I men­tioned in the intro­duc­tion, the year ahead seems to offer a brief respite from the pow­er­ful align­ments we have expe­ri­enced in the recent past. Plan­e­tary motions, how­ev­er, are not cir­cum­scribed by our cal­en­dar and often align­ments and their effects spill over from one year to anoth­er. So too in this year some of the sig­na­ture events of 2010 are fin­ish­ing up here in the first quar­ter of 2011.

Jupiter Con­junct Uranus (Jan. 4)
Among the more sig­nif­i­cant of these align­ments was the sub­ject of what I wrote in the post­ing for Jan­u­ary 4, Jupiter Con­junct Uranus. This event was the third and final con­junc­tion (New Moon) of Jupiter with Uranus. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to the next con­junc­tion, lasts about 14 years and each con­junc­tion her­alds the release of ener­gies that stim­u­late the devel­op­ment of dis­cov­er­ies and break­throughs in arts, sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. More­over, on a social lev­el, their impulse serves to quick­en the evo­lu­tion of new forms of social devel­op­ment and inter­ac­tion. This more per­son­al or social aspect of the align­ment was explained in the post­ing for Jan­u­ary 5, Jupiter Con­junct Uranus- World­ly vs. Per­son­al.

Though they have “fin­ished” their con­junc­tion, we will see the effects of their align­ment in the years to come in the wider prop­a­ga­tion of the sci­en­tif­ic and tech­no­log­i­cal advances they stim­u­lat­ed. We will also see the social aspects of their quick­en­ing play­ing out in our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er too, as the urge to estab­lish greater free­doms with­in and between one anoth­er accel­er­ates the devel­op­ment of var­i­ous cul­tures and societies.

Jupiter Oppo­si­tion Sat­urn (Mar. 28)
The oth­er “car­ry-over” align­ment from 2010 is the oppo­si­tion (Full Moon) of Jupiter and Sat­urn. Their cycle, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion, (or as in this case, Oppo­si­tion to Oppo­si­tion), is 20 years. In 2010 they came to an oppo­si­tion in late May and mid-August, and their final con­tact will be on March 28, 2011.

With Jupiter rul­ing prin­ci­ples, truths and beliefs, and Sat­urn rul­ing struc­tures, insti­tu­tions and real­i­ty, their oppo­si­tion pro­vides a sharp con­trast for us to see how much what we believe to be true is being lived out in fact. In oth­er words, it is a time for a reck­on­ing between the belief or mean­ing behind the form and the form or real­i­ty itself. More often than not, (and this depends upon what else is hap­pen­ing down here and “up there”), this oppo­si­tion can cre­ate a cri­sis of faith in our belief sys­tems or a loss of trust in our insti­tu­tions… or both. Cer­tain­ly, here and around the world, this was a year of reck­on­ing, and more than we might at first realize.

The Great Muta­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn
For this dance of Jupiter and Sat­urn has a sto­ried his­to­ry for astrologers. We have used their ser­i­al align­ments as they progress through the ele­ments to under­stand some of the larg­er forces at play in our uni­verse. What we have dis­cov­ered is that Jupiter and Sat­urn will come togeth­er in their con­junc­tion in the same ele­ment, (Fire, Earth, Air and Water), for about 180 to 200 years, before they move onto the next ele­ment. This move­ment from ele­ment to ele­ment is called the “Great Mutation”.

Since 1842 their con­junc­tions have been occur­ring in Earth and their last such align­ment was in the spring of 2000. While in an ele­men­tal phase, those con­di­tions estab­lished by that ele­ment per­me­ate and pro­mote the devel­op­ments in cul­ture and soci­ety. So, the last 169+ years have wit­nessed an explo­sion in the har­ness­ing of ener­gies and mate­ri­als of the earth, lit­er­al­ly. It has been an “age” of mate­ri­al­ism, of the rise of our car­bon fueled soci­ety and the cre­ation of a very spe­cif­ic kind of real­i­ty. But there is change in the air already, and our real­i­ty is about to be transformed…

For what we have also found is that there is often a sign of things to come right before the next Great Muta­tion. Often, it seems, the sec­ond to last con­junc­tion occurs in that next ele­ment in the series. So in 1802 there was a pre­cur­sor align­ment in Earth. And most recent­ly, it was the 1980–81 Air con­junc­tion in Libra, before we reached the final align­ment in Earth via the Tau­rus con­junc­tion of May 2000.

The Next Age
What these seem to pro­vide is a “seed­ing” of what is to come, a taste of the new world that will be inau­gu­rat­ed at the next Great Muta­tion, which for us is just ahead in 2020. As the 1802 con­junc­tion jump-start­ed the “Age of Mate­ri­al­ism”, so too has the 1980–81 align­ment ini­ti­at­ed what we might call the “Age of Virtue”. Though some aspects of this Vir­tu­ous­ness or “Vir­tu­os­i­ty” have man­i­fest­ed in rather phys­i­cal forms, such as in the devel­op­ments in the 1980’s and 90’s which wit­nessed the pro­lif­er­a­tion of com­put­ers, cel­lu­lar phones and the inter­net, (our inter­con­nect­ed­ness was accel­er­at­ing), and which has now lead to the evo­lu­tion of vir­tu­al worlds and com­mu­ni­ties, (such as expe­ri­enced in phe­nom­e­na like Face­book), we will see that the 2020’s and beyond will wit­ness the con­tin­u­ing unfold­ment of forms of con­nec­tiv­i­ty that will tran­scend these phys­i­cal forms and their lim­its. But we are, (I am), get­ting ahead of ourselves.

Jupiter and Sat­urn Now
At the present moment, the final oppo­si­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn with­in the Earth series pro­vides us with this moment in time to see to what extent we have trans­formed our­selves and our world through our mate­r­i­al “mas­tery”. And, it equal­ly reminds us what lim­its and chal­lenges have been cre­at­ed by this earthy par­a­digm in our con­scious­ness as well. We may mar­vel at our cre­ations, yet we must mourn what we have sac­ri­ficed of this Earth to bring about our mate­r­i­al world. 

What’s ahead?
In the next post­ing we will exam­ine the oth­er major align­ments of 2011, as well as oth­er phe­nom­e­na such as Solar and Lunar eclipses and oth­er mat­ters that reside in the “Tran­sit to Tran­sit” category.

Then, in lat­er post­ings, we will turn our atten­tion to the oth­er great method of Astro­log­i­cal Insight, pro­vid­ed by the “Tran­sits to Natal” aspects, and exam­ine the var­i­ous align­ments of the plan­ets to spe­cif­ic charts of nations, world lead­ers and oth­er orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als. Stay tuned…

Part Two

The gen­er­al out­look for 2011 would appear to be bet­ter than that of the last sev­er­al years. We have come through a series of align­ments that have shook and shocked our world, and there is more just ahead in this decade. And it has been whis­pered, just maybe, we will move into the dawn of a new world, the begin­ning of a new age, by the 2020’s. But, for now, 2011 might pro­vide some degree of need­ed respite to our chal­lenges and tribulations.

Where­as in 2006-07 we had Sat­urn oppos­ing Nep­tune, which her­ald­ed the bust­ing of many illu­sions in the world, not the least of which was the credit/debit bub­ble burst­ing. This was fol­lowed by 2008-10 where we faced Sat­urn and Uranus in oppo­si­tion, which was the dri­ving force of the con­flicts between out­worn exist­ing insti­tu­tions and sys­tems, ver­sus the some­times inco­her­ent erup­tion of ener­gies seek­ing to bring about fun­da­men­tal change in the sta­tus quo.

This jux­ta­po­si­tion of Sat­urn and Uranus was then joined in the lat­ter part of that peri­od, in late 2009 into 2010, by Sat­urn squar­ing Plu­to. This chal­lenge (Plu­to) to the sta­tus quo (Sat­urn) added a deep­er and more threat­en­ing tone to the forces of change sweep­ing our world. The forces attempt­ing to pre­serve order and those attempt­ing to cre­ate a new one are now locked in a great struggle.

A Time to Pause
But it would seem that this year there is to be a pause. That is mere appear­ance, of course, because time (the plan­ets) march on and there is always change, even if it is less intense for some of us. But it is a time to look for signs, a time to re-assess and re-group. For up ahead, the dance of the plan­ets con­tin­ues, and they will lead us into more pow­er­ful forces and align­ments, the very forces that can and will bring about a new world.

This entry is by way of begin­ning my expla­na­tion of what to look for in the year ahead and in the years to come, (and what we can learn from years past), as shown to us by what is known as Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy. Just as in per­son­al or per­son-cen­tered astrol­o­gy, this can and must be viewed in two dis­tinct ways.

Two Kinds of Tran­sits
One type is as in the exam­ples above; that is of plan­ets mov­ing in a great dance with one anoth­er in our solar sys­tem. They con­tin­u­al­ly form up var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions of aspects with one anoth­er that cre­ate or pro­duce effects felt by one and all col­lec­tive­ly here on Earth. These com­bi­na­tions astrologers call Tran­sits to Tran­sits. With­in this great whirling of wheels with­in wheels, pat­terns form and re-form, pat­terns repeat but nev­er quite exact­ly as before. But since there is much that can be gained from look­ing at those pri­or align­ments, we look back to those sim­i­lar pat­terns in an attempt to dis­cern the con­di­tions for our present and future. So I will refer to oth­er times and places to illus­trate the nature of what we are faced with now.

The oth­er type of align­ment is what astrologers call Tran­sits to Natal. These are cre­at­ed by the plan­ets mov­ing through our solar sys­tem as they form rela­tion­ships with the plan­e­tary place­ments that are in a par­tic­u­lar birth chart. For Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy, we look at the charts of Nations, World Lead­ers and oth­er notable indi­vid­u­als, major Eco­nom­ic, Cul­tur­al, Spir­i­tu­al, or any oth­er “birthed” orga­ni­za­tions, to ascer­tain the forces at work in their past, present or future. I will be exam­in­ing a num­ber of such enti­ties in this 2011 fore­cast, and, as events unfold, will from time to time look at oth­er play­ers on the stage of history.

And with this sec­ond type of align­ment comes a caveat to my open­ing claim that 2011 will be a respite. Although the depth and pow­er of the “Tran­sits to Tran­sits” this year is more mut­ed, that may not mat­ter for some. For many indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions, the tran­sits to their own charts that will be in force this year will be pro­found and chal­leng­ing. The forces that have been unleashed of late are still play­ing out in each of us and in our orga­ni­za­tions. That means for many of us, 2011 will seem as event­ful and chal­leng­ing as what we have wit­nessed before. The wheels are turn­ing; the dance of life goes on.

Des­tiny
But we must always remem­ber; this world is going to be trans­formed, not by plan­ets or stars, but by… us. We are the actors in this dra­ma; and forces play through and around us. But it is up to each and every one of us to make the world that is com­ing into being.

All we can do, and must do, is under­stand where and what we have come from, to watch for and under­stand the signs that have always been there to guide us, and, so guid­ed, ful­fill our des­tiny which is to cre­ate a heav­en here on Earth.

Part One

Time to sparkle; you need to act in a man­ner that tru­ly reflects your inde­pen­dence and social aware­ness now. Since Decem­ber 7th, Mars in Capri­corn direct­ed your actions in more prag­mat­ic and respon­si­ble path­ways. Why change what works?

From now until Feb­ru­ary 22, you need to not mere­ly pre­serve and pro­tect what has been achieved; you need to act in a man­ner that reflects a greater social con­scious­ness. Move out­side your com­fort zone but do it with your friends.

This is not the time to fol­low the path that is well-known or tra­di­tion­al; now you need to show that you are ready to make a dif­fer­ence by being freer with your­self and oth­ers. Be the future you want to share with your com­pan­ions. You do this by help­ing to cre­ate a greater space of free­dom for all to enjoy.