Don­ald Trump

In con­sid­er­ing the influ­ences in any individual’s chart, there is a hier­ar­chy or degree of oppor­tu­ni­ty and/or chal­lenge that will be elicit­ed by the unfold­ing plan­e­tary posi­tions in the solar sys­tem. What is often more con­se­quen­tial is when any sig­nif­i­cant tran­sit­ing plan­et aligns with a par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant plan­et in that chart; and, even more sig­nif­i­cant is when that plan­e­tary influ­ence “trig­gers” a plan­e­tary pat­tern with­in the chart.

In 2017, the prin­ci­ple tran­sits to Trump’s chart were, 1) Plu­to square his Jupiter; and, 2) Uranus square his Saturn.

For the Plu­to tran­sit, I wrote that 2017 would be one of the great­est tests of pow­er in his life. The exer­cise of pow­er is, of course, one of the most sacred and chal­leng­ing tests for we humans. Pow­er, of any type or lev­el, is held in trust by those who are to wield it, whether as the head of a fam­i­ly, cor­po­ra­tion or coun­try. The “Test of Pow­er” will remind the wield­er that the such pow­er is nev­er “yours” to use as you will; the exer­cise of pow­er must be aligned to its source and serve it’s ends. If you bend the pow­er that was giv­en in trust to you, and you instead make it serve you, you will fail, and you will fall eventually.

The tran­sit of Uranus over Sat­urn in 2017 elicited/excited the fun­da­men­tal root of Trump’s per­sona, which is his Uran­ian nature, which pro­pels him into his role as an icon­o­clast and shat­ter of Insti­tu­tions and Norms. But giv­en its dou­bled influ­ence in his chart, (on his Sun and oppo­site his Moon), Trump is by nature unsta­ble, unpre­dictable and inca­pable of focus. Look­ing back on this past year, there would be ample evi­dence that he was most cer­tain­ly an agent of change, but also some­one whose con­sis­tent incon­sis­ten­cy sab­o­taged, and will con­tin­ue to sab­o­tage, his own agenda.

In 2018, Trump will expe­ri­ence a dou­ble-tran­sit of, 1) Sat­urn squar­ing his Nep­tune, 2) while Sat­urn oppos­es his Mer­cury. This is because one of the most reveal­ing aspects in Trump’s chart, (and which I ana­lyzed as one of his three prin­ci­pal chal­lenges when I exam­ined his chart for the 2017 fore­cast, which you can read here), is that he was born with Mer­cury square Nep­tune. I char­ac­ter­ized Trump as some­one who could lit­er­al­ly say one thing and then say the total oppo­site with­out any prob­lem (for him). As I wrote then, “Trump will say any­thing, and mean noth­ing”. He will be a fab­u­list, who will tell sto­ries, make up sto­ries and basi­cal­ly lie to any­one, (and per­haps even to himself).

This tox­ic rela­tion­ship, or non-rela­tion­ship, to the truth is what will be put to the test in 2018. Trump’s mind (Mer­cury) will feel the oppo­si­tion of Sat­urn as his thoughts and words are test­ed by agents of Real­i­ty (Sat­urn). Mean­while, the dreams and visions that dance through his head, (Nep­tune) will also be brought into con­fronta­tion with these same agents of Real­i­ty (Sat­urn).

The last time this exact aspect occurred in Trump’s chart was 1989, and this was peri­od when Trump’s bluff­ing and self-pro­mo­tion­al debt bub­ble began to burst. He bought the East­ern Air­lines Shut­tle, re-brand­ing it the Trump Shut­tle, only to have it go bank­rupt. It was a peri­od when the excess­es of the “go-go 80’s” was catch­ing up for many indi­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions, espe­cial­ly those whose empires were built on easy mon­ey and lots of debt, and many of them would now expe­ri­ence their very own “rever­sal of fortune”.

Trump’s empire of casi­nos and real estate went through bank­rupt­cies, and only by mas­sive infu­sions of monies was he able to avoid total col­lapse. This is indeed the time that reports point to Trump receiv­ing unusu­al and very ques­tion­able loans from the very banks he owed his debt to, (such as Deutsche Bank, and when bankers were asked is this nor­mal, to give mon­ey to a per­son who is a bad cred­it risk, they emphat­i­cal­ly answered “No!”). And, so began the whis­pers of sweet­heart deals and for­eign (Russ­ian) monies being fun­neled by var­i­ous shell cor­po­ra­tions to prop up the Trump brand. Then as now, there is only one cen­tral con­sid­er­a­tion to focus upon; as in any scan­dal of the mod­ern era, the pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mantra will always be, “Fol­low the Money”.

Spir­i­tu­al­ly how­ev­er, the ques­tion will for­ev­er be, “Did you learn from your mis­takes, did you make your amends”? Giv­en the on-going inves­ti­ga­tions into Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, and the many indi­ca­tions that inves­ti­ga­tors are “fol­low­ing the mon­ey”, it would not be far-fetched to imag­ine that the wheel of kar­ma is turn­ing once again, and Reality/Saturn is com­ing once more to pop the web of lies and illu­sions spun by Trump’s Mercury/Neptune square.

It is more than like­ly that the var­i­ous con­gres­sion­al and FBI inves­ti­ga­tions will reveal not only streams of “dark monies” com­ing into the 2016 cam­paign, (both for the Pres­i­den­tial and oth­er cam­paigns), but that these shad­ow mon­ey flows and sweet­heart deals have long been part of Trump, the cor­rupt core of brand “Trump” from the very beginning.

You trav­el the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, the Twelve Signs of the Zodi­ac. Mov­ing through Car­di­nal, to Fixed and then onto Muta­ble; strid­ing through Fire and Earth, to Air and then Water signs too. Round and around, the Sea­sons of Spir­it-Life are held in these Twelve Dimen­sions or Realms, these Shin­ing Ones formed into Three Modal­i­ties flow­ing through Four Ener­gy-Forms. Yes, the path that you walk is quite sim­ply “The Way”, it is the Roy­al Road of Light.

Today you move into the last of the four Fixed Signs, and the last of the three Air Signs; today you come home to Aquar­ius once again. In the pri­or sign of Capri­corn, your abid­ing pur­pose is to climb your moun­tain of accom­plish­ment and pur­pose. It is in Capri­corn, wher­ev­er that may be found in you and in your chart, it is there that you reach for the prize of Self-Ful­fill­ment, as you bring all of your poten­tials to their most sub­lime real­iza­tion. But this rais­es a ques­tion pon­dered by those who take time to con­sid­er these mat­ters, “Well then, what can come after that? Where do you go when you have reached the moun­tain­top??” (I will often joke with a client and say, “I guess it is all down­hill from here!!”).

Yes, it is in Capri­corn that you bring the present-day real­i­ty of your­self and your world to its finest real­iza­tion (whether that be in your craft, or formed into a great body of work of spir­it, sci­ence, art or social con­tri­bu­tion, or into a com­pa­ny or insti­tu­tion). Capri­corn is the Sign where­in we per­se­vere and pre­serve, where we hon­or our ances­tors who gave us this world, where we give thanks to them as we main­tain our tra­di­tions, and so keep all that is good and last­ing in their time and in ours; Capri­corn is the ves­sel of respon­si­bil­i­ty, and it is here that you ful­fill your des­tiny, to embody what was pos­si­ble and true with­in the present Real­i­ty-Struc­ture… But in truth, Spir­i­tu­al­ly, the next step is per­haps even more sublime…

So, you might well won­der, what can come next? What does Aquar­ius offer to this shin­ing achieve­ment; where do go after you have climbed the high­est moun­tain? Aquar­ius looks up and smiles, and answers with eyes that sparkle and shine. In Aquar­ius, you look out upon that far hori­zon, see­ing the blush of dawn that is the her­ald of all tomor­rows, and with a firm but lov­ing friend­li­ness it is Aquar­ius who says,

“Yes, this is indeed the finest, and the most beau­ti­ful, and most mean­ing­ful achieve­ment of our time. Giv­en what we have so far mas­tered, yes this Capri­corn achieve­ment does stand as the very best of the best.
But, is there not per­haps some­thing more than this…After all, we are not yet what we believe we can be…Can we not do bet­ter, can we not be bet­ter; let us draw even clos­er to our bet­ter angels and high­est dreams?!”

Aquar­ius looks at what is, and then dreams of the bet­ter world that is to be. Aquar­ius is the Avatar of the Future. From the whis­pers of our high­er self who remains upon the plane of pure spir­it, we are remind­ed and so remem­ber that we are here for one anoth­er, that we are one in truth and must remain togeth­er. Aquar­ius reminds us what it means to be human, and that we are in fact “All for one, and one for All.”

We are here to cel­e­brate our indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, we are here to be dis­tinc­tive and dif­fer­ent; yet we also need one anoth­er to form the palette or music of our cul­ture, and from these shared mean­ings we each of us cre­ate our very own unique paint­ing or song.

When­ev­er we are in this time of Aquar­ius, and wher­ev­er that Sign is found in your chart, know that it is then and there that you cel­e­brate the real­i­ty of being human. That we are for one anoth­er, and that this is the very way and means to becom­ing who we are; that we are made by one anoth­er in our words and deeds, in our loves and lives shared togeth­er. The very sub­stance and ful­fill­ment of our hopes, of our fond­est wish­es and dreams is only to be found in and through being part of our fam­i­lies, friend­ships and communities.

What do you real­ly want for your­self and for those you love? You want to be hap­py; and you want them to be hap­py too. And what is “Hap­pi­ness”? Hap­pi­ness is the expe­ri­ence of Self-Ful­fill­ment. Though we need things in this phys­i­cal world so that we can live; the only things we take with us from life to life, the only trea­sure we will and can store in “Heav­en”, is the laugh­ter (and tears), the joys (and the pains) that we have shared with one anoth­er. Our self-ful­fill­ment, our hap­pi­ness, depends upon one anoth­er. For how could any of us be hap­py with­out the kind­ness and sup­port of oth­ers? And how could we tru­ly be hap­py if those we cared for were unful­filled and unhappy?

Our hap­pi­ness depends upon one anoth­er; our hap­pi­ness is tru­ly made of one anoth­er. Aquar­ius is the know­ing that you are here to be you, and to be loved for who you are; but that who and what you are is formed by so many oth­ers, whose voic­es, dreams, feel­ings and love have made you, just as much as you have made them too.

Yes, Aquar­ius is the dream of the future of nev­er-end­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties; the dream of where each of us will be free to grow and become who they are because that free­dom is shared by one and by all.

Aquar­ius is the promise that our bet­ter days are yet to be. That broth­er­hood, sis­ter­hood, tol­er­ance and uncon­di­tion­al love for one anoth­er is tru­ly what it means to be human.

In the end, we are here for one purpose,

As it was in the begin­ning, so shall it be in the end.

We are here for one thing only,

We are to be with those we love.

We are here to love and be loved.

The USA

In my three pre­vi­ous post­ings we exam­ined the near past, present and future of what are known as “Tran­sits to Tran­sits”, the Astro­log­i­cal Ener­gy-Forms that are Uni­ver­sal and res­onate for one and for all. Now we will turn our atten­tion to spe­cif­ic charts, and the con­di­tions artic­u­lat­ed there by what are known as “Tran­sits to Natal”. Like last year, I will first take into con­sid­er­a­tion the chart of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca; in the next post­ing, I will use the same method­ol­o­gy to look at the con­di­tions in Don­ald Trump’s chart.

In 2017 the USA was under the influ­ence of Uranus Squar­ing Plu­to, which posed the chal­lenge of hold­ing togeth­er in an inte­gral, mutu­al­ly sup­port­ive way the prin­ci­ple of Freer Minds (Uranus) and Cen­tered Wills (Plu­to). Giv­en the close oppo­si­tion of the USA Mer­cury to Plu­to, this extend­ed into a two-year theme from 2016 through 2017. We expe­ri­enced an anx­i­ety-filled and exhaust­ing bat­tle over thoughts/truths and the vio­la­tions (tres­pass­ing) of Sacred Space that had been at play through 2016, and con­tin­ued through 2017.

For 2018, there are two sig­nif­i­cant tran­sits to the chart of the USA: 1) Sat­urn mov­ing into Capri­corn will oppose both the USA Venus and Jupiter; and 2) Nep­tune will align with the USA Sat­urn in a man­ner not seen since 1854–55.

Sat­urn in Capricorn
His­tor­i­cal­ly, the move­ment of Sat­urn into Capri­corn, which is the Sign oppo­site to the USA Sun in Can­cer, has seemed to elic­it chal­lenges and dif­fi­cul­ties. The three pre­vi­ous peri­ods were 1988–1991, 1959–1962 and 1929–32. In each of these peri­ods there were mar­ket dis­rup­tions which led to reces­sions (and, of course, to the Great Depres­sion), and which also brought about sig­nif­i­cant shifts in the bal­ance of polit­i­cal pow­er, (1992, Bill Clin­ton won with, “It’s the econ­o­my, stu­pid!”, as the excess­es of the Rea­gan years caught up with Bush the elder; 1960, JFK defeat­ed Nixon as the lat­er peri­od after the Kore­an War and the Pres­i­den­cy of Eisen­how­er brought on a reces­sion; and 1932, FDR came to pow­er with his New Deal after Her­bert Hoover’s pro­grams failed to alle­vi­ate the ago­nies of the Great Depression).

While no tran­sit will repeat exact­ly as it was, (as every oth­er plan­et and plan­e­tary pat­terns have moved into new posi­tions), there are cer­tain­ly res­o­nances and rhymes from one pas­sage to anoth­er. This tran­sit of Sat­urn over Jupiter and Venus, (the Greater and Less­er Benefics in Astrol­o­gy), and then over the Sun in 2019, will most like­ly lead to sim­i­lar chal­lenges to what was encoun­tered in these pre­vi­ous peri­ods. We may expect to expe­ri­ence a peri­od of eco­nom­ic chal­lenges lead­ing to polit­i­cal re-align­ments just like we have before.

Nep­tune Incon­junct Saturn
The oth­er major plan­e­tary aspect for the USA in 2018 is brought about by the Plan­et Nep­tune mov­ing through Pisces, form­ing an Incon­junct (150° aspect) to Sat­urn in the USA chart. Giv­en the orbit of Nep­tune is about 164 years, this exact aspect has only occurred once before, in 1854–55.

Sat­urn in Libra, and in the USA 10^th House is said to be emblem­at­ic of our Foun­da­tion­al Prin­ci­ple, which is that the USA is a coun­try formed by a covenant of equals. We agreed in break­ing from a King­dom to form a “self-gov­ern­ment”. To do so our prin­ci­ples, pat­terns and rules of inter­re­la­tion­ship would be inscribed and pro­tect­ed by Law, (in the USA, the Law would be King). Our abid­ing prin­ci­ple would always be that we are all equal to one anoth­er, and no one is above the Law.

But our very foun­da­tion­al doc­u­ment, the Con­sti­tu­tion, which is based upon and for­mu­lat­ed into the most cher­ished ideals, the long-hard efforts of human spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing, also encod­ed some of the most per­ni­cious, vile and anti-spir­i­tu­al beliefs and legal prin­ci­ples too. The most hor­ri­ble of these was the legal­iza­tion of slav­ery for a par­tic­u­lar racial type, and for the pur­pos­es of main­tain­ing eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal pow­er for slave-own­ing states, count­ing those slaves as 2/3 of a per­son for pur­pos­es of rep­re­sen­ta­tion for those states.

Dur­ing the pri­or pas­sage of Nep­tune over Sat­urn in 1854–55, the strug­gle over the ques­tion as to whether or not any new­ly admit­ted states would be “slave or free” was bring­ing a spiritual/political cri­sis to a cli­max. The “Kansas-Nebras­ka Act” was passed declar­ing that hence­forth each ter­ri­to­ry form­ing itself into a state would be able to choose whether to be “slave” or “free”. It led to advo­cates of both sides rush­ing in and bat­tling one anoth­er for con­trol, giv­ing us the hor­rors of “bloody Kansas” and vio­lent mili­tia move­ments on both sides (as in John Brown). The polit­i­cal lead­ers of that time could not, would not, bring them­selves to do the only morally/spiritually hon­or­able thing to do, end Slav­ery. This lack of courage to do what spir­it (and his­to­ry) demand­ed became one of the final fail­ures that led inevitably to the Civ­il War that followed.

It is not unex­pect­ed by those who study the great cycles of his­to­ry, but seem­ing­ly for some quite alarm­ing, that the “Orig­i­nal Sin” of Amer­i­ca, Racism, (pri­mar­i­ly as slav­ery for Africans, yet we will nev­er for­get the geno­cide of Native Amer­i­cans, and the series of injus­tices faced by many, many immi­grants, who came with the dream of a bet­ter world only to face the night­mare of being made scape­goats for another’s sin), that this evil that is racism is once again the lead­ing sto­ry of our day. And, we are most painful­ly remind­ed of this every day by the words and deeds of the present occu­pant of the Presidency.

Just as in the 1850’s, we now in Amer­i­ca are being remind­ed that there is a cost to divid­ing our­selves from our spir­i­tu­al moral cen­ter which is fun­da­men­tal­ly found­ed in the Ancient Wis­dom and peren­ni­al teach­ings, whether Spir­i­tu­al, Reli­gious or Philo­soph­i­cal. That fun­da­men­tal truth is this:

That every one of us is a spark of the Divine, equal­ly of and made by love, here to be lov­ing and loved no mat­ter what. And to the extent that any one of us is denied their human dig­ni­ty and essen­tial val­ue, then not one of us is tru­ly human or free. The objec­ti­fi­ca­tion and dimin­ish­ment of any one per­son or group dimin­ish­es every sin­gle one of us. 

There is no “free­dom” for any one of us when any oth­er, or so many, are not held as equal in spir­it, equal as human to one and all. This Nep­tune align­ment to Sat­urn once again reminds us that the work of Spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment and Human Awak­en­ing is ever-unfold­ing, and we are at anoth­er crit­i­cal moment for our coun­try, and for our world.

The ques­tion is will we stand for each per­son as our equal, whether by gen­der, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, eth­nic and cul­tur­al her­itage, nation­al ori­gin, or any oth­er indi­vid­u­al­iz­ing determinant…will we abide and fol­low our great mot­to that is on the Seal of the Unit­ed States of America:

That we are made of many, we are beau­ti­ful, diverse radi­ant beings who are here to hold each oth­er as one, so that we are indeed formed as we claim to be…

“Out of Many, we are One”

The laws of Spir­i­tu­al Jus­tice are per­fect; what you give is what you get.

Let us heal our wounds for one anoth­er; let us for­give but nev­er forget.

May we love and be loved; may we sing and laugh and cry together.

Let us look one anoth­er in the eye,

Let us see the truth shin­ing there.

We are one.

Next, The Chart of Don­ald Trump

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 3 – Whither

As I not­ed in the pre­vi­ous post­ings, cer­tain plan­e­tary influ­ences that have been in place are giv­ing way to new ones; but oth­er star­ry mod­u­la­tions will remain in effect for some time to come as well.

Sat­urn has moved into Capri­corn where it will remain until 2020, and Uranus will be in Tau­rus start­ing in May 2018, (though it will ret­ro­grade back into Aries for a few months, from Novem­ber 2018 until March 2019), and then move into Gem­i­ni in 2026. With Plu­to still in Capri­corn too, this means that we will have shift­ed to a much more “Earth­ly Ele­men­tal” peri­od for the next few years. The days of mak­ing real are upon us now; from the per­son­al to the world­ly, the time for The­o­riz­ing-Tem­po­riz­ing is over. What mat­ters now is what works, what is more use­ful or nec­es­sary, or in Spir­i­tu­al terms, what is more Inte­gral, Inte­gra­tive and Holistic.

Plu­to:
Look­ing at the Hier­ar­chy of plan­e­tary Lords we find that Plu­to will be in Capri­corn until 2024, and with it the end of an age con­tin­ues to unwind around us all. The very struc­tures we depend upon to uphold and main­tain our way of life are under­go­ing the great­est chal­lenge they have ever faced in 240 years. Though it would seem to many (if not most), that the prob­lems we face are “out there” in these Insti­tu­tions, (cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, polit­i­cal), as always, the real spir­i­tu­al chal­lenge is laid before each of us, in our minds, hearts and wills. What we seek to pre­serve and what we must change can­not hap­pen “out there”; it will not, it can­not hap­pen until it hap­pens in each of us as indi­vid­u­als; and then we must join togeth­er in mean­ing-filled lives, form­ing one anoth­er into ever greater wholes or spaces of self-real­iza­tion. We will be the change that is com­ing, we will indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly trans­form and restore our com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures and institutions.

Nep­tune:
Nep­tune remains in its own sign of Pisces until 2026, (2011–2026), bring­ing to bear the most extra­or­di­nary influ­ences of Inspi­ra­tion and Spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, stir­ring Faith and Dreams, and pro­vid­ing a renewed foun­tain-source for Art and Imag­i­na­tion just as it did dur­ing its pre­vi­ous Pis­cean sojourn from 1848–1862. But because of this, the Veil between the Hier­ar­chies or Planes of Exis­tence are much thin­ner now, and we need to be more care­ful to remain cen­tered so as not be swept away by enchant­ments; we need to be wise and cen­tered, or risk being swept into the swirl of false visions and the false promis­es of those claim­ing to be inspired. You must not stum­ble through the self-delu­sion­al hall of mir­rors that are part of the low­er Astral Plane. Nep­tune is Inspi­ra­tional and trans-Dimen­sion­al, it is the way you move from one lev­el of con­scious­ness to anoth­er, mov­ing beyond the bound­aries and bor­ders of an old Real­i­ty-Struc­ture into a more encom­pass­ing expe­ri­ence of the Greater Real­i­ty. But that means it can also lead those who may lack enough under­stand­ing, love or will into Astral Fan­tasies that may well turn into Night­mares. Remem­ber, Psy­chic abil­i­ties and phe­nom­e­na do not equate to nor indi­cate Spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment what­so­ev­er. The path of Light is paved with Wis­dom, Love and a Cen­tered Will.

Uranus:
Uranus by May will have moved into Tau­rus, and will remain there until 2026, bring­ing upheavals and rev­e­la­tions to the hier­ar­chy of val­ues in your world. As in any plan­et mov­ing from Fire to Earth will indi­cate, the elic­i­ta­tion of New Ideas for the past 7 years will now give way to the neces­si­ty of fold­ing these reformed or new ideas into ever-more resilient Real­i­ty Struc­tures. Old val­ue-forms will be chal­lenged, but the essence or truth of what is good or what is beau­ti­ful, well you know, that nev­er real­ly changes. The old forms and for­mu­la­tions must change to free the truth with­in, the ever­last­ing Val­ues must be freed from these worn-out bod­ies. Beau­ty and Love are found in motion, in Life that is Spir­it, and that is why these forms must pass so that Spir­it may enter new ones.

Sat­urn:
Sat­urn in Capri­corn means that we have three major plan­ets mov­ing through Earth now, with Nep­tune pro­vid­ing a (prob­a­bly very use­ful) counterpoint/counterbalance from that most watery Water Sign, Pisces. The tests of the world have move on to the Earth plane; for one and all we have moved into the Test of Respon­si­bil­i­ty, the Test of Self-Fulfillment.

Jupiter:
Jupiter is in Water too now, but will enter Sagit­tar­ius in Novem­ber 2018, then Capri­corn in 2019. At the end of 2020, as Sat­urn moves into Aquar­ius for the next few years, so will Jupiter enter Aquar­ius too, and we will expe­ri­ence some­thing we have not had since 1842.

The 20-year cycle of con­junc­tions of Jupiter and Sat­urn will “tran­si­tion” from Earth into Air Signs. This is called the Great Muta­tion, one of the prin­ci­pal “time-keep­ing” cycles of Astrol­o­gy, and is anoth­er mark­er of our mov­ing into a brand-new age, (in fact some are look­ing to this as sig­nal­ing our defin­i­tive entrance into the “Age of Aquarius”).

We have been in a 20-year series of con­junc­tions in Earth signs since 1842, and we enter this next series of Air con­junc­tions in 2020, and that will con­tin­ue until 2219. The last time we were in these Air Con­junc­tions was 1226–1425, which brought about what is now known as the Renaissance…may it be so once again.

Next, The Chart of the USA

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 2 – Where

Astro­log­i­cal­ly, 2018 will be like many years. We will have three peri­ods of Mer­cury in Ret­ro­grade, (March 22—April 15, July 25—August 18, Novem­ber 16—December 6), and Mars will turn Ret­ro­grade too, (June 26—August 27). There will be New Moons and Full Moons and many of the oth­er typ­i­cal phe­nom­e­na that form the warp and weave of Ener­gy-Forms that thrill through your world year after year.

But there are some sig­nif­i­cant changes com­ing to you in 2018. As the last year end­ed, Sat­urn entered Capri­corn, (until Decem­ber 2020). And, anoth­er major Sign shift lies ahead in 2018; Uranus will enter Tau­rus in May and remain there until 2026. We are mov­ing into a new mod­u­la­tion of ener­gies, (both plan­e­tary moves will shift the bal­ance of ener­gy, from Fire Signs to Earth Signs), and the dom­i­nant sen­si­bil­i­ties and themes in your life will change accordingly.

These two Sign shifts will com­bine with a crit­i­cal phase in anoth­er plan­e­tary pair­ing of out­er plan­ets, (Uranus Semi­square Nep­tune). This Plan­e­tary Pair artic­u­lates the ever-shift­ing inte­gral evo­lu­tion and bal­ance between Indi­vid­u­al­iz­ing Ener­gies (Uranus), and Com­mu­nal­iz­ing Ener­gies (Nep­tune). It is here, through these star­ry Avatars, it is here you will see play out our Spir­i­tu­al Jour­ney in the weaving/warping of our Greater Aware­ness; it is here that the sto­ry of your awak­en­ing will unfold in the dynam­ic inter­play (and often­times strug­gle) between Mind and Intu­ition, between Rea­son and Faith, between Sci­ence and Religion.

Yes, what lies ahead for you is quite a “seis­mic shift” in The Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, (The Zodi­ac), that form and inform your life here on Earth. The Winds of Spir­it are blow­ing now, the Plan­e­tary Tides are sweep­ing away the old, as they bring glad tid­ings of a New Age to you and your world.

Sat­urn in Capri­corn – The Test of Responsibility
I have already writ­ten a piece on this shift of Sat­urn into Capri­corn, and I would refer you to that blog entry for a deep­er analy­sis of this most impor­tant pas­sage here: Sat­urn in Capri­corn. But I did not then note the sig­nif­i­cance of Sat­urn (or any plan­et) mov­ing from a Fire Sign into an Earth Sign. Where­as you are to expe­ri­ence the Ideals and Inspi­ra­tions of Spir­i­tu­al Truths when plan­ets move through Fire Signs, it is in the ele­ment of Earth that you bring these Shin­ing Truths into the man­i­fest­ed forms of your world. As Sat­urn now, (and Uranus soon), move into Earth, it is time to make real what you know and hold to be dear and true; for after all that is thought, writ­ten and spo­ken, you are here to be this Truth, you are here to make the Dream of Spir­it shine in all that you make and do.

But from a more Mun­dane or World­ly per­spec­tive, Sat­urn in Capri­corn has been asso­ci­at­ed with chal­leng­ing peri­ods in US His­to­ry, (this is prob­a­bly because the USA is a Can­cer, the oppo­site Sign to Capri­corn), and more espe­cial­ly because both Venus and Jupiter, the less­er and greater benefics, are in Can­cer too. The last three times Sat­urn went through Capri­corn, (1988–91, 1959–1962 and 1929–32), the USA expe­ri­enced eco­nom­ic and finan­cial chal­lenges. Reces­sions and worse led to cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal upheavals, remind­ing us once again that what dri­ves all mar­kets is the one thing com­mon to all of them, human nature. Though many fac­tors must be inte­grat­ed to under­stand the ups and downs of eco­nom­ic life, it all comes down to Faith and Fear. Now the past is no cer­tain indi­ca­tor of our future, pat­terns nev­er repeat exact­ly, but they do car­ry remark­able res­o­nances, and so it would be wise or pru­dent to pre­pare for some chal­leng­ing times ahead.

Uranus in Tau­rus – Trans­for­ma­tion of Value
Uranus in Tau­rus, (2018–2026) will bring star­tling trans­for­ma­tions to the realm of Val­ues. The pre­vi­ous times for Uranus in Tau­rus were 1935–1942, 1851–59 and 1768–75. Those peri­ods were char­ac­ter­ized by upheavals and rapid changes in Soci­ety and Cul­ture, and brought about new order­ings of Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal struc­tures. These Uran­ian shocks and turn­ings break old iden­ti­fi­ca­tions, lead­ing to rev­o­lu­tion­ary break­throughs in Ideas and Tech­nol­o­gy, in Soci­ety and Cul­ture. Uranus leads us beyond our self-cre­at­ed Sat­urn­ian bound­aries, and in Tau­rus it cre­ates a new Fab­ric of Mean­ing. Uranus in Tau­rus will ush­er in a new Val­ue Hier­ar­chy, and a so new kind of Human too. The self-lim­it­ing attach­ments to out­worn ways and val­ues are bro­ken, and a new way of being emerges.

Uranus & Nep­tune – Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty vs Community
The more con­se­quen­tial (yet more hid­den or obscure) ener­gy-form of 2018 is the next sig­nif­i­cant cycle moment in the rela­tion­ship between Uranus and Nep­tune. The inter­play of Uranus and Nep­tune artic­u­late the dynam­ic and inte­gral devel­op­ment of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty ver­sus Com­mu­ni­ty. Their rela­tion­ship inspires our spir­i­tu­al jour­ney and reminds us to hold togeth­er the devel­op­ment of ever Freer Minds with a com­men­su­rate deep­en­ing of our Uncon­di­tion­al Love. Their cycle from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion is about 170 years and the last one hap­pened in 1993. The most recent pre­vi­ous con­junc­tions were 1821 and 1650, and each time a new order­ing of the inte­gral rela­tion­ship between the Indi­vid­ual and their Com­mu­ni­ty was articulated.

When either of these ener­gy-forms becomes imbal­anced with the oth­er, we either move towards extreme forms of inde­pen­dence, (and break our bonds of fel­low­ship), or we bind our­selves into indi­vid­u­al­i­ty-deny­ing forms of com­mu­nal­ism, (and break the integri­ty of each mem­ber of the group). There is a need for Life, for Spir­it to find itself by being One and True, but it also can only do this by being part of some­thing greater, of belong­ing and being formed by some­thing larg­er too. We all want to be One of a Kind; but we also can only find our Mean­ings and Val­ues by being part of some Kind.

The release of a new order­ing of these two prin­ci­ples in 1993 has now reached a crit­i­cal moment, (the sim­i­lar peri­od before was 1845–47). Clear­ly, through­out the world the ten­sion between Free­dom and Com­mu­nal life-ways is rip­ping cul­tures into ever more frag­ment­ed sub-cul­tures and group­ings; the Cen­tripetal force of Free­dom has become severe­ly unbal­anced in its inte­gral rela­tion­ship with the Cen­trifu­gal force of Love. Each is seem­ing­ly devolv­ing into a warped ver­sion of its high­er nature. Free­dom becomes ripped from shared affec­tions, becom­ing self­ish and nihilis­tic; Love becomes bound­ed by fear of the unfa­mil­iar, affec­tions nar­row and retreat inward­ly to anachro­nis­tic anchors of “blood and soil”. The spir­i­tu­al­ly true com­mu­nal foun­da­tions founder and break, the Cen­ter that is Love can­not hold, and soci­eties devolve into dis­as­so­ci­at­ed groups, made of tribes formed upon fear.

But just as in the same cyclic moment of the 1840’s, new notions and pat­terns are emerg­ing for us now, and there is hope that the bonds formed by our affec­tions for one another’s restored and shared core val­ues will equal­ly be matched by our sup­port for one another’s essen­tial need to be a unique expres­sion of those shared affec­tions and values.

There is much to give one hope, but there is need on the part of one and all to re-estab­lish trust in one anoth­er; we need to build our greater faith on kind­li­ness and lov­ing deeds. These small and greater acts of indi­vid­u­als and their com­mu­ni­ties are hap­pen­ing all around us too…and we must do every­thing we can to hold our­selves to our ori­gins and orig­i­nal intent, to hon­or and remem­ber the com­pact we have formed freely, and as inscribed upon the Great Seal of our nation­al motto:

E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many One

As the great dra­ma of “Light and Shad­ows” unfolds in this trou­bled time of an Age that is End­ing, when you feel the need to re-cen­ter your­self and one anoth­er, remem­ber the Great Invo­ca­tion and be assured that you are not alone and the Dawn of and New Age is all around you too:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

Next, “Whith­er are we going?”