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by Terry Lamb

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New to astrology? Read on and ignore the technical bits. There's plenty here for you too! Why don’t I write horoscopes for each sign?

NOT JUST FOR ME, but for many people I know, June was quiet — too quiet, eerily quiet. The roads were emptier, the phone was silent. It’s like the calm after a snow storm, when the wind finally stops blowing and the clouds are gone. The world glistens in its purity, unsullied by soot or smog, pristine and free even of footprints. It seems like the universe paused and took a long, deep inhale.

Not that is was that way for everyone. The news world continued to twitter with this and that, but most of the talk was hindsight or anticipatory. The Democratic nominee was decided, the Zimbabwean election not yet taken place. School is done, yet even vacations were on hold.

We may have been uneasy with the breather, because so much was going on inside. As oil prices raged out of control, we all wondered where it all was headed. Chalk it up astrologically to the high number of retrogrades and the high dose of Neptune that we got during the Mercury retrograde.

The exception was the Midwestern floods, exceeding even those of 1993. I could anticipate the ones in 93 and track them with the planets. However, this time, I was surprised by the extreme nature of the conditions and their result. This was a very unfortunate side effect of the Mercury-Neptune pattern: Both planets turned retrograde (backward, from our perspective) on the same day and nearly trined to each other. It illustrates the power of the planetary stations and the fact that something that is easy and strong (i.e., the trine) isn’t always beneficial.

One thing we know for sure about Mercury retrogrades is that, whatever weather patterns are in play at the time that Mercury stations, they remain fixed in that pattern with little movement for the entire retrograde. Mercury rules the winds. The winds move the weather. When Mercury stands still, so does the air. If the jet stream and the weather track hadn’t stayed stuck in one position for so long, the Midwest would have gotten enough of a breather in between rainy periods to clear the water. As it was, there was just too much. Neptune is implicated in this as well. Neptune is associated with water, especially water and flooding events. Incidentally, during the last big floods in 1993 Mercury and Neptune were also retrograde, as was Uranus. This was the year that Uranus and Neptune traveled together. When their dance intertwined with Mercury’s action, that’s when the floods came. This year, Uranus was not involved, but Chiron was. This suggests that Chiron is a planetary body worth observing.

July Is a Time In-Between.
July will bring some more definitive action, but not a lot. Looking at the planetary cycles in progress right now, most of them are neither here nor there. Most of this can be boiled down to how we experience quincunxes.

This has to do with planetary cycles between the given planet and the Sun. If we look at a planetary cycle as a circle, there is one point that stands out at the most active, called its culmination. This is the halfway point through the cycle, when we experience a “full moon” related to that planet. What we experience on that culmination is a crescendo of events and understanding that lead to a resolution of issues in our life. The issues will be symbolically related to the planet whose energies are currently peaking, so with Saturn it is restriction, responsibility, and hard work; with Jupiter it is expansion, enterprise, and education, etc.

In June, we had one culmination and it was a doozy! This occurred on June 20, when Pluto’s cycle with the Sun culminated. This came on the heels of the Full Moon, which picked up the Pluto peak and extended its intensity over about 5 days, June 17-21. We could see this in the rising Midwestern flood waters, some of which were timed with the peak. For the rest of us, we had our own dramas unfolding. It was something we could sink our teeth into, while the rest of the month’s energies were more internalized and subterranean.

In July, we are traveling the zone between Pluto’s culmination and those of Neptune and Chiron. We are neither here nor there. A month before each peak and a month after, we go through an adjustment period, as the Sun quincunxes the peaking planet. The other fast-moving planets participate with the Sun, often making the same aspect within days of the Sun’s contact.
During the July, we get the quincunxes following the Pluto culmination as well as those in preceding the Chiron and Neptune culminations. The result is no fewer than 15 significant quincunxes this month! (See the planetary events table.)

Each type of quincunx brings out different qualities in our experience related the position it occupies in the planetary cycle. The quincunxes to Pluto will bring adjustment related to response, reaction, and regret because they occur after the time of action; the ones to Chiron and Neptune bring anticipation, like a storm that never arrives, because they come before the main action has occurred. (This could bring relief to the Midwest in terms of rainfall.)

This makes July a time of waiting and adjustment. The quincunxes provide us with a way of arbitrating the connection between Pluto and Neptune, which have become temporarily discounted in consciousness as Pluto has moved ahead of Neptune. Each quincunx will generally be felt for about three days, with several overlapping each other. However, as stages in a larger cyclic drama, they will be felt further into our future than just the three days of immediate effect. This plays out as the longer term effects of the actions we take as each of these quincunxes occurs, so it behooves us to keep track of what we do if we want to learn from our experiences.

Quincunxes have to do with timing. We want something before it is ripe, or we miss the “best timing” window and are trying to play catch-up. I call the quincunx the “hungry aspect”. We hunger for something that we (feel we) don’t have. We look for ways to create it or recover it. If there is a sextile involved, either in the heavens or in your chart, a yod is created. We have such a yod pattern assembling itself using the wide sextile between Chiron-North Node-Neptune and Pluto. Venus, the Sun, and Mercury will each quincunx these points during July, with supporting contacts from the Moon. (See Chart B.) (This paragraph quoted from my article on quincunxes at Daykeeperjournal.com.)

The ancients had it right when they called them (as well as other “unfamilial” aspects) inconjuncts. Quincunxes are difficult in the sense that we are attempting to combine signs that don’t naturally combine well. Here, we’re blending Cancer the mothering homebody with Aquarius the political junkie, as well as with Sagittarius the traveling preacher. These can be blended well, but they take extra effort. If we have any of these sign connections in our natal chart, we have a lifelong pattern with their energies that increases their significance to us. (To learn more about how to use these — and every — sign combination, get my new book, Astrology’s Magical Blends.) At its best, we are learning to express our highest ideals (Sagittarius) as social principles (Aquarius), then apply them in our personal lives (Cancer). But every time we give to a food bank, donate time to a school or charity, or become politically active in support of policies that help those in need, we are accomplishing this goal.

Here’s a time table of events related to these planets’ cycles, which you can use to figure out what threads of your life are unfolding with each planet’s cycle:

Chiron            February 5, May 11 and 25, August 10
Neptune          February 10, May 14 and 26, August 15
Pluto               December 20, March 21, April 2, June 20

As you can see, Chiron and Neptune was working in tandem with each other. The dates in mid-May are near the dates of the Burmese typhoon and the China earthquake disasters.

There IS Action in July Nonetheless!
Even if the planetary cycles of Chiron, Neptune, and Pluto do not bring relief, we get some very gratifying action from Jupiter around the 9th, when its cycle reaches its yearly peak. (Shown in Chart C.) Think back to what you were planning on or around December 22 and how you were executing those plans as February 13, April 10, and May 9 passed. This will give you clues to how the rest of Jupiter’s cycle will go for you — or at least what Jupiter’s energy for you this year is all about.

For me, this was a time when I got a massive number of products into marketable form in a new way: All my courses are split up into modules, my beginning course is on DVD, and my new book was officially published. Publication and production are all part of Jupiter’s domain. As the cycle continues, I plan to extend this process by making my teaching and materials available on line.

There are two other dates that tie in with this culmination: On July 3, Venus precedes the Sun into the peak position. And July 19 brings a follow-on to this thread in our lives when Mercury reaches its peak with Jupiter. This means that events on these three dates will tie together to create beneficial action in your life. (These dates may also signal the peak of oil prices for the year.)

Saturn Didn’t Go Anywhere.
Well, at least it didn’t leave the solar system. It’s still in Virgo, but at least it’s removed the thumbscrews from the torture chamber and is letting us move around the room a bit. (A little gallows humor appeases Saturn.) And, from the time that Mars enters Virgo, we are likely to find ourselves much busier than expected. If Mars represents action and Saturn responsibility — well, you get the idea. This busy-ness will peak on the 10th, when Mars makes it to Saturn. As this coincides with the high point in Jupiter’s cycle (on the 9th), we can expect a decent reward for our efforts.

We’ll be able to make more visible progress for the rest of the year, unhampered by Saturn’s harshest reprimands. We should keep in mind, however, that the rules don’t change just because the pressure is off. Steady perseverance allows us to get the most from Saturn’s treasure box.

A Revival of Hope
We’re entering a golden period, our experience of which will be tempered by how well we’re adapting to the new world that Pluto has introduced us to (high gas prices, low housing prices, the urgency of global warming, etc.) since entering Capricorn in January. Still, we have a chance to make progress, to see the light of the future as we head into the fall.

This golden period comes packaged as the trine between Jupiter and Saturn, which has been playing itself out in a relatively rare 5 contacts over two years:

Jupiter trines Saturn

Mar 16 2007   19°Sg09' D     19°Le09' R
July 6 2007     18°Sg23' R     18°Le23' D
Jan 21 2008    07°Cp36' D     07°Vi36' R
Sep 8 2008     12°Cp32' D     12°Vi32' D
Nov 21 2008   20°Cp19' D     20°Vi19' D

These dates are all interconnected in our lives in some way.

This is the opportunity for an economic soft landing that I’ve been talking about for several months. However, speculation in the oil and food commodities markets and lack of regulation of hedge fund managers and other financial predators are deepening the difficulties of many people and making a profound economic downturn more likely. There are many things that can be done to soften, if not avoid entirely, the downward direction of the US economy, and it’s not too late to enact them.

The Jupiter-Saturn happiness could be playing out collectively in the US as the hopes pinned on Barack Obama as a leader who will lead us into a future where the old political gridlock can be overcome. People are looking desperately for hope, and when the world around us looks bleak we need to rely more on hope and faith in ourselves and the unseen forces. At the same time, we can’t indulge in unrealistic magical thinking. Global warming isn’t going to go away through prayer.

Why the Big Change?
If I didn’t know about and understand astrology, I’d be wondering why the world is all of a sudden coming apart at the seams. I don’t remember such a sudden shift in energy and collective awareness through no explicit event — ever! However, when we look at what the planets are doing, it becomes clear that there are planetary events which signal what’s happening.

I have spoken frequently over the past year about Pluto’s movement into Capricorn. Historically, we know that when Pluto moves into Capricorn there are many challenges to authority — and it’s a good thing too! Without this kind of shake-up, the human species would be greatly weakened, perhaps even fail to survive. Pluto in Capricorn revives the power of the people. It knocks powerful people off their pedestals. It lays low mega-entities that have become dinosaurs but haven’t yet died off. This includes the (Catholic) Church (whose fall began in 1516) and the British monarchy (beginning in 1762).

This time it’s the mega-businesses: corporations, banks, financial institutions; and the mega-powers: the fossil fuel-based US/Western civilization and all those who would emulate it (China, India). But what will it take for them to fall. Of course, they go kicking and screaming; it causes suffering in many ways and for many people; and this time it’s environmentally urgent.

In addition to real estate shock, we’re all dealing with oil shock, but it came both before its time and later than it should. After the US hit peak oil in the late 70s, we should have been weaning ourselves off oil, natural gas, and coal. We had a plan that was subverted by Reagan (Reaganomics) and subsequent administrations. I really thought we’d have to figure out how to live without cars by 2000. We could have. So we should have and could have done much better (i.e., something) to anticipate the problems we have now and subverted them. Instead, we hastened them and became more dependent on a commodity that would eventually run out.

The current oil crisis is price-driven and the prices are about 25% higher than they should be due to unregulated speculation in the oil futures market. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem; it means that, as long as China and India continue to subsidize the price of gas for their populations and as long as we don’t find other solutions, the path we are on is economically untenable.

In the short run we can re-regulate speculation (deregulated under Reagan and in 2002 under Bush II). However, in the long run, we have to face what Pluto is showing us. OF COURSE it is possible to live on the planet without the high-flying lifestyle that Americans currently enjoy! If we don’t want to give it up, we’d better find ways to live more lightly on the planet.
Pluto is not alone in Capricorn at present. Jupiter is there, inflating the issues that Pluto will present to us and creating a sense of urgency. Jupiter is triggering all the hot spots, all the problem areas, all the issues that we have, from personal to global. It’s giving us a (needed) glimpse of what’s to come.

Yes, we’ll probably figure out a way to create more balance in the oil futures market, but it probably won’t be until next year, when Jupiter has moved beyond Capricorn. However, we need to continue to recognize the real price that oil exacts on all of us. I just wish that, if we’re to pay so much at the pump the huge profits were going to the federal government, where all of us can benefit. (Can you say “windfall profits tax”?)

We’ll adapt to the new reality. We’ll travel less and pay more for it when we do. We’ll rely more on telecommunications (so we’d better make sure that the FCC returns to being the true people’s advocate, and support “net neutrality” initiatives). We’ll need to rely more on world consciousness and talk to the leaders of other countries (even the ones we don’t like) to find common ground. We need to reach agreements with all nations that wise energy policies and actions must prevail.

The Great Healing
This will be a great healing process, and there are planets signaling this as well: Chiron and Neptune. Neptune represents our essence, our inner truth; Chiron represents what is available for healing. This comes out as “healing our deepest wound”, and this is indeed what we must do on this planet right now. We must heal the wound of relying on fossil fuels.
Chiron and Neptune are traversing the same segment of Aquarius together right now, and as slow-moving as they are we’ve got a good two more years of their Astaire-Rogers routine. To up the ante, the Moon’s nodal axis (the transiting eclipse point) is found in the same zone right now.

In world events (and sometimes in our own lives) the Moon’s node operates as a crisis button. When it gets triggered a crisis occurs. When there are major (slow-moving) planets around it — that stay and stay and stay — we get earth-shaking events. This is what was happening when the huge typhoon hit Burma followed by the huge earthquake in China.

Chiron reaches the lunar node for the second of three times, signaling another step in the deep healing process we are engaged in.

It’s hard to say that these events are part of a great healing process (and I would never say that they are for the people that experienced them directly), but they can be a source of healing if it is the will of the powers involved. Burma was literally forced to open to foreign aid. China’s government was humbled by the quake.

What I’m feeling is that there is a sign of grace operating in the world around us, even if it seems to be bursting the collective balloon of how viable a modern Western lifestyle is.

Pluto’s Last Gasp in Sagittarius
Pluto is now in Sagittarius, so we get till the end of the year to blend our old world with the new. It’s a transition time. It’s not a time to put our heads in the sand, and while we can see very clearly when someone else is doing it, it’s not so easy to see it in our own behavior. Make a deal with a close friend: that you’ll call each other on it if you see it happening.

The biggest thing this means is that, once again, situations we are dealing with in life end with a bang. Quite frequently, the resolution of events will be transformation. It also means that we have less “down time” for a while, that every action counts (less time with the Moon void of course).

To Build the Future . . .
You know how much easier it is to come up with ideas in a group. By coming together we can dream the innovations we need to build a new future. This is what we were all born for — to see into and develop this new, sustainable future. If we can’t get together in person, we can find ways to do it through telecom. Skype, internet forums, chat, blogs, etc. — these are ways to form community. There are lots of people with great ideas already out there. For some of them, go to my green page.

Where Neptune is involved, we must have faith, but this is not the blind faith touted in mainstream religion; it is the informed faith that comes as a result of experience, knowledge, wisdom, and the application of universal law.

Significant Planetary Events

Jupiter, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are retrograde. Mercury is in rulership. Jupiter is in fall.

All dates are based on Pacific Time.
Blue = harmonious/Red or orange = challenging/intense
Events in bold are more significant.

© Terry Lamb