Happy 2014!!

Many, many pundits and bloggers are writing about the New Year. Most are saying pretty much the same thing: today there is a New Moon that will be entangled with the infamous Uranus square Pluto that is defining this decade. They are saying, and I agree, that this year and next will be the apex of the life changing events underway during this decade. I just want to add a few things.

The New Moon was at 6:14 this morning, but the midnight chart displays the energies affecting the whole year. Actually, I think the Spring Equinox chart is more legitimate, but for now, we’ll look at the minute the New Year started. That chart, every year, always has Libra rising and the Sun square the ascendant. This year, those degrees are potent because Mars rises also, with Uranus opposite and the Moon, Pluto, Jupiter and Mercury (all within range of the angles) involved in the configuration. That’s a lot of dramatic energy showing a spectacular year with one unexpected, intense situation after another.

All of those energies also impact the chart of the USA. It is especially strong this year because most of this connects to the Sun-Saturn square, which indicates our collective responsibility in handling resources. We have so many issues now. Most of the time I read predictions of economic situations, but there are many other possibilities.

First, and immediately in front of us, is the radiation from the Fukushima disaster. Right now spent fuel rods are supposed to be in the process of being removed manually—an extremely delicate and dangerous operation—but we’ve heard very little about how it’s going since it started in early November, despite plumes of smoke coming from the site right now. Another earthquake affecting Fukushima would be the end of Japan and have great consequences for the American west coast. Americans returning from rescue operations there are suffering severe health issues. Uranus, Pluto and Mars in combination can be earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. These will be in combination for most of the first half of the year since Mars will stay in Libra for many months. Our own Yellowstone Caldera has been long overdue for an eruption, and it would be a major, long lasting disaster. It’s not a question of “if”—just “when.” Let us pray that it will remain quiet for a long time to come.

Fracking is another dangerous activity that the oil industry seems intent on pursuing despite proof of its polluting of the fresh water supply. We have tons and tons of garbage polluting the oceans with a clean-up nowhere in sight, although a teenager has designed a way to do it. Our food supply is poisoned with all-pervasive GMO additives, and even fresh produce is radiated before it gets to market so that it is nutritionally worthless. It is no wonder that we are a sick, sick nation with a healthcare insurance system that is so expensive, we cannot afford to be sick because it’s a sure path to bankruptcy.

Historically, Uranus making stressful aspects to Pluto have indicated periods of great change and upheaval. It can be done many different ways, and I think that how painful it will be depends on what we do for ourselves. The last important contact was from 1963 through 1969, a time of tremendous upheaval, protests, and even assassinations. Before that it occurred in the years of the Great Depression. We are now in a different time with many new resources, like the internet. It will be different, but the objective is the same…a correction of our path if we have strayed too far. [For more on this, if you don’t believe any of this is true, I’d suggest you get a book called “Cosmos and Psyche” by Dr. Richard Tarnas who also wrote “The Passion of the Western Mind,” which has been called the finest history of the western mind and spirit ever written.]

Many are predicting a depression, and I was among those, but I attended a lecture in Richmond a few weeks ago by Barbara Taylor from Roanoke, who mentioned that economic collapses, like the Great Depression, did, indeed, happen under these same Uranus/Pluto connections, but that since the 1700s, they always also included Saturn, which is not the case this time. Therefore, she doesn’t expect a depression.

However, all year the Saturn/Neptune midpoint is involved tightly with this pattern (thanks to Astrolabe for their recent gift of listing critical degrees of the year which included midpoints, or I’d never have noticed it). I’d say that April and May are the most affected months since all culminates close to the USA Sun and Saturn at that time. May 15th to 17th is particularly highlighted. Also, in late March Venus will square Saturn (not the USA Saturn, but the one in real time), which can precipitate fear of loss on a global level.

In this New Year chart, the most positive planet is Neptune, which is indicative of jobs, since it rules the sixth house. It looks as though those will generally be better in the coming year, and it also represents the military, which will most likely stay about the same. Also, the chart’s Venus is sextile Saturn, so an overall relative stability will prevail, although we’ll have plenty of drama. There is so much, I might have to write about it on a monthly level.

“Obamacare”

The Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” was signed on March 23, 2010 at 11:56 am in Washington DC. Of course, since no one pays attention to Astrology, it went into effect under the worst possible conditions. There was a grand square between Sun, Moon, Uranus, Pluto and Saturn on ANGLES, with even Mercury involved weakly with some of it. How it has gotten this far is a miracle. That is probably due to the presence of Jupiter, ruler of the sixth, on the MC making only positive contacts. Also Mars is making positive aspects to the Sun, Uranus and Saturn.

The extreme stress in this chart is coming from rulers of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 3rd and the ascendant, which means there is conflict (we know all this from observation) from other people who have invested in the way things have been—i.e. insurance companies, lobbyist for them, public fleecing, outrageous “big pharma” profits, etc. However, with the ruler of the chart in nurturing Cancer in trine to the MC, and the ruler of the sixth, illness, in compassionate Pisces conjunct the MC and not stressed at all, the act itself, is an extremely positive thing.

Right now, January 1, 2014, the solar arc MC is exactly to-the-minute conjunct the natal Jupiter. I don’t need to tell you how positive that is. However, in three months, the solar arc Uranus will be opposing natal Saturn, ruler of the 8th (insurance, investments, etc) Expect something to suddenly come up that shakes the stability of this whole thing. That will not succeed because Uranus will go on to trine Mars a month or two later. After that another shakeup occurs in two and a quarter years, when it conjoins the Sun and again three months after that when it squares the Ascendant. That one is more “iffy” and could actually indicate legislation that changes it entirely—maybe making it a single payer system like Medicare, hopefully. Then we’ll be catching up to the rest of the developed world which is WAY ahead of us in treatment of their citizens.

In Conclusion…

Many of you may ask how someone who follows “A Course in Miracles” can be so negative about events when we know we’re in an illusion. I keep remembering a paper I wrote in college about the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of my heroes. He was executed for trying to assassinate Hitler. In his papers, he wrote one time that if you are in a car hurtling down the highway with a speeding mad man who is putting lives in danger, you don’t just let him keep going; you wrench the wheel away from him. He was a minister (Lutheran, I think) and murder was not in his belief system, but when we show love for our fellow man, we do what we can to help them. Sometimes it means stopping an injustice. I try to just make people aware of what is going on so they will have more information and vote accordingly—or do whatever they are led to do. We are in the world, illusion or not, and have to deal with it. After all, Marianne Williamson, who has written several books based on the Course, is now running for Congress representing California.