Fingering Wall Street

It’s hard to believe the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon is just over a month old. Long expected by astrologers, long awaited by progressives and long dreaded by the One Per Cent, the movement hit the ground running.

It expresses the world moment so precisely that it seems to have arisen full-blown, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Germinating since 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn, it is an organic consequence of the dirty secrets that were revealed when the economy went bust.

Four years later, no one who has been paying attention requires a bullet-point explanation of “what the protestors want.” In a society where corporate criminals get six-figure bonuses while unemployment remains in the double digits (if you count the jobless who have given up looking), the question would seem to be not “Why are these people in the streets?” but rather, “Why aren’t 99% of us in the streets?”

None of the Wall Street gamblers was punished after their greed and chicanery pitched the world into a recession; indeed, right now their henchmen are lobbying their tiny little hearts out in the halls of Congress, trying to gut proposed regulations that could prevent another meltdown. None of these One-Per-Centers went to jail; none had his ill-gotten gains repossessed. By contrast, plenty of protestors have been arrested, some violently attacked by police (this video was shot on October 25th, in Oakland). Many have had their tents seized and their bare-bones equipment impounded.

Some of the OWS campers traveled hundreds of miles to make their voices heard. They have no party backing to launch campaigns, so they put their bodies on the ground. They have no corporate funding to pay for media ads, so they put the word out through Twitter. They can’t afford to stay at hotels, so they bring their sleeping bags to city squares and parks — the last public spaces that remain, in a society that’s hurtling towards full-on privatization.

And what do we hear from the White House, as the most significant mass movement since the ’60s spreads like wildfire to thousands of cities around the world? We hear about a “terrorist threat” featuring Iran, a country the Pentagon has been hankering to attack for years. And we hear about the assassination of yet another Bad Guy, this time in Libya.

Those who observe the American media from a distance will have noticed a pattern in these news stories. They are a testament to just how big a threat the OWS movement poses to the One Per Cent, who tend to pump sabre-rattling incidents into the public conversation whenever they think the 99% need distracting.

Oh, and suddenly the president has decided to crack down on medical pot.

It is clear to most Americans that the issues the protestors are identifying cannot be solved from within the hopelessly corrupt system of electoral politics. The power behind OWS comes from forces that exist outside of the official narrative, just as the outer planets that symbolize these forces exist outside the orbit of Saturn (status quo).

This cultural paroxysm, a domestic version of the Arab Spring, is a manifestation of the definitive transit of the 2012 years: the square between Uranus and Pluto. Uranus works by disruption. It interrupts the complacency of everyday life, challenging society to change; like the protestors whose presence downtown disturbs business as usual. Pluto works by exposing decay, so that what is degenerating in a collective can cede the way to regeneration.

Degeneration is just as crucial as regeneration; breakdown is just as sacred as rebirth. During the years ahead Uranus and Pluto will finger what is standing in the way of evolution, so that obsolete structures can cleanly fall away. But neither of these planets presumes to offer solutions. What they do is point the finger at problems.

What happens after that? Here’s where human will and ingenuity come in.

The existence of each one of us is also part of the cosmic plan. All who are alive during these crucial years bring to the table a unique experience, an inimitable creative intelligence, and the ability to perform a crucial role in this world moment. When we tap into these resources, keeping our eyes and hearts open, we know what to do.

Consciousness-seekers have learned that the best way to solve our individual problems is to tap into our inner resources, while staying alert to what’s happening around us. This is also how to solve society’s problems. When we follow the lead of our essential beings – when we live through the center of our charts – we know instinctively how to respond as the diseased old order cracks around us, as it should, as it must.