The next seven years are going to be big. Forget the five-and-ten-year plans your consultant told you to make. We will all be flying by the seat of our pants.

You astro-heads already know this. There’s been a lot of talk about the Grand Cross, the major configuration that will dominate the sky through 2015. 2012 looks to be the year when things come to a head. Within this constellation is the Saturn-Uranus opposition, which is all about The People-vs-The-Man. For those of us who have always identified with the former over the latter (and who doesn’t? Even The Man probably thinks of himself as The People), this is going to be the time of our lives.

I mean this quite literally. I consider this period the main reason we incarnated. (See the Skywatch for May 2009).

So what is the Saturn-opposed-to-Uranus piece all about? One thing it’s about is the tensions that will be snap-crackle-and-popping all over the world, between ordinary people in citizens’ groups (Uranus) and the recalcitrant powers-that-be (Saturn). Muckrakers will be in their glory. Cream pies in the faces of big wigs will make a comeback.

Are there any boomers out there who remember when the Yippies burned money at the N.Y. Stock Exchange? Stunts like that were my favorite part of the sixties. After having made no headway when they tried to register dissent through the official channels, a group of dead-serious pranksters made their point outside of the jerry-rigged terms of debate. I’ve written elsewhere about the astrology of those halycon times; and about how, right now, all that crazy political creativity is repeating itself – in post-millennial terms, with new world crises as context – just when the world needs it again.

The perfection of cosmic timing never ceases to amaze me. Look what we have here: up in the sky, spelled out as one of the four angles of the Cross, is the very signature of direct (Uranus) action (Aries). Inspired, locally-based popular movements will be staring down the barrel of creaking, corrupt old Machines. If we move fast enough, and keep our antics surprising enough (flash-mob politics, anyone?), we will be in tune with the energy in the air.

I look forward to new expressions of comic sacrilege as memorable as Abbie Hoffman’s flaming dollar bills floating down from the balcony onto the trading floor.

The Saturn-Uranus opposition had Its first exact peak on Election Day in the USA. It would have been impossible to find a more appropriate pair of characters to play out the transit: a precedent-shattering Hope-and-Change man (Uranus) and a morally-diminished old soldier (Saturn). The gods were making it super obvious, so no one could miss the significance of the threshold being crossed. Obama was a walking embodiment of Uranus, the planet of the future.

But last year was a long, long time ago. Under these volatile skies Obama’s symbolism is changing by the month. The Saturn-Uranus opposition has five peaks, and just because the Big O wore the Uranus hat during the first round does not mean he’ll wear it upcoming.

I don’t think American progressives as a bloc have woken up to the fact that what had meaning about the election was the newness and inspiration it triggered — not the guy himself. As things heat up, it’s going to be crucial to recognize the distinction.

Astrology is very clear about this distinction, because astrology is a vocabulary of symbols, not literalisms. It’s all about what energy is being embodied, not who is embodying it. Uranus, the planet of Ideas Whose Time Has Come, does not care who wears the silver hat.

If we want to ride the crest of this wave rather than become confused and overwhelmed, we need to pledge our allegiance to the necessity of change – which is constant – rather than get attached to human personalities – which are mutable.

The kind of change these transits are about implies a break so radical with old policies that it takes us out of the realm of critiquing any one party or any one candidate, and pushes us into the realm of reconsidering the whole system. It implies asking the really obvious questions, such as: Why we are letting the government hand over trillions of dollars of our money to the banks, insurance companies, inept automakers and military-industrial corporations — when one of those trillions could pay for 20 million jobs?

Now, there’s a statistic that would seem debate-worthy. Just one of the ten trillions the bankers are getting would give each of those millions of workers salaries of $50,000 a year. Imagine what that would do for the unemployment rolls. Of course, the Saturnine forces in charge of the country — i.e. the governmental/economic establishment — would never allow an idea this simple and logical to be given voice in official circles. An idea like this could arise only at the Uranian fringes of society; from thinkers who are undaunted by its stark, common-sense outlandishness.

Every person in this country, whether s/he is The Man or The People, knows that a proposal to give taxpayer money directly back to financially suffering taxpayers, rather than to the corrupt institutions who are now lining up to receive it, would violate the very foundations of the plutocratic order under which we live. Herein lies the essence of the matter, which Pluto in Capricorn –anchor of the Grand Cross – will uncover, piece by piece, as we make our way to the US Pluto Return in 2022, in the second house of money.

Whose ideas will you be investing in? Those of The Man or those of The People? I know one thing: Uranus, a planet both shocking and whimsical, is a lot more fun.

I’m putting my money into cream pies.