What begins when the Moon is New comes to a head when it is Full. This is the core idea of the lunar cycle, and it is a very primal one. Transit-trackers have used it to interpret the sky’s messages since the beginning of time. When the New and Full Moons in question are eclipses, the cycle reaches deeper and further in its significance; but it does not depart from this basic formula.

Uncle Albert Like the scientists, mystical thinkers honor Einstein as extraordinary; but from a somewhat different point of view. For us, the wispy-haired old fellow with the unforgettable eyes exudes a wisdom that trumps intellectual smarts. In fact he was prodigious on both scores: that of mental acuity (Aquarius) and spiritual understanding (Pisces)1. I can’t think of another scientist whose face has been reproduced on postcards, lapel buttons and tote bags. Though Western culture tends to reserve the word “genius” for people gifted in conceptual thinking, those of us who hung posters of Einstein on our dorm room walls did…

Any readers out there with late Aquarius in your chart? If so, you are personifying The Big Meltdown. The whole world is melting, as the transits are making clear with tragic-comic literalness. And individuals of an Aquarian bent are embodying this amazing process on a personal level. Therefore Aquarians1 have a particular responsibility to become conscious of what this transit means. Their job is to model the multi-leveled liberation that is its ultimate purpose.

Congratulate yourselves, fellow travelers. You have incarnated into the least boring period in human history.Astrologers are paying special attention to the window between 2011 and 2015, with another spike at the USA Pluto Return in 2022. The world is in for quite a ride. To approach the Cardinal Cross years with our eyes open would be a very useful prayer to incorporate into our spiritual practice right now. We are dealing with big energies here, and we need to draw on the highest parts of ourselves

In the USA right now, only four industries seem to have escaped the downturn unscathed. Sales of junk food, alcohol, and guns are way up; and, as was the case during the Great Depression, Hollywood movies are raking it in. This says volumes about the mass mood.

The headlines are disturbing, the mass mood is anxious, and the weather is downright weird. The Earth and her people are flipping out.We need a plan. We need an approach that will keep us grounded in sanity and able to respond in the highest possible way. We need a perspective that’s way bigger than what passes for perspective in most modern people’s thinking. We need a model along the lines of what the Mayans had.

We wanted change, and we are getting it. Just not, perhaps, the kind we expected. Speaking astrologically, what’s going on in the sky confirms that major change is here and more is coming. Planets that rarely change signs are doing so. Pluto has just moved into Capricorn, and over the next three years Neptune, Uranus andChiron will make ingresses too. This augurs huge shifts in the energy field. The collective will have its mind blown. If each of us stays awake to the current moment, the way we relate to our world should shift accordingly.

Now that Pluto is in Capricorn to stay (for the next 16 years), and approaching an exact opposition with the USA Venus and Jupiter, it is appropriate that Americans should be obsessing (Pluto) about their values (Venus). This most materialistic of nations is facing ugly truths that would be much less distressing to a culture that cared less about money.