Above chart: shows the forming and reforming Uranus/Pluto/Jupiter “T-square” configuration in red.

Since I’ve been referring to Jupiter in Cancer and its triggering effect on the Uranus/Pluto square (here and here, for example), and since I’ve referenced the Uranus/Pluto square for years now, I thought I’d revisit a piece I wrote before all hell broke loose.

Significant transits and patterns 2007-2016

Written in 2007, prior to when Pluto entered Capricorn in January 2008 (remember that year, the precipitous economic fall from grace; the year the term”bankster” entered our vocabulary?), I called it “One Astrologer’s Synopsis, Assessment, and Preparedness Plan.”

Something about the tone and manner of this 2007 piece reminds me of the latest Julian Rose meditation on internal and external preparedness.

Here’s how the piece started:

Introduction: the human race now enters the outer fringes of a decade-long climactic ordeal that will initiate a stark psychological/spiritual choice, both individually and collectively. During what is starting to be called The Long Emergency, we will be severely tempted to allow ourselves to be triggered into “survival mode,” where we act only in our own selfish interests and civil order breaks down. Fortunately, some of us will also be gifted with the grace to move into “ascension mode,” where an expanded awareness of universal presence radiates peace and compassion for the benefit of all.

In other words, during this next decade, at every moment our instinct will be to contract into Fear and our intuition to expand into Love. If you are like me, then I imagine you will be continuously working to let go of instinct and surrender to intuition.

I present this outline to help prepare myself and others for drastic changes ahead. I pray that we may individually and collectively choose to set our intent and focus our imagination on the best-case scenario whereby our end-game civilization utilizes repeated shock to gradually transform into oneness rather than collapse into chaos.

Fortunately, just in time—and timed precisely to the astrology for 2007—green, simple, sustainable practices and technologies have suddenly gained a foothold in the collective consciousness. Less visibly, untold numbers have been working for years with the breath and other subtle, meditative techniques to cultivate tranquility and a calm still center so that they may serve as refuge for others during the “end-times”. These “light-workers” are collectively beginning to learn how to create and hold a gentle and compassionate energetic field that will ultimately spread to encompass the globe and neutralize the current “War on Terror” that conceals our longing for and remembrance of Love.

And here’s how I talked about the then upcoming Uranus/Pluto square in that predictive piece written nearly six years ago, knowing astrologically what lay ahead:

The Uranus/Pluto intensity backs off a bit as Uranus retrogrades into Pisces, and then when Uranus re-enters Aries on March 31, 2011, it again puts the squeeze on Pluto, gradually building to exactness June through September 2012; Uranus and Pluto move closely in tandem again, then back off a bit as Uranus goes retrograde but never completely out of alignment, and then squeeze each other exactly again April through June of 2012, again October-November 2012, again March-May 2013, yet again November 2014 through April 2015, and then finally again January and February 2016 when they begin to move out of alignment. In other words, for nearly three years, brilliant, unpredictable Uranus and profound, do-or-die Pluto move back and forth in a critical square to one another as they both gradually move forward through the first half of the cardinal signs.

Meaning: A series of cultural and institutional shocks, plus sudden, unpredictable biospheric events announce their presence with a stern warning in November 2009 (Saturn square Pluto) that precedes the huge whammo wake-up call July/August 2010 (four-planet cardinal T-cross: Saturn/Pluto/Jupiter/Uranus, fueled by Mars, end of July through beginning of August); this is followed by a series of strong aftershocks with the highest intensity lasting through February 2016, when the world starts to settle into new biospheric and cultural configurations.

Conclusion: Two alternative routes present themselves as we begin to undergo the massive personal and collective trauma that promises to ultimately re-harmonize humans with each other and all living beings, including the life force in our own individual bodies—not to mention insects, animals, plants, rocks, the Earth, the solar system, the stars and galaxies, and countless invisible, otherworldly dimensions. We can choose Fear or we can choose Love. The two do not inhabit the same space. We can close down, go into denial and/or protective, exclusionary mode; or, we can face and embrace our fear and open to the universe, its mystery, creativity, and endless, shuddering, stunning surprise.

There are times when we feel afraid, and react to events by trying to control them. This approach ultimately backfires, creates more chaos. Then, when we wake up to what we did when in survival mode, we feel badly, wish we could “take it back.” The more difficult choice seems to go against instinct: rather than react, we “take a deep breath,” or “take a breather,” or “sleep on it,”—so that we can begin to embrace our fear and panic, sit with it, notice where in the body pain resides, then breathe into that place, breathe deeply into the place in our body that contracts and holds on—until fear dissolves. By then we may find that we don’t need to react; instead, we can respond in positive and creative ways that benefit others as well as ourselves.

Here’s the advice I give to myself as we head into the maelstrom: Breathe! Slow down! Smile! Feel gratitude for all that has been given me, and for the beauty in all creation. Take stock of internal and external assets. Open my heart to feel my interdependency with all sentient beings. Begin to envision and practice ways in which I will share my unique gifts and bounty with others during the final wired, weird, warped, wild years of the post-industrial era.

Take heart! This shift is natural. All things have their seasons. Destruction is prelude to creation.

“We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.” — Anton Chekhov