As we head into 2017, I come across an essay I composed back in 2007 to warn about the maelstrom ahead that I and any other astrologer worth her salt could see coming. I look back now, and realize that, in typical Sagittarian fashion, I was overly optimistic in thinking that the human race would already be processing all the turmoil successfully. Instead, the turmoil, indeed the gathering storm does appear, we all sense with trepidation, to be nowhere near its final forward thrust into chaos.
On the other hand, much of my predictive context was spot on.
What I need to better recognize, is that strong, enduring astrological configurations take time to work their way from the energetic into the material world. For example, the most important deep background aspect of this period now fading, Uranus square Pluto, though technically already completed (i.e., they have moved out of orb of the aspect), is just beginning to really make a lasting cultural impact. It’s as if the period when an aspect between two long-cycled outer planets is near-exact sounds a new tone, spreads a new coloration into the zeitgeist, at first subtle, and then more and more pronounced as it begins to shapeshift cultural forms of civilization way past its technical completion.
P.S. Note that all three outer planets will be ploughing through their “new” signs, until the mid 2020s.
2007-2016
SIGNIFICANT PLANETARY TRANSITS AND PATTERNS
One astrologer’s Synopsis, Assessment, and Preparedness Plan
© Ann Kreilkamp, November 2007
Note: The severity and opportunity of the astrological indications outlined here synchronize with the 2011-2012 end of the Mayan Calendar.
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.
- 2007: Uranus, moving between 16-18° Pisces, makes its opposition (180° angle) to the Uranus/Pluto conjunction of the late ‘60s. (Uranus/Pluto conjunctions occur every 165 years, the last one during the American Civil War.)
Meaning: The cultural seeds sowed by the revolutionary fervor of the late ‘60s flower now: growing political discontent, again fueled by a terrible war; plus, collective recognition of global warming and peak oil ignite interest in sustainable permacultural and technological alternatives that have been germinating for 40 years.
- 2008-2011: the three long-cycled outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all change signs.
Meaning: A transformational shift in the zeitgeist ushers in new collective concerns, trends, and possibilities. This shift initially pits the individual against the state, ad hoc innovation against institutionalized corporate tradition, the forces of extreme, radical change against a stubborn, terrified and power-mad global elite. Courage, brilliance, compassion, individual and collective willingness to invent selfless, replicable approaches and designs that assist and amplify a return to the natural ordering of all living systems proliferate to ensure the continuity of life.
- 2008: Pluto enters Capricorn January 27, 2008 for the first time in 248 years (and for the first time in U.S. history), retrogrades back into Sagittarius June 15, 2008, then re-enters Capricorn November 28, 2008, to remain for 15 years, until 2023. Profound biospheric changes as Pluto moves through the earth sign that it occupied when the U.S. was born; financial, corporate, national and international traditions and institutions crack, shatter, and restructure to nourish the common good.
- 2010: Uranus enters Aries May 29, 2010 for the first time in 84 years, retrogrades back into Pisces August 15, 2010, then re-enters Aries March 13, 2011 to remain for 7 years, until March 6, 2019. Everything heats up, as Uranus enters the initiatory fire sign of Aries; cultural ignition for radical, maverick, iconoclastic, original and inventive ideas, as well as spikes in terrorist acts and general craziness.
- 2011: Neptune enters Pisces April 4, 2011 for the first time in 165 years, retrogrades back into Aquarius August 5, 2011, then re-enters Pisces February 3, 2011 to remain for 13 years until 2025. Increased oceanic and other flooding; increase in water-borne diseases and plagues; psychic flooding into collective dreams, visions, telepathy as watery Neptune enters its own water sign. Those who, through awareness practices, have learned to detach from the mass hypnotic collapse into denial, addiction, narcolepsy, infotainment, anxiety, propaganda, escapism, delusions, victimization and confusion will gradually evolve into compassion, community, communion with all beings, Oneness.
- 2009-2016: Outer planets create rare, significant patterns with each other and with shorter-cycled planets.
Saturn enters Libra October 29, 2009, and though approaching an out-of-sign 90° critical square with Pluto for several months prior, Saturn exactly squares Pluto November 16, 2009. These two heavy karmic planets move in tandem until April 2010, when Saturn retreats into Virgo. Meanwhile, explosive Uranus and expansive Jupiter both move into Aries within ten days of each other late May and early June 2010 and start to square Pluto, so that by the time Saturn returns to Libra, in July 2010, its square with Pluto creates a four-planet cardinal T-cross with Jupiter and Uranus in Aries. This pattern remains in effect for about two months, with Mars joining Jupiter and Uranus to fuel an explosive, revolutionary five-planet line-up from about July 28 through the first week of August.
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
