Capricorn 2008

We are in the middle of a hugely historic and powerful planetary shift. In December, expansive 12-year-cycle Jupiter and powerful 248-year-cycle Pluto aligned with the sun at our seasonal low point. Then Jupiter and the sun hit bottom together, shifting their energy influence to rebounding in grounded Capricorn. We are waiting for heavy Pluto to join them.

On January 25, deep power Pluto hits the bottom of our seasonal cycle for the first time since 1761, for the first time in the history of America. The last time it happened gave birth to this nation. The shift to undeniable nature power came out in men and women, emboldened with the spirit of the earth, manifesting a dynamic humanism that could not be contained by a controlling king and the presumptions of an unfair social order. This time, with the consequences of rationalized global exploitation, both human and environmental, reaching the breaking point, the shift could be cataclysmic. With expansive, energizing Jupiter reinforcing the intensity of Pluto's move into Capricorn, and aligning, 30-year-cycle Saturn now in Virgo, beckoning us toward the truly fruitful outcome, this promises to be a year of earth-shaking drama and revelation. That it happens just when our planet's seasonal axis is aligned with the galactic center suggests that we are moving to a deeper level of harmonic integrity.

As I write this, on the morning of Tuesday, January 8, 2008, a man in his 40's, born in the 1960's to a black father from Africa and a white mother from Kansas, is poised to be accepted by a broad cross-section of America as sufficiently seasoned and sober, inspired and humane, to be entrusted with the leadership of our government at a time of undeniable peril. At the same time, I am concerned that in the next few days George Bush will be killed on a trip to the mid-east by those who hate him as the evil embodiment of hypocritical imperialism, leaving President Cheney to unleash the dogs of war against the Muslim world, with dark consequences for us all.

It is worth remembering that the Bible says in the end of this era there will be trauma (earthquakes and pestilence, wars and rumors of wars), but that this is just the pain of transition from a nature-denying culture to a divinely-restored one. I don't presume to know what is coming, what it will involve or where it will take us. But it does strike me that this tremendous shift in the tides of life on our planet, the forces that have been dragging us down to the ground of reality rebounding with the undeniable power of underlying nature, must be good for us wherever it leads. It is our job to accept and settle with this awesome process, at every moment, trusting the light at the center of creation amidst what sometimes feels like a whirlpool of madness.

Divinity is reclaiming this planet. May the grace of goodness anchor all of us in the wholeness of our hearts.