Saturn and Uranus had their last opposition in a series of five yesterday. The oppositions go back to 2008, when the first one occurred on Election Day in the United States. Two news stories seem to sum up the energy, which pits the conservative powers-that-be against upstarts and revolutionaries.

The first is the breaking of the Wikileaks story. Wikileaks has done it again, in Uranus-in-Aries fashion, by publishing secret documents. That truly annoys the powers that be, which in this case is the previously Uranian but in this case Saturnian Obama administration. The documents show the war in Afghanistan is going poorly, that the Pakistanis are playing on both sides, and that many Afghan civilians are being killed. As secrets go, that’s hardly ground-breaking stuff, but it is the stuff that folks on the Saturnian side of the fence don’t want getting out. Transparency isn’t a priority, and they can always yell “National Security!” when someone o close to a truth they don’t want to get out. This round goes to Uranus.

And so does the next. A Utah court overturned the conviction of polygamist Warren Jeffs for marrying (performing the ceremony) a 14 year old girl to her 19 year old cousin (there is no mention in the article I read about whether polygamy was involved). Jeffs is a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, a renegade (Uranian) group. So score one more for Uranus.

Back when they got their start last winter, I predicted dim times ahead for the Tea Party.

They launched their project - going on the offensive - with Mars retrograde, after all. Astrological logic says you shouldn’t go on the offensive when the Warrior is retrograde (appearing to go backward in the sky). It’s not that passions don’t run high, but rather that they cannot be properly expressed with Mars backpedalling through the zodiac.

Since then, the Tea Party, led by Sarah Palin (Tina Fey will be busy for years to come) has stayed in the news and appears to be becoming a viable political force in the United States. I find this problematic for a host of reasons, but not least because it could mean I was wrong about something.

True, I have also said that “rogue” groups will be prominent with Uranus (and Jupiter) in Aries, and I have harped on how the “Pirate Mentality” will be strong for a while. The Tea Party looks like a kind of Disney-fied version of what I’ve been talking about, although I am not entirely sure that they are as kookily harmless as they may appear. The Boston Tea Party was the beginning of the American Revolution, after all, so there are fighin’ words in that name.

But it occurred to me recently that their getting their start with Mars retrograde may not have doomed them, after all. The U.S. progressed Mars went retrograde in 2008, and so the Tea Party is in a way in harmony with the nation. More than that, the energy of the Warrior is turned internally when retrograde, which would focus any of the nation’s belligerent tendencies back on itself.

I bring this up now that the NAACP has asked the Tea Party to repudiate racism and the only Democrat endorsed by the party (talk about a token!) has refused to be associated with them.

It is often the case that we see and feel an eclipse most strongly before or after it occurs.

Sunday’s eclipse, on the 11th, seems to be a case of the shock waves coming afterwards. Monday and Tuesday seem to have been fairly dreadful for a lot of people. There was a kind of low-level crankiness, and the complaints of fatigue were numerous. Yesterday, things seemed to get somewhat back to normal, at least enough for me to take a look at the news.

Two stories seem very eclipse-related. Remember that Pluto ties into these past two eclipses, and that means things which are buried (and come to the surface).

Well, oil is still a buried thing coming to the surface all over the Gulf, but we can’t blame that on the eclipse. BP has been under criticism for its handling of the disaster, and around the lunar eclipse a couple of weeks ago it got a ribbing for its safety procedures. Even Exxon felt justified in saying a few words against BP.

Yesterday, as the moon made a trine to Pluto, it came out that BP lobbied the British government for the 2007 transfer to Libya of a prisoner convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie/Pan Am bombing.

The other case-in-point is also just another node in an ongoing story, the Vatican’s response (?) to priests’ sexual abuse. Click here for the Associated Press story. The Vatican extended from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on sexual abuse, but did not put in place measures to see that such cases are reported.

Plutonian power meets Plutonian power.

Today’s solar eclipse at 3:40 p.m., EDT, will only be seen in the South Pacific and the south-western coast of South America. But the eclipse is “angular” (rising, setting, or directly below) in Paris, and Tokyo, places to watch.

The eclipse is setting in Madrid, and the lines also pass through the Netherlands, although they miss Amsterdam. As far as I can tell, the game plays right through the eclipse, so we’ll see what happens in the World Cup.

Neptune is overhead in New York City at the moment of the eclipse, nipping the West Side of Manhattan below Central Park and a slice of Brooklyn that cuts through Coney Island (an extremely Neptunian place). The nodal axis also passes through Sacramento, so keep an ear out for Governor Schwarzenegger.

The energy from an eclipse is not all that local, however. We all feel the tension, like late on a hot afternoon when we suspect a thunderstorm is on the way. While full moon lunar eclipses tend towards overt explosions of energy, new moon solar eclipses like todays have a quiet intensity about them. If anything happens, it is most likely more of an implosion, a collapsing inwards, than an outward-moving energy.

But often nothing happens. There are exceptions, but like most thunderstorms, lightening seems to hit something only rarely. That takes little away from the feeling of the experience, however. Issues that normally bubble beneath the surface can come to a full boil around eclipse season, if we put a lid on the pot.

At best, we can think of a solar eclipse as a powerful new moon, a good time to set intentions for the coming months. Starting tomorrow, begin to move forward with your projects and put your ideas into action.

Today, I guess you can join the estimated 700 million people watching the World Cup Final.

Yesterday’s Uranus station saw tensions mounting, and occasional explosions.

Interestingly, Toronto was again in the news, this time with a blackout. The G20 have all gone home, but the Queen of England was in town. Torontons (I’m sure that’s not what they’re called, but I like the sound of it) seem to have really stepped up and handled it well. The blackout occurred within an hour of the station.

The rest of the world was certainly very keyed up, although I’m not entirely sure that you could tell the difference from any other day. The “state of emergency” was extended in Thailand, where Jupiter and Pluto were angular at the eclipse (but Burma was also under the station, and no news from there).

On a more local level, it was either too hot in New York for people to really be acting up, or else we swallowed our irritation. A brilliant idea or two may have popped into our minds, although it usually takes longer for those to reach the surface.