dreamtime

The energy of the past weekend will extend into Monday, as the Sun-Uranus opposition is echoed by Mercury opposing Uranus. This configuration sets off the cardinal square in the sky between Uranus and Pluto, making it a very high-energy time.

The news is full of stories that reflect this energy. President Obama's newly-found tough guy stance had him saying that the Republicans would "cripple" America.
The NYPD was caught on camera macing some rather nonthreatening protestors (ah, but I guess they are threatening). Palestinian President Abbas has called for a Palestinian Spring (them's fightin' words).

But then again, the news isn't all bad.
Boeing has finally delivered its first 787 Dreamliner. This new plane is made from a carbon fibre that is much lighter than metal, and reduces fuel consumption by 20%. For an eco-conscious globe on the move, that's pretty good news. Of course, the cost overrun and delay in getting the plane delivered has had serious consequences for the economic health of Boeing - an ironic outcome, if you think about it. And hey, the King of Saudi Arabia has given women the right to vote in municipal elections (probably the only ones that matter if the king is making such decisions).

In our personal lives, too, the energy is likely to feel quite unsettled. We are heading towards a new moon in tight aspect to Pluto (Mercury is still in the mix, too) and eventually Saturn. At least through Wednesday, the tension will be running high, and power struggles are likely at every level.

Don't let anyone tell you that the Libra feel of this time will smooth it all out - Libra may try to put a nice face on things, but the underlying movement is titanic.

Since we're all likely to act with determination, it is at least a good idea to make sure the cause we are fighting for is a worthy one.

power struggles

I knew that there would have to be a prominent female in some kind of trouble. Venus in Libra opposing Uranus made me think it must be all about some wildly unconventional woman. And I guess at the end of the day I was right, but not in the way I imagined.

Michele Bachman is certainly a Uranian woman - vying with Sarah Palin as the Tea Party's foremost female. But she was really into the Pluto these last few days as she jabbed Rick Perry about mandatory vaccination of 11 and 12 year old girls against HPV. Preventing HPV is a way to prevent cervical cancer, but it is also perceived as a way to prevent a sexually transmitted infection.

Bachmann was on Leno, explaining herself last night. Power struggles surround the debate. On the one hand, it is Plutonian in its focus on sexuality and STIs. But Bachmann's point about whether girls' vaccination should be mandatory speaks to the question of who should have control over our health. Whatever your feelings about the HPV vaccine, you might pause before endorsing the government's ability to stick you with whatever they feel you need to be stuck with.

No easy answers... that's what Uranus and Pluto in square are all about. We've got work to do, and Michele Bachmann stepped in to guide us towards the tough questions this week. She's our Venus in Libra, for the moment.

start the revolution without me

While the major planetary aspects this week have not been especially tense (today's Jupiter/Mercury trine is great for focused communication - students should fair well), yesterday's moon in Aries set off the Cardinal Square between Pluto and Uranus.

It's getting to be a weekly occurrence - every time the moon goes into a cardinal sign, we get a bit more of the Cardinal Square delivered to us. Scan the news for stories and see how many you can find. What you'll see is a lot of what I like to call Pirate energy: throw a revolt, start a revolution, demand change at any price.

When Democrats demanded that Anthony Weiner resign his post in the House of Representatives, they must've figured that it was a certainty that another, more proper, Democrat would replace him. After all, his district is 3 - 1 Democratic and hasn't elected a Republican since 1920.

Bad calculation, it turns out, as
a Republican did indeed win the special election.

What we're seeing is anger and frustration at a system(s) we know isn't working. It's likely that many voters in the Brooklyn/Queens area that voted in the Republican don't share much of his political perspective. But details don't matter when the Plutonian/Uranian craving for change kicks in.

The need for change is real, of course. Uranus/Pluto is all about deep, relentless transformation. Yet what really needs to change can't be transformed at the level we are used to dealing with things. We can flip back and forth between the options we can see, and we can throw ourselves against the walls of the box we are trying to climb out of. Really, though, all we are doing is creating the energy that drives the real engines of change, deep below the surface.

just to be clear

Yesterday's opposition of Neptune to Mercury created a kind of one-day Mercury retrograde, although with its own special flavor.

In the Northeast, flooding resulted in the evacuation of one hundred thousand people as what was left of Tropical Storm Lee soaked the region on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the Southwest,
millions of people lost their power, a Mercurial kind of event, but one that was caused by a Neptunian sewage spill.
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Also, with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 just days away, the federal government has reported that there is a "credible" threat of a terrorist attack. That kind of vague but unsettling information has a very Neptunian feel, with unknown terrorists infiltrating the country and lurking about unseen.

Mayor Bloomberg also made a Neptune/Mercury comment yesterday, although one that shows a more constructive use of the energy of the day. He suggested that it is time to retire the term "ground zero" for the World Trade Center. That name has always carried an ambiguous energy, and it really was not used by New Yorkers for very long after 9/11. The
BBC article on the use of the term is interesting reading.

extended labor

Labor Day began as a celebration - or really an acknowledgement - of American labor. Not simply labor in the sense of work, but with respect to unions, the organization of workers. Collectively, workers have a better chance of making their needs known and getting them met than they do as individuals.

Unions aren't too popular in the United States. Not only are employers predictably against them, a great many workers do not like them. An editorial in the
Anchorage Daily News highlights how politicians want to be able to tell their constituents that they fought against labor unions. Odd, considering that most of any politician's voting base must be workers.

The decline of labor unions has paralleled an increase in working hours and a decline in real wages in the U.S., where workers have less vacation time, less access to health benefits, and fewer rights than in virtually all Western democracies.

Ironically, the labor news on the day before the holiday weekend was that there were no new jobs created in August. That news came as the moon was in Scorpio, and it served as a sobering balance to the high-flying aspects of the day.

What Labor Day has come to mean is mainly the return to work after summer. That actually only applies to students, of course, since most people work pretty much throughout the summer, anyway. But there is a sense of buckling down that comes after Labor Day. Tonight at 10:03 p.m. Eastern time the moon will go into Capricorn, an appropriate sign for the beginning of the work year.

a rough week

The cardinal T-square made yet another stop-off in the Middle East this week, this time visiting Israel. In the midst of the Arab Spring revolutions, Israel has been something of a pillar of stability. Foreign relations sunk to new low, though, as both Turkey and Egypt - the two countries in the region historically most supportive of Israel - expressed concerns over Israel's military actions.

Things are not going well with Turkey and Egypt, but it was the domestic situation in Israel that was perhaps most significant.
Hundreds of thousands of people have held an extended protest throughout the country over the past week. The protesters are largely from the middle class, and they are concerned with both the high cost of living and the uneven distribution of wealth in Israeli society.

Israel has only one planet currently activated by the cardinal T-square, its Venus at 5 degrees Cancer. Venus rules the Israeli fourth house of home, and so is quite important in the chart. It is being transited by both Uranus and Pluto, although neither is exact at this point in time. Saturn was on Israel's Neptune in July, and has been transiting the 8th house since the Spring of 2010, when the blockade of the Turkish flotilla took place.

Coming on the heels of the London riots in August, it is hard not to see the signs of rising discontent with the status quo. In the United States, we have thus far remained republican in our protests, endorsing the Tea Party as our protest mechanism rather than taking to the streets. General strikes, a European staple, are unknown in the U.S., but as the protests in San Francisco showed last month, mass action is a possibility. With Pluto in Capricorn, the push-back can also be forceful.

The point, though, is that if we really want to see the deep changes of the T-square at work, we can't focus too much on any one side of any one issue. To oversimplify is to miss the deeper process. Many people relate the T-square's energy to the past configurations in the 1960s - but is there any one person, movement, or action that could personify that entire era?

Instead, we have to recognize that each action is in a sense "turning the wheel" of change, and the direction we are actually headed is both open and unknown.

abundance

Today, the sun will be trine to Jupiter. This naturally fiery pair will be in the earthy signs of Virgo and Taurus, suggesting abundance and material wealth: Think King of Pentacles.

We could overdo it a bit, especially with too much food, and perhaps with too much work. But the Scorpio moon will help to keep us from going too far overboard. Like a deep keel reaching down into dark waters, the Scorpio moon helps to keep the buoyant sun-Jupiter ship in balance. A little reminder of serious issues even amidst celebrations, it can be kind of like digging your fingernails into your hand to stop from laughing at a solemn occasion.

Today's energy is very constructive, so use it well. Prudence, rather than excess, is suggested (but you don't have to be a prude about it!). At best, we will experience deep appreciation for what we have, even as we recognize that all that we build is ultimately transitory.

Collectively, we can see the same process at work. The economic forecast was dimmed yesterday (it wasn't glowing to begin with), and unemployment in the U.S. remained flat at 9.1%. Scorpionic news even as the Obama and his Republican foes argue over the best course of action.

And hey - on another note - last week Michele Bachmann "joked" that the East Coast earthquake was a sign from God. What jest will she make now that Sarah Palin's
Alaska was hit by a quake yesterday?