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California Astrologer, Steve Robins, has been sharing his unique vision of how the planets affect mankind for the past three decades. Not content to follow the traditional horoscope model, Robins strives to place astral events into an organic context. His insight into the cosmic wisdom that can be gleaned from our solar system’s planetary movements is unlike any other.
Aries 2008
The passion of early spring. After a winter of solitary testing, we emerge into the daylight. Now we will begin to see what this historic year of power shifting is all about.
We start with a full moon on Friday, March 21, at 11:40am Pacific time – passionate soul and loving heart are charged with primal power and flowing feeling. (A grand cross: sun in Aries, moon in Libra, Pluto in Capricorn, Mars in Cancer.) A week getting down to the bottom of things, then the weekend of the 29th/30th rebounding with earthy assertion and emotional expression. On April 2nd, heavy power, which has been grounding us in deeper nature, turns inward for a few months (Pluto in Capricorn retrograde until September). Like undertow which makes for bigger surf, this will intensify the primal forces that come out now. The Aries new moon on Saturday the 5th is the true beginning of spring.
Last year, big planetary influences were heating up the passion of expression. Now, that energy will be coming out in an undeniable manifestation of earth power, breaking through any tension that holds it back. Yielding to vulnerable sensitivity is key to grace amidst the drama. Healing, dreams and spirituality are together in enlightened awareness. Whatever this year's power break-out brings, it's all leading to an evolved relationship with life's interconnectedness.
 Pisces, 2008
In this historic year of power hitting bottom (Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn), we've just gone through isolating alignment in awareness amidst life's pressures — Aquarius. With the mental tide turning inward (Mercury retrograde), it was especially challenging. Now, reduced to seed essence, our defensive shell cracked, the freeze softens and turns to tenderness that saturates us — Pisces. It may be sensitive at times, but this is the emotional nurturance that will lead to emergence and flowering with the coming spring.
We begin the month with a full moon eclipse at 7:26pm Pacific time on Wednesday the 20th, a peak of built-up feeling. For all the earth power breaking through now, we are living in a time when healing and dreams are anchoring us in awareness (Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius) and revolutionary wisdom is in vulnerable sensitivity (Uranus in Pisces). We must yield to feeling amidst awareness as we cope with practical matters.
On March 4, the action impulse will launch over the top of our seasonal cycle (Mars into Cancer), and on Friday the 7th it releases a powerful charge from primal groundedness (opposite Pluto in Capricorn). Great activating energy will be coming out in the expression of flowing feeling, just as we reach the Pisces new moon. It could be an emotional weekend. Again, allowing our truest sensitivity will temper us with genuine humanity.
Deep forces are shifting on this planet, bringing matters long building to outward manifestation. This is a year when the power of nature will be reshaping our lives, leading us through big changes. Accepting tenderness and awareness will comfort and sustain us through powerful process.
Aquarius, 2008
We have reached a historic turning point in the shifting tides of nature on this planet. After many years of dragging us down to the ground of reality, deep power Pluto hits the low ebb of our natural seasonal cycle at 7:44pm Pacific time Friday, January 25, moving into the primal earth power of Capricorn for the first time since January 7, 1762. The significance of this cannot be overstated. During months of apparent backtracking, starting this spring, it will return to this point and then hit bottom again, completing the transition process, on November 26, for Thanksgiving. This whole year is about power hitting bottom and rebounding with the force of nature and constructive new beginnings.
The last time this happened gave birth to America and the so-called Age of Enlightenment. Renaissance men and women experienced a surge of multi-faceted, humanistic expression. The "Seven Years War" for English control of empire in the name of "civilization"--what Winston Churchill called the true "first world war"--ended. The American colonists, who had been grateful for King George's protection against the angry Indian "savages," now found themselves asserting their own need for the liberty to explore and develop their natural dynamism and a healthy, democratic social economy that would allow it. The last time Pluto went into Capricorn, expansive Jupiter and centering Saturn were in the individual passion-expression of Aries. This time, creative Jupiter is in Capricorn with Pluto and Saturn is in Virgo, also an earth sign, guiding all the releasing nature force toward fruitful development, a good harvest for all.
I don't know what will happen. There are dark scenarios and utopian ones, though all suggest a historic empowerment of nature-based ways, whatever the trauma of adjustment. On January 30th, the action impulse of Mars, after months of prickly internalizing, turns forward again, giving expression to all the creative power that will be releasing. That mental Mercury will be turning retrograde/internalizing for a few weeks on Monday the 28th is a good thing, giving us pause and reflection amidst it.
This is the yearly time of alignment in awareness, Aquarius. Healing Chiron is approaching a meeting with Neptune, the pull of dreams, in the enlightened perspective of Aquarius next year. May the tremendous force of earth power that will now be breaking through lead us all to renewed conciliation and rewarding development based on natural regard for life's interconnectedness.
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.
For a complete astrology package including birth chart, current chart, daily calendar and instructions, or a personal reading, please contact:
Steven Robins
Cosmic Circumstances
Box 243 Felton, California 95018
831/425-1952
steven@cosmiccircumstances.com
COSMIC ARCHIVE CURRENT -2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9
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Check out Jill Goodman’s Mini Day-to-Day Astrological Calendars, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. The calendars, written for individual signs, include short, daily readings and easily understood symbols that convey at-a-glance clues to the possibilities of the day. You can purchase them online here.
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