Okay, I have finally dragged myself to the computer to explain, as bestest I can, what the freak is happening this evening, this weekend and for the past few weeks. It was finally a phone call from my brother that got me off my ass. What we are experiencing IS indeed astrological, or marked by astrology. Mercury is not retrograde; that is little beans compared to the stuff we got these days, and there is no reason why any of it needs to manifest negatively. It is doing so for some people -- I have heard several people describe this as the week from hell, kids are acting weird, people in general are feeling the stress, the tension, the unexplainable sense of something odd, but we can indeed afford to take a deep breath.

Really, don't panic or drive like a lunatic or get drunk, please, and try to leave folks alone -- this will pass. We are just at one of those major convergence points, and this is undoubtedly the hottest astrological week of the year. If you slow down and pay attention, you can put this power to work for you. The way you put it to work for you is to apply focus and intention to two categories of living: that which has been stuck for a long time, and that which you know you have needed to change for a long time, but have, for some reason, neglected to do.

While the pattern we are experiencing this weekend actually lasts through next spring and has had visible manifestations for weeks or months (the Genoa G8 convention and protests, for example, and the resulting first global treaty on greenhouse gasses) this weekend has some special attributes that are raising the energy and causing a bit of a fuss, and this energy has been building for a while -- days, for sure, and weeks, for many.

As of this writing (at about 9 pm Pacific) the Moon is full in Aqueerius in about two hours. It is full conjunct Neptune, a misty, mystical and strange dimension of consciousness that works for some people as alcohol/drug abuse, for others as deception, and for yet others as pure compassion. Your choice! The Moon is picking up all kinds of Neptune tonight, making this a woozy, watery and downright strange lunation experience. It must be a magnificent sight -- Seattle, however, is under about six layers of clouds and fog, apropos of the moment.

Next, it is Lamas this weekend, indeed, all through the week, which is one of the four witch's High Sabbats. Carol Burkhart has posted a raft of information on this holiday, however, the short version is that the Sun is now at the middle of the sign Leo, and when the Sun is at the middle of any fixed sign (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius) we arrive at one of the major holidays and power points of the Old Religion. These are called the "cross-quarter days." Lamas, reduced in prior times to something called Second Planting, is, was or should be a holiday on par with Beltane (May Day), Samhain (Halloween) or Imbolc (Candlemas). So it is a time to celebrate; technically the cross quarter occurs in about four days, but with the Fool Moon blazing Aquairynaryian tonight, I say it's now.

Now, with Halloween, we know that the capitalist marketplace moves about six billion dollars worth of Snickers bars, but you can FEEL the energy... it's not just a bullshit marketing event... around the world, the Days of the Dead are celebrated in that week and the same rituals, candy included, have been practiced back to ancient Egypt.

Much the same is true of the current Cross Quarter, though it's a newer holiday, it is at 90 degrees to Beltane/Samhain: The energy is visceral, natural and potent. The main idea is victory... competition... sparring and sporting... abundance... it is High Summer, the midpoint of the season, the Sun in the Sun's own house (Leo in all systems, the one and only sign to be ruled by the same planet no matter who's or what's astrology you investigate.)

Next, we are currently experiencing a conjunction of Venus, Juno, Jupiter and the North Node in Cancer. The presence of these planets and the Node together is extraordinary: Juno and Jupiter, the Divine Consorts, together in the sign of the home and hearth; joined by Venus (a picture of a husband-wife-lover relationship of some kind); on the North Node, the threshold to the future. This aspect is exact, at about 6 degrees of Cancer, on the 5th... the same day as...

...the main event, which is the Saturn-Pluto opposition. I just can't quite write the dissertation on this (I have one half finished, but Saturn-Pluto manifested for me as a variety of unexpected events and I don't feel like working). But, however, to make a long story short, Saturn gets once around El Sol once every 29 years and Pluto gets around every 240 or something. And once every 35 years, they are in an exact opposition with the Earth betwixed and between. the Slowness of the planets involved, and the unique places that Saturn and Pluto have in their respective eras of astrology (both represent a fundamental limit for their day and age, as the "last known outer planet" of their times) face one another. There are predictions of all kinds going around, mostly negative, but I implore the astrological community and we as the people who experience its ideas, to hold a space open for your highest visions. This is a place where the ideal meets the practical; where the global meets the local; where the need for change meets the potential for change; where the structures we live with encounter the evolutionary force which can change them

You could translate Saturn opposite Pluto as "The immovable object meets the irresistible force." Whadayaget? CHANGE! STRESS! INTENSITY! POSSIBILITIES!When planets meet in an opposition aspect, they are at 180 degrees, just like the Sun and the Moon at the Fool Moon. When this happens, we get a full-on meeting of the energies; there is a face-to-face dialog. There are all kinds of predictions of negative dreck flying around the airwaves, and yet this need not be. With an opposition we get the potential for progress, for releasing old patterns, and for a situation in which the old (Saturn) meets the new (Pluto).

For the star-freaks in the audience, this is happening across 13 degrees of the mutable signs Gemini and Sagittarius, so it you're born with either of these degrees rising (give or take five deggrees) or have the Sun, the Moon, or other planets at these degree ranges of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces (which everyone born in the 1960s does, in the form of Chiron, Uranus and Pluto, along with a bunch of people born in the 70s who have Neptune there) you are really feeling this. People born in the mid-60s are now having their Pluto-square-Pluto aspect -- it would seem that the '65, '66, and '67 crowds, depending on your chart configuration, are in this wave. This is an intense personal turning point (covered to some extent in the Planet Waves 2000 writeup on Key Life Transits) and you are now getting or approaching the full charge of the power and focus of these processes, which you may be feeling by the compelling change and movement of your life.

The simplest way to state this is that the evolutionary process (Pluto) is clearing out the old, stuck, parental, culturally-engrained energy (or rather static forms) of Saturn. This is not necessarily comfortable; it does not necessarily feel safe; we may be terrified at certain prospects. We tend to overuse mental structure in our lives, which is difficult (though seemingly necessary) in our times of massive information overload and sweeping movement of the historical process. And we are dependend upon mental structures for a measure of security, since we have little else in the way of security: we take refuge in our beliefs. But now our beliefs are meeting the evolutionary necessity to change, and to meet the realities of the wider world, which is the work of Pluto in Sagittarius.

The result: the impossible is possible, long-stuck stuff budges, and there can be just wild times. Or, some people can freak out in fear, which is totally understandable though not exactly productive. There is a kind of polarization; the deadlock is seen, and then it is broken (this happens in a much smaller way with every Full Moon).

When was the last time Saturn opposite Pluto happened? Quick!

It was 1965-66! Now, it happened in the context of something else called the Uranus-Pluto cunjunction, which occurs less than once per century and is another blast of change with no coming back. So if you were born in these years you were born with these with the Saturn opposite Pluto aspect... you personify it to a greater or lesser degree... and Uranus conjunct Pluto... and you will embody this to some degree. These were years of fleeting change, of thought-structures decomposing, of LSD taking hold of American youth, artists and intelligentsia. They were the years of "Like a Rolling Stone" and the Beatles making the leap from Help! to Revolver. Listen to those albums and feel the change (Revolver is home of "Eleanor Rigby," "Tomorrow Never Knows" and other soul-benders.)

There are other reference points to 1960s astrology in these months -- the current conjunction of Pluto, Mars and Chiron is pretty loaded, comparable to the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1963-1969, which peaked in 1965 and '66). Yet the theme, due to the presence of these planets in Sagittarius, is THE WORLD: world conditions, the environment, and globalization.[see PW cover story, Global Warning]. What we are seeing here, with Saturn in Gemini opposing Pluto, is a peak of the Pluto in Sagittarius era that began in 1995 and stretches on for about eight more years. These have been unforgettable years: The comet, the grand cross total solar eclipse, the Taurus alignment and all the wild events that have come with them (see the Planet Waves archives for the blow-by-blow).

Because of the upcoming Saturn retrograde, which will appear to make Saturn move backwards for some months over the winter, this aspect perfects three times, Aug. 5, Nov. 2 and May 26 -- all with the Sun in fixed signs and this year, at Lamas and Samhain time. All during this time, it will be within an orb where its effects and process can be felt and seen. So it represents a stretch of time, a mini-era of its own, yet it is, this weekend, raging in true and blue with the Full Moon and Lamas at hand.

What else can I say? Take it light. Don't feed power struggles -- most will dissolve like smoke in a matter of days, even ones that seemed so critical today. And think of, and most of all, explore your possibilities. We tend to live in conceptual prisons of what we believe is possible, and our fears of what might happen. Usually the worst never comes to pass, and the best remains a mere possibility becasue we rarely attempt it. I have written some overly serious horoscopes for August and the current fortnight, designed to guide you through the lunacy -- but don't take them too seriously.

And if you get confused, listen to the music play.

Thanks for reading.... signing off for the evening, this is

-- e.f.

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