The Winds of Change

Using astrology, you can in a sense see your whole life mapped out before you. You know that when you are 34, Pluto will square your Sun, and then conjoin your Moon when you are 42 and so on (using myself as an example!) Of course you don’t know specifically what these transits will mean, or you’d be pre-empting and forestalling necessary changes to yourself. And the universe has a way of not letting us see these things, obvious as they may be with hindsight.

So it’s as if these future changes are already present, as if they have already happened, and they are sitting there waiting for us. It’s a fascinating thought. Look at it this way: if the future hadn’t in some sense already happened, how could we predict it, how could we be so certain about it? Because as astrologers we CAN be certain about the timing, and to some extent the nature, of future changes.

So time is not what it seems. The past, present and future exist equally. They are all composed of real events which our minds place in a certain order that facilitates life as we know it and the process of learning and growth. As I wrote the other day, it is well-known neurologically just how profoundly interpreted and artificially constructed by our brains is the experience that comes in through the senses. Time, space, ‘thingness’, subject and object – all these basic ‘facts’ of our experience are neurological bodge jobs that work.

So it’s no wonder that the human mind can’t help thinking in terms of fate and destiny. Because somewhere we know that time is artificial and that the future is already written. Of course, we then want to literalise and concretise it, but it doesn’t work like that. The future is writ, but we also have the ability to make choices, and that’s a paradox that can’t be understood without a shift in consciousness.

So there is a sense in which the future, which already exists and has substance, draws us towards it. As astrologers, we can feel this. We can currently see the planets Uranus and Pluto gradually moving towards an exact square. So far, they have come within 8 degrees of the square, and will not be exact until 2012. But they are close enough to be operative. And we also see Pluto just beginning his time in Capricorn.

So we know that the economic shock waves that have been passing through the world lately are not temporary. They could be temporary under another astrological signature, and the stock markets are behaving as though the worst is over, but we know the ‘worst’ has yet to come.

It’s as if the Uranus-Pluto square of 2012 is pulling us towards it, and I do not think that is simply a metaphor. There is a new world somewhere out there in the near-future, and we are unavoidably being pulled towards it, and through the storms along the way. This is something we can also feel and sense, and it’s as if the astrology helps us trust and give weight to what we are sensing anyway.

The change will be political as well as economic, for Capricorn is a sign of government. And, as is well-known, the Uranus-Pluto square will be impacting the Sun – leadership – of many of the major powers.

In the UK, the Labour Party has been taking an electoral hammering over the last few weeks, firstly in the local council elections, and then 3 days ago in a by-election for Parliament, in a normally ‘safe’ seat for Labour. There is nothing Labour can do. They have been in government for 11 years, and technically they could continue for many years. But seeing Uranus-Pluto on the horizon, we know that sweeping political change is on its way, and Labour is now the old guard. Everyone is blaming Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, but it is not personal: we are seeing the first winds of a much bigger change.

It is the same in the USA. With an astrological perspective, it has been fairly clear all along that it is Barack Obama who will win the Presidential election, because he represents the new, whereas Hillary and McCain represent the old. I think it’s that simple. Obama is not there yet, and there are still defining battles to be fought, but all the same he is the future towards which America is being pulled, for better AND for worse, by the exact Uranus-Pluto square of 2012.

China is also beginning to show herself strongly on the world stage, while hoovering up the world’s resources in the process. This beginning is just a sign of what is to come. The rise of China is arguably the biggest single factor in the coming changes.

So all these winds are starting to blow. Yes, the credit crunch could just prove to be a blip, Obama might just be a flash in the pan and McCain will win, and China might over-reach herself and go into recession. But the astrology is saying no, these are the first winds of change, and in 4 years time we will be entering a very different world. Uranus square Pluto is very powerful, and it is already reaching out to us from the future, drawing us towards that new world.