This is Part II of a series that will conclude tomorrow.  You can catch up on Part Ihere, and tune in tonight (Wednesday) at 7 pm to the Musings on Astrology radioshow where we will be discussing these important cycles. 

Where we are now

Art by Teka Luttrell. In 2010 a major alignment of planets in the cardinal signs of Capricorn, Cancer, Aries and Libra began to take shape.  Pluto in Capricorn, Saturn in Libra, and Jupiter and Uranus in Aries all  took their places in a drama that forced many of us to make changes in our personal lives in order to accommodate these global forces for healing and transformation.  These forces reached a peak during June’s eclipse in Cancer when the planets aligned in a Grand Cross of transformation and power.

Now that we are just one year away from the dreaded 2012, many are fearful of changes that might still occur.  “Haven’t we had enough change?” we may be asking.   And if everything in our personal lives is in balance, then we have had enough change.  THEN we are ready to take a break.  Until that point, the planetary gods work tirelessly to encourage personal and global transformation to bring balance into our earthly lives.

During the summer of 2011 Uranus in Aries will be within one degree of an exact square to Pluto in Capricorn.    The combination of Uranus and Pluto is a particularly potent one that breaks down old structures and ways of being (Pluto) so that something new and fresh and completely authentic can replace it (Uranus).  This is not always an easy process.  Those of us who remember the 1960s (when Uranus and Pluto conjoined in Virgo) will remember the thrill of radical and revolutionary new lifestyles that broke down the stuffy (Virgo) morality of the period.  This was a time of great liberation around the world: Black Power, Women’s Liberation, the domino of independent states across Africa as colonialism fell- but there was also a great Plutonic cost in terms of human lives that were lost  as the old order was broken down (Pluto) in order for change (Uranus) to take place.

The upcoming square of Uranus to Pluto will actually begin in the summer of 2012, and the two will dance an incredible seven times before concluding in March of 2015.  The turbulence that we see now sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning of this wave of Uranus/Pluto energy that seeks to sweep away the old and rotting corpse of a way of life that no longer works for humans at this stage of their psychic and spiritual development.  This same dynamic will be at work in our personal lives, revealing any pocket of experience that is no longer serving us and which needs to be removed from our lives.   This will understandably create a certain amount of chaos on an intimately individual level.

The changes of the next few years will most personally affect those of us with planets between 5 and 15 degrees of the cardinal signs (Cancer, Capricorn, Aries and Libra), and most especially those with Uranus and Pluto in these signs, including:

• Those born between 1919 and 1928 with Pluto in Cancer
• Those born between 1929 and 1932 with Uranus in Aries
• Those born between 1951 and 1953 with Uranus in Cancer
• Those born between 1969 and 1972 with Uranus in Libra
• Those born between 1974 and 1978 with Pluto in Libra
• Those born between 1989 and 1992 with Uranus in Capricorn

With Pluto in Capricorn, the very foundation of our material world will be challenged by the Uranian influence.  Our finances, our retirement plans, our marriages – any of these structures that we build to contain our lives could be threatened if they are not built on solid footings.  The effect of Uranus can be very stressful for the nervous system since Uranus operates on an electrical platform that can excite and thrill us, but also inspire anxiety and distress.   It is crucial to remember during this period that if any aspect of our personal lives break down under these influence, it is because they are no longer serving their purpose and require transformation in order for all involved to move forward in their personal evolution.