Here’s an astrological view of the coming months and years from astrologer Shelley Ackerman, excerpted from an article about Pluto’s busy travels through our universe’s “Galactic Center.” This makes interesting reading even if you don’t give a flip about astrology. (I happen to feel it’s important to remain a clear channel, receptive to all information.) Ackerman writes:

Clearly, a significant pattern involving the Galactic Center is at play. When planets station retrograde and direct during a relatively short period of time, at the same degrees over and over again, there is some sort of a message implied…

The activity leading up to Pluto’s visit at the Galactic Center has corresponded to an extremely dramatic and, some say, ‘dire’ time in human history. There has been incomprehensible attacks on New York and Washington, a devastating tsunami, three hurricanes which have destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and a couple of million lives, a horrible war that most say can’t be won…and growing apprehension about the reality of global warming and the very survival of our planet…

But there has been a lot of good that has happened too. The “human potential” or self-help movement has provided opportunities for growth as never before. There is a new understanding and an appreciation of what it means to operate from a place of authenticity. The Internet has made it possible for people to connect from all over the world in an instant.

As we anticipate Pluto’s ingress into Capricorn in January 2008, and are reminded of the time 250 years ago that led to the American Revolution, we are also aware of the upcoming Jupiter-Pluto conjunction on Dec. 11, 2007 at 28 Sagittarius 24 preceding said ingress…Adding to the celestial drama is Mars in Gemini retrograde and opposing those critical degrees opposite the GC (Mars stations retrograde in mid November at 12 Cancer, close to the US Sun), so one can’t help but be concerned about the potentially militant/confrontational expression of the conjunction. Mars-Pluto oppositions on a good day are fierce, and Jupiter in the mix expands it all that much more.

Mars was retrograde at similar degrees in late 1928-early 1929 and in late 1943-early 1944. Both were tumultuous times. It would be naive to expect an uneventfully smooth ride.

But without getting Pollyanna-ish or sounding outrageously wacky about it, here’s a thought: If we can imagine the Galactic Center as having some profound intelligence to offer and the planets urging this intelligence to come forth, might we here on Earth be well advised to take a humble and receptive stance to what might come next? Perhaps a surprise is in store (Uranus squares the GC in 2009) not a horrible attack, or catastrophic weather, but something that forces cooperation between nations — or else… It was Albert Einstein who asked if the Universe was, when all is said and done, benevolent. I have always believed that it was and is, and that it is humanity itself that is in question. Perhaps this sequence of Pluto at the Galactic Center will provide an opportunity for us to get to know ourselves somewhat better, and to see what — if anything — we have learned in the past 250 years.