Startling, Gripping, Mind-Altering Predictions for 2011

The end of another year. The completion of another decade. Who could be sad to see either disappear from whence they came, back into The Void? 2011 is our preparatory inculcation, setting the stage for 2012’s Grand Cross — a cosmic symbol of High Noon for the human spirit slogging away in mediocrity and burnt-out systems. Consider 2011’s positions and shifts.

Here are the particulars of the curriculum: Saturn remains exalted in Libra, the tough love dispenser — firming the virtues of fairness, calmness and equanimity. Moderation becomes holy. The Buddhists know all about this with their ‘middle path’ teaching. Try it, you’ll like it. But be prepared to work hard; abiding on the fulcrum isn’t going to be easy. See below.

Neptune finally exits (for a spell) his fog-churning glide through Aquarius to switch on the lights in the Piscean human kindness pool. Think of how beautiful illuminated water appears in the evening; quite lovely. This is how Neptune’s transit through his own sign can feel for the soul.

And praise Allah (or is it Oprah?): Jupiter hops into Aries, empowering closet individualists to finally step up to the plate and knock one (or two) out of the ballpark. Yes, finally, some fierce fire in the sky! A quadruple combustion too, as Uranus joins Jupiter in Aries as well. The pressure of all that vigorous dreaming and imagining — during the last year, while both planets were conjunct in Pisces — will finally break free and ignite a bang of accelerated evolution within the arts and sciences. Talk about a stimulation package. What’s it going to all look like? Jesus, I don’t know — with Uranus in the mix your guess is as good as mine.

Pluto continues his slow, corrosive grind through Capricorn. Which defines the low, low notes of Time’s orchestrated dance. When people ask me about this transit I couch my answer in fashion terms: “Think of it this way: Death is the new black.” Pluto through Capricorn is akin to pulling what looks to be a single, insignificant thread from the hem of your garment, only to discover that the more you tug, the more the entire weave unravels — falling into a heap at your feet. Suddenly your naked.

Of course no one likes to be stripped, and this explains, just as Michael Lutin predicted it would, why the established Powers That Be went into an anal clench so tight that economies shook worldwide; pushed to a tipping point as everyone, who was anyone — that could — lunged for the last bits of the near-worthless ‘pie’ that remained. The most devious and manipulative folks got the biggest chunks of course. While those of us who were too numbed out from watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and tweeting our fragile sense of self (“Is anyone there? Do I exist?”) out into the cyber vapors, didn’t have time to bother thinking about what was happening (rape being such a difficult topic to contemplate). The rest of us– many of us — were busy poking around the shambles with a stick, looking for a job. And short of moving to China, weren’t finding much.

Disclaimer for newbies: Astrology isn’t to ‘blame’ for things happening the way they happen. The notion of cosmic rays influencing life on earth died when David Bowie finished his Ziggy Stardust tour. Think about it: Do you blame your wall clock for the various challenges, burps and surprises in your life? The concept and system of astrology, like the idea and function of a clock, allows us to see and track the process of Universal Transformation: How the dynamic unfolding of time is, well, unfolding. Back to your wall clock: “Oh, it’s 2P.M., I better shower and get dressed. I need to catch a bus in fifteen minutes.” Astrology’s clock: “Oh, Pluto moved into Capricorn so it’s time for the reality matrix that we call consensus reality to begin disintegrating and reconstructing into a more optimized system.”

The literal harbinger of what 2011 holds in store for us is Mr. Julian Assange, a Libra rising gentleman with Uranus conjunct his ascendant. The impact of his presence (and the WikiLeaks organization in general) symbolizes a kind of potion that’s been cooked-up by a shaman who lives in a remote part of Australia that only the most intrepid explorers have discovered. It so happens that this shaman has been carefully studying the way the world has been careening, and has made a gift for us. Something right out of the old Prometheus myth. Bringing the light of facts (that secrets conceal) into the collective field of awareness. For a world that’s feeling darkened, addled and bankrupt; suffocating in the smell of the Old World Order decay, this will be a potent corrective or curative. And astrologically this corresponds to Uranus’ ingress into Aries.

Remember the old Certs breath mint commercials: “Two, two mints in one!” That’s what Uranus (surprises, shocks, and seismic shifts) and Aries (surprises, shocks and head-butting resistance) combined portends. The Arian archetype offers so much more than we can imagine because the sign represents everything that hasn’t been imagined yet. Too, wherever Uranus transits, the gifts and glitches of that given sign accelerate to a fever pitch. So don’t even try to invision the creative ruckus this transit promises. Just get into the spirit of disruption and you’ll be in the right groove. Thinking about it will only fuck you up.

Original ideas never come from the head, they arrive in our gut. The head offers old, stored-up knowledge that gets regurgitated over and over again. But we galvanize new visions from our gut. Aries feels something down there and then she fucking moves. She doesn’t push the impulse through her head or heart center, to judge it or see it she values it or not.

Note to yourself: Find lots of Aries people to hang out with this year because they’re the ones that will have taken the first taste of this telling-it-like-it-is shaman juju. Study them, become inspired, let their courage become infectious. They’ll be squirming and turning and then explode forward with just the right stroke of genius that can facilitate what to do with the big mess we’re wallowing in. Some may even be twittering about it.

Speaking of which: Neptune moving through Aquarius has corresponded with a creepy fuzz-out of the clear, chilly objectivity that the Aquarian lens can usually focus on any situation. This has been an odd marriage of air and water, always an alchemical challenge: A disorienting mist is created, a fog we get lost in. Think of it as all the time you wasted wandering aimlessly through the tubes of the internet.

The Neptune Aquarius nexus exposed the lie that we each have a separate existence that is distinct and particular from other life forms. Oddly, for many of us, this realization was revealed in the relationship with our computers. The more seemingly ‘connected’ we were, the more Facebook friends we had, strangely, the more ‘alone’ we felt. For those who pursued this situation, and challenged the notion, there was an opportunity to see the opposite: Namely, that we are all connected ontologically — not just technologically.

So Neptune moves out of Aquarius for four months next year, and we get to really feel what it’s like to be connected. To live from a visceral sense of Oneness. People committed to spiritual paths will either pop in 2011 or cave — and go over the edge of delusion — always a danger when spirituality isn’t grounded in experience and understanding. The loss of ego identity can have adverse effects on one’s ability to function and participate in the world. As I explain to potential clients: You’ve got to have a firm, grounded sense of self in place before you can begin the process of dismantling it. This is why Gurdjieff worked the way he did with his students, establishing them in presence by having them do near-impossible tasks that conjured every bit of their self-awareness into one unified effort. He didn’t give a shit about having twenty holes dug in the backyard or walking twelve miles in the snow before having a meal — but he did want individuals to have a palpable sense of their Self, their Self as presence. Then he could begin work with them. He often warned that his Work was not for ‘tramps and lunatics.’ Neptune through Pisces underscores this warning. You read it here first.

In closing (and I’m sorry if these haven’t been the startling, gripping, mind-altering’ predictions you expected them to be) keep your mind and heart aligned with the Rumi poem that opened this ramble. As Pluto continues his twenty-year deconstruction of our reality matrix, we really are living through the loss of one world, while another congeals and commences. None of us are here by accident (well, maybe Richard Dawkins is). Souls are born at moments within the great body of Time because they have within them the seed elements to meet and mirror that body of Time’s unique expressions and manifestations.

The Uranus transit through Aries will spark a flame that feels contagious. You’ll see it in everyone’s eyes. Something dormant, now awakened. In true Aries fashion we’ll want to do something about it. So, make art. Discover beauty. Reunite with romance. Sense, smell and taste what the word charisma is all about. It’s true, during the last several years many of us have felt humbled, dreary and weary. But that sort of muffled orientation served a purpose — was a cocoon of sorts, an incubation. Now we’re squirming free, ready to announce. To pounce. Go ahead: Jump!

A happy and blessed 2011 to each of you!