Have you noticed that every time you think the culture wars couldn’t possibly get any wackier, they get wackier?
Saturn, the planet that is supposed to keep us sane and grounded, is under stress. For the past two years it has been slapped around by Uranus and Pluto, and it’s now opposed by Jupiter (exact on May 22nd and Aug 16th, 2010, and on March 28th, 2011). Jupiter represents our beliefs, and Saturn is our reality structures. The battle between them is particularly obvious in the USA, whose group soul is entering its Saturn Return (described in Soul-Sick Nation, chapter 12).
The WikiLeaks story hit the headlines under one of the most powerful Full Moons of the year, July 25th (see second lecture in the 2012 series box, at right). Mars, the planet of war, was conjunct Saturn, a combination associated with the army. Saturn was within hours of making its last exact opposition to Uranus — a contest that had been going on for two years.
Sometimes feeling overwhelmed is a good sign. Under skies like these, to feel overwhelmed means we’re not shut down. Personally and globally, late July and early August should raise urgent questions in all of us. The Full Moon on 7/25th and the New Moon on August 9th (see the lecture series announcement in the right-hand column) are bookends to an explosive two weeks.
I know I’m not alone in feeling perversely gratified that oil has made its way to the white sands of Florida. Certainly I wish no ill to the local tourist industry, any more than I wish more suffering to befall the fishermen in Louisiana (who, screwed and angry, are calling the compensatory pittance BP has offered them “shut-up money.”)
A decade ago when the millennium was freshly hatched, Pluto (dirty secrets) was on the Ascendant of the USA chart, opposite Saturn in Gemini (official stories). A major threshold for the country and the world, that period was when the worms started crawling out of the can. Information about the Enron scandal trickled out from the nooks and crannies of the world of finance into the headlines. Bush & Co’s many lies oozed out of their hiding places.
If you tried to invent something to symbolize the 
On April 6th, Pluto will station at 5 Capricorn (monetary systems), exactly opposite the US Jupiter. This should be a pivot point in Americans’ understanding of their depression-a.k.a-recession. But Pluto is still being squared by 
We are in a rare window of opportunity right now, and it’s available to anyone with an imagination.
