Distant Thunder

There is no question that right now, it’s a crazy, mixed-up world. Every day, the so-called “reality” throws us another curveball. Most of us are surviving. Some of us thrive. Some are feeling under siege from too many directions. Trust me, I get it.

So, how are we going to get through it? And how do we work with the news that things will most likely worsen? Please don’t shoot me. Call me Hermes. I am just the messenger. 

We must first understand, whether we think we deserve it or not, that we, as a planetary collective, have created the causes of the crises we are now experiencing. We have been making these militarized socioeconomic distortions as far back as anyone can remember. As a species, we learn and grow through direct emotional experience. That is precisely what we’re having right now.

I work with it facilitated by the technology of astrology. It is an inconvenient truth that too many people think that astrology is pseudoscience. Astrology works. The planets and stars tell a story of the past and the future. More importantly, they tell the story of the present. This moment. Now. Isn’t that all there is? 

Everything moves in cycles, from the traffic lights on the street corner to your daily metabolic processes to the intricately woven patterns of the heavens above us. These are all essential cycles that we need to navigate what we call reality. It could be the shadow cast by reality. It could be all a dream, and we are the dreamers. Are we so wasted in the dream that we don’t know we are dreaming? 

The Constellations, the luminaries, and the planets weave an intricate coded message in celestial braille.  The messages can only be read by those sensitive enough and who are trained to read them. At one time in the distant past, everyone could read it.

As a nation, the United States is witnessing the most intense political divisiveness since the Civil War. The world beyond our borders is also erupting, heating up to levels not seen in recent history.  

The transiting Libra lunar south node is applying to a waning, last quarter square to the US Sun in Cancer. The Aries lunar north node separates from a 1^st quarter square to the US Sun. The lunar south node from the past holds us in its grip of past emotional behavior resulting from ancestral patterning and prenatal and early childhood experiences. The lunar north node holds the promise of the future but only a whispered promise. The decider is what we think, say, and do each moment. 

The lunar nodes are the evolutionary pathway between the past and the future. The natal Sun correlates to the country’s leader in mundane astrology, the astrology of nations. The Moon relates to the welfare of the general public and the people at large.

“The transiting lunar nodes square a natal planet correlates to a crossroad wherein the choices made then correlate with its evolutionary path leading to its future in some way.—Jeffrey Wolf Green”

Transiting Neptune in Pisces separates from a waning full phase opposition to US Neptune. They have been in the orb since 2016 and will remain in orb until 2026. They perfected to the opposition three times in 2020 and 2021. Neptune correlates to the country’s zeitgeist. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines zeitgeist as “the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time.” 

We have observed and lived through the turmoil and political debate. It is not a coincidence that this transit coincided with the presidency of Donald Trump, the emergence of QAnon, the concretion of the ultra-right wing, the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, and the extreme political polarization we are currently suffering. Not to mention COVID-19, which is still actively self-mutating. 

Right now, the lunar south node is partile conjunct the US Moon. On May 14, 2024, the lunar nodes will station direct, partile (exact) to the US Moon. The default direction of the lunar nodes is retrograde.  When the nodes station direct, it has the same effect as a planet stationing retrograde.

The Moon in Cancer is the ruler of the 10^th House of the US Chart. The 10^th House also correlates to the country’s leader. We can easily see the pressures on the US Presidency and the stresses and anxieties that permeate the general population.

Uranus is currently moving through the last degrees of Taurus and will enter the sign of Gemini. The United States is approaching its Uranus Return, the astrological moment when Uranus returns to the same zodiacal point it was when the country was born. 

In the current transit, the Uranus return will perfect three times:

• July 28, 2026
• October 25, 2026, in its retrograde cycle
• May 12, 2027

Uranus has an 84-year cycle. The last two conjunctions occurred twice in 1859 and again in 1860, leading up to the Civil War, and once in 1943 and twice in 1944, during the most challenging years of World War II. This is the inconvenient truth that the United States has been at war at each Uranus in Gemini transit.

“BRUSSELS, Jan 17 (Reuters) —A top NATO military official called on public and private actors in the West on Wednesday to prepare for an era in which anything could happen at any time, including fighting a war. ‘We need a warfighting transformation of NATO,” the chief of the alliance’s Military Committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, said as he opened a two-day meeting of national defense chiefs in Brussels.’”

Uranus is about “coming of age.” There are three 28-year Saturn cycles in each 84-year Uranus cycle. This planetary pair initiates and maintains the self-actualizing process, the continual unfolding of “becoming” who we are, and the accompanying maturation process that teaches us skills, mastery, and responsibility as we age. Uranus is the planet that rules Aquarius. Beginning in November, Pluto will be in Aquarius for 20 years. 

The War for Independence brought selfhood as a country. The nation was still divided into separate states, politically and economically. The end of the Civil War fused North and South and established the United States for the first time. The Second World War established the United States as a world leader.

The United States is again experiencing a growth spurt, though it is still nascent. As Pluto progresses through Aquarius over the next two decades, the United States of America will again morph into a new international economic and political entity. It is too soon to guess what shape and form the new union will take, but I sense it will be an “upgrade” intellectually, morally, philosophically, and economically. That is the progressive nature of the archetype of Aquarius. The archetype can also be regressive, so we will see a period of regression as a portion of the population works to make things go back “to the way they were.” The details are still working themselves out. But I know that our children and their children will build the New Earth. Some of us might not see it in our lifetime, but I have faith we will see it in the next.

• 1 The US chart is cast for the day the American Revolution began, July 6, 1775. On that day, the Second Continental Congress passed an act to “bear arms” against England. The day before, an act was passed to create a standing army and named George Washington the commander-in-chief. When colonies pass an act to “bear arms” against their mother country, they cease to be a colony and become a sovereign nation.
•  ^{2 JWG Association of Evolutionary Astrologers message board}
• 3 https://www.oed.com/searcu/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=zeitgeist
• 4 https://www.reuters.com /world.europe/nato-needs-warfighting-tranformation-top-military-official