STARFIRE

July 2010

July 2010- Taking Stock on America’s Birthday Click on the image for a larger view. NOTE: Image will come up in a new browser window.

Taking Stock on America's Birthday

The Fourth of July 2010 is a day of small surprises. Uranus will be in a critical degree of Aries all day, so be prepared for changes of plans at the last minute. Around noon MDT, the Moon will be in another critical degree of Aries; the Moon and Uranus will both be touching Jupiter’s orb at that time, so surprises could include lots of laughter or emotional tizzies over trivia.

Timing matters because the Moon moves a degree every two hours and the critical point is only one full degree. But timing also tells us where to expect the surprises. In the chart that’s posted with this column, I’ve set the time for noon MST and placed the party in Albuquerque, NM. In Albuquerque, the issue might be guests who didn’t arrive on time or party crashers. In another city, it might be an injured guest or in yet another place, a tired child bursting into tears.

What we can trust in a chart where time and place don’t know or, like this one, vary from person to person and place to place, is the placements of all the planets except the Moon. For all but the most precise work (such the beginning of a horse race or timing a stock market purchase), it’s safe to assume no other planet will move more than a degree in a day.

The most interesting aspect this summer might be Jupiter in Aries squaring Pluto in Capricorn. We see that aspect in the current tragic oil spills in the Gulf. On one hand, the power of a multinational corporation is challenging the livelihood (thriving) of individuals and small businesses. On the other hand, those same small businesses need the survival of the multinational business for their long-term livelihood.

Jupiter rules expansion, including the wisdom that comes from understanding new experiences. Interestingly enough, the Pluto has been linked with Minerva, the goddess of wisdom The difference is that Jupiter teaches through expanding our knowledge and information base. Pluto teaches through massive changes that defeat old paradigms and force us to create new ones.

The good news is that any aspect between Jupiter and Pluto expands our ability to grasp the unfathomable and incorporate it into our understanding and our individual belief systems and maps of the world. People who have been shipwrecked by the economy and people awash in the gulf all have the opportunity now to assimilate change and move forward.

The conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto doesn’t make change easy or simple. It does make lasting change possible. Change takes time, and the last six months of 2010 are profitable times for taking stock of our long-term goals and plans.

Uranus and Jupiter are temporarily in Aries, providing a small flurry of ideas for individual changes. At the moment, you may think the rest of the year will be so busy you won’t have a chance to breathe deeply and meditate on the changes in your world. Uranus returns to Pisces August 13th and Jupiter returns to Pisces September 8th. Neither will return to Aries until 2010. Saturn will finish whatever clean-up on the economic it’s going to do in Virgo by July 31st and move back into Libra.

Saturn in Libra may terminate some partnerships or focus (and narrow) the client base for small businesses. In the long run, though, Saturn makes changes that have value, and it’s well placed in Libra.

Many of the ideas emerging now will have to be developed quietly for the rest of the year or tested in small ways. There’s real promise for economic improvement in 2011 and for opportunities to implement both personal and professional ideas. But that’s not 2010.

In 2010, time is better spent coming to terms with the lasting changes from the economy or, depending on where you live and work, on tragedies like the Gulf or natural disasters.

Screenwriter and writing coach [Steve Barnes] http://www.diamondhour.com/index.html introduced me to the idea of the gap for character development. Barnes recommends listening for the gap between what a person says and what’s happening. This year, with Jupiter squaring Pluto in a world rocked by overwhelming changes, it’s a good thing to look squarely at the gap between expectations and facts. In that gap, you’ll find opportunities. Uranus will settle into Aries early in 2011 to provide approximately seven years of opportunities for individual initiative and corporate and technical creativity.

The first step toward new ideas is taking stock, followed by accepting the integrating the present moment. If you do the work, the opportunities to use what you’ve learned about yourself and the world will appear in 2011. Those who haven’t taken stock and identified new, tenable projects, may be left behind, as many were after the Great Depression.

Mary O’Gara, Ph.D.