I said when I started this blog that I’d be open to all kinds of explorations of the transition times we’re living in.  Recently, after a long period of just reading his open-source work, I subscribed to the astrology reports produced by Eric Francis.  I am wondering: could it be that the motions of the planets have a real impact on how we think, feel and act here on Earth?

Francis just produced a terrific reading of the history of American protest movements since the Sixties, grounded in his knowledge of astrology and inspired by his visit to the Occupy Wall Street protest last weekend.

Apparently we have just returned to a period of astrological alignment of Uranus and Pluto.  Francis writes: “the most passionate and sustained uprisings are reasonably predictable: they tend to happen when Uranus and Pluto come into alignment. When the planet of revolution (Uranus) and the one about evolution (Pluto) get together, there is always an international revolt. The alignments spread out over 10 to 12 years, and we are still toward the beginning of this one.  The last time these two planets got together was between 1960 and 1972.”

Francis describes the “vibe” at Liberty Plaza Park as quite different from the militancy of the 1960s.  “The feeling was nothing but friendly. There was not the fist-in-the-air sensation that Sixties demonstrations are remembered with.…The vibe was open but also introspective. People were expressing concern and anger about the economic situation and there was a clear sense of understanding that Wall Street holds a lot of the responsibility for that — but no sense of rage being projected onto anyone. My sense from many things I’ve read and heard is that among this generation of activists, there’s the awareness that we need to change ourselves and change the world in the same gesture.”

So true—because there is only a difference of degree between the protesters’ privilege and that of the corporate and financial leaders they’re criticizing.  All of us Americans have benefited hugely from the corporate globalization of “free trade” and the easy accessibility of credit.  The problem is that now the chickens have come home to roost, and the same havoc that we–as a nation and as a leading member of the global elite–wreaked so thoughtlessly on the rest of the world is now coming back to haunt us.

When I listened to the news this morning and heard of the extreme hardship being forced down the throats of ordinary Greeks in the name of “fiscal austerity,” I remember the same scenario going down in Mexico and Argentina and so many other nations, as we continued to party here in the U.S.  Well, the party is over here too, at least for the 99% of us, and it’s not fun at all.

 But, as Eric Francis notes, there is a lot of potential in this moment of crisis.  “As you think about what this aspect represents,” he counsels,  “remember that the personal awakening process of Uranus in Aries is about to meet up with the changes in society represented by Pluto in Capricorn. There is potential for wide-scale cultural change, but it starts from the inside-out. That approach, if we follow it, will help us avoid many of the really huge mistakes that were made during the protests of the Sixties.

“Uranus in Aries also connects people to groups, but from the perspective of being an individual. Pluto in Capricorn turns over the soil of society’s institutions, bringing out their frailty and their fertility. It will be exciting to see what happens as this aspect builds to its first peak in June 2012 and then develops for the next three years.”

“Exciting” might not be the word most of us would choose for the crazy lurching of our society, both national and global, towards the tipping point forecast long ago to arrive in 2012.  It’s exciting the way a roller-coaster ride is exciting, and I have never in my life allowed myself to experience that thrill.

But maybe part of what is being asked of us now is that we let go of our fears and inhibitions, and allow ourselves to try something new—something other than what has been expected of us as we grew up and docilely took our place in the structures that had been established for us by previous generations.

It’s pretty plain to see that those structures have outlived their functionality, and were never good for this planet to begin with.

It’s the transition time, folks.  What are we going to become?