The Solstice Cross

To say that the Full Moon this month packs a punch is something of an understatement.

Full Moons always bring to a head whatever’s been building, both in our own little internal worlds and in the big, wide, external world. But this particular Full Moon, on June 26 at 4:31 am PDT, is an eclipse (1),  which adds potency to whatever is culminating. More significant still, the Moon and Sun will be joined by five other planets, including the T-square among Uranus, Saturn and Pluto that has been leading us into the 2012 years. It is not merely a Full Moon but a Grand Cross. Though not all are in Cardinal signs yet—Uranus and Saturn have retrograded back into mutable signs—this eclipse will be our introduction to what astrologer Jeff Jawer has termed the Cardinal Climax. In the popular mind this period has centered around the mythic year 2012.

What does it mean? On perhaps the most obvious level, it means that our doddering old social structures (Saturn) are up against two of the most powerful planets in the sky: Uranus and Pluto; and that the obsolete remnants of the old paradigm are rotting away.

Saturn vs. Jupiter

It’s not that Saturn will be vanquished. We need its form and cohesion; this is the planet that glues individuals and societies together. But clearly its old expressions must be removed in order to get the new era underway.

Our job is to let this happen. How do we do this? Simply by being conscious that it must happen. The mysterious purposes of Uranus (The Great Awakener) and Pluto (The Transformer) are vaster and more sublime than the human ego. These evolutionary forces will, with increasing intensity over the next several years, expose the corrupt structures of the pre-millennial world. To build a healthy postmillennial world, we’ll need to harness Saturn’s energies effectively to erect replacement structures.

Such as laws (Saturn in Libra) to regulate the flailing financial industry.

In the chart of the USA Jupiter (expansion) is conjunct the Sun but square (in conflict with) Saturn (contraction, discipline); which reflects a childlike assumption that what goes up need not come down (2). Thus our national belief that big is better, and more is merrier. At this point in American history, that misguided Jupiter-Sun conjunction has devolved into a greed-is-good mentality.

The Goldman Sachs executives now squirming under the spotlight personify the USA’s unbridled Jupiter, which is crying out to be reined in. A healthy dose of Saturn is desperately needed right now. The campaign to regulate the lending industry is an example of using restrictive energy for constructive ends.

But there is tremendous tension between the planets in a Grand Cross, as illustrated by this sorry reality: despite the obvious need for financial reform, Wall Street calls the tune in Congress through entrenched economic and political power networks (Pluto). The struggles in Washington and around the world between the energies of the old and the new (Saturn opposed to Uranus), between power and authority (Pluto square Saturn), and between ordinary people and entrenched cartels (Uranus and Pluto) will create much drama during the years ahead.

US Saturn Return

It seems odd, at first blush, that there is relatively little outrage among struggling working stiffs in the USA about the lopsided distribution of the country’s wealth. But it isn’t so odd when we consider the Sun conjunction in America’s chart. That Jupiter-gone-wrong not only creates grotesque affluence; it creates the craving for grotesque affluence in those who are unlikely to ever achieve it.

I am thinking of the GOP-voting working poor, who see themselves as foes of curbing corporations, and who see the idea of taxing billionaires as being somehow a threat to their own freedom. In what seems to be an economic version of Stockholm syndrome, this segment of the population, though impoverished themselves, harbors a clear disdain for poverty. I don’t know if all of the Tea Party folks are wannabe plutocrats (it’s hard to tell, amidst the welter of confused philosophical principles that underlie Tea-Party-dom); but it is clear that most of them heartily dis-identify with the poor and disenfranchised. As regards the inherent unfairness of America’s outrageous income disparities, the attitude seems to be “I don’t care if it’s fair or not; I just want my shot at making big bucks.“

For Americans a big subplot of the Cardinal Cross period is the US Saturn Return, which will peak in 2011. As anyone over 30 knows, the Saturn Return is a transit of maturity. This one will put great pressure on the country’s natal square between Saturn (lack) and Jupiter-Sun (plenty), one manifestation of which is an economy reeling between bubbles and busts.

Transiting Saturn will force a hard look at the battle in the national psyche between expansion and contraction. We can see this in the budget cuts that are tearing states like California apart. Reeling from financial crises brought on by the refusal to implement common sense options (such as taxing Big Oil for drilling offshore, or reinstating the vehicle license fee that Schwarzenegger repealed as an election ploy), California, like many other states, is instead decimating lifesaving services for its neediest citizens.

A truly mature use of Saturn would never promote such draconian measures; not because of ethical considerations (that’s Jupiter arena) but because of dollars- and-cents pragmatism. If the policymakers who are cutting home care to almost half a million elderly, sick and disabled Californians were accessing Saturnine wisdom—that is, if they were really serious about saving money—they would factor in the reality that by removing critical support from these citizens they are guaranteeing an overload in emergency rooms and hospitals that will end up costing far more than home care.

Collective Illness

The system is broken, and not just because of lack of money. Monstrous sums of wasted wealth are being flaunted right now in California, even as funds for the poor are slashed: the two leading Republican candidates in the gubernatorial campaign are busy spending a total of $90 million and counting. The contrasts on display here are like those of a dark parody.

What is being revealed is a systemic breakdown of a collective that has grown so out of touch with reality that if it were a person it would be diagnosed as mentally ill. The strange acceptance of our plutocratic system even by those most at a disadvantaged by it, and the rash and ill-thought-out (Uranus) cuts (negative Saturn) by politicians interested in quick fixes, are two examples of a national Jupiter stuck in arrested development.

June’s Grand Cross will be a jolt of clarity for all who have eyes to see it. We are heading into a period during which Americans will have to endure the same painful self-scrutiny (Saturn) of our national values (Libra) that individuals in their late twenties—and again, in their late fifties—have to face, once Natural Law tells them it’s time to grow up.

Notes:

(1) I discuss this lunation in detail, along with other milestone transits of the years surrounding 2012, in an ongoing lecture series available on my website.

(2) See Soul-Sick Nation, chapter 6.

Jessica Murray

Jessica Murray trained as a fine artist before graduating in 1973 from Brown University, where she studied psychology and linguistics. After a stint in political theatre in the heady early ’70s, Jessica moved to San Francisco and began studying metaphysics, where she has had a full-time private practice in astrology for more than 30 years. Her book, Soul-Sick Nation: An Astrologer’s View of America, is available through her website, mothersky.com.
In addition to her column in Daykeeper Journal and the monthly Skywatch on her website, Jessica’s essays appear in “The Mountain Astrologer,” “P.S. Magazine” and other publications. Jessica can be reached by email.