Astrology of Now: The Future Is Not What It Used To Be

So it's been seven years – May 2003 to be exact. What a lot has changed since Uranus, the planet of future forward, went into the final sign of the Zodiac, Pisces.

Courreges, 1960s. Well, that was
when we thought the future was shiny.
Uranus was in Virgo, opposite where it is now.

Seven years ago many of us were in a completely different place from where we are now – emotionally, financially – even physically.

But the thing that has changed universally – for every single person I talk to – is our idea of what the future holds.

Today, in the final month of 2010, we are collectively more uncertain about what is around the corner than I can remember in my lifetime. I am writing from the point of view of a Westerner, living, compared to much of the world, in luxury, safety and security. But the truth is, I'm no longer sure that everything is going to stay that way.

And as Joni Mitchell once wrote: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Now I think, that despite fears of global warming, terrorism and overpopulation, we used, deep down, to believe the world was becoming a better place. Maybe not a steady upward curve, and maybe not without difficulty and arguments, but generally two steps forward and one step back.

Because in many ways, the world had improved beyond imagining in the past 30 years or so.

So what happened to the future? And will we get it back.



Now clearly much of this change in perspective is due to Pluto momentous entrance into Capricorn in 2008 and the disintegration of our economic system.

But Uranus is the planet of the future, of change and of revolution and also of hope. He's called "the Awakener". And Uranus has been shaping our dreams.




Since the summer, Uranus has been going backwards in Pisces. But on December 6, the planet pivots at 26° Pisces and then gallops through the last  degrees of the zodiac. In mid-March, Uranus will explode into Aries, beginning a whole new 84 year journey through the 12 signs.

Uranus is an outer planet, so it's orbit is slow enough to effect whole generations or whole eras. It correlates with invention, futurism, revolution. I wrote a previous post about its effect in the 1920s when it last transited Pisces, the sign of our collective imagination.

In 1973, when this film was made, Uranus was in
Libra, opposite where it will be next year.

It's important to think about that energy now because we are getting a final pedal-to-the-metal whoosh of Uranus plus Pisces. What is more, Uranus and Jupiter (Pisces own planet) will have a final conjunction in the sign of the fishes at the very beginning of the New Year. That means the Uranus energy is currently expanding. It's even stronger than normal.

Uranus is forcing change in the collective unconscious. Where do we look for expressions of that? We have just experienced seven years of hysterical "celebrity" culture. Helped also by Neptune (glamour) in the sign of the common man (Aquarius). This transit too is coming to an end next year.

Celebrity – magazines, gossip, fashion, bla bla – has been the opium of the people. We have been able to hide our heads in clouds of cotton candy fretting about people we don't know. They are just shadows on a silver screen, two dimensional images on a printed page, dazzling colours on your computer screen. In other words, they are not real. It's all an illusion.

On the back of that "celebrity" illusion we have been sold stuff we don't need, which, it transpires, is worth, well, cotton candy. Uranus has helped us to dream (Pisces) false dreams about our futures. And now the castles in the air are beginning to dissolve.

With Uranus in Pisces, ordinary people become our gods. Last time Uranus was in Pisces, we worshipped those "ordinary people", Mary Pickford, Rudolf Valentino, Donald Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin. Because cinema was silent it was completely global. Chaplin in particular was understood just as clearly in Bombay as in the Bronx. This time around they were much more ordinary.

We felt a hot blast of the new reality in the summer when Uranus zipped into Aries and then out again. Next year will truly bring us back to the "I", the beginning, because Aries is the sign of me, of "every man for himself".

Published in 1931 with Uranus in
Aries (brave and new). Huxley had to experience
the grand illusions of the 20s to create
this dystopia.

We may never go back to a pre-"celebrity" era, if there is such a place. History does not go backwards, but it does go in cycles. It doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. (This image thanks to Richard Gover over at StarIQ.

What positive can we take from our cosy collective dream? 

Uranus, of course, is also the planet that rules the internet, a space where we share dreams, art and imagination (all under Pisces). Uranus is non-hierarchical. We have been spinning tales, creating cultural currents, gathering ideas, making new music, imagining new myths.

Gather your ideas and imaginings now, take the next few months to deepen them, borrow more, lend them, expand them, enjoy and take what you have imagined with you as psychic nourishment in the brave new world.

What have you learned while Uranus has been in Pisces?