Dear Fellow Seeker:

This week I am writing the October monthly horoscopes. I’m here today with a brief check-in, following up for a moment on Mercury stationing direct Sunday evening, and Pluto in Capricorn stationing direct today (Tuesday).

The Pluto system, seen from Hubble. This shows the four known points that orbit with Pluto, including Charon (not Chiron, that is someplace else), Nix and Hydra. The four points orbit around one common point, a gravitational center called the barycenter.

Mercury stationing direct happens instantly when you look at the mathematically calculated position of the planet. There can be a sense of immediate relief, and that would be welcome given the psychologically edgy quality of this recent transit.

Yet in reality, there are a few days on either side of Mercury stationing that require getting re-stabilized and adapting to the new environment. Some astrologers call this the “storm phase” of Mercury — when Mercury is moving less than half a degree a day. According to Raphael’s Ephemeris, which gives the daily speed of the planets, this phase stretches from Sept. 6 to Sept. 18. This is like an extra-sensitive zone where we get to integrate the revelations that came during the retrograde, and set a new agenda for the next three months.

This Mercury retrograde has a special message for those born in the 1960s, as it’s making a series of conjunctions to the Uranus-Pluto placements of millions of people. In its day, the Uranus-Pluto conjunction was radical astrology. It stirred up both the revolutionary and the evolutionary impulses in humanity and — though you might not know about it now — society took some great strides forward in that era. We understood something about community, about civil rights and about the need to participate that is rare to find today. Art, music, technology, advertising — all of it surged into the future, and we never went back.

What Sixties kids need to know is that Uranus and Pluto are again in aspect. Though not exact until June 2012, Uranus square Pluto has effects years ahead of the precise alignment, and we are deep into that phase now. So if you’re feeling a revolutionary impulse, or the desire to teach, to learn and to grow, look to the Uranus-Pluto cycle for clues as to what that’s about.

Today Pluto stations direct, and ventures forth deeper into Capricorn. For the rest of 2010 it will cover the territory where it’s been retrograde for the past five months. Then in January it will enter new territory, going out as far as 7+ degrees. That means there will be a whole new wave of Pluto conjunct the Sun transit candidates: Aries birthdays out to the end of March will feel it, and Cancer birthdays out to the end of June, Libra birthdays out to late September and Capricorn birthdays out to around Dec. 29 will experience this transit.

Section of chart for the collapse of WTC 7 on Sept. 11, 2001. This is the Capricorn angle of the chart: notice the concentration in the early degrees, where Pluto currently is.

People born between 1972 and 1974 will get an experience of Pluto square its natal position, the first major turning point after the Saturn return at age 30. Others around that age are warming up into or cooling down from that transit (or due to certain variances, may be in the middle of it, so let’s expand those dates from 1971 to 1975). Many other people will experience Pluto in the coming months due to direct transits in their charts. While the effects are deeply individual, Pluto is also a collective experience that everyone taps into; Pluto is truly the planet of the millions. And given the state of society, we surely need to hear from the millions, the sooner the better.

Those born in 1954, mid-1959 through mid-1960, 1964, late 1968 through early 1969, and 1973 currently have Pluto aspecting their lunar nodes: that is a turning point in the direction of their lives: a release of the past, a ready-or-not moment to plunge into the future, or a tipping point where the past and future are reconciled and a new direction chosen. Many others will get a new wave of Pluto transits, though this requires looking at the natal chart for points (including the ascendant and midheaven) in the early cardinal signs — where the cardinal T-square has been hovering around all year.

Pluto’s station today at 2+ Capricorn also stirs up one of the deepest, most painful controversies in U.S. history — the chart for Sept. 11, 2001. Whatever you may think of Sept. 11, and whatever your political persuasions, we know this is an event that touched us all. Pluto stations direct exactly conjunct the South Node of Sept. 11, 2001, which is to say, the deep history, connected to all of American history. It exactly opposes the 2+ Cancer Moon of one of the charts, all of which means that whatever happened on that day is directly relevant to what the American people are going through on this day. That is how transits work — they connect a cause, seemingly in the past, to a result, apparently in the present.

Yet cause and effect are never separate. That, you might say, is the law of karma, and something we need to be vigilant about right now. The United States of America has some growing up to do. Some call this 2012. Some call it the Age of Aquarius. Some call it Peak Oil and some call it embracing Gaia consciousness. They are all terms for the same thing — taking the next step in human evolution, and doing our part to shape the world in which we live.

See you tomorrow with Wednesday audio, and Friday with a new edition.

Yours & truly,

Planet Waves Gemini monthly horoscope for Aug. 1, 1999

Consciousness is the medium of reality. For all the debates over how the world physically manifested, evolved or was created, our real journey here is an endless stream of observations, decisions and emotional reactions. Rarely do we consider the genesis of awareness itself. It’s arguable that awareness is the only thing that can ever truly change, or activate change. And while the notion of “evolution” used to be about apes becoming people, we now know it is an evolutionary journey of consciousness. The mind interprets the meaning of what we experience, and adapts to the necessities with which we are faced. We are now learning the extent to which we can change our beliefs and make the “impossible” happen. We are slowly learning to use thought to direct and create our values and emotional responses. The important thing to remember is that we are the ones deciding; we are steering the vehicle of consciousness. In this moment, you stand in a place that is at once unfamiliar, unpredictable and may be truly daunting in its power. You stand on the threshold beyond thought. What you possess — as ever — is a most agile ability to respond, and to adapt; this means you really can create a new universe for yourself from the exceedingly fertile ingredients available to you right now, in this moment. You get to create the choices that will take you to the next place in life. At least on the level of ideas — where everything begins — limits are perfectly meaningless.