Georgia Nicols' Cancer Forecast for 2010

2010: A time of Testing for Civil Liberties

This year, three changes in the heavens portend a conflict in society. We're talking about Pluto, Uranus, and Saturn. Roughly at this time, all three are making a shift from one sign to another.

Pluto takes 250 years to go through all 12 signs. (Yikes!) Pluto represents the impulse to tear things down to make them better: refinish furniture, renovate a house, destroy a nation to rebuild it.

(Sidebar: I don't believe the planets are actually causal. How could they be? But it's easier to speak as if they are. To me, astrology is a patterning of knowledge, a language for us to "read." The planets simply yield information about what is happening: as above, so below.)

Pluto rules nations. And right now, for the first time in 250 years, Pluto is at the beginning of its journey though Capricorn, the sign that rules governments. The last time it was in Capricorn was from 1763 to 1778 when the American Revolution culminated in the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Now Pluto is back in Capricorn. Specifically, it returned in November 2008, when the election of the first black president of the United States stunned the world.

Uranus represents a "pushing boundaries" drive for freedom. The last time Pluto in Capricorn occurred at the same time as Uranus was in Aries, was 1760-1767. (That was when the battle that brought Canada under British rule happened.)

Meanwhile, here come de judge! Every 30 years, Saturn has a two-year stint in Libra. Saturn rules the courts, and Libra rules the law. The last time Saturn was in Libra was 1980-83, a time of economic recession and inflation.

So here we are.

Capricorn's desire for efficiency and order will encourage laws that restrict the freedom of the individual so that governments can efficiently deal with the masses. (Its impulse will be to install a computer chip with ID and a GPS in the heel of every newborn.) "Then we know who everyone is, and where they are!" Naturally, this flies in the face of Uranus' drive for individual freedom.

In the coming decade, struggles will ensue. Pluto in Capricorn will try to get everyone so tidily organized, we're rank-and-file. Meanwhile, revolutionary impulses will fight conservative values that threaten individual civil liberties, and Saturn in Libra will weigh the "fairness" of each case.

There is a move to world order.

(I'm going to clean my bedroom closet.)