The Astrology of 2011

All Major Events De-lineated.

By Alison Chester-Lambert, author for Findhorn Press and columnist for the Astrological Journal

"Trying to build a future on the attitudes of the population in the last 20 years would have been like trying to re-arrange the deckchairs on the Titanic. We need the change these years will bring" - Alison Chester-Lambert

If there is one word that describes 2011, I think it would be `brewing`! As in brewing beer. The stuff is sitting and fermenting in the vat. It’s at the right temperature, but we have to leave it alone, it has to do its stuff. For here we are, after only the first part of a long process. So far to go, so much to change. Let’s take the Shakespeare comparison of our lives being like a stage production with us as the players. The `production` we find ourselves in started in 2008, when we first learnt of the vulnerability of the world’s finances and planetary resources. Oh yeh, we’d heard the words of warning about over-spending and over-consumerism, but of course, that didn’t apply to us….until it did!

So long as we re-used our carrier bags and accepted less mobile library visits, the annoying news readers with their coalition government’s austerity cuts would go away. But, herein lays the problem, because I’m not so sure it will be that simple. It appears there may be rebellious groups who are not prepared to give up the level of welfare and support they are used to. We are going to see strong emphasis on `Me` and `My Wants` versus the Establishment in the next few years. (The natural Aries Capricorn hostility is emphasised) Although the `production` started in 2008 it has only just warmed up as we enter 2011 and it won’t really be over until 2016, so settle in for a lengthy performance.

Along side the political and economic changes, a spiritual revolution is also taking shape as symbolised by the new dwarf planets. Perhaps revolution in one area of human existence will always coincide with transformation in other areas too.

For those that start the New Year of 2011 with worries about future, career or prospects - the reflection and focus may soon prove to be useful, for it allows an examination of one’s purpose at root level to enable a stripping out of all that is unwanted, extraneous and not true. For what is coming will require being in line with one’s individual life’s purpose. If one can identify one’s personal Truth, such as that which is described by natal nodes or Sun, then the honesty of the coming years will be enlightening. It is only natural to be alarmed at what must change or move out of one’s life, but the process of pruning allows for strong and purposeful growth. It won’t be long before some of us start to see the first sign that something better was waiting in the wings all along.

A Look at the Major Aspects

Now you are going to understand the term `brewing` to describe 2011. There are very few exact-ments. The Pluto Uranus square does not go exact until (wait for it……) 21st June 2012 and Neptune Chiron have had their one and only hit. So apart from some prominent ingresses, we only have Jupiter aspects all year. In January, Jupiter will conjunct Uranus for the last time and then trundle on to square Pluto in late February and oppose Saturn in late March.

Saturn will only receive this one aspect from an outer planet all year and no major aspects will occur after April. Ok, how is that going to feel, especially when we consider that 2010 had something like eleven major aspects? Let’s look at how that panned out:

In 2009, I wrote that various things would happen in 2010. (I’ve left this forecast on my website near the bottom of the buttons if you’d like to read it.)

I said there would be ground-breaking change and new-ness. Old stuff (Labour government) would have to go, but on the other hand the genius of the Collective could be revealed, with inspiration and awakening flowing freely in the Ether, bringing new concepts in innovative technology, democracy and the future.

Sentimental clinging to past, out-worn ideals and methods would have to go. Fundamental cornerstones (welfare budget) of how-we-did-it-before would be questioned and rightfully so. The rut of squandering and lethargy (government over-spending) would have to give way to original, futuristic and revolutionary concepts for the brotherhood of mankind. Ok, that all happened as predicted, so what now?

The Ingresses

It is interesting that in 2011 we have the co-incidence of Chiron, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus all changing signs within three months of each other. Both Jupiter’s second and last ingress into Aries on the 22nd January followed by Uranus’s on the 12th March could be called a storming rush through the gate and into rowdy rebellion.

Zero degrees Aries is a crucial point in our 3-dimensional world of matter, space and time. Our solstices and equinoxes all occur on a cardinal cross that marks out the extremities of the Sun’s path and is fundamental to the fabric of our existence. (Like East, West, North and South) So the movement of an influential outer planet across one of those points in our space/time is important.

However, I don’t think the single day of an ingress is that noticeable. There is a change in the Zeitgeist or Ether, which starts before the actual ingress day, as there was when Pluto approached Capricorn.

Chiron moves into Pisces for the second and last time on the 9th February and Neptune dips his toe into his own sign on the 4th April, although he will regress back into Aquarius again in August and not fully immerse himself into his own gentle waters until February 2012.

These ingresses are telling the story of a sea change or shift in temperature and as all the ingresses are shifts out of or into Pisces, the term `sea change` is a really significant one.

The summer of 2010 saw a lot of dynamic action. It was as if the Titanic had to be brought shuddering halt, a near miss and a sharp right-hand turn. Now we need time to assimilate and absorb the changes.

I think it’s useful to have a metaphor to refer to when thinking about what such big changes to the Pisces of our Universe might mean. Whilst water conducts heat quickly it also absorbs large amounts of heat before it begins to get hot and releases heat energy slowly too. Putting that a different way, water heats up more slowly than earth, but holds on to that heat for longer. We need to take time for the effects of the upheavals of the last two years to percolate through our Collective Unconscious. Consider 2011 to be similar to the `eye of the storm`, when there is a lull before more action.

The element of Water is about processes and responses and not about speed, so it may take the planets moving in and out of Pisces some time to adjust to the changes. We need to absorb and assimilate the changes of 2010 and it seems that is exactly what we are being given the chance to do.

If our lives are like plays, then ingresses of outer planets signify changes in the stage scenery. There is a shift of background emphasis. There is cultural change. As a Collective, we are going to shift into new ways of being. It is part of the overall mass humankind revolution that happens from 2008 to 2016. Picking up on the stage theme again, if the planets are the actors, then the ingresses represent the change of scenery behind the actors.

Uranus moving into Aries makes the scientific and cyber revolution more urgent. Neptune’s move into Pisces makes the beautiful dream and the loving compassion ever more wistful. We will look at the meaning of Neptune in Pisces a little later, after we have considered the few major aspects that do happen in 2011.

The Jupiter Story

Personally if I was Jupiter and I’d got to visit a couple of disgruntled old codgers in February and March I wouldn’t be looking forward to it. BUT, the rest of us can! For Jupiter is making the last or `healing` hits. (The first hits in a series do the de-constructing and challenging. The last hit is the `healing` one where things get re-constructed and put into shape for the future.)

Jupiter’s journey past Uranus in the first week of January has something of a thrilling, expansive air which should quicken and enthuse if it is focussed on. It will be a case of the early bird catching the worm and those still snoozing after the holidays will miss out on a really useful boost. The last few degrees of Pisces will weaken the effect and so it will have to be reached for.

With Excalibur in hand and feeling innovative and revolutionary, Jupiter squares Pluto on February 26th, but his influence adds to an existing sextile from the Sun and Mercury, giving this aspect great potential for manifesting concrete and inspiring transformation.

There is a boldness about Jupiter’s opposition to Saturn on March 28th, and in all dealings there will be a reckless confidence on one side and warning for appropriate measure on the other. However the Sun introduces Pluto’s energy into the day, so again there is suggestion of transforming shift changes.

After that, Jupiter looks around to find a clear field. For after March, as far as exact major aspects are concerned, it’s all over until 21st June 2012. Best make the best of those then!

Jupiter adds a confident energy to the mix and his influence reduces worry, so it is therefore comforting to see his presence in the early part of the year when spirits can often be low. However, as always, it is as well to remember that what the planets represent can either be supplied or removed when they are active, so it is to be hoped that Jupiter’s symbolism will play our positively.

The Heat of Summer

In July 2010, Uranus, Pluto and Saturn hovered in a T-square over the cusp of the cardinal cross - Zodiac signs renowned for their initiating, leadership qualities. There was a Berlin Wall, dazed feeling to this as people tried to come to terms with the enormity of the national debt. A couple of people lost the plot and went on psychotic killing rampages as we saw with the Cumbrian and Newcastle massacres; whilst elsewhere strikes occurred and redundancies loomed.

All this may re-surface in the summer of 2011 as Pluto, Uranus and Saturn come close again. A lot of the emphasis is on 5 degrees of anything as most of the planets spend time there in their respective Zodiac signs. The end of June is something of a high point when the Sun and a new Moon engage with the T-square. Since the composite natal Moon of Nick Clegg and David Cameron is around 5 degrees of Libra, there partnership undergoes some pressure both at the end of 2010 and in the summer of 2011 when Pluto squares it for the last time, but Uranus does not oppose it exactly until March 2012, so they may survive 2011 at a pinch.

Nick Clegg appears to struggle with strategy and leadership problems as his natal Pallas Athena and MC are challenged, whilst David Cameron seems to struggle with his image and ideals as he battles to achieve harmony and balance with his Venus at 7-ish degrees of Libra.

Pluto and Uranus get within a degree in late July, early August, but as most of the country is on holiday then, perhaps the tension is mostly felt within communities and families. Because the planets do not go exact, the overall feeling is that things are stirred up but then subside with no resolution.

Like two boxers in a ring who are called into their own corners just as things were hotting up. Whatever the issues that emerge, they will re-surface in June 2012. This is potentially a very productive square since much could be achieved for humankind’s evolutionary and technological pursuits. There is an honesty about these energies.

Ok, things will have been forced kicking and screaming into this revolution, but when it comes, it has the potential to put us right back on track. Having said that, I don’t think much is solved in 2011, it is more that we may glimpse where we are going, for the following four years have the exact hits.

Neptune Chiron Conjunction

This long lasting aspect lingers on into 2011 with its own special energy to add to the mix. During 2010, it appears to have encouraged charity and voluntary work in individuals, and in the Collective it was in high focus during the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain with reminders of Winston Churchill’s famous speech including the words “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

There was also an attempt to bring peace to the Middle East crisis by bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders together one more time, but sadly Israel refused to budge. When Neptune and Chiron last conjoined in 1945, the Japanese surrendered and General Douglas MacArthur gave an inspiring speech asking for a world peace founded upon faith and the fulfilment of the cherished wishes of tolerance and justice.

Neptune and Chiron can bring a truly inspirational energy to bear after terrible wounded-ness, turning suffering into wisdom, compassion and enlightenment for the brotherhood of mankind. But they can also remind us of despair, wretched failure, an overwhelming sadness and a tragic, hollow loneliness as we contemplate our isolation and imperfections

Neptune and Chiron in Pisces

Chiron describes the humiliation and wounds that we have to wrestle with and accept before we can grow into wisdom and awakening. He represents the suffering that humans must endure for taking bodies and leaving spirit, a pain we feel deeply guilty of, but can do nothing about.

Chiron in Aquarius is a particularly painful natal placement, with placement in Pisces being less so. Perhaps we can take from this that the move into Pisces will be a welcome one. For Pisces’s watery vastness, with its great capacity to absorb poisonous, sceptic waste and purify toxicity may be just what we need after the industrial and technological age has taken our planet into a resource depletion and pollution crisis.

Neptune represents the watery immenseness of the primordial substance of origin and our pining, yearning and longing for a return to this matter-less state and one-ness with the Divine Source. This energy dissolves structure, human resolve, form and will power; offering instead the oblivion of compassionate and sublime feeling; the comfort and redemption of soft and misty fusion.

Neptune’s time in Aquarius was often challenging for an air sign that craves perfection in form and structure. But his move into Pisces brings together the ruler and the sign together in beautiful harmony and universal Water will rejoice. Spiritual, mystical and psychic matters will seep into mainstream fashionable life and peace will become a longed for aspiration.

Christmas-type values will permeate a Collective that cannot explain why. For at the end of the day, Water should be felt. On Melanie Reinhart’s website, is a discussion of Chiron Neptune that says “It is the felt sense of inhabiting a sacred world. No ‘proof’ is needed, no rational argument is adequate. This is the world of the mystic, where the presence of the Divine is a felt experience that needs no explanation.”

With Pisces comes the knowledge that all harmful toxins can be melted into purity; somewhere there is absorbing, forgiving, loving eternal energy that will take all our poisonous dross and purify it into a beautiful and perfect virginal re-birth. This is the permanence of mankind, we live and die, but we also go on forever, thanks to our immersion into the dissolving, cleansing and forgiving waters.

This is an indication that somehow, against all the odds, we have come home to dwell on the primordial waters or amniotic fluid that precipitates a re-birth in true Pisces/Aries symbolism.

To Conclude

In 2011, we don’t need different aspects, where players have different attitudes to each other. We need scene changes. For aspects would mean we change our behaviour on the same stage, in the same scenery. Ingresses of major planets means that we change the scenery, the backdrop. From 2012 to 2016 we will change our behaviour.

The major activity in the planets since 2008 has shown us that our actors were on the wrong stage, in the wrong play, going in the wrong direction. Trying to build a future on the attitudes of the Collective in 2000 would have been like re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic.

The Titanic needs to be in a different sea, in a different time with a different crew with a different mind-set. The mindset that we are un-sinkable was wrong. These are the changes we need to make and this is the opportunity we are now being given. The adjustments, contemplations and brewing we make in 2011 have to take us through the following 4 years of a Pluto Uranus square. We can make that easier or harder this year. Let’s get the brew right.

Copyright Alison Chester-Lambert 2010