ASTRAL REFLECTIONS BY TIIM STEPHENS SEPTEMBER 5 - 11, 2010 All dates/times are PDT. VIRGO, the eight years from March 2011 to March 2019 will shake up your most deeply-held, even subconscious (even unconscious) notions. Your finances, investments, debt situation, mutually-held possessions or resources (such as a marriage’s assets, or a business you own with a partner) will change and evolve –sometimes suddenly. The same sudden change comes to sexual, intimate, and psychological structures. For instance, you might suddenly become pregnant. Or your partner lands – or loses – a billion dollar contract! These changes should be overwhelmingly happy, beneficial, or “freeing.” (I put that in quotation marks because most people don’t like to be freed – it hurts, initially!) You will find that technology, as well as the spheres mentioned above (sex, intimacy, subconscious notions, dreams, research, a partner’s finances, etc., both affect and are affected by, your work. Be very careful with stress, as it can affect your health. To reduce stress, work outdoors, garden, hike, etc. Avoid too much t.v. and meditation. LIBRA, Uranus in your partnership sign March2011 to early 2019, will invigorate, shake up, and irrevocably change your relationships. This is one of the signals of true love for you (for your romance planet, Uranus, will travel through your marriage sign, ARIES, for these eight years). This only happens once in 84 years – once in a lifetime – so it is an event not to be wasted! Paradoxically, one of the ways you might waste this great opportunity, is to yield too eagerly to it. Uranus causes excitement, change, brings fresh air and electricity. (You know how the air smells differently during/after a lightning storm? That’s Uranus.) But it also brings nerves, stress and tension – and oddball characters. (Uranus rules comic-con, genius, and nerds – and white lies.) If you dive indiscriminately into every relationship that’s offered you, you could become the ball in a pinball machine, boing-ed this way and that by your amour’s erratic behaviour –or by your inability to fully accept his/her eccentricities. An ounce of prevention applies: be just a bit discriminating at the beginning. The opposite extreme also applies: realize that during this 8 years you will not be able to tie anyone down. Give your lover, spouse or mate freedom to move, travel alone, express him/herself, to follow his or her own star. The benefit will be double: 1) you will keep love thereby, and 2) you’ll find you enjoy having a “free mate” more than you would enjoy a controlled or possessed or kept one! If you find yourself too stressed in a love affair, or too nervous with a new date, it signals that youmighht be tryingto hard to control matters – ease up and watch amour unfold! Uranus will also affect non-love relationships, business partnerships, dealings with the public, relocation, negotiations and litigation. In all these, the unpredictable soars, but in all, too, a certain uncanny luck and creativity thrust you forward – to success! (Still, watch a partner’s “stability.”) Start Nothing: T-SQUARE: The greatest goal, and what we should all strive for, is peace between us. Yet those who are violent, and advocate violence, have much more compelling justifications than any peace-seekers. From God’s view, why is this? Last week we talked about the big “square” of planets that will occur late July and early August. I usually pooh-pooh the so called “alignments” that doomsayers come up with every decade or two. But I have to admit, I’ve never seen a pile-up of major squares this potent in my life – or before it. WWII began with a Saturn-Pluto square. WWI started with a Mars-Saturn square and a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction across the sky from the Sun. The 1929 crash began with Jupiter opposite Saturn. This July/August holds all those “hard aspects.” For me, the crucial day is July 30. A person (country) who acts on this day might achieve a remarkable conquest. If Israel attacks Iran, for example, it will devastate that nation (and vice-versa, should Iran attack). Here are a few indications: Mars is square Pluto, so whatever happens could involve violence, death, war, etc. (As pointed out before, we are in a heightened earthquake phase, 2009 through 2024.) However, Saturn is with Mars, and Saturn tends to restrict, discipline or “insist on structure.” This means the prime martial action will be undertaken or controlled by an established, government-mandated force, and will be the result of carefully premeditated plans. This force will tend to act in opposition to a revolutionary force or “grassroots” organization. A third “force” or stakeholder will attempt to quell the “uprising” with a) gangster tactics, b) covert means (e.g., black ops); or nuclear involvement. Other scenarios are possible. First, nothing might appear to happen on these days (late July-early August, 2010). Often, the events that cause a huge shift are hidden from us, either by the media, or by secrecy. In the late 1980’s/early 1990’s I wrote here that the Catholic Church would suffer a huge blow, a decline in belief, and essentially be destroyed. Now, 20 years later, there is even talk of arresting the Pope when he visits Britain, based on events of the1980’s and 90’s. But at the time, my prediction seemed hollow and untrue. So this major set of aspects this summer will set huge events in motion: but due to the “muffling” of Saturn, they might well not be apparent, even for years. To some degree, also, these aspects are formed by planets tiptoeing into a sign, which they are going to leave mere weeks later – so events might be more shallow than expected, or a “first shot,” a mere prefiguring or portent of later, deeper events. However, the astute will sense them – even as the astute knew priests were diddling boys and showing that they, at least, did not believe in Good, much less God. Some of these events, hidden or not, must be economic. Though we seem to have emerged from the nadir of March 2009, and the great decline the preceded it, as world economies slid down the icy slopes of frozen credit, many caution signals have not stopped blinking. House sales and prices are still down in many places in the world except Canada, Singapore, China (and probably in many emerging markets). Deflation, though unrecognized by the government, is creeping along here and there. Interest rates are still extremely, morbidly low. I believe a market decline is imminent; a huge crash, or massive decline larger than the 2008/09 one, is also likely. It will take a belligerent attitude by one or two governments, and weakness by others. Britain will hold its national election May 6(? I think) – during a mercury retrograde. So one of the shakiest and most important economies on earth begins a new government with the classic indicator of mismanagement, indecision and ineptitude. Hold Obama in your prayers: it’s going to be a critical year.