Backbone > Panet Waves
Mother of Invention
by Eric Francis;

Over the Line.
By Eric Francis

Silently and without the compulsory media fanfare that makes
anything seem real, an astronomical event last month demar-
cated a new cycle in history. Uranus, which since 1995 had been transiting Aquarius, entered Pisces. It will remain in Pisces on and off through Dec. 30 of this year, when it transits into its new sign for the next seven years. When it is done, the world will be a very different place, just like it became with the Uranian transit of Aquarius.

When we tune into the energy of a major outer-planet transit, the result is not just noticing a shift in historical events or personal changes. There are changes, events and developments for sure, and some people feel them a lot more than others. The world becomes a different place because an entirely new factor is imposed on consciousness. To the extent that what we think of as reality is caused by consciousness, it is a new world, and new worlds require adaptation. Even this soon into the process, it may feel like your mind and emotions have been somewhat rearranged. Or, if the ingress meets an important point in your chart significantly early in the Pisces journey, your life may in fact be totally rearranged (those with early Pisces birthdays, rising degrees and Moon placements are candidates for the full treatment as the rather remarkable events of this spring unfold).

Uranus is what's called an outer planet-it's beyond Saturn, and was the first planet to be discovered by science. Prior to that time, all that were known were visible planets, associated with ancient gods. Uranus represented a diversity of firsts-in-history. It was the first discovery of a planet to be made with a telescope, by an astronomer. (Galileo had discovered the moons of Jupiter, stars in the Milky Way and other firsts.) It was the first planet beyond the reach of the great god Saturn. It was the first planet that anyone had to name. And it was the first new planet to be added to an astrological chart.

Uranus arrived at a time in history known for revolutions; it was discovered in 1781. With the development of the United States Constitution a few years later, a whole new kind of country was created, where power derived from the people and was delegated upwards to the leaders (somebody better remind them of that). Previously, the way things worked was God 'appointed' somebody king, and they were the boss by Divine Right. I guess old habits die hard. Medical science was making strides at this time as well. For instance, Samuel Hahnemann invented homeopathy in this era, which was a major, revolutionary advance on contemporary medical science.

Uranus works to take us beyond the known limits of reality. Astrologers explain that Saturn works in consciousness like an imaginary boundary, the previously known ancient limit. The arrival of Uranus, say astrologers, was coincidental with the breakdown of the previously known order of the cosmos, and the previous world view. It was actually one of several steps in the process: the discovery that the world is round, and goes around the Sun (a fact that surprisingly many people still don't get-these are the same people who think King George is president).

Uranus does not disappoint. It has been prominent in the charts for many inventions and revolutions. A series of Uranus transits toppled Nixon. Uranus was working hard in the charts of Freud and Edison at the peak of their careers as scientific pioneers. If Saturn is structure, Uranus is energy. (Chiron, by the way, orbits between Saturn and Uranus and serves as a very handy medium between energy and structure, integrating the two in important ways. This is why it is the planet of healing.)

So, we are now living through the shift between Uranus in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces.
* Aquarius and Pisces are neighboring signs, but they are opposites in many ways. Aquarius is all about thinking. Pisces is all about feeling. Aquarius, as a cultural and often as an individual process, values intelligence. Pisces values intuition. In ancient times, the planet which ruled Aquarius was Saturn, the planet of structure, form, limits and rules. Pisces was ruled by Jupiter, which is about expansion, happiness, justice and culture-what you get when you have form and discipline to work with. (These ancient rulerships are still very important today if you want to understand the signs the planets are connected with.)

Aquarius is the realm of science and knowledge. Pisces is the realm of spirit and the imagination.

Uranus brings energy wherever it goes. It brings major changes. It also brings group awareness. It also brings people together, which Aquarius is great at, too. One of the main events that has defined the Uranus-in- Aquarius era has been the development of the Internet. For the first time in known history, people all over the developed world are able to communicate with one another electronically, instantly. Imagine describing what you do on the Internet to someone in 1992. "Well, I'm involved in an alt.politics newsgroup and I'm on a discussion list for my allergies and my brother maintains my homepage, now it's got Flash! Hey I just got the coolest MP3. My friend Bill does an e-zine and these days I get most of my news from MSNBC.com but a lot from Alternet and I read 60 different horoscopes columns. My girlfriend sent me a really hot nude JPEG of herself and I was chatting on Web cam last night with this guy in Taiwan. Oh, and I got an e-mail from my 84-year-old aunt this morning..."

So-look out for a big change in the realm of imagination and mysticism in the next seven years. Watch the revolution happen. And we really do need this. The Internet, for all its glory, has a soulless quality. By the end of the Uranus in Aquarius era, the Internet had its finest and most soulful moment: the F-14 protests erupted around the world, and people in more than six hundred cities experienced the most massive and urgent worldwide antiwar protests we've ever seen-all on the same day.

A glimpse at the previous cycle of Uranus-in-Pisces might give us a taste of the kinds of changes associated with this transit, which last happened in the 1920s. This was the era of Aleister Crowley, Edmund Arthur Waite and the Golden Dawn. There was an early version of the New Age movement raging in the pseudo-intellectual upper crust. The practice of something called Spiritualism was at its peak, with things going bump in the night and tables levitating. This was happening at the same time psychoanalysis was being entrenched as the dominant model of consciousness.

Divergences between the theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were being explored at a rather feverish pace. In 1920 Einstein published the General Theory of Relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his work with the photoelectric effect, which would lead to television. Radio and cinema made enormous strides. By the end of the decade, the first television broadcast would occur.

Uranus always makes the world a new place. Pisces is above all else a quality that values the visionary processes of the mind and spirit and does not depend on rules and understanding. Many people will find themselves under the effects of highly unusual inspirations. If we stay open, aware and remember what's important-if we remember the real basis of common ground in the world, the fact that we all possess souls, and that our souls want expression in this life-we may just get to meet the soul of the world in its hour of awakening. When we think of what we've experienced in the past eight years-the joining of minds via the Internet, and notice how much smaller the world has become-that may offer a clue about the changes that are now possible.

Speaking of things to come, I want to end this month's column with a little about the Full Moon of April 16, which looks to me like it marks a significant turning point in American history. Astrological charts make pictures, and this particular chart makes pictures of several potentially very important changes. The first three weeks of April promise to be a time of intense building of energy peaking on the 16th.

First, something unusual is likely to happen in the life of George W. Bush, and to a certain extent his life affects all of us. I was holding out faith that the bombing of Iraq would never begin. Still, there is a threshold of some kind that affects that whole process, and it will probably affect the rest of his term as president. Next, I think we're going to learn something unusual about the real story behind the September 11 attacks on America. My sense is that this will pull the wool down from the eyes of many people who previously could not see the American involvement in the process. The two are related. Let's look more closely next month when we have a better picture.

More is available on the web at www.ericfrancis.com, including Eric's weekly horoscope newsletter.