Just four hours into the summer of 2001, there was a total solar eclipse in Cancer. Occurring at the beginning of a season, with the sun's annual northward journey at a halt, daylight went out for four minutes and fifty-seven seconds. We can see from this why, in ancient times, eclipses were considered such powerful omens, and why we need to listen to them today.

Coming on the first day of summer, the eclipse was positioned in an exact 90-degree aspect to the Sidereal Vernal Point (SVP)—more commonly called the Aries Point or the first degree of Aries. Because so many cycles came together at once with such exacting precision, the implication was that something unusual with far-reaching effects would soon be taking place.

Note: Astrologers missed it.
What some people noticed was the imminent meeting of Saturn and Pluto, which is one of those aspects that changes the world every time it comes around, in an approximately 35-year cycle. Think of it: tiny, dense Pluto, the unstoppable force, and the vast, structured planet Saturn, the seemingly immovable object, meeting at 180 degrees. Something was bound to happen, and it did.

That aspect occurred on August 5, 2001, a day before the now infamous August 6 Presidential Daily Brief, wherein the CIA informed the vacationing president that Osama Bin Laden, the halfbrother of a Bush family business associate, was determined to hit targets inside the United States.

About four weeks later, with no additional security having been put in place, four airliners were hijacked, some buildings were knocked down, 3,000 people died, and another phase of a long coup d'etat in the United States was accomplished. We know the story: massive shifts from civilian to military budgets, a rapid gutting of civil rights, the rise of the national security state, the Patriot Act, and the beginning of what some hoped (and still hope) would be a world of perpetual war.

On the summer solstice of 2005, with the sun making its annual visit to the first degree of Cancer, the moon entered Capricorn. There was an exact full moon on the first day of summer.

With this aspect, the solar eclipse of June 2001 was reactivated. Eclipses have a long shelf life, and they do something that planets don't—they stay still. They stand there waiting for a transit or a progression to come along and set them off. Four years is a pretty good duration for an eclipse, but the solstice/total solar of June 2001 was no ordinary chunk of space debris.

With a full moon triggering the eclipse in 2005, we had reason to be concerned that something was developing this summer. One immediate result was the transit bombings in London. Now, given that Hurricane Katrina has made her appearance and the effects are beginning to be felt around the world (gas is now about $6.50 per gallon in Paris), we have reason to be concerned about what else that something includes.
A full moon setting off the total solar eclipse gives the feeling of a 180-degree turn. Something has come to full fruition since 2001, and something has reversed itself. Full moons often signify the breaking of a deadlock, and this is what we are now facing: a long-held deadlock shattered in the mud.

This time around, while ordinary people are again suffering and struggling and voluntarily throwing their bodies into a grossly toxic disaster zone to assist others, reality has finally come home to roost at the front door of the political community. A massive region of the United States has been destroyed and its population has been scattered across the country, from Texas to New York City to Seattle. Evacuees are everywhere. Because of this, it's a local story everywhere. Everybody knows somebody in New Orleans. Just about anyone who travels has been there.

It is becoming painfully obvious that there was government neglect involved both before and after the disaster struck. The money, the National Guard, the highwater Humvees are in Iraq. Why are they in Iraq? Because September 11 was exploited; because Halliburton and the Carlyle Group and Chevron control the United States government; and because of a diversity of circumstances that has left us without an electoral process, living under an empire rather than in a republic. We could have handled a hurricane five years ago, but we're not in that business anymore. You now live in the United States of Homeland Security.

One significant difference between 8/29 and 9/11 is that it's more or less impossible to blame the former on an enemy and launch a bombing campaign. (Although who knows, maybe Karl Rove will figure out a way.) That's the usual response when something goes wrong in America, or when we need to clear out the munitions stockpiles and buy more from Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon. We assert our power, get out the yellow ribbons and beer, and watch it like the Superbowl or the Grand Ole Opry.

But now, the illusion is failing. The city of Houston has been turned into an evacuee staging area. The Houston Astrodome is a refugee camp. Isn't that weird? People are camping out in $200 box seats.

Now something real has happened. It has happened at home, where we can notice it and where we can do something. What has happened is so real that people are getting angry. While anger is a good start, it's not a replacement for leadership. And leadership is one thing that's lacking in the United States right now.

To understand the astrology of the Bush administration, 9/11, the Iraq war, and Katrina, one can look to the four cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn). For the moment the focus is on Libra and on October 3, when we will have an eclipse of the sun in that sign. This will accelerate the process of karma that has finally been set into motion.

Things will happen in government and in society that we had no notion could go down. What will shock us most is how fast things can change and how fast we need to adapt. It can be a very exciting time in history, a great moment to be alive, if you go with the flow. The potential creativity, the sense of adventure, the community and the sense of being alive are likely to be unlike any other we've experienced.

As the spotlight is thrown onto Libra, the central theme is justice—something that for long periods of time is dormant in the American mentality and occasionally returns with a vengeance. My concern is that, if taken for its own sake, justice often becomes vengeance. And that is what we need to beware of right now. Anger is an appropriate response, but we need to direct it.

We have been lied to, our country has been ripped off, and our government is now  in debt and waging a huge war it can't get out of, and at the same time, it cannot take care of its own people. As a result of all of this, thousands of our young people are dying for a lie in Iraq, at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and now, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama lay in waste.

Fact: Those levees could have been fixed long ago. Fact: They were not. Fact: The money was spent on a private war. Fact: Oil business cronies of the White House, as well as Halliburton, will rake in billions on this disaster.

When this all hits home as one idea, it's going to transcend politics entirely. And that moment is coming. The challenges, in true Libra fashion, will be staying in balance, keeping a grip on ourselves, and applying reason. The larger issue is leadership—because the power vacuum that is appearing on the national level only reflects a power vacuum that has existed in our minds for a long time.