Among the better-known events, those 14 months encompassed a second stolen presidential election, the Asian tsunami disaster, a series of hurricanes that were devastating to the Southeastern US as well as Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America, and an earthquake centered in the Kashmir area between India and Pakistan. It was another deadly year in Iraq and a time of mounting political chaos in both Congress and the Executive Branch.

There was good news, in a backhanded kind of way. In the midst of it all, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney was indicted for crimes relating to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. And, when nobody was really looking, 2005 turned out to be the year that climate change went from an imagined, allegedly controversial possibility, to something that we—everyone—has to deal with.

Astrologically, 2005 was a transitional year between two significantly different energetic landscapes. The main developments included:

1. The ingress of Saturn to Leo in mid-July. In my articles about this change (which can be easily found on PlanetWaves.net), I documented that Saturn in Leo (which lasts for about three years out of every 29) is associated with the phenomenon of dams and levees bursting. Within weeks of Saturn changing signs, we were faced with one of the most famous, if not the most famous, levee breaks in US history.

2. Chiron changing signs from Capricorn to Aquarius. Chiron in Capricorn was the essence of the "post 9/11 world," beginning within days of the Enron bankruptcy in late 2001. On the collective level, Capricorn is the sign of corporations, governments, laws, and structures of all kinds. And we have certainly had our fill of news from these entities.

Chiron in Aquarius shifts the awareness from institution to community. Here is a pretty good example from the last cycle. Half a century ago, within weeks of the prior transit from Cap to Aquarius, Allen Ginsberg organized the first garage poetry readings that spawned the Beat Generation. Then through the late 1950s, we saw the uprising of a national Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and many examples of the dawning of collective consciousness—though at the time, it looked mainly like change and turmoil that was frightening to many.

3. Two other Centaur planets changed signs. For those who follow astrology, the Centaurs are today what Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto were in previous decades: something new, interesting, provocative, and also something we don't collectively understand so well in the astrology community. Those Centaurs are Pholus (small cause, big effect) moving into Sagittarius and Nessus (the buck stops here) moving into Aquarius, along with Chiron. They all dipped into their new signs early in the year and took up residence in the autumn.

4. Mars retrograde in Taurus. The exact retrograde spanned three months, from mid-October through mid-December. Mars was in Taurus for several months on either side. Like Saturn in Leo, this is a once-per-three-decade kind of event, and not surprisingly it's associated with all the kinds of things we've seen in the second half of 2005—natural disasters, fluctuations in the price of oil, and politics of a stormy, fiery nature.

So what's next?

Well, remembering that 2005 was largely a setup for what is coming in 2006, here is the rundown.

Chiron conjunct Nessus in Aquarius. In 2006 we will experience the second of two exact passes of this aspect, and a third, which is a near miss. The first exact one was May 13, 2005. The second will be January 10, 2005. The third (the near miss) is October 10, 2006. This is an aspect that will be igniting the Aquarius energy of what you might call "awareness to the people," setting a pattern that will last for many years. Aquarius is about communities, culture, the Internet, group responsibilities, and group agreements. It is about the politics of the tribe and where the individual fits in. We all bear wounds involving fitting in, and now is the time to address them by name, and to go beyond them.

The Parallel Worlds Alignment. In the first week of February, around the time of the Pagan holiday Imbolc, there is an unusual alignment between the Sun, Venus, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. It involves aspects by longitude (what sign the planets are in, exact by degree) and by declination (their distance north or south of the celestial equator). Hence, there are both aspects and parallels among this group of planets; what some would call a superaspect, which is one form of a cosmic trigger. As with Chiron conjunct Nessus, there is strongly implied the choice of where to put out consciousness, the choice of what we want to be aware of.

Pluto Crossing the Galactic Core. Though this is not exact until the last week of 2006, there is an exceptionally close alignment between Pluto and the Galactic Core (in late Sagittarius) during the first week of spring. This comes simultaneously with a solar eclipse, as well as the progressions in the Presidential Inauguration chart going off (part two—part one was the last week of October). This group of events, clustered together, will be the stunning sequel of what brought us the Scooter Libby indictment, only I think it's reasonable to expect something a little more satisfying. Pluto on the Galactic Core will be humanity's biggest push in a long, long while in the direction of, well, being humanitarian.

The GC, as an astrological point, teaches giving up our judgments, seeing the big picture, and learning lesson one taught by the Core: as within, so without. Or, as the Course in Miracles would put it, God/Goddess is not outside yourself. Pluto crossing this point is one of the last vital thresholds of the Pluto in Sagittarius era, which takes us back to the early 1990s when the world started to move in the undeniable direction of Jihad, be it Christian or Muslim.

Saturn opposite Neptune. This is the aspect beginning in August, but which has been vibrating around since last summer (and which continues well into 2007) that you're most likely to read about when cruising the Internet or a commercial astrological publication. It is the meeting of Saturn in Leo opposite Neptune in Aquarius. Saturn in Leo (of "when the levee breaks" fame) opposite Neptune in Aquarius ("let's get fooled again and again and again and slowly, gradually wake up") means: something comes to a head. It is a face-to-face meeting between two very different energies: the solid nature of Saturn in Leo and the watery, ideologically foggy nature of Neptune in Aquarius.

There is political as well as individual information in this aspect. Mass consciousness becomes aware of something particular. That something begins to respond to the pressure. It is compelling that the first pass of this three-part aspect occurs on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall. There, we had one of many examples of land meets sea; of idea meets reality; of some overwhelming presence inundating something that would not move; and mainly of a turning point in history.

Oppositions are the full expression of a conjunction; the opposition of 2006 was preceded by a conjunction at the time the Berlin Wall came down and with it the Iron Curtain, the Cold War, and the nuclear arms race. One logical expression of this aspect would be some turn of history that compelled many people to give up on the idea of state aggression as a way of life.