It's Not the End of the World As We Know It (And I Don't Feel Fine)*

*Apologies to R.E.M. for such cynical paraphrasing of one of the finest anthems created by the Pluto-in-Virgo generation.

Were you relieved or disappointed or perhaps a mixture of both emotions when you woke up this morning to discover that the world was still spinning on its axis, that life was still going on?

Bar none, the most annoying question I've had to contend with as an astrologer this year is the end-of-the-world scenario due to occur on December 21, 2012, predicted by those mystical Mayans all those years ago. Never mind that the Mayans themselves have long since put the kibosh on this prediction, which was as out of context as one could get, a literal fragment.

(Next year, winner of Most Annoying Astrology-Related Question will most likely revert back to a tie between "Oh, you seem so smart, how could you believe in astrology?" and "Ha, what exactly did you just say about your anus, ha-ha?")

Back to the question I posed. I can't pretend to speak for everyone; I wouldn't want to, and everyone is not the same anyway. But as someone so strong in the water element, I do pick up on other people's moods, and what I have gotten from so many people this year, both in person and from news articles, is a desire for apocalypse. As if the only action that will stop the madness symbolized and manifested by the Uranus-Pluto square I keep going on about is spontaneous global combustion. Fire? Ice? Bombs? Death by Chocolate? (Sign me up for that last one.)

Something I find truly interesting and disturbing is not that so many people have major thanatos (death wish) during these topsy-turvy times, but that apocalypse literally means "uncovering," as in a lifting of the veil. Disclosure. Knowledge.

Perhaps many of us want both: to be in the know and to die. Heightened consciousness can indeed bring bucketfuls of pain. Ignorance may not always bring bliss, but a willful unwillingness to follow current events may also keep you from feeling like there is just no point in going on...unless, of course, your personal circumstances are such that you want to die anyway.

The last time the mood was this apocalyptic was during the late 1960s, an era triggered by Uranus-Pluto conjunction -- a handful of years when I was a concept, a tie-dyed-in-the-wool hippie, or my uncle (who died in January 1970, six months before I was born). Peaceful flower power and civil disobedience waned as violence and black-and-white thinking became more commonplace and accepted; you were either on one side of the fence or another; no shades of gray were tolerated. Change would have to occur, as Malcom X warned before he himself was gunned down, "by any means necessary." Time horizons shrank as events sped up and seemingly out of control. As Jim Morrison of the Doors sang on their very first album, "The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

On the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of Capricorn, the midst of the holiday season, and most assuredly not the end of the world, my only cosmic prescription is to find something to ease any pain you might be feeling that does not hurt you or anyone else. Laughter is a safe bet; find something to tickle your funny bone. If you find that solitude is more comforting than company right now, by all means shut the door and indulge in some downtime. But remember that Capricorn, for all its standoffish, CEO airs, is still a sensual, hands-on earth sign, and still needs to be held close sometimes.

Gathering Storm Clouds: Moon-in-Scorpio Thoughts on the Uranus-Pluto Square

The Uranus-Pluto square, the first of seven over the next three years, is exact in just three weeks, June 24. Yet we have been feeling its extremely difficult energy since last spring, when Uranus settled into its seven-year stay in Aries: the Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Going Still Further Down the Toilet global economy, global climate crises, the apocalyptic mood that homes in on 2012 as the end-times. Never mind that the Mayans themselves have discounted that one fragmented tablet; thanatos, the death wish, seems stronger than ever.

Greetings, Uranus-Pluto square! Long time no see. In fact, most of us on Earth haven't ever had the pleasure of making your volatile aquaintance, for last time you were in town was back in the early 1930s. It was the Great Depression. The U.S. got FDR and the New Deal; Germany got Hitler and "the Final Solution." Where will the chips fall this time, keeping in mind that while history may not repeat itself, it frequently rhymes? (Shout-out to genius Mark Twain.) Thanks to the technological advances of the past eighty years, we truly are the world nowadays; isolationism, aka a nation's sticking its collective head in the sand, simply isn't possible anymore. Yet the U.S. seems to have a little bit of a complex about being the world's policeman. Where is the balance? Not here, bro.

During the last Uranus-Pluto square, Neptune was in Virgo; one manifestation of that "famine" placement was the Dust Bowl of the U.S. Midwest. But now Neptune has begun its transit of the opposite sign, Pisces. Over the next fourteen years, the world's collective immunity to disease will weaken; pandemics (think bird flu to the Hitchcockian degree) are likely, and oceans (and marine life) will become more vulnerable to toxicity. Throw in the Uranus-Pluto square, and this goes far beyond a tempest in a teapot (or Tea Party). Start building your ark or oxygen tent now, and for God's sake don't move to Venice, even though it is possibly the most beautiful city on the planet.

Everything seems to be spinning out of control, and no one seems to have any rational solutions to anything. Collectively, the mood is one of increasing panic. I wonder if any world leaders follow astrology, or have an astrologer on their staff? Based on the rankness that's been going down, aka "the new normal," I seriously doubt it. As personal liberty and the concept of having something called options are threatened or simply ripped to shreds, revolution is inevitable. The tipping point will be reached during the Uranus-Pluto square era of 2012-15. Within the next three years, and probably a lot sooner than that, previously apathetic people of all nations will join last year's early birds, the canaries in the coal mines. Heads will roll and blood will be shed (Uranus in Aries) in a growing battle of individuals, and individuality, against corrupt, rigid governments, banks, corporations, "the 1%," and the Old Guard in general (all representative of Pluto in Capricorn). The revolution will b not merely televised (that's so 20th-century!), but online 24/7, in Google-translated techno-color and mad-mashup YouTube clips.

Pick your battles wisely during the next three years...before they pick you. On a lighter note, here in the Big Apple, our billionaire mayor had better prepare himself for legions of protestors -- fat, thin, rich, poor, healthy, sick -- to hurl Big Gulp sodas at his head.