The rising of the new day's dawn is not in wait for the 2012 enlightenment clock to strike. And while it is incredible that there is any debate at all regarding the fact that the clean-up crews in the Gulf of Mexico will suffer life-threatening consequences without respirators and safety suits (remember what happened to the Exxon Valdez crews of 1989), most hold little doubt that a more insistent wake-up alarm has already sounded. The astrology of 2010 underscores the fact that it is a pivotal year for the evolution of the collective consciousness.

In fact, we have been on the clock since Pluto first entered Capricorn in 2008. Noting that Pluto corresponds to the evolution of the soul itself, and Capricorn is the sign archetype that corresponds to the manifest reality, Pluto's advance into this particular sign is nothing short of monumental. Capricorn is a cardinal or activation archetype, its high-noon position on the zodiacal wheel marks a culminating turn-point of major importance.

2010 positions us at the quickening stage of our collective evolution. This critically-shaping year has launched with the January 14 Solar Eclipse, the timing device for Haiti's devastating earthquake. Eclipses are not only event prompts, but key karmic prompts too. They produce significant events around the time they occur and they continue to hold influential resonance (reverberation) over a duration of time (months and/or years, depending on the eclipse.) All the eclipses of 2010 (Jan 14, June 26, July 11, and Dec 21) hold added potency, as each one is of a metonic series. (A metonic eclipse repeats the same luminary (Sun/Moon) positions on the same day at 19 year intervals.) When a metonic eclipse occurs, it marks the ending of a specific 19 year karmic chapter and the beginning of a new one. The manifesting cycle that launched in 1991 has now completed. You may note that this was a significant shaping and developmental chapter of your personal life and that these past priorities, goals, or ways of showing up and taking responsibility are now taking a significant shift. The shaping prompts of outer world occurrences and private life threshold crossed in 2010 will set the baselines of the evolutionary programs that will carry through to 2029. (Consider the fact that the rebuilding of Haiti, or the repopulation of the eco-life in the Gulf of Mexico can easily require an entire metonic cycle.)

The last 19 year metonic cycle (spanning the end of Pluto in Scorpio and the entirety of Pluto in Sagittarius) was a Saturnine cementing chapter (life-defining, self-defining; materialization, actualization, culmination, finalization). The status quos of our collective consciousness (expectations, norms, socialization standards, lifestyles, governings) have also been working through a culmination and finalization chapter. This last cycle has taken the constructs of an entire Age as far as the productive learning could go. At both the big picture soul level and the individualized consciousness level, we have now outgrown the agendas previously set. This last cycle has been a final stage setting for the (largely unconscious) collective expectations of how it is we must structure our get-ahead programs. At this point along the collective soul's timeline, perpetuating more of the same allows for no further growth, and in fact, advances degeneration and decay. We can readily see that the standards that have been put in place are no longer working nor workable.

The next 19 year cycle is a Venus ruled chapter. Evolutionary astrology correlates planet Venus to essential survival needs, resources, and priorities—at every level—physical, biological, material, economic, relationships (social politics, intimate, personal, familial.) This cycle will enforce a re-evaluation and restructuring of our essential needs and priorities. It will take us through a critical survival cycle, for our species and for life on our planet. Evolutionary astrology also correlated Venus the psychological of (inner) hearing. What is of utmost importance now is how we respond to the urgency of moment's dictates/that which is energizing now.

For the next nineteen years, we will be confronted with critical (and constantly evolving) survival requirements that will push our previous boundaries until we have completely reshaped our ways of living. In the socialized context, this includes a complete overhaul of our money systems, ways of governing, and of doing business. Note that the Mayan Calendar is based on the cycles of Venus and her alignments to the Sun and Earth. The fact that the Mayan Calendar ends shortly after this 19 year cycle begins, suggests that it will take us a long time to replenish the soil and to fashion new prosperity coffers (material, psychological, emotional and spiritual.)

Since Pluto's advance into the sign of Capricorn in 2008, we have seen the rocking of economic, social, and political systems far beyond the margin of averages. Wielding with deliberate hammer strikes, Pluto will continue to crush and grind its way through Capricorn's bedrock through 2024. As it does, the borders of countries, along with the formulas and boundaries of our actual existence will undergo significant redefinition.

Pluto's return visit to Capricorn only occurs once every 248 years, but we are making our way through an even larger cycle. Pluto's current transit now sets the platform for the culmination of an entire chapter of human evolution. The Transition of the Ages is the actuality the baseline reality of the times we are living. Noting the world's permeating pain and suffering, most would agree we are past due for a programming rewrite.

This time of the approach to the Age of Aquarius is set to liberate each and everyone from the flawed lines of reasoning that have led to today's slam against the wall. We will come to see that we, as intelligent beings, must step forward as responsible and conscious co-creators. We must learn to live in absolute harmony not only with each other, but with the totality of nature. It is no longer a choice, but a necessity. Collective enlightenment may come through the inventiveness of brilliant minds, but it will occur more readily for most of us through the shock wave of realization caused by devastation (emotional, material, physical). The fast-track to enlightened living will occur primarily through the attention we give to the repair work we undertake now.

In essence we are moving out of the Age of the Patriarchy, defined by its core philosophy of dominance and submission that have allowed for man's violations against man and nature. We are now in the ante chamber before reaching the Age of Matriarchy—which does not signal the rise of the feminine over the masculine (another misunderstanding of contemporary thought), but rather a rebirth of equality consciousness, one that recognizes no matter how small the life-form, that each has a significant contribution to make, and that each must be honored and protected as a necessary and integral part of the whole. The alarming frequency of large-scale catastrophes is our loudest wake-up call. Mother Nature's present birthing-pains are meant to awaken humanity's sleeping consciousness to the fact that we are not superior to nature and that in fact, without its well-being, we have nothing. We must return to a more encompassing way of living, one that replenishes respectfully rather than consumes with gluttony, and that holds unswerving reverence for the circle of life. It is heartening to see that evidence of this critical paradigm shift is already actively at work.

In addition to Pluto in Capricorn and the eclipse catalysts of 2010, we are feeling the heat of a number of other building planetary influences. At the completion of the two year Saturn/Uranus opposition cycle (busting-up-the-concrete, colliding of the past and future, and disintegration of illusion), the summer of 2010 introduces a sneak peak of Uranus in Aries. Uranus spends an average of seven years in a particular sign. Whenever Uranus, the Great Awakener, is activated, the collective consciousness takes a major leap. Exceptional people do extraordinary things, and radical change occurs at an accelerated pace. Augmented by Jupiter's conjunction with Uranus from May of 2010 through Jan of 2011, this time should prove to be an especially busy firing-on-all cylinders cycle when huge steps can be taken and everything is of major consequence. Events may happen suddenly and surprisingly (and in greater volume or numbers too), but as we can attest through the witnessing of the year's catastrophes, their life-altering effects are long lasting.

Uranus pertains to invention, innovation, and experimentation, to scientific and technological advance, to freedom for hearts and minds (and also freedom for the oppressed and suppressed), to major lifestyle change, humanitarian undertakings, and group consciousness. This planet also pertains to the rebellion, controversy, and anarchy that opens opportunity for significant social, political, and personal redirection. As Uranus moves through Aries (May 27 – August 14, 2010 and March 12, 2011 – May 16, 2018) we will live through the extraordinary and the unexpected; we will experiment, and we will pioneer through much more than we can envision now. Life will deliver surprise twists and turns; new challenges will be peppered with once-in-a-life opportunities. When Uranus tenants Aries, we find ourselves tapping into a particular vibrant energy surge that facilitates change that was previously beyond reach, or that was once considered altogether impossible.

Holding a lead point (Aries) position in the cardinal axis ignition years (referring to the dynamic transits through Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn from 2010-2016) my hope for humanity is pinned on Uranus's cutting-edge thrust. Uranus in Aries is primed to shatter through our denials, stalemates, and resistance to change, to destroy the tunnel-vision of means-justifies-the-ends profiteering (square to Capricorn). Uranus in Aries is primed to liberate us from the herd mentality of socially-accepted limiting conventions (illumination polarity of Libra), and from the fears and insecurities that keep us clinging to a past (square to Cancer's angle) that no longer nurtures, supports, or replenishes our well-being. Our expectations that someone else will fix it or take responsibility for us must be replaced with a driven, accountable will and "act now" (Aries) mentality. As the saying goes, necessity (Capricorn) is the mother (Cancer) of invention (Aries). When it comes to enforcing the collective soul's (Pluto) demolition mandate, detached Uranus, the shock wave planet, has no selective agenda and will rip through with a velocity that can cut right down to the bone. Uranus in Aries in square aspect to Pluto in Capricorn (now through 2016) will spare no ready-to-fall wall. We have begun the race against the clock. Time (a Capricorn matter) runs especially short now.

As the lead point of the cardinal alignment configurations, Uranus in Aries is set to manifest a new reality base (square from Capricorn), one with the potential to establish greater global equilibrium, cooperation, and community (Libra's full awareness polarity); one that can fertilize and nourish new life and truer security (Cancer angle). Hopefully our new energy initiatives will give Mother Nature the life-line support and breathing apparatus she needs to quell her rising fever.

Uranus's influence through the cardinal climatic years suggests a complete re-invention of our survival programs is a matter of critical necessary rather than theoretical or philosophical choice. The years 2010 through 2016 will bring humanity through some of the most crucially decisive moments in our planet's history. We can expect to see major restructuring of political, social, and economic landscapes, and a shift of land masses, too. (Uranus in Aries is a signature for wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, famine cycles, atmospheric heating, and such. We can already see that global temperature averages are rising at an alarming rate. Should the arctic glaciers melt to an extreme, the methane gas that will be released could be even more lethal than the present Gulf of Mexico crisis.) Starting in 2012, Uranus in Aries will form seven exact squares to Pluto in Capricorn. (June 24, September 19, 2012; May 20, November 1, 2013; April 21, December 15, 2014; Mar 17, 2015). Each of these dates signifies a critical threshold. This Uranus/Pluto aspect will enforce a comprehensive revolutionizing of ideas on what constitutes our security baselines. Once these key dates come and go, we will come to see that life will/can never be the same again.

The Capricorn/Cancer polarity suggests that the solutions to our future survival can be found in a review of our past. Some of our modern inventions will take us into virgin territories (the first computer-generated synthetic life has already been created!), but a seeking of answers from Mother Nature can be our best bet yet. Solutions such as wind power, geo-thermal energies, bio-dynamic farming, and the science of biomimicry (nature as model, measure, and mentor) can help us to build it much better from here.

We stand now poised on the razor's edge, but we are amazingly intelligent creatures and we are not doomed. We have survived our past and we will survive our future. Remember that you have chosen to reincarnate at this time of the transition in order to stand present and to do your part for the collective. Now is the time to open up to a liberated consciousness, to align with your soul's desire for progressive (not regressive) evolution, and to risk living on the edge of tomorrow's future with unwavering courage, responsible action, and reverent heart-consciousness.