I just got back from the beach, so I’m pretty relaxed. My lover and I celebrated our 20th anniversary by basking on a Pacific shore, drinking piña coladas with little paper umbrellas sticking out of them.

Back in rugged, mountainous Quito, I’m still humming with the memory of tropical breezes. And in the States, my friends and family write about digging in their gardens, planting beet seeds, cutting lavender and fennel, gathering wild flowers, sitting under cherry trees. I’ll be there, seeing all those distant loved ones, in about three weeks. By then it will be green everywhere.

Looking at May 2006, the first thing I notice is a very pleasant aspect, one that’s both expansive and innovative – the watery Jupiter/Uranus trine.

Jupiter has to do with the social contract in all its forms. It’s about the agreements we create, as a community, and it rewards those who fulfill these agreements. It’s an expansive influence, conducive to financial, educational and social growth. It’s a nice liberal planet, not too interested in bucking the established order. (It sounds like the Democratic Party.)

Uranus, on the other hand, is the revolutionary planet. In hard aspect, it breaks down systems and overthrows governments. But in an easy aspect, like this one, it enlightens without destroying. And so this is a time when those liberal reforms might actually work, and help people in innovative ways.

Water signs are compassionate, intuitive and emotional, and so the watery nature of this Jupiter/Uranus trines softens things further. Every 28 years, there’s a Jupiter/Uranus trine in water signs. These don’t tend to be dramatic moments in history, but they do often coincide with positive social changes.

During the last one (June 1978), the Mormons decided that black men could be priests after all. This is a good example of an established, fixed community taking a step towards a more enlightened future. We could debate about whether or not this has actually improved the lives of the men who’ve taken this step – but an open door is never a bad thing.

During the watery Jupiter/Uranus trine before that (in July 1950), Israel enacted the Law of Return, guaranteeing all Jews the right to live in Israel. This was the first time that the Jewish people had the promise of a safe space in this world. This met a deep emotional need for many families, expressing the compassionate, watery nature of the aspect.

During the Jupiter/Uranus trine before that, in December 1922, the USSR was first formed, a merging of 14 republics. Although it didn’t succeed in maintaining an egalitarian and populist system of government, it was a valiant try.

Since Uranus is the planet of technology and the future, the Jupiter/Uranus trine can mean technical achievements. In 1922, the first Technicolor movies were shown. In 1978, Apple brought out the first disk drive for use with personal computers, and the USSR sent the Soyuz 27 mission into space.

However, as we know, technological advancement is a mixed bag. It was in 1950, under another watery Jupiter/Uranus trine, that the first nuclear reactor in England went into operation. Its purpose was to produce fuel for a nuclear bomb. We see this echoed today in Iran’s fight for nuclear capability. Perhaps its purpose is equally stark, but at this juncture in history, it’s not politic to admit to building bombs.

Still, technical innovations aside, the Jupiter/Uranus trine does get people thinking about improving their communities. It could mean more political involvement. As I write at the end of April, this aspect is already in orb, and so this is a good portent for the big peace march on April 29, as well as for the immigration-law boycott on May 1.

The back-and-forth movement of the U.S. immigration law is getting a lot of press here in Ecuador, as many people count their family members among the undocumented aliens there. Will those people end up jailed and deported? Will they be held indefinitely in military detention facilities? These are things that could happen if this immigration bill becomes law.

And while I’m on the subject, what is the purpose of that projected wall at the US/Mexican border? How many Mexican terrorists have set off car bombs or destroyed buildings in the US? Clearly, people are coming there to work and to support their poor grandmothers back home, not to blow up the place. If we’re walling up the country to keep ourselves safe, we should wall off Canada as well.

Enough of that rant. Let me return to a state of mellowness.

But as I look out my 4th-floor apartment window, I see a large, dark grey storm cloud forming over the mountains. It reminds me that I’m actually not at the beach any more.

And as I look at my ephemeris, I notice that the Jupiter/Saturn square is starting to form, although it won’t be exact till June. These are the two planets which have most to do with the economy, since Jupiter rules wealth and Saturn rules poverty. When they are in hard aspect to each other, there can be a balloon effect - rampant inflation, a pinprick, an explosion, and an involuntarily ascetic decade or two.

We’ve had rich white guys wielding power since the beginning, but George is by far the greediest and most ignorant of the lot. In office, he’s been like a teenager with a new-minted credit card, running completely amok. He’s borrowed more money than all past presidents combined.

A couple of days ago, he promised to fix the expensive-gas problem by drilling in Alaska. It’s clear he hasn’t yet gotten hip to the connection between oil, global warming, and rotten weather. How many tornados will it take before he gets it? Of course, Jerry Falwell has said that global warming doesn’t exist because “God would not let that happen”. (By that logic, I guess the bubonic plague and AIDS were okay with God.)

When people look back on this time in history, I think they’ll see it as a period of excess. Every historical epoch is defined by its Pluto-sign, and largeness is the mark of Pluto in Sagittarius. Sagittarius is ruled by the expansive sign, Jupiter, and so bigger is currently better. Greed has never been so respectable. (In some museum of the future, I can see the bumper sticker “Yes, I do own the road”, next to a wall plaque explaining the rise and fall of the American Empire.)

The Jupiter/Saturn square will be in orb until the fall, and so 2006 looks on the lean side to me. But the world may bounce back from its economic woes one more time, with Jupiter going through its own sign of Sagittarius in 2007. And then in 2008, Pluto leaves Sagittarius, and a new era begins, a leaner and tougher one.

Okay, I’m ready to go back to the beach! Quick, somebody hand me a mindless paperback mystery and a drink with a little paper umbrella!

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