For a couple of days, I was keeping an eye on the spindly pine tree just off our balcony. There were two magpies nesting there: big, gorgeous, dramatic birds. I was enchanted. But now they’ve decided the tree isn’t quite strong enough for them, and have moved away.

My lover and I, on the other hand, have just found out the lease on our apartment will be extended for another year. This place is definitely strong enough for us.

During the last couple of months, with Pluto newly in Capricorn, it’s become clear what is strong enough to hold us all, and what isn’t. One of the things that’s happened is that the U.S. economy has faltered and caved in on itself. It’s not that it’s suddenly become weak, but that long-term structural weaknesses have been revealed.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 63,000 jobs were lost in February. The dollar has reached a new low, while petroleum prices are higher than they’ve ever been. The housing market has collapsed, and food prices have risen steeply. People are going to food pantries, and the food pantries themselves are struggling. For working people, wages are stagnant, but many people have a sense that they’re running backwards, since they’re having trouble providing the basics for their families.

Pluto in Capricorn is about cutting back, about deciding what’s essential and what’s not. What constitutes a strong foundation? What’s a luxury and can be dispensed with? This is the process that millions of U.S. families are going through. The trade-offs are tricky. People are thinking: Instead of eating out this month, we’ll have a birthday party for our daughter. Instead of buying orange juice, we’ll take the youngest to the dentist. And for some, there’s no possibility of either the orange juice or the dentist.

What’s a luxury on the national level? At this point, the occupation of Iraq has reached its five-year mark, and has cost the US taxpayer 522 billion dollars. How many carrots could that buy? How many roofs over people’s heads? (The National Priorities Project has some answers for these questions at http://www.nationalpriorities.org/).

And this doesn’t even address the cost in human suffering, on both sides of the religious divide.

The United States is the Angry Giant. And if you’re fighting the Angry Giant, the oldest trick in the book is to lure him onto your territory, where you know the terrain, and then to exhaust him, to break his knees. In this case, of course, the Angry Giant blundered into a whole different country from the one that attacked him. It looks like he can’t tell the difference between one Arab country and another. It looks like he just went for the easier target – a sitting president rather than a vague, chaotic guerrilla movement. It looks like he’s willing to crush people forever, in order to make himself look big.

So maybe anger itself is a luxury that can no longer be afforded. When the people have to choose between anger and bread, they choose bread.

At the same time, there are different kinds of anger. And when there is no bread, anger is what people eat. In April, Mars (the planet of anger) continues its long sojourn in Cancer (the sign of hunger, need, security, home and families), and it squares the new moon. And so I am seeing an end to complacency. I’m seeing people become restless enough to make their anger public, because their families are suffering.

At the April new moon, the airy energy of March is gone. Neptune is still in Aquarius, but now it stands alone. And with little air, there will be little objectivity. People will respond to everything immediately, with the alacrity and spontaneity of fiery Aries. There will be fists raised, cries for action. Hunger will fuel the frustration: hunger for food, for homes, for security, for justice, for change.

At the April new moon, Mars is right on GW Bush’s sun, and the sun/moon in Aries opposes his natal moon. It looks like an extremely challenging month for him, and I can see the violence touching him. This is a switch, as usually he manages to protect himself against all consequences. But the protective influences have moved on, and Bush is more exposed than he’s ever been.

The whole country is entering a period of movement, anger and struggle, with Uranus now squaring Mars in the US birthchart. This is an aspect that shows an abrupt shift: a crisis or a liberation. It’s prone to sudden surprising twists.

The earthy influences are still here, though, and they are stabilizing. While the fiery and watery influences create steam and tempests, the earthy influences keep on working the soil, making it healthier. This month, there’s an earthy trine between Saturn and Pluto, and this shows that some folks will take the long view. These pragmatic souls will address specific problems, having to do with wheat and vegetables and bees and land and water. There will be people thinking about what matters, what lasts, and what sustains us.

Strategy takes many forms. There are political strategists taking back some of the power from the entrenched governing classes. There are journalists asking the hard questions. There are people working on rolling back the earth damage we’ve done. There are organizers in every neighborhood, working on community gardens, helping people share resources.

Sometimes the trees aren’t strong enough for the birds to nest there. But it’s better to know this, and to keep it real. It’s a month of fighting, but also a month of planting. It will be a long time before we can lean on the trees we plant now. But someday, they will be strong enough.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com