I’m drinking tea from a cup that says, “I’d worry about getting older if I wasn’t still so darn cute.” It belongs to my dad. I’m staying here with him in the DC area, celebrating his 89th birthday with him. He doesn’t change much from year to year, except to mellow out a bit. He still cares a lot about politics and social issues, but he has dropped the need to argue like a pit bull with anyone who disagrees with him.

Luckily, I almost always agree with him. It was fun watching last Friday’s debate on his suburban sofa. We agreed that Obama looked dignified and McCain looked like a condescending jerk.

One of the things we don’t agree on is astrology. As a secular humanist, my dad thinks that astrology is bunk. For him, any kind of belief system is nothing but self-delusion. He believes that humans have to look out for each other, because there’s nothing else looking out for us. It’s up to us to take care of each other.

I respect his opinions. He’s rigorous, sticking to a philosophy that isn’t always comfortable. Of course, astrology doesn’t require any belief in a supreme being or in divine intervention. But, at the same time, it’s an intricate system which is mostly unproven. People are just beginning to do more systematic astrological research, but this isn’t happening in well-lit offices with grant money from big universities. It’s something that a few astrology nerds do when they get home, instead of watching TV.

Most people believe in astrology because of anecdotal evidence. People notice that their moon-in-Cancer friends like to cook, and their sun-in-Leo friends like to boss people around. It doesn’t take long to develop a feel for the unique qualities of each sign.

But you have to be open to noticing this stuff. And this is where a little bit of mysticism comes in. I see the universe as a complex web, with everything connecting to everything else, one way or another. When a duck quacks, a blade of grass trembles, and the wind blows my hat off. That’s my world, and it makes perfect sense to me.

So my dad and I don’t talk much about this. Instead we talk about politics, a safe subject for us! We both cheer as Obama rises in the polls.

If astrology was an exact science, I would be confidently telling you who is going to win the election in November. But I know I’m not objective enough. On election day, neither candidate has a particularly easy chart, and both have some heavy Saturnine aspects. Saturn and Uranus are opposed to each other in the sky, and this indicates a pitched battle between the old order and the forces of change.

Whenever Saturn and Uranus oppose each other, enormous changes brew and important reforms are instituted. These planets were opposed at the birth of Simon Bolívar, Mother Jones, Nelson Mandela, and my dad. Although my dad has never actually started a revolution, he has always been a progressive thinker and a proponent of social change.

The Saturn/Uranus opposition happened twice in the twentieth century. It was around in 1919, when the 18th Amendment was passed, banning alcohol. Although this was motivated by a sincere desire for reform, it ended up having a lot to do with the development of organized crime in this country. Also during around this time, the League of Nations was founded, and the first Communist International met in Moscow. And in Italy, Mussolini formed the Fascist party. All these things shaped events for the next fifty years.

Saturn and Uranus opposed each other again in the mid 60s, in the middle of the civil rights struggle. This dynamic and successful protest movement was a model for other movements as the sixties continued. The Saturn/Uranus opposition was close to exact when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. This legislation was enormously important, but did it eliminate racial discrimination? Clearly, we are still fighting this battle, forty years later.

So what will the Saturn/Uranus opposition bring us this time around? We are already seeing enormous changes in the financial structure of the U.S. As I write this, the $700 billion bail-out bill has just been voted down in the house, the stock market has plunged, and nobody quite knows what will happen next. What reforms will be instituted? Will the projected “fix” just lead us into more problems?

The bursting of the financial balloon is predictable since Pluto is just leaving the optimistic, buoyant, expansive sign Sagittarius, and entering the dry, hard, responsible sign Capricorn. It’s clear that we will have a completely different kind of economy, and thus a very different society, during the next few decades. Astrologically, 2008 is a threshold year.

As I see it, there could be two long-term outcomes to this financial crisis, but they are not really mutually exclusive. On the one hand, big business interests could decide that they’ll never be caught short again, and work out a structure which gives them more rigid control. Or the gaps in the economic system could be filled by ordinary people developing vital community systems. This would involve many small, consistent, difficult acts by lots of folks working together. But it just might save us, as a planet.

And if both happen? Things will become more polarized. And there will be a revolution in about four years, when Uranus and Pluto square each other.

My dad wavers between pessimism and hope. He’s seen a lot in almost nine decades, so he doesn’t have an enormously positive view of humanity. But humanity is what he believes in, so he’s hanging in there.

And I’m looking at the larger cycles, and still trying to stay open to the more subtle strands in the web. There are currents running in many different directions. Can I influence them? Maybe I do, more than I ever realize. But I’m not going to just rely on mystical influences weaving themselves into a more perfect world. I’ll listen, work and vote.

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