I’m awake early in the morning, long before the alarm’s ring. I slip out of bed, leaving my spouse still snoozing, put on shorts and a T-shirt, and head up to my attic study. Opening up all the windows, I let the cool Bremen morning flow in over the rooftops.

Why am I up so early? What feels so portentous today? I think it’s because this is Saturn’s last day in Virgo. This afternoon, it will enter Libra, and it will be there for the next two and a half years.

And so here I am, saying goodbye to Saturn in Virgo. Saturn has been in this earth sign, the sign of health, fitness, ecology, nutrition and work, since September 2007. All organizational systems are associated with Virgo, from the jigsaw puzzle to the human nervous system. It’s all about the way the pieces fit together. Furthermore, Virgo is a sign of standards. It is always in search of the organizational system that functions best on a practical level.

While Saturn was in Virgo, we saw a worldwide economic collapse, an indication of disease in the social body. Yes, something was definitely out of kilter. This was followed by an attempt to patch it all together again. In the thick of this, a new U.S. president was elected, someone who treats the electorate as a basically sensible group of folks. (I often wonder why, but I don’t have the faith that Obama has.)

Obama has proceeded to try to fix things, starting with the economy and going on to the health care system. This is laudable, and very Virgoan – and Obama is the first U.S. president born in the pragmatic Pluto-in-Virgo generation. However, we do have to wonder whether this system can truly be cobbled back together.

Saturn leaves Virgo in the middle of a hot summer. Even here in Bremen, it’s sticky. (I wasn’t wearing shorts and T-shirts at this time last year.) Everybody knows something needs to be done about global warming. Sea levels are rising, glaciers melting, polar bears dying, and pine beetles multiplying. And this was even before the BP oil spill made the Gulf into a toxic dump.

All these things illustrate some of the intrinsic faults in the way we humans have arranged our world. Looking at the short term only works for the short term, and sooner or later, we run through our grace period. Focusing on profit leaves everything else to fend for itself, and this includes health, beauty, love, and integrity.

And so I’m not blaming Saturn’s passage through Virgo for anything. I don’t think we can fix it by just rearranging the pieces. There have been some valiant efforts made, and there have been a few practical improvements. Just today, Obama will sign legislation overhauling the regulatory system. I’m sure he’ll get some right-wing guff for eroding the right of big corporations to impoverish everyone else.

What can we expect from Saturn’s next two and a half years, its passage through Libra? Libra is a gentle, peaceful sign, not noted for passionate uprisings, so I think a lot of the changes will involve the courts. I’m predicting more idealism, more clarity on what constitutes fairness and balance. Those who are oriented towards justice will write about it, teach it, and practice by example.

Libra is the air sign that has to do with justice, cooperation, marriage and relationships. So one thing I’m expecting is more marriage rights for gay people. This is already happening all over the world, most recently in Argentina. In the US, the current piecemeal approach is very Virgoan, and so I’m hoping that Saturn in Libra will bring a uniform federal policy based on an equable standard.

Issues of race and class could also be addressed while Saturn is in Libra. It was during the last pass of Saturn in Libra that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Immigration is a loaded question in the US today, and it’s mostly loaded by the guns of racists. In Arizona, the police have just been given more power to stop anyone who looks like an immigrant, and demand that they prove they aren’t. As I write this, people are converging on Arizona, ready to protest this law.

Libra is a peaceful sign, but this is not a peaceful time. Saturn in Libra is dealing with some powerful forces in August’s cardinal T-square, and so this is clearly a time of important world change. We saw similar configurations in the late 80s and early 90s, when the USSR, Germany and South Africa all changed shape in radical ways. We saw something similar in the 60s, a time of nascent revolutionary movements.

And what are the other components of change? What can we expect besides the peaceful protests and legal strategies of Saturn in Libra?

There’s Pluto in Capricorn, which represents the established structure, both government bureaucracies and powerful corporations. It also represents the weight of traditions that are far older than our current social structure: the old wise woman and the village healer, for example.

Uranus in Aries represents weapons, in the hands of both grassroots militias and the military. It represents the impassioned young people running through the streets, and the cynical arms traders hoping for a booming market in guns.

And Jupiter in Aries, a player from now through next spring, is all about new beginnings. Jupiter is the planet of growth, and this can indicate another unbalanced economic period, with entrepreneurs betting huge sums of money on things that don’t exist. It can also mean exciting new projects, and a resurgence of individual activism.

We are at the beginning of a volatile and exciting five-year period, and so this is definitely the time to get in touch with your will and your beliefs, and to resurrect any idealism that’s been in sleep mode. All cardinal signs urge us towards action, and four of the five outer planets are now spending an extended period of time in cardinal signs.

This doesn’t mean everything will be transformed right away, because Uranus and Jupiter are planning to retrograde back into their previous signs during the winter. Every surge forward is followed by a pulling back; it’s a tidal rhythm that rules our society too. But this summer’s surges will be powerful ones, the kind that alter the landscape.

And as I’ve been writing this, the wind has shifted. I can smell it. A storm is coming.

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