science picks and Jupiter/Neptune

Jupiter enters aquarius the first week of 2009 and will conjunct Neptune, also in aquarius, three times in 2009. as the ruler of “the higher mind” jupiter is the planet of philosophy, religion, learning and exchanges with other cultures. aquarius is the sign of the intellect; science, technology, the creative process in social groups (think the Manhattan Project, or more recently, mapping of the Human Genome). This will be a very interesting year as these two planets come together three times; in May, when both are direct, in June, with both retrograde, and finally in December, when both have turned direct again.

The Bush administration was hostile to any science that stood in the way of their neo-con agenda, and global warming was high on that list. Obama has just picked a science team that understands the threat of climate change very broadly; to our environment and sustainability, to our energy needs, to human health. This is a very positive change and during the first year of Obama’s term, the Jupiter/Neptune alignment could be very supportive.

I say could be supportive as the alignment suggests potentially great advancements in our knowledge, and not just our knowledge, but a deeper understanding of how natural systems work. Natural systems (neptune) are elegant solutions (aquarius) to the problems of existence. But they are killer complex and most are both elusive and beyond our current understanding. Together, these two planets could bring about fundamental advances in both our understanding and our ability to address the problems.

But, as we have seen since neptune entered aquarius way back in 1998, we have also experienced a kind of narcolepsy socially, unwilling or unable to recognize the changes that were taking place in our natural world. We’ve been living in a dream, literally, that we are in control of the natural world, that our artificial/technological/scientific systems have domesticated and subsumed natural systems to serve our needs. We’ve been a ripe audience for the propaganda of “it’s not really happening”.

The pitfall of the coming alignment is over-optimism; this of course will initially affect the entire Obama presidency. The change that has come to the US is the most dramatic and encouraging in decades. but there is true work to be done, and Pluto in Capricorn looms over all 2009’s transits.

The support of science is more fundamental to redressing the policies of the last 8 years than most people think, and I am very encouraged by Obama’s picks. Look for truly impressive discoveries in september when uranus aspects them (in mutual reception to neptune) at 24 degrees of pisces.