Annual Predictions
Global Psychics and friends predict the trends and signifcant news stories for the year.
An astrological forecast for 2008
How will 2008, a"1" year shape our lives - and the world?
The Global Psychics team responds with their 208 predictions....Get your own personal forecast for the year click here!
by Phil
2008: Using our imaginations to cope with the winds of change.
As with any new year, there will be many things happening "up there" that will be effecting us "down here." The major stuff happening "up there" will be effecting all of us on global levels, and we ignore these events at our peril, otherwise this stuff will be happening to us, and perhaps against us. As always, it is far better to be working with the cosmos - with our higher selves - in order to make this new year work for us.
On personal levels, much of what will be happening depends on where the planets, especially the outer ones, will be moving in our natal charts. I don't have everyone's natal charts in front of me, so I'll start with...
The Global Stuff
To get a grip on the global nature of 2008 and beyond, we need to look back at 2007 (and before) to put things into a broader perspective. The astrological events of 2007 and 2008 are quite different from each other, but are very much connected, and Saturn is the common link. These shifting currents involve the outer planets Prometheus (Uranus) and Neptune, and their relationships by opposition with Saturn, so a primer on each planet, as well as the opposition energetic, would first be in order.
Saturn is either the "Good Professor" or the "Great Malefic" (bad guy), depending on how well we're dealing with authority figures, responsibility (both personal and societal), rules, regulations, institutions, maturity, etc. If we're working against these "necessary evils," Saturn will more than likely teach us some rather harsh lessons. However, if we treat Saturn as the Good Professor, he'll be more than happy to give us passing grades on the upcoming tests. The primary question he asks all of us is "Are you being responsible to yourselves, as well as to your communities?"
Prometheus (Uranus) stole fire from the Gods in order to give it to us humans many millennia ago. The sudden introduction of this basic and simple innovation has evolved into the harnessing of electricity, and all the things we've since come to rely on. Prometheus (and necessity) is the Mother of Invention, and when we need it, Prometheus frequently provides. The shock of change isn't always smooth and painless, so we'll need to learn how to adapt (evolve) with the changes that Prometheus promises to unleash in the next three and four years.
Neptune represents all aspects of spirituality, from organized religions down to our silliest superstitions. The Ruler of the Oceans speaks of a depth and width that corresponds to the unknowing and endless depths of the Universe itself, as well as to the enigmatic depths of our Souls. The path to understanding our connection with the Divine "All-That-Is-God" is by nature an illusion-filled journey, and Neptune lives within this fog. In fact, he/she loves these murky depths, and Neptune challenges us all to persevere through the muck to find the gems of spiritual wisdom that lie just beneath and beyond our grasps.
The opposition energetic is problematic if we're living within the extremes, but is essentially beneficial if we can find the balance between any two opposites. On the one hand, we come to know the great divide - that which separates us from each other and from our Source - but we can ideally learn how to build the bridge between the gaps. In the exalted center, we're allowed to learn the great lessons from the Good Professor Saturn - the link between the energetics of the past few years - and the blessings that (hopefully!) await us in the next few years.
Saturn was opposed Neptune for most of 2006 and 2007, and religious (Neptune) extremism (Saturn) caused the deaths of untold thousands around the world under the banner of religious (Neptune) intolerance (Neptune opposed Saturn). The "correct" middle ground has hopefully forced many of us to be responsible (Saturn) for our own connection with our exalted higher selves (Neptune). "To thine own Self be true" has become an appropriate mantra.
The "incorrect" path has been to surrender our free-wills to the highest Buddha - the illusionary belief system (Neptune) of an authority (Saturn) outside of ourselves. In the extreme example of this karmic sell-out, we've seen suicide bombers who believe (Neptune) that authority figures (Saturn) know what they're talking about when they promise martyrdom and dozens of virgins in the afterlife for the misguided souls who would detonate their bodies for "the cause," no matter what the cause might be. The concepts of "Instant Karma," and "As within, so without" have thus arisen in new manifestations, and not all of them have been uplifting.
The Saturn/Neptune opposition has passed, but the reverberations will last for several more years. It would be advantageous for all of humanity to know that it was truly over, but those unfortunate souls who didn't learn Saturn's teaching methods of the past couple of years are still among us - railing from hate-filled pulpits against new perceived threats - all of which pit our individual free-wills against the alleged (false) majority opinion. News flash!: Intolerance is unhealthy for all living things.
In 2008 (through to 2011), Saturn begins his first of four exact oppositions with Prometheus, a 40 - 45 year cycle of great inventive opportunities, but also of tremendous societal and cultural upheavals, as well as shocking change. Historically, a Saturn/Prometheus opposition has seen the great inventions of the electric light bulb, phonograph, locomotive, radio, the mission to put a human on the Moon, the development of micro-chips, etc.
Unfortunately, Saturn/Prometheus oppositions have also seen revolutions, political assassinations, the outbreak of wars and civil wars, unstable financial markets, global pandemics, and other unpleasantries. In many ways, this has already begun, and an example of this can be seen in the recent assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. I'd rather not dwell on the down-side of a Saturn/Prometheus opposition, but it will be important to acknowledge that such tragedies are inevitable when agents for change (Bhutto - Prometheus) oppose unprincipled authority figures (Musharraf/Al Qaeda/Bush [whoever was "responsible"] - Saturn).
The question at hand is NOT which "side" to be aligned with, but how to harness the middle ground where the Good Professor Saturn will be teaching his classes. Saturn (in Earth-y Virgo) will be showing us how we can take responsibility for our own lives, as well as for how to reign in Prometheus' radically inventive nature for sustainable living for all of us (Prometheus is in the globally aware sign of Pisces). An exalted Saturn wants us to stay away from the extremes in order to harvest the benefits of the extremes - the Promethean inventiveness that has arisen from the ashes of last years' Saturn/Neptune opposition - the time when we were being called upon to rewire our individual connections to the Universal Divine.
As previously mentioned, the events of the past couple of years will reverberate for the next few years (just in time for 2012!), so if this necessary work hasn't been completed, we'll all be getting many opportunities to connect the dots over the next few years. How to do this is outlined below in...
The Personal Stuff: Allowing our imaginations to rule.
The natal chart for the Solstice (see my "Sun in Capricorn" article) speaks volumes for how to successfully navigate 2008. Mercury leads the way into the new year, and tells of how we'll need to rely on our abilities to communicate with our Source for guidance, no matter which way the winds of change blow.
On an esoteric level, Mercury finds itself a higher octave expression in the energies of Prometheus (Uranus). In other words, when we receive a flash of awareness from our Source (through Mercury), we revert to a Promethean effort in order to turn our thoughts into something tangible. For instance, every inventor will admit to having a "Eureka!" moment at some stage in the development of their creations. It might arrive in the form of a dream, or in a significant coincidence (a synchronicity), or frequently a combination of the two. This is Mercury activating their creative process, and then their inner Prometheus steps in to make their epiphanies a reality.
The key for the inventive creator is to allow our imaginations to rule. Mercury, linked to the higher/global Prometheus, is the mainline in the creation process. Our inner Saturn already knows this about human inventiveness, and the primary lesson to be learned from the Good Professor Saturn this year is to show some discipline (Saturn) in allowing our imaginations (Mercury/Prometheus) to rule.
By necessity, we need to own our minds, and take back the birthright of our own imaginations. This involves reducing or eliminating any of the many mind polluters "out there," represented by various factions of the media and entertainment industries, and other "popular opinion" shapers. By utilizing our clearest intellects and purest imaginations, we won't know what we can't accomplish! We get to think for ourselves, and not simply parrot what authority figures (Saturn) will have us saying or thinking. They (authority figures) probably won't know what they're talking about when Saturn exactly opposes Prometheus in November, so we might as well become our own best authorities (an exalted Saturn), and take complete responsibility for how we think and create (Prometheus).
In many ways, we'll be needing to rely on our imaginations more than ever this year, and Mercury will be more than happy to help us think outside the box in this regard. All three Mercury retrograde cycles for 2008 will be entirely within Air signs, in this order: Aquarius (January 28 - February 19), Gemini (May 26 - June 19), and Libra (September 24 - October 15). The Air signs are primarily about the ethereal qualities of our lives: our abilities to create (Aquarius), communicate (Gemini), and create beauty, harmony, and balance (Libra). Mercury's retrograde cycles fully within each Air sign can show us how we can turn our imaginations (Mercury) into inventive realities (Prometheus).
There will be many more opportunities to use our imaginations for the benefit of creating better lives for ourselves and for our world, and I'll be getting to them as each new month comes along, so stay tuned! In the meantime, remember that the illusion-shattering Saturn/Neptune opposition is over, and the resulting clearer connections with our inner Divinity will show us how to be the creative geniuses we intuitively know we are.
Just keep the TV and other distractions turned in the off position! A raped psyche is incapable of owning it's imagination - our birthright.
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