During the months of February, March and for some planets April, there will be an overload of planets in the element of fire. Mars, Venus and Uranus will be in Aries, Jupiter in Leo and Saturn in Sagittarius. Five planets and at certain times all will be in some degree of wide (and narrow) orb square to Pluto. And the moon will be in Fire three times in each of those signs, conjunctions and making aspects.

Consider this something of a double edged sword for those of us who like to dabble in forecasting. 1) fire is something of an aggressive element, it definitely changes things, it heats up, it burns, it changes the forms it encounters. It burns wood, melts metal, is fanned by air and can make a oven of earth and boil water. The best element to deal with fire is water, which can extinguish it. True it can boil, which it will do. At this time Pisces will be the planet that boils and also helps control the bonfire of the vanities that we will be facing.

First Mars and Venus will be together in Aries and we can look for personal romance to flourish and love will be in the air. Relationships will heat up. The will be more erotic energy than usual in the dance of the Zodiac. Fire can also indicate intuition, individualism, leadership and aggressive behavior. Throw Uranus into the mix and this personal energy becomes electric and exciting as the conflagration moves out to wider circles of personal AND social behavior. There will be wider concerns about the state of personal freedoms both here in the US as the Supreme Court takes up the challenge of another case about gay rights to marriage If a couple gets married in California can their marriage be honored in states with prohibitions against gay marriage. The abortion issue, always a barn burner, has reared its head again.

Let us never forget that Mars is the god of war and combined with Venus and Uranus there will be and expanded use of the electric in wars. Cyber attacks, on social media as well as the tried and true and still expanding hacking incidents, more on line killings, the other polarity of hate, just love in reverse (and loved by Scorpio–who is co-ruled by Mars & Pluto).

Already the 2016 drums of political war are beating and warming up caldron of Red and Blue State conflicts, the city folk versus the accrual.

So what can we hope for–that Saturn in Sag and Jupiter in Leo can keep the lid on all this and provide the leadership, the fundamental reason and pragmatic strength. Jupiter is the natural rules of the 9th house and rules law, philosophy, theology and cross cultural understanding–and we will need a lot of these qualities to keep the diplomatic and governmental structures working. The theological demands of ISIS is truly grueling and in fact tiring to western minds. The death love affair of the ISIS fanatics, willing to die for the cause (and get virgins for a reward) makes for a serious threat as we head to March and the final Uranus/Pluto square.

Uranus and the drone will become more and more an issue as the planet of computers and electrical energy will come to the front burner.

Neptune in its own sign of Pisces can offer a vision for a way out, or a deeper warped view of the spiritual play ground. It will not be easy and Pisces quincunxes Leo and squares Sag and is the poor neighbor of Aries. Can a vision for peace or the mechanisms for some kind of solution be started? Doubtful, but a vision is needed. The eclipse of cycle and March *& April may help.

The time will be trying, but the effort will be up to the task. This is a huge challenge. And while things are stressful, but note of hope must arise. Humanity has too much at stake not to figure out a way, a workaround.

A dialogue on race, for example will develop. The law enforcement issue will get more dialogue.

AND our knowledge of Pluto will increase thanks to New Horizons space probe that will spend 8 months at the planet.

Never fear Fire will cook up a new way to keep the planet and the human race going. Fire signs always lead to a down to Earth neighbor with solutions.

Solstice is a big deal this year. Not that it isn’t always a big deal, but this year on December 22 it is on a new moon at 0:06 Capricorn. Wow a perfect cusp. Uranus goes direct at 12:34 of Aries. and we are on our way to the big Uranus/Pluto sq, and Saturn enters Sagittarius.

What I think this indicates that we are in for a wild ride in 2015. The new moon sets the idea of a world on edge, the government on edge, the surge of Saturn also show that is some hope that some energy will shift. It will not come easy, thought, not when the ruler of Sagittarius retrograde in Leo. While the two big guys will both be in fire, the element is muted and the problems will be a struggle until Jupiter goes direct and even then faces two quincunxs to Pluto.

The battles with be heated. Obama’s chart, to me shows a guy who is tired and thinks what the hell, I am going to do what I want, no re-election politics. Just drive the Republicans crazy with a lot of extension of his power at every opportunity. Look for not only immigration rights to be on the front burner but also saving Obama his prized achievement, his legacy. The problem of the pipeline will be another, Pluto and the sludge will dominate the sceneand I think he will use his veto power several times.In the end, he will side with the environmentalists and there will not be enough votes to overturn a veto. He will be just as pesky to this congressional majority as they were to him. Obama, with Aquarius rising does not have the flash we might expect from a Leo–though he does give good speeches. He is from the community organizing side of politics.k And before I went into the Peace Corps I did some community work. The key is to let everyone in the community have their say, not to push to take over, but to work until, though working until everyone, frankly, poops out, that things start to move. Everyone beats their chest, tires and then something is agreed upon. So Obama will now wear the Republicans out. Baner has problems with his own right flank, the new congress with be a dog fight among in their kennel.

The Israeli/Palestinian situation will get very bad, the individual assaults on Jewish places of worship will continue. These personal attacks are different than suicide bombers, how to spot them? They are just an individual on bus, in the store, wherever and people can be cut. Imagine being on a bus in Jerusalem. The radical Israelis are as crazy as their enemy. I just think that how long can this radical right keep up the heat. None of those Torah students and their Rabbis even have to go into the army and they get a government stipend so they can spend their day in study. I think there is political trouble from within.

The good news I think will be in science where I think great breakthroughs will come from the Jupiter, Uranus and Saturn sharing the fire signs.

For another thing, I hope we can see a better push for news in the USA. We are fed propaganda. Se watch killings, accidents, car chases while down town and state and federal problems are not presented. Only on cable news can one get a real sense of what is going on. That and the New York Times. We re living in a time where the diversity of the web may loosen the corporate grip on media. Television itself will change as streaming continues to bash the form big three of CBS NBC and ABC. They are disparately (the network) losing a battle.

I like Saturn in Sag. to give us a better grip on relationships. The younger generation with hookups and a lack of need for singularity in coupling may introduce a more flexible concept of living and loving.

In the end, as I sit on my yoga mat, I like the flow of my breath with my body, continue to be amazed at the serenity that in inner self can give. Here in California we worry about water. I take out my flute and celebrate the flow of breath and the joy that as astrologer can have looking at the heavens and knowing that he is part of the universe looking at itself.

October 8th is a lunar eclipse at 15 Arises.  This eclipse with be in conjunction with transiting Uranus. It will be a powerful injection of emotional and creative disruption.  The whole world is now wondering what the heck is going on.  It is just going to intensify.

On October 23 there will be a solar eclipse at 0 degree Scorpio and 23 minutes.   Since it is exactly on the cusp, perhaps we can hope things will improve. I tend to doubt it.  This eclipse will have some secret attacks happen down road.

However, at this writing I am about to board a plane for Phoenix for big ISAR Conference which for four days will have classes and symposiums on astrology and these eclipses will be studied in a large panel discussion.

When I return I will report the thoughts of this panel on these troubling eclipses in October.

The new moon of July 26 has Mars in Scorpio squaring Sun Moon and Jupiter. No wonder things get just more and more difficult in this post Cardinal Cross months. It hardly seems like just three months ago that we had that Grand Cardinal Cross, plus a Lunar and Solar eclipse.

The violence that every astrologer around was yelling “look out” about started and snow balled, Russia/Ukraine, Syria, Israel, Iraq, planes shot down, Ebola, Children from Middle America invading our boarders, Congress still hostile and unproductive. And losing Iraq–all the Americans who died, for what? And, of course, once again the seemingly eternal Israel Palestinian problem goes crazy–rockets, iron dome, invasion, tunnels, children as shields.

Well, Mars has left his long sojourn in Libra, the gentle, to ingress into Scorpio,the sign or so many things like death, revenge, sex, inheritance, and rebirth. Mars used to rule Scorpio until Pluto and his association with the development of the atomic age and the BOMB kicked Mars off the duel ruler roll and just the guy who hangs out in Aries, the god of war, athletic contests, sex in the survival mode of phallus to the world’s ova. Mars impregnates.

Mars stays in Scorpio until September 14th. And that means it will be a very trying time. Think of this. All fixed signs will be stress. And the fixed signs of Leo has Jupiter in transit and Scorpio has Saturn. While Leo does trine Aries where Uranus is presently hanging out, Scorpio has Saturn. The great “decider” the great “realist” the judgement of judgements made. The only hope here is its trine by sign to Neptune in Pisces.

And Neptune is a hope in a way suggest a new vision MIGHT be generated.

The difficulty with all this, of course, is the occurring big dance of Uranus and Pluto, which means that the transformation energy being released in this configurations moments through direct and retrograde motion is still to be dealt with.

Things will get worse until they get better. A bromide, but bromides become bromides through constant use and the accuracy that they contribute to the situation at hand. While I am optimistic that something manageable and even positive is possible down road, as it were, when options are finally played out and the posturing is over and new real polarities of energy are formed.

I don’t know about you, but for me, I will spend more time on my yoga mat. We in LA are in a drought of huge proportions and this is an immediate concern for me. I get angry at seeing people waste water. Still, other than good action on self circumstances and a calmness of mind and soul is all that one can really ever do–another bromide. As Aunt Sara used to say, “what can you do?” It is a rhetorical question.

July is going to be a month of lots of new planetary movements, and with that a whole new direction will start to unfold.

Jupiter is going into Leo on July 15. Goodbye to the watery Cancer (and the sign of the USA) Hello the fire of Leo the fixed and will have conflict with Saturn still in the fixed sign of Scorpio. This will bring much more stress and crisis. While Jupiter was in Cancer with its trine by sign Saturn in Scorpio. That is over.

Saturn will go direct on July 21 and the whole judgment and evaluative energy of this planet’s concerns with the true shape of practical reality will become impassioned. Old diplomatic agreements will be dashed and the struggle to find order out of the ensuing fracturing of protocols will mean hard agreements will be hammered out the old way, fighting. Saturn and Jupiter in conflicting signs will make things happen like earthquakes of conflicts.

On July 17, Uranus goes retrograde and will pass over the old 13 degree point of the cross and again square Pluto in Capricorn. The final bang of that fabled square. More unstable energy to add to a configuration that is all ready deeply troubled.

Still, if you are a fire sign, the prospect of Jupiter in fire will work well for you and your luck will improve. Later degrees of water signs will also find something to anticipate. Saturn all be in trine to the later degrees of Scorpio will give some personal projects for water sign people a real boost.

Mars will go into the sign of Scorpio and march through Sagittarius and Capricorn and then to Aquarius by the end of December. Water, Fire, Earth and Air. The energy of Mars will be more muted than the long time spent in Libra during the retrograde and its role in the cardinal cross. It will make for a propelling energy, but will not be as dramatic in its impact.