(image: Jonathan Zander/Digon 3, via Wikimedia)

If you are sensitive to energy shifts and/or keep up with astrology weather changes, you already know we are moving into an important period of change.  We’re approaching the June 26 square between Uranus and Pluto. This will be the first of six exact squares taking place during 2012-2015, although the planets have been hovering at a near-square since 2011 and will continue to be within 1 degree of this relationship into 2016. Historically, as these two outer planets form different aspects to each other, a shift in eras takes places.

Challenges and change

Uranus, planet of revolution, formed a conjunction with Pluto, planet of death and transformation, in 1965-66, just as the protest movements of the 1960s began to ignite. The two planets last squared each other in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Now Uranus has returned to sign it occupied during the square aspect of the 1930s while slower-moving Pluto has moved to Capricorn, the opposite sign to its placement during the 1931-34 square.

Interestingly, this first exact square will take place one day after Saturn turns direct in Libra, sign of balance. There may be a sense of something hitting the fan in situations where loose ends have not been tied up and where the scales have not been balanced. We have already experienced the rumblings of change through the economic news in both the US and Europe, as well as in the protests against injustices which began around the time Uranus entered Aries . With Capricorn’s involvement in the square, the big change is bound to involve business, finances, and the structures which support our economy.

Waning vs waxing squares

The difference between the earlier square and the present one lies not only in Pluto’s sign. The 1930s square was a waning square (meaning the distance between the planets was growing smaller as they moved toward the 1960s conjunction) while the current aspect is a waxing square (the two planets will grow further apart, toward an opposition, after this square). While this difference is too subtle for most astrologers to emphasize in reading individual charts, the impact of the difference on the world stage can be significant.

Waxing squares tend to be more purely reactive, with events seeming to spring from each other as if by accident. Waning squares carry with them the consciousness of the conjunction and thus tend to involve more deliberate action. It is up to each of us, individually and collectively, to make conscious choices which support positive change. Will we act selfishly or with compassion? Have we moved out of the false belief that kindness = weakness? What did we learn in the last Uranus-Pluto conjunction that we can draw upon now?

One of the key figures of the 1960s was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With his natal Sun in Capricorn and Moon in Pisces, King possessed a keen insight into the importance of interweaving strength and kindness. Among the many inspiring quotes from his speeches is this one: “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”