Here's an astrological take on the year 2009 from Eric Francis' Planetwaves:

"With all things Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces coming under the microscope in 2009 and well beyond, we are going to see change of a kind that Barack Obama's campaign writers could not even imagine. Science does not, as yet, acknowledge the realities that the astrological signs represent: the energy patterns in the background of existence that provide the rough blueprints for the world we live in. These patterns can change, but they don't change easily. Usually, the agents of change are represented by planets. For the foreseeable future, the planets involved are Chiron, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: the very gods of change themselves.

Let's organize the discussion by sign, taking Capricorn first. Families often try to push us into making the same mistakes they did; or we feel a massive guilt trip come on if we don't do what we think they expect us to do. Let's give this a name: ancestral guilt. The slightest proposed digression, the least notion of doing things one's own way, the meekest desire to challenge authority or experience an unauthorized pleasure, often are met with the sting of guilt.

Enter Pluto into Capricorn, long awaited, long revered, and the previous birthplace of the Declaration of Independence. Pluto sometimes manifests as Shiva, sometimes as Dionysus, and sometimes (in modern spiritual terms) as the force of the soul coming through. Either archetype will work in this case, if we are looking for something more powerful than the obsessive power of self-accusation. Persistent thought patterns of the past getting dismantled or, for the bolder and more adventurous, celebrated out of existence with the awareness that we are alive now. The people whose bones we walk around on, rather than a source of reluctance, are generally cheering us on. Our real ancestors -- the dead ones -- know the mistakes they made, investing so much energy in negativity, fear and trying to hold back the next generation. Pluto in Capricorn is urging us to tap into this ancestral power source. It is the opportunity break down the preconceptions we've had installed in our minds and free up some energy.

Next is the conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius. Neptune in Aquarius, which we've lived with for a decade, is about the public going into the kind of haze as if there were Prozac in the water (there is) or as if we were all connected to the Internet Matrix in Red Pill fashion. We live in another reality; we have friends we don't know, who we recognize by their avatar; we take the BlackBerry or the iPhone to bed (it makes a good alarm clock and toasts our dreams with microwaves, meanwhile).

Chiron, a planet that is about raising awareness and going through a conscious healing process, has been slowly gaining on Neptune the past four years. This has served to wake us up, gradually; awake enough (at least) not to elect Sarah Palin president-to-be. And I would add, awake enough during these past four years to convert a lot of people who would normally be media consumers into Internet contributors (bloggers, YouTube filmmakers and so on) -- which is exactly, precisely what we need: active participation, the assertion of individuality and the authentic search for community and common ground.

Chiron and Neptune are very close to a long-anticipated (by me, anyway) conjunction. It only makes a very close near-miss this year (in late May, accurate to one degree) but the process is accelerated and magnified by Jupiter in Aquarius aligning with both Chiron and Neptune. What have we here? A magnificent opportunity to be yourself and find your true peers, which I suggest you get out of digital form and into physical form. Yes, do that very dangerous thing and use the Internet to meet people in real life. Try not to have them be only in Timbuktu. Try for within one-hour travel time, or even walking distance. Let's turn the world to Burning Man and manifest the Internet on the ground, in physical form. Read your blogs at the local coffee house open mic.

Last but not least, we have the continuing opposition of Saturn and Uranus, across the Virgo-Pisces axis. Uranus in Pisces is about sparking up the imagination and our sense of what is possible on the material plane. This has been going on for a while, but the more recent, and ongoing, opposition from Saturn in Virgo gives us something to push back against, like a swimmer propelling herself off the pool wall in a race. Yes, it represents a solid object, a kind of obstacle, but it's also something to work with: actual material with which to construct those Uranus in Pisces visions of what you could be and consequently, what the world could be. The next world: the one we are creating."