Clouds roll in every afternoon about this time, and we get a fierce but brief rain shower. I just ran around and closed all the windows in my apartment. When I first moved to Quito, I would turn off the computer for twenty minutes every time I saw a fork of lightning, but now I ignore those jagged twists in the sky, and instead trust in the little box under my desk. I like the rain, because it fills up the reservoirs and furnishes me with plentiful electricity.

I also feel lucky to have so many windows. They open onto a city of slanting sidewalks, crisp thin air, and furry mountains. A foot away from me, a glass goddess figure catches the muted afternoon light, and behind her, I see the plowed garden of my across-the-street neighbors.

Every morning, my legs carry me uphill to the Surty Market, where I buy my daily copy of El Comercio. This little newspaper is also a window, providing a useful perspective on how the world looks from outside the borders of my home country. Every afternoon, my mind carries me all over the world and then moves into orbit in the sky. Astrology is a window for me too, not to mention an ongoing challenge to my objectivity.

Lately my mailbox has been filling up with messages from other astrologers, detailing the aspects which irrevocably state that Kerry will win the election. They sometimes use esoteric data which I usually ignore. I look again, and wonder. It's true that I haven't looked at the candidate's solar returns, or checked out their Chiron aspects on inauguration day. Have I been unduly pessimistic, merely afraid of hoping too hard?

It is also true, as they all mention, that Bush is now in the midst of his second Saturn return, and that this signals an important change in his life. Does that mean that he'll be going back to Texas to brag about all the bad guys he killed in his heyday? Unfortunately, I've noticed many people achieving solid successes during their second Saturn returns, especially in their professional fields. But it can also be a time of completion, a time when you jettison the things that are part of the past, and prepare for the next phase in your life.

Kerry's Saturn return was exact in January 2003, when he declared that he was running for president. At that time, he gave an erudite address at Georgetown University, complaining that Bush was rushing to war. So it doesn't look as if his second Saturn return was bad for him. However, Kerry's Saturn is placed in the 7th house, which has to do with relationship. It carries him towards engagement.

Bush's Saturn is in the 12th house, which has to do with hidden things, and this is the house that the ancients called "the house of self-undoing". Hmm, maybe I should look at Bush's first Saturn return, in order to get some clues about how his second one will work out?

Well, look at that. His first Saturn return was in 1976, when he was getting arrested for drunk driving. It clearly wasn't a wake-up call, however, since he kept drinking for another decade. This seems to be a time when G.W. was just knocking around, in between ducking the National Guard and starting a doomed oil company.

A Saturn return is supposed to be a time when you look around you, notice that you are definitely here on the physical plane, and make some resolutions and commitments. It's a time of reckoning, a time when you really see yourself as an adult. I've known several former alcoholics who stopped drinking during their Saturn returns. Why did Bush seem so unaffected by this most important life passage, the first time around?

Looking more closely at Bush's Saturn, we see not only that it's in the 12th house, but that it also makes no major aspects to any of his other planets. Saturn is the planet that has to do with responsibility - and Bush's Saturn is alone, isolated, unable to find a useful slot for itself. Saturn is the working planet, but this Saturn has no real work to do.

Kerry's Saturn, on the other hand, is conjunct his moon and opposing his sun - so responsibility for him is a very personal thing. His sense of worldly obligation is firmly connected to his parents and their steep expectations of him, and he has a deep-seated fear of letting down those who count on him.

This strong Saturn is one reason that Kerry doesn't come on as particularly personable. He has Sagittarius rising, so he should be a party guy with a big grin. But that Saturn opposes his ascendent too, and causes him to constantly criticize and inhibit himself. He struggles with the sense that he isn't good enough, or that he will do something wrong. People pick this up, this inner anxiety, and it reminds them that life is tough and that they too have obligations.

On the other hand, the vibe that everybody gets from G.W. is that life is a hoot. His Saturn is tucked away, incommunicado, and so he is definitely not going to bum anyone out. No worries, guys. Will this be enough to win him the election? Yikes, I hate to think that of the US voting population, but I haven't trusted them since Reagan.

October is a month of change, though, and that bodes well. The new moon brings a partial eclipse, just a glimpse of a new possibility. And the full moon on the 27th, less than a week before the election, brings a total eclipse. Eclipses are paradigm shifts, times when people suddenly notice that the air smells a little different. Something's coming. There's a sense of being on the verge.

This full moon occurs at 5 degrees of Taurus/Scorpio, so it will have the most dramatic effect on those who have planets close to those points. The Taurus/Scorpio opposition is about the tension between the status quo and the forces of transformation. Some entrenched interests will be shaken up by this celestial event. Will one of them be the Bush presidency?

Of the two, Kerry's chart is most powerfully affected by this eclipse, since he has Venus (ruler of his midheaven, the career point) at 3 degrees Scorpio. This echoes the most commonly-used chart for the U.S., which also has Venus ruling the midheaven. And at 6 am, the moment the polls open in Washington, 2 degrees of Scorpio will be rising over the horizon. This definitely favors Kerry. The morning has his name on it.

But now let's look at Uranus, the planet of technology. What's it doing there, in the U.S. horoscope, making a hard aspect to the election day ascendent, as well as to the sun's degree at the eclipse? And look at that hard aspect between Kerry's natal Venus and his Uranus (which is closely conjunct the U.S. Uranus)? What tricky business is being carried out? Who programmed those voting machines, anyway?

But, still, it doesn't look like dynastic business as usual, and that's why my newborn hope is still lying there, squirming a little but still alive. There are some things that are currently fixed in place, and these things will fall. How that happens, I'm not sure. But this eclipse will bring a shivering, a shaking, a sudden opening, a strong wind, and then eventually, the release of hard rain.

I'm waiting. I'm right here at the window.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com