It’s dawn, and I’m sitting on the balcony, watching the Caribbean shimmer. The sunlight is as tenuous as the inside of a shell.

Across the street, they are building a beach. When my lover and I lived here, there was a tangle of trees and a rocky coastline across the street. But five years ago, just after we moved away, the mud and rocks from the mountain hurtled down, leveling the trees, punching big holes in the apartment buildings all around ours.

They say that our apartment building was saved by two trees - a mango and a mamón, twining together and blocking the boulders that rolled down from the mountain. Our neighbors huddled on the roof, managing to stay alive while fifty thousand other people died.

The lot next to us is still rubble. The tall soursop tree is gone, and I haven’t seen the macaws that once lived there. But a flock of big green parrots have moved in, and I hear their loud comments as they fly within a couple of feet of my own perch.

I look out at the peaceful shine of the sea, and think about an ocean half a world away. I think about the way it buckled up, and then threw itself like a giant fist onto the land, carrying away more than a hundred thousand people, in Sri Lanka and India and Indonesia and Thailand.

I know that this sea also has a mind of its own. The skin of water and wind and mountains has its own consciousness, its own rhythms. And when humans scar this skin - through chopping down too many trees, or filling the air with hot fumes - then we take great risks with our own tiny and fragile bodies, our matchstick houses.

What would it be like if the earth was treated with tender care, if we were conscious that every piece of her skin is connected to every other piece? How would the world be different?

I know that we can't stop her from shaking and stretching. We are not going to tame the earth, no matter how lovingly we treat her. But imagine how different it would be if natural disasters were not heaped upon the ongoing man-made disaster of chronic poverty.

I don’t have much experience predicting natural disasters, since my focus has always been psychological and spiritual astrology. (It would help if I had a birth date for the earth!) But looking at the chart for the tsunami, I see several telling things. One is a Mars/Uranus square, a hard aspect between the planet of action and the planet of change.

Another thing is that all the visible planets were on one side of the sky, bounded by the opposition between the sun and the moon (one day short of exact).

Both these conditions - the Mars/Uranus hard aspect, and the nearer planets´ unbalanced placement on one side of the wheel - will recur in May of 2005. Will this mean another natural disaster? With Mars and Uranus both in the water sign Pisces, I think I might stay away from the shore then.

January does look more grounded than December, however. On the morning of the new moon (the 10th), the sun, moon, Mercury and Venus will all be in the earth sign Capricorn. This gives all of us a more practical focus, and it's good for clean-up and rebuilding.

Capricorn is also the sign that’s allied to business, and so, in January, we will have to be vigilant about the abuses of state-supported business, a sphere of life that’s analogous to the church in the Middle Ages. Under the energy of Capricorn, established interests become stronger.

If established interests are sensible, prudent and pragmatic, many good things can be accomplished under this sign. For those of us not wedded to the prevailing power structure, however, the Capricorn influences still give us discipline and good judgment. We can be clear and realistic about where to put our activist energies.

There’s also a certain uneasiness in January, along with all the Capricorn pragmatism. Saturn in Cancer and Pluto in Sagittarius will be exactly inconjunct, so there’s a dissonance between the home (Cancer) and the world (Sagittarius).

On a larger scale, this is a conflict between nationalism and an international perspective. Saturn is a rigid, conservative, fear-based planet, and, in Cancer, it is protective of family, tradition, heritage, and roots. Pluto is the planet of dramatic change, and in Sagittarius, it’s about the desire to broaden one’s perspective, to become inspired by a larger vision.

All children born now have Pluto in Sagittarius, and many will be much more aware of themselves as global citizens. And we, alive in this moment, are all conscious of our position in the world. We see the possibilities for dramatic change, for creating a world community. At the same time, we are all limited by home-grown fears.

When looking at any challenging aspect, however, it's important not to paint one planet as the villain and the other as savior. The only way to work through a hard aspect, in yourself or in the world, is to look for integration between dissonant forces.

And so Pluto in Sagittarius is not the savior. It can separate us, because it’s the sign which gives passionate allegiances to larger causes, especially philosophical and religious ones. At this period in history, we are all true believers, and this can make us very dangerous to each other.

It’s easier to understand Saturn in Cancer, because we all come out of family groups, and we all feel that visceral need to protect those we love. It originates in the belly, the part of the body ruled by Cancer.

But neither is Saturn in Cancer the savior. The protective instinct is natural, but when does it go too far? When do we start imagining threats from our neighbors, and defend ourselves too much? It’s called paranoia, and it’s running U.S. foreign policy.

This Sagittarius/Cancer inconjunct is a conflict between fire and water: the fire of Sagittarius passion, the water of domestic intimacy. Fire and water - isn’t that what propelled that tsunami? Water is the stuff of life - our mother, our home. But when it’s pushed by fire - the underwater violence of an earthquake, the fierce lava and the steam - then it becomes dangerous.

In January, Mars is also in Sagittarius, and it will conjunct Pluto, adding to the fiery energy. This is a hot-headed, impulsive Mars. Archetypically, you can see it as a rider off on a new adventure. For the Christian right-wingers, I know the horsemen of the apocalypse will come to mind. To them, these natural disasters are their god’s flaming sword.

For the rest of us, as we watch events unfold, there is no sense of vindication, only a shared humility. I am here, sitting on this balcony, watching a line of nine pelicans skim the water. I am here only by the grace of the sea.

The natural world is my home, but it’s not a placid nest. It turns us inside out and shakes us every so often. We know this will happen, since it’s happened so often before. All we can do is recognize that the earth is the one who decides when the time is right for change. It’s she that nurtures us, she that eventually lays our bones to rest. Nothing we do - not all our greed, or our petty tyrannies - will ever change that.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com