North Carolina is gorgeous in May. I’ve been in the U.S. for four days, and I’m relaxing with Yarrow and Carol, two good friends who live in front of a deep green, rippling lake. This morning, I ate a big mound of strawberries from a farmer’s market, and I watched Carol use a vinegar-filled water pistol to discourage the geese who poop all over their lawn.

Yarrow and Carol are planning to get married in December. Not legally, of course. As lesbians, they don’t have the right to marry in North Carolina. But they will stand up before a Unitarian minister, surrounded by their friends and maybe a few family members, and speak words of commitment to each other.

I ask, “Wouldn’t you like to live somewhere where you could get married legally?”

But they love it here. The weather is mostly gentle, and when I go outside, I’m amazed by the softness of the spring breeze. And in the Triangle area of North Carolina, there is a vibrant lesbian community. This is a progressive enclave in an otherwise red state.

This is where SWOOP operates. SWOOP is Strong Women Organizing Outrageous Projects, and it is the brainchild of a couple, Sandy Fitzgerald and LeAnn Wallace, who discovered that lesbians really like to get together, hang out, and use power tools. Why not harness this private fascination for the public good? SWOOP had its beginnings in September 1996, when Hurricane Fran devastated the area. People woke up and found trees sticking through their roofs, water pooling around the bottoms of their dinette sets, and mountains of unidentifiable debris in their front yards.

The sixteen SWOOP women began by doing hurricane clean-up work for each other, and then for other people. They told friends, who told friends, and now, ten years later, they tackle one or two new projects every week. Sixty or a hundred people show up, including straight women, men, and, yes, a solid core of dykes eager to rev up those power tools. Their mission is to help low-income people, the disabled, and the overwhelmed. They swoop in, tear down and rip up and fix and build and paint and polish, and then take a few modest bows and go on to the next outrageous project.

Hurricane Fran was an expensive disaster, with the damages amounting to about five billion dollars in the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Astrologically, it coincided with a Jupiter/Saturn square – not exact, but at its closest just three days before the hurricane struck.

Jupiter/Saturn squares are about balance, since Jupiter is the planet of expansion and abundance, while Saturn is the planet of contraction and deprivation. The abundant whirling force of Hurricane Fran resulted in a time of hardship. SWOOP was an effort to restore balance by putting some social energy into the equation. Their enormous and continuing success – karmically as well as practically –shows that active, conscious community is generally what is needed, whenever the weather becomes an enemy and the economy starts to keel over.

What will June 2006 bring? There is another Jupiter/Saturn square, this one exact. Because of the planets’ periodic retrograde motion, these aspects tend to happen in sets of three. This one first occurred in December 2005, the middle one is June 2006, and the last is in October 2006. The first pass states the issues, giving warning of whatever is out of balance. The second pass brings physical manifestations, something for us to work with, a crisis or a challenge. The third pass gives the best opportunity to resolve the issue.

And so what am I expecting from this middle pass of the Jupiter/Saturn square? I am expecting some hard economic times, and these could be related to climate imbalances. During both the full moon of June 11 and the new moon of June 25, Mars and Saturn will be close, and this is also a tricky influence. Mars is about action and movement, while Saturn is about stasis and limitation. So I think everyone will be moving in slow-mo in June, feeling somewhat stuck, trying to figure out what to do next. People in leadership positions will have a particularly strong feeling of inertia, since Mars and Saturn will be in Leo, the sign of authority.

What to do? The old models simply won’t work. Centralized authority will falter, and communities will have to pick up the pieces. Established, practical communities like SWOOP will be models for everyone. They will be the ones who teach us all to survive, even to thrive. Because we have what we need. No matter how much the earth gets tossed and turned, no matter how much she rumbles and boils, she continues strong and fertile. She gives us all she can, and we spend our time and energy quibbling about division and distribution. No wonder that, when the strong winds blow, so many of us end up as castaways.

As June moves towards its end, the willful planet Mars moves away from the stifling embrace of Saturn, and approaches the opposition of mystical Neptune. And so, as June ends, we will all stand at a spiritual crossroads. Can we yield to the necessities of a different world? Can we give away our time and energy, in order to receive love and community and continuing life? I think there will come a time when it’s no longer a choice.

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