Here I am, home again, after another summer of wandering. There is no sky as blue as the one that arches over Quito. There is no sun as brilliant. One can imagine that the sun deities have called this place home for millennia. This is the place they’ve hung up their spiked crowns and peacock-feathered robes.

If I get up from my chair and hop in a cab, I can be at the equator in half an hour. And if I happened to be there at the equinox – on September 22 - I’d see the sun move from its northern realm to its southern realm.

In coming home at this time of year, I follow the sun gods, although they go much further south than I will. They must bestow seasons on Chileans, Australians, South Africans, and all other southerners, while I stay here in the eternal spring of Quito. The weather here just reminds me that I am living on a cusp, a place where the sun pauses between two different worlds.

I do feel this sense of being poised in the middle, and it’s not just because I live in Quito. This is a moment in history that seems to be holding its breath. Pluto has just been demoted to dwarf planet status, but this doesn’t change its nature as the planet of transformation. And nowadays, when you stare up at the sky towards Pluto’s position, you are also looking at the galactic center, the very middle of the galaxy that we all call home. All that spiraling energy reaches out towards us, and meets Pluto on the way.

Is it coincidence that now, just when it channels all that ancient energy, Pluto finds itself demoted? No astrologer would argue that Pluto is a bigger planet than it is, or that its orbit is tidier. But why are its size and irregular orbit being noticed now? Could this be society’s way of denying Pluto’s strenuous urging towards transformation?

Each age has a particular Plutonian flavor, and it is quite clear that this is the age of Pluto in Sagittarius. Sagittarius is the sign of deeply-held and passionately-fought community beliefs. It encompasses the fervent religious messages of both the left and the right. This is what this age will be remembered for. It is a time when people reach for something to believe in, so strenuously that society is painfully, dramatically transformed by this reaching. There is heroism, and there is folly. What will be trampled under the enthusiastic hooves of the centaur? What banner will be carried into the next age?

There’s a lot of mutable energy in September, a great deal of energy for change. Mutable energy is more responsive to outside influences, more easily distracted from wherever it intended to go. Pluto is still in a mutable sign for the next two years, and so important changes in direction keep occurring, but none of them are all that stable. The world will shift, and shift again, with passionate voices rising and falling by turn.

When Pluto enters Capricorn, in 2008, the energy will be more purposeful and structured. And so now is a time when we can still be wild and free, a time before things become too codified. With Pluto aligned to the galactic center, this is also a time when we can connect to our source.

This year, the equinox has an added fillip. There’s an annular solar eclipse, just hours before the equinox on September 22. It won’t be visible here in Ecuador, where the new moon will occur just before dawn. But people will see it from Guyana to northern Brazil to the eastern coast of Africa.

Eclipses occur whenever new or full moons are close to the lunar nodes. In astrology, the lunar nodes are karmic points, pointing simultaneously to our karmic past and to our process of becoming. With its erasure of ordinary light, the eclipse makes it impossible to go on with our usual routines. We become conscious of our inner duality - light and shadow, past and future, open and closed. When we see the duality clearly, we also see the whole.

There are two chances to do this in September, with both the new moon and the full moon bringing eclipses. The full moon’s eclipse occurs first, on September 7, and it will be visible in Europe, Asia, Australia, and most of Africa. This is only a partial eclipse, so the moon won’t disappear entirely. But moon-watchers and lunatics will see her become shaded, uncertain, not quite herself, for a time.

The nodes are currently in Virgo and Pisces, and the Virgo/Pisces axis is emphasized at both the full and new moons. This axis is about control vs. trust, and so these are the issues which will be most evident in September. This month, we will all still be dealing with the Saturn/Neptune opposition that I wrote about in my last column, and this also brings up trust issues.

Virgo is about earthly work, about healing and fixing and making things right, and Virgo is the predominant influence throughout most of September. The sun is in Virgo at both the new and full moons, Venus is there until the end of the month, and Mercury is there during the first half of September.

Virgo is a sign of discrimination, and it gives a strong sense of choice. Under this influence, people are more interested in being sensible than in mouthing set principles. Sound-bites, medals and social approval become less important, as the emphasis shifts to keeping it real and getting things done. Ecological concerns are very Virgoan.

As the sun, Venus and Mercury go through Virgo in September, each of them will form a tense aspect with fiery Pluto in Sagittarius. And so Virgo’s pragmatic, healing action will be challenged by the deeply-held social, philosophical and religious beliefs of our age. Pluto in Sagittarius urges us to fight hard for whatever we believe, while the Virgo planets will say, “Hey, wait a minute. Is this actually the best way to live on this planet?”

In September, dissident voices will be more pragmatic and realistic. Soldiers and officers (as well as military families) are already speaking out about the real effects of the Iraqi invasion, and I see this continuing. The heroic, over-excitable tendencies of Pluto in Sagittarius are countered by the rational, discerning voice of Virgo.

And meanwhile, there’s the other side of the axis. The full moon will be in Pisces, joining Uranus and the north node there. Where Virgo’s tendency is to control – and sometimes to over-control – Pisces is about surrendering to cosmic truths. Virgo is about tilling the field, baking bread, organizing and re-organizing. Pisces is about centering oneself, opening to the still small voices within.

I see this as a religious age, but not a spiritual one. Pluto in Sagittarius is about community fervor, and this is not the same as tapping into cosmic awareness. And so September also brings Pisces/Sagittarius tension, as Pluto squares the full moon and the north lunar node. Pluto in Sagittarius pushes us towards community truths, and towards the danger of mob reactions, but the Pisces influences cause us to pause and look for more elusive and personal truths.

Yesterday I got a letter from a 14-year-old girl, in which she told me about laughing and crying as she communed with a tree. It was just her and the tree, talking about life and death, and she got the answers she needed.

Virgo values trees – because they are real, because they are useful, because they contribute to the health of the planet – and Pisces opens up to the spiritual message given by every natural thing. In September, we will be at a crossroads, spiritually and practically. Like that young woman, we all have the capacity to integrate the Virgo and Pisces elements within ourselves.

Whether we focus mostly as healers of the earth (the Virgo mode) or as conduits of loving energy (the Pisces mode), we will be challenged by strong social forces. The sweeping necessities of the moment are conceived in different ways by different people. The dashing, energy of Pluto in Sagittarius reminds us of the Roman Empire, that age of heroic and misguided imperialism.

Do we really want to be back there? Haven’t we seen the beginning and the end of enough empires? Here and now, we have been given a crossroads, a place to pause and to examine the relationship between sun and shadow, night and day, past and future.

We need to turn to the earthy world around us, and to ask what the trees and earth and sun are telling us. And then we need to trust the answers that flow forth. Without this trust for ourselves, we can’t trust anyone else. Trusting is the secret to peace, and peace is the secret to healing ourselves and our earth.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com