It’s very quiet in this empty apartment, on Calle Cochapata in Quito. Next to my computer is a vase of flowers, and a little flamingo carved out of tagua nut. On the wall, there’s a friendly mix of dyke art and Ecuadoran art, with a photo of my great-grandmother overseeing it all.

It’s hard to believe that just four days ago, I was walking around the Capitol with several hundred thousand people. It was a sunny, balmy morning, wedged in between days of frigid Washington temperatures.

There was a general mood of elation, a sense that the silent majority was standing behind us for a change. We were not on the fringe. In fact, nobody was even wearing fringe, which was the main thing that distinguished it from the peace demonstrations of the Vietnam era. For me, the main jolts of déjà vu came from all the “Make Love Not War” signs. And, of course, Jane Fonda.

I was marching next to lots of eager young people, and also plenty of white-hairs like myself. Next to me was my wise, kind friend Dorie. I was marching for myself, for this moment, and also for the future. I was marching for my descendents, one of whom has just been born. My first granddaughter, only a few weeks old, sleeps on her back with her arms outspread, embracing the whole world. I’d like it to be there when she grows up.

My granddaughter was born at a time when Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter were all in fire signs. This will be true most of 2007, until September. So she will be in a particularly fiery subset of a fiery generation. Her graduating class of 2025 will be the main activists, the ones who hold carwashes to raise money for all the orphans marooned in space.

Or am I subscribing to what my brother calls the Flintstones/Jetsons fallacy, in which we assume that nothing has ever changed, or will ever change? Perhaps no-one will be lost, missing or marooned in 2025. Perhaps nobody will fall through the cracks of community. I would love for my granddaughter to live in a world like that.

In 2025, Pluto will just have entered Aquarius. Every Pluto sign is a new era, a new generation, a new set of social problems to untangle. For us, living in the passionate Pluto-in-Sagittarius age, our problem is to believe without oppressing. For the people in the Pluto-in-Aquarius age, it will be to experiment, to learn, and to build new social and technical forms, while still trusting the wisdom of the heart.

But before Pluto goes into Aquarius, it has to go through Capricorn. And so from 2008 to 2024, the main social problem will be to build structures that are flexible enough for actual human beings. It will be an era of organization. We see certain social and corporate structures becoming ever more rigid, as people in power learn more and more about how to hold on to it. Will there be any room at all for outsiders, freethinkers, iconoclasts, radicals, artists and inventors? Will everybody spend sixteen years coloring inside the lines?

This is one of the things I wondered about, as I held my granddaughter and listened to her small baby sounds. And it’s one of the things I thought about, as I walked among a sea of peace signs on the streets of Washington DC.

February 2007 harkens forward to the Aquarius energy we’ll all be enjoying when Pluto enters this sign in 2024. And it poses some of the same problems, as well.

The tension this month is between airy Aquarius and its opposite, fiery Leo. On the full moon of February 2, the sun and Neptune are in Aquarius, and the moon and Saturn are in Leo. And on the new moon of February 17, the sun, moon and Neptune are all in Aquarius, and all opposing Saturn in Leo.

Aquarius is experimental, ingenious, analytical, intellectual. This is the sign which, when confronted by a rule or a tradition, thinks, “Well, what would happen if I didn’t do it that way?”, and then proceeds to try it.

Aquarius is a populist sign at heart, while Leo is an authoritarian sign. Aquarius is community-oriented, while Leo is independent. And Aquarius is guided by the mind, while Leo is guided by the heart. It’s the heart that tells you what you really want and don’t want, no matter what’s politically correct.

And so there has to be a balance between the Aquarius and the Leo energy. Aquarius’ main danger is that it can be so revolutionary that it ignores such uniquely human constructions as the ego. Leo, on the other hand, can be very self-centered, ignoring or trying to dominate the rest of the community.

But we don’t have to choose between the good of the one and the good of the many. This is a false dichotomy. If a social system doesn’t allow independence, creative expression, ego development, and the pursuit of what you love, then it’s made for robots, not humans. But there also needs to be room for idealism, fairness, experimentation, and community responsibility.

Progressive people tend to lean towards the Aquarian ideal for many reasons, not the least of which is that we live in a world that is closer to the Leo model. This is still a world of kings, even if many of them are elected. After all, it costs a king’s ransom even to be considered for a position of power.

In February, the Aquarius/Leo tension could play itself out in struggles between Congress and the president. Democracy is an Aquarian ideal, and our new Democratic Congress was elected with a mandate for change. And GWB has Leo rising, so it’s likely he’ll see the Aquarian energy as adversarial.

However, it may not be easy for us all to keep our focus in February. There is also a lot of Pisces energy, with Mercury, Venus, Uranus and the north node all in this sign, at both the full moon and the new moon. This adds a certain dreamy, distracted quality to the month.

And late at night (EST) on February 13, Mercury goes retrograde. There’s nothing more passive, vague and absent-minded than Mercury retrograde in Pisces. So do try to get everything possible done during the first half of the month!

On the other hand, the mystical and imaginative nature of Mercury retrograde in Pisces may take us on an interesting journey. We may travel back in time. We may return to our sources. We may discover other eras, both golden ages and leaden ages, and learn from them.

But we can’t dream forever, even if our dreams make us wiser. We have to come back to our present situation sooner or later. Aquarius insists that we make the world a better place, while dealing with all of Leo’s ego energy at the same time. It’s the Leo in me that wants to make a better world for my granddaughter. It’s the Aquarius in me that wants to make a better world for every baby born.

Index of Jenny Yates' Writings on Lesbian.com