This month’s New Moon falls on Thanksgiving and, whoa, if you’ve looked at the upcoming astrology you’ll notice a smattering of offerings on the Turkey Day menu! Within hours of the Sagittarius New Moon, Pluto finally leaves a 13 year stint Sagittarius and moves into Capricorn, while Uranus in Pisces resumes direct, or forward, motion. Guess who’s coming to dinner this year? Hint: there could be a few unexpected surprises.

The Sagittarius New Moon seeds a cycle of hope, a regeneration of faith, and spiritual buoyancy sorely needed for these transformative times. To see the epic shift taking place this week, all we have to do is turn on the t.v., radio, or tune into our own lives, to bear witness to the changes happening in sync with collective shrift of proportional magnitude. Pluto’s last hurrah in the final, final degree of Sagittarius, ends over a decade of the infamous “buy now, pay later” mentality for the collective, which in one Plutonian form or another has possessed or obsessed “U.S.”. I was at the gym last night and caught an episode of Dr. Phil having a final Pluto in 29 degrees Sagittarius blowou with cult victims who are painfully struggling to close out the question, “Will I ever be able to forgive my abuser?” Endings are taking place, and all endings imply new beginnings. Look around and you can’t help but see the Scorpionic imagery, the Phoenix rising from the ashes – people, government, and industries in various stages of letting go, of death, and eventual renewal.

Through the archetypal and necessary death of too much hope, overextended faith, and the unfounded optimism that thinking without foresight is okay when it really isn’t (Sagittarian shadow traits) – renewal is possible. Pluto in Capricorn offers a reality check that will keep on happening, and this reality is less about Depression-era despair and fear, than a massive evolutionary move on behalf of humanity toward long-term sustainability. Questions are asked: How we keep the structures we have in our lives going for the long haul? Can we move into deeper relationship with security in our own lives?  Where have we been too dependent on bail-outs or being taken care of by a Daddy Figure in our lives, when we could have been more self-reliant and accountable?

Our survival depends on adopting Capricorn strategies: resourcefulness, consolidation for the long haul, and going back to our roots. We don’t need another Great Depression to remember how to do this – pick up a Sunday newspaper and you’ll read about someone recalling those lessons for us, and if we can remember history (a Capricorn concept) we can pull on the collective legacy of our elders for real answers. In one recent NYTimes article, a Depression era gentleman describes having two luxury cars in the garage at that time but recalled that before buying a new bar of soap, the family practice was to first gather those little slivers of soap in the bathrooms and kitchen then compress them into one. For Pluto in Capricorn, that’s not being cheap, or thrifty, that’s being resource-wise. Likewise, NPR reported that shoe repair shops are having a recession upswing in business: instead of replacing broken or worn shoes, folks are getting them fixed. The suggestion is the cobblers, the craftspeople, the economists, the innovators of Green business, those Capricorn professions which make more out of less will survive and thrive throughout this decade and well into the next. Still it’s hard to know exactly how far this trend will take us and where we’ll end up: Pluto in Capricorn offers a new world order unlike anyone has ever seen in this lifetime – because Pluto hasn’t been in the sign of Capricorn since the American revolution.

So here we are arriving at this momentous point in history – during this, the week of Thanksgiving. Ironic isn’t it? Thanksgiving is a true Sagitarrian holiday for America – we gorge our selves on food, and make merry. There’s nothing more American than celebrating abundance by adding the indigestion of “too much” to the mix. This year, as Uranus the surpriser, the changemaker, the revolutionary moves direct, I imagine we’ll have a different experience of giving thanks. Maybe our Thanksgiving blessings will be invoked as a different sort of prayer, one having Capricorn overtones. Here’s a prayerful suggestion, seasoned with the savory flavor of Sagittarian optimism and hope: May we invite right livelihood, integrity, leadership, and self-reliance into those aspects of our lives that need it. May we honor all commitments thoroughly, taking on no quest that we’re unwilling or unable to see through. May all our beasts of burdens turn into blessings. May we remember to look upward, toward the peak, when we encounter the valleys of despair.  And may each and every one of us persistently and with tender, patient care, manifest our life’s work and dream into tangible realities.