This present section, lasting 17 years from 2008 to 2024, will bring a different influence into each of our personal lives. So, for each zodiacal sign, below is a hint of the 17 years to come. (Remember, this is not your only forecast - I'm only outlining one long influence which will weave itself through your days and years, along with many other notes, events and influences. In a way, this particular Pluto influence will tend to form a constant backdrop, like the low notes in a symphony.)
 

All of you Aries will face deep changes in your role in the community and the work place. You'll find that certain themes and influences grow large in your ambitions/career scene: death and rebirth, research, investigation, police work, investment, high finance, deep sex, psychology, therapy, occultism, the subconscious, dreams, mysticism (not spirituality, nor religion) transformation, rejuvenation, removal of allies and competitors (as if by fate) inheritances, accounting, funerals, wills and estates, chemicals, jungles and tropics, swamps, insects, secrets, mysteries, nuclear power, outer space, rocket propulsion and such things. For example, you could "inherit" a career position when your predecessor quits or fails. Or, subconscious nudges could inform your actions at crucial times. Some Aries will marry for power, and get there via sexual prowess - decide first if that is really the kind of marriage you want to end up in.

If you're looking for a new career, especially if you're young, you could do far worse than aiming toward one of the areas listed above. For instance, studying criminology or accounting, economics or psychology would probably interest you more - and give you more career clout later - than enrolling in creative arts, education, recreation or phys ed. (Still, don't go against your own talents and loves.)

During these 17 years, VIPS, bosses and parents will tend to be diplomatic but iron-willed, fair (not always) but inscrutable (always). In 2008, the first year of this influence, your career, reputation and community status will hit a big lucky streak - an excellent year to start a new career, change careers, or study for career.

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You Taureans move so slowly and deliberately that to others it seems you're hardly doing anything. Yet after a space of time - 2 months, ten years, whatever - somehow you're further ahead than anyone else. My Taurus son seems to never do anything, never rushes, never leaps. But at 22 years he has a house, a wife and a steady job - three things I didn't find until my mid-thirties.

Anyway, Taurus - you went through a decade of horrific times from November 1983 through 1995. Relationships went awry, loss and alienation ruled, opportunities glowed then dissolved. Lately (1996 through 2008) you've had the opportunity to find sexual and financial satisfaction in relationships - and you, more than any other sign, love a sexual and financial haven. I don't say "havens," plural, because you really only want one, for life - and that is your great strength. Many Taurus natives experienced divorce in the 1984-1995 period, and some in the 1996-2008 period. (Yes, I know, 2008 isn't here yet, but grammar gets in the way of time.)

The ending of a marriage, if it occurred, was one of the great blows to your nature, for you love to snuggle into one everlasting sensual nest. These days, many of you Taureans are acting more like the vibrant and scattered signs such as Gemini; your equilibrium has been upset by rending events. But the solution, the cure - the calm May meadows of life - are virtually here. 2007 brings both change and the renewal of your depths, and 2008 through 2024 brings your "natural state." During these 17 years, Pluto, your partnership ruler, moves into your sign of gentle love, weddings, far travel, higher learning and philosophical peace. At last, happiness will come. And it will involve at least one of those themes (far travel, marriage, etc.). If you are not yet in love, you'll find it, in a calmer, more enveloping way than in past decades. You might marry a foreign-born person, or someone met while traveling, a student, a lawyer, a philosopher. Whatever he/she is, he/she will be practical, hard-headed, with a deeply loyal, deeply-burning heart. For the first time in over a quarter-century, Taurus, you'll find the road to happiness is smooth and easy. Flow with it!

But in financial relationships/partnerships, you'll have to be astute and careful, not because bad luck lurks, but because you'll be dealing with powerful trends and elements, not all of them apparent. (In fact, you might look back after, say, 15 years and think: "Wow. I just understood why that negotiation went that way.") Another consideration: these potential partnerships are likely to connect inextricably with work or service of some sort. The question might become: who is serving whom? One more thing: look at your own life (or visit an astrologer) - if you are not suited for financial partnership, then this 17 years would not be a good period to enter one.

In any case, 2008 could be one of the most successful investment years of your entire life. You could start something that grows and grows, or make a property investment that keeps you secure for a long time. The accent will be on property that is connected to work - factories, warehouses, a working farm, a house that has potential for setting up an office or shop within, etc.
It will be a fascinating, mysterious, intriguing 17 years of discovery, Gemini!
(BTW, I received an email from a GEMINI concerned that the next 17 years will be filled with sexual but non-durable relationships. No, no. Only 2008 brings this type, in order to change you, to clear the field for the beautiful relationships entering from 2009 to 2024. The period 2011-2018 will be particularly happy, as social functions yield a bonanza of potential mates and loves for you. A wedding's possible as early as 2009, though.)

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For all of you, this long wave will bring deep, true love - will either deepen the love you have, or split you apart and bring you true love from another. Nothing's free, though - whether you're going to find deeper love with your present mate or someone new, it will demand concessions: co-operation and flexibility on your part, openness, honesty, and the ability to surrender a certain amount of your financial and/or psychological security. You will be attracted to people who 1) seldom reveal their motives; 2) are fixed, or stubborn, and 3) wield a magnetism or charm that gets right into your heart and won't let go!

If you're single, all the above applies - except that, of course, you aren't breaking up or transforming a present relationship. A new love that you do encounter will pull you into transformation anyway - of your deepest soul, in some cases.

This fifteen-year "wave" begins with great luck and expansion of your relationships, and of opportunities in general, in 2008 - true love might appear! Others will treat you cheerfully. Luck will rise in relocation, contracts, negotiations, dealings with the public and all relationships. In 2009, sex and finances explode with luck. 2010's a fortunate year for a wedding, love, far travel, legal, learning and media involvements. 2011 brings career success, and 2012 again promotes finding true love.

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Because Pluto will be in your health and work sector until 2024, any of the above could also become a health influence. Protect yourself against accidental ingestion of herbicides, take care around chemicals and paint, avoid swamps, insects and the tropics, etc.

As I said, other, stronger influences will draw most of your attention in the years ahead. This September 2, Saturn finally leaves your sign. The sobriety, burdens, extra concerns, workload and restrictions that have salted your joie de vivre for two years, now lift. You'll be free to breathe, to romance, create, gamble, and live again! (Though Saturn will also begin to tighten your income prospects for two years - 08 into July 2010 - so be fiscally conservative. If you're middle-aged or older, your income might actually increase.)

From 2011 to 2018, a powerful, lucky love and wedding influence blesses you. Even earlier, in 2009, Jupiter brings luck to marriage situations. You'll either celebrate your partner, or divorce. If single, a major marital prospect will appear. Fame, new contracts, exhilarating opportunities (and relocation luck) will dance before you!

By February 2012, fifteen years of suspicion, doubt, illusion and indecision in relationships disappear (forever!) - finally, you're going to feel clear, clean, hopeful! Until then, sympathy and compassion cure relationship ills - and provide clear sight.

From 2011-2024, this romantic ease and depth will be overlaid with a natural marriage period. This period won't be easy nor simple; your prospects for marital bliss can waver and fluctuate like a swimming pool light. Think of it this way: every time you're sincere, clear, and free of an ulterior motive, you'll see your prospects, and attract them (and experience true love with your mate if already married) in a clear, calm, smooth, expanding and fulfilling way - all the way to ecstasy! But if you have a hidden agenda, if you're selfish, aggrandizing, deceptive, or not "clear," then, like a trembling of the swimming pool surface, the light of love will trick and betray. (You'll know you're in one of these "anti-love" moods, because in these states you'll be frothed up, shilly-shallying, vibrating indecisively between options, filled with both grand visions and fears, anxieties and bliss.) Successful relationship, during these years, will be spelled u-n-s-e-l-f-i-s-h. And loneliness, anger and deep puzzlement will be spelled without the u-n.
2008 will be one of the luckiest and biggest years of your approaching creative, romantic era - and your success will directly relate to the success you have had in 2007, in establishing a home, a new residence, or, psychologically and emotionally, a place of solidity and security. (If you have not already found this "place," use August 21 or 22 to find it, and August 30/31 to commit to it.)

From 2010 through May 2012, your life will change through a series of lucky meetings and financial or intimate involvements. This can signal marriage for singles, beneficial divorce for unhappy Virgos, marital bliss for happy couples, and lucky opportunities for all, especially involving property, children, relocation, etc.

Whether these changes are positive or negative, fulfilling or painful depends almost entirely on you. Our destiny is always a result of three things: the future results of our past actions, our deepest (often unconscious) desires, and our present and future choices. Some would include environment as a fourth, but its possible that our environment is a result of, not a cause of, our destiny. (I.e., our environment is a result of pre-birth karma.) You can affect your destiny in one powerful way: by being loving, optimistic and compassionate. These are actually the third element: choice. Love is always a choice. The amount of love and compassion you choose to exercise will determine how effective your intellect and skills will be.

In the midst of this change, the 2010 to 2019 period will bring a heightened, unpredictable, exciting love and relationship influence. You could suddenly change partners. You could fall in love and out with lightning speed. You could face a massive struggle of wills with a partner. Your spouse might face major career choices. If you help, empathize and understand, you'll deepen your union - and/or find true love!

2012 to 2024 will shunt your work path toward health sciences, spiritual or psychic realms, ocean products, video/film, optics, or empathic fields (e.g., social work).

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You'll become less closed, more open and spontaneous. Expect increased dealings with siblings and neighbors.

For a major portion of these 17 years, from 2011 to 2024, Neptune, your love ruler, moves into your romance sector. If you're single, you'll very likely meet the love of your life. If you're married, these 14 years will bring a parade of joys from your children (who finally show their talents!). All Scorpios will soak up, deeply, the beauty of life. You'll feel the joys of self-expression, your musical appreciation will increase, and your artistic sense will prove almost infallible. Your creative and inventive drives will deepen and grow more intuitive. You'll want to take risks, many more than in the last 40 years - and many of these will work out on the plus side. The number of Scorpio gamblers will increase. (But this is not a recommendation.) In a good way, this period will lift you from the emotional and psychological depths you've been striding through - like striding through deep mud with loose rubber boots - for the last twelve years.

In 2008 that travel and communications phase outlined in the first paragraph will come with a breezy wave of expansion. In 2009, you'll have great luck in establishing a new or better home. In 2010, love's luck blesses you, but you might hardly appreciate your fortune - it's a little like not being able to see in the bright sun after emerging from a cave. But by 2011/12 onward, you'll discover that you're either in love, or just had your first taste of a love different than anything you've experienced before.

In the biggest picture, from 1984-1995 your personality transformed (partly from the furnace of fire you walked through); in 1996-2007 you hunkered into money efforts; now you enter your social, love and fun phase - slow to come, but worth it!

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2007 has created a "nova effect" - it has mingled Pluto's "rainy day" introversion with a surge of personal expansion. This expansion should have freed and uplifted you, bringing understanding, even a joyous new life - but if you rebelled, 07 so far might simply have expanded the gloom and frustration. This August opens the door to ultimate knowing - you'll glimpse the answers and find your philosophical feet!

2008 contains a few echoes of the past 12 years, but overall, as both Pluto and Jupiter exit your sign and enter your money sector, a great weight will lift. 2008 will be a massively lucky and important "establishment year" for your earning power and possessions. For 17 years, you will build a castle of money. Your financial success will in part depend on the intuition, sensitivity and awareness you developed in the last 12 years.

In 2010/11 you'll embark on one of the most romantic years of your life. In 2013, if single, you're likely to marry. A lucky opportunity, perhaps demanding relocation, will confront you. The entire 2011-2019 period brings inspiration, creativity, romance, speculation and adventure! But these enjoyable things might conflict with monetary, sexual, and practical needs, especially in 2014-16. Get ready to make a choice!

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As implied, this change centers on your grasp of happiness, mainly because the planet causing it - and staying 17 years in your sign - rules, for you, joy, optimism and wishes-come-true. But this will manifest in various ways
Anyone looking at your life from Mars during these 17 years, or even from the street corner, would say that this change is obvious in a few related departments: your social life and aspirations, who you like as a friend, what circles you walk in, these will change, deeply and wholly. (You will be particularly attracted to Scorpio friends, as well as Pisces, Taurus, and Virgo. Cancer will be a puzzle and an attraction - perhaps one too hot to remain a friendship.)

That casual observer, if they could sit down for an hour's conversation with you, would also think that your goals had undergone a complete transformation. E.g., if you wanted to study law, now it's dentistry or history. Or if before you wanted to be a hermit on 1,000 acres, now you want fame and New York streets - or whatever!

But these changes in social contacts, goals and joy are simply the outward manifestations of a deep inner metamorphosis. Your personality, your sense of self, will begin this journey of change in 2008. Whatever is stale in you will be plowed up and tossed aside. What has lain in seed, waiting for its chance, will now grow and bloom. Your true future arrives. Hidden talents will emerge - hidden desires, too. Your investigative, research and healing skills will surface. Your sexuality will deepen.

This transformation might affect your closest relationships. You could withdraw for a while, to "feel your way" through these changes. If you're in an unhappy relationship, it could end. But these changes are, ultimately, your decision. You'll feel dominant, in charge of others, so be gentle these 17 years. The best news: this change starts in 2008 - a very lucky year - so if you can sense your future in '08, charge after it!

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During this long phase, your work will include more and more elements of management, warehousing, supplies and logistics, research, automation or assembly lines, interfacing with government agencies or institutions, or involvements with health or spiritual concerns. You might even join the government, be called to head office, etc. You might be asked to join a semi-secret organization or a key charity; you might be called to attend policy meetings and committees.

Though 2007 is generally lucky for you, you might have met resistance if you have tried to start a new career or new ambition projects. This isn't bad luck or lack of skills. Rather, 07 coincides with the end of one long career cycle (since 1995) and the 2008-24 phase has not yet begun. Starting a new ambition-linked project now would be a bit like trying to run on ice or build a house from water - the cosmos isn't co-operating because the elements of your new career aren't yet in existence. But 2008 will supply those elements, in major, lucky ways. So be alert to clues in 08, and astute enough to follow them. New vistas of power and profit await you!

One of your life-long Aquarian priorities is friendship - these have increased nicely this year (or at the very least, a door has opened to a new social circle). But overall the 2003-to-2010 period focuses you so strongly on money and possessions that friendships and partying take a temporary breather. That will change markedly from 2011 through 2017, when you'll dive into the excitement of short trips, intellectual curiosity, spontaneous conversations with friends and strangers. You'll glow with social happiness! 2011 will also bring the end of 16 years of indecision and "elusive reality." Since 1996, you've become a bit of an enigma to others; they've found you uncharacteristically irresolute and evasive. You've pondered questions, nuances and feelings, intuitions and insights that just couldn't be expressed easily or reduced to logical explanation. Actually, you've received a shot of spirituality - and will continue receiving it until 2011.

Your nearest "big luck" month is August, 2007 - a relationship, relocation or agreement could catapult you to happiness! Your next big luck year is 2009 - a dream will come true!

In 2008, the pressure starts to dissolve; by 2009, it disappears, as a wave of new goals, new social circles and new, uplifting contacts begins. In 2008 a bonanza comes, of new acquaintances, flirtations, promises and prospects, new goals, new wishes, huge popularity and one particular dream coming true! In 2010 your personal luck soars to new peaks. You'll become so cheerful, confident and extroverted you'll surprise yourself. Your career luck will rise. In-between, in 2009, make sure you take a breather to get your rest. Use this "down time" year ('09) to contemplate the changes that are filling your life (slowly, like water fills a sponge) and to plan ahead, to envision where you want to go over the decade or two ahead. (The effect on you will be a lot like the effect on Capricorn - though lighter, easier than for Capricorn - so you can read the May 20 preamble for that sign for additional clues - it's in the Archive on the astral site.)

In 2011, you begin an additional journey, a spiritual one that lasts into 2025, and brings you to your ultimate, complete self. These two "waves" - 2008 to 2024 and 2011 to 2025 - merge to lift you to the height of life, understanding and accomplishment.

If you enter this 17-year wave as a single, you might marry someone you first meet at a social function. From 2011 onward, an intense person could pursue you - one who will tell you, before much time has passed, that he/she has never known true love before. This person will be secretive, stubborn, sentimental and loyal, and you might thank the heavens that he/she found you.