The following guest post was originally published on the blog Empowering Astrology and is written by Katie Sweetman, manager of SaturnSisters.com and an astrologer in her own right. Now that Saturn has entered Libra, we’re in the heart of what is known as the “Cardinal Climax” — a time that will surely speak of big changes for everyone on this planet. To learn more about Katie and Empowering Astrology, click here.

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Ladies and gentlemen, we’re in the Cardinal Climax. You don’t have to be hip to astrology or a total wonk to know that something is going on with our world. Earthquakes. Unparalleled man made disasters. Awakenings. Major shifts for which there is no return. The show has only started and the headliner — August’s cardinal grand cross — is about to take stage. Are you ready?

For the past decade, if not longer, astrologers have been speculating about this summer’s Cardinal Climax because it is and truly will be a once in a lifetime event. Financial astrologer Ray Merriman first coined this term back in 1999, recognizing that the outer planets aligning in the early cardinal degrees would signal some sort of upheaval and not just for the markets. While we astrologers might nerd out on aspects and modalities, trading theories about what this time might mean for the world, it’s one thing to write about it and another to experience it.

So now that we’re here, what does the Cardinal Climax feel like?

Uranus’s entry into the sign of Aries was like getting plugged into a wall socket. Never has an ingress from one sign to another felt so palpable, my muscles tensing up and arching against Uranus’s current. Restless and uncharacteristically angry, I struggled to find a channel for this power, discovering in the process a new found appreciation for those born with Mars/Uranus contacts. I’m not the only one who has been feeling this blast of amped up Uranian energy. Green Summit has a great post on other astrologers’ reactions and Donna Cunningham wrote about her thoughts, echoing my own.

However, beyond the physical reactions that some of us are feeling, there seems to be something brewing on the psychic level. InHarmony Astrology describes this crucial time as a “karmic quickening.” I couldn’t have said it better as I’ve been getting a message intuitively about why this time is so important for our souls’ development. On an energetic level, the Cardinal Climax is a rare opportunity to blast through karmic blockages and get big results fast, harnessing Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto towards positive evolution. How do I know? Well for me there’s been a relentless push from spirit to clear out — clear out any of my baggage stemming from early childhood and adolescence, clear old wounds, and heal. In fact I’ve had some incredible healing opportunities arrive in the last couple of months as I push deep into blockages stemming from past life traumas.

This goes to the root of why I do what I do and why it is so important for me to remind you all of the opportunities of empowerment that the Universe is giving us right now — an opportunity that we all signed up for having chose to be born at this potent axis in history. The Cardinal Climax may strike fear in the less enlightened, but right now there is no changing that we’re plugged into a source of rare power. The question is whether we’ll choose to harness it for our karmic good or burn out?

I choose the former.