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Observing the past and future - Astro Perspective

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. 
– Oscar Wilde

We’re living through one of the most tumultuous and significant periods in history’s astrological playbook. A massive cosmic timepiece turned the hands of destiny into a new position, and all hell broke loose for the players in the game of life on Earth who’ve no idea what is really going on. 

Over very large spans of time in our long and often brutal history, there is nothing much to report on the astrological front. Boring planetary configurations that only have meaning for specific events in the life and times of an individual or society. Then suddenly, at certain cosmic power points, things come to a head when the signs in the sky indicate huge changes, and we see it all play out on the ground here in the affairs of humanity. 

There is no doubt that all our forebears – who helped guide societies over thousands of years before this current age – would be paying close attention, wholly preoccupied with the sky and studying these major astrological transits and conjunctions. 

The seers of all ancient civilisations, the medieval astrologers in Western Europe and all the East, as well as theologians and advisors to royalty down through the ages – not to forget those men who helped birth the modern scientific framework like Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo – all would be fascinated by what we are seeing right now in the heavens, and what it means for the immediate future.

What is Happening?

Without getting into the technical aspects (you’ll have to study up on this yourself), the following is an overview of the significant astrological dynamics.

The rare series of Uranus/Pluto squares from June 2012 to March 2015 signalled what was to come. A square is a 90-degree aspect between two planets that indicates conflict. These seven exact squares happened between Uranus – the planet of radical change – and Pluto – the planet of transformation, power and subconscious forces. 

On 12 January 2020, Saturn conjoined Pluto at 22° Capricorn for a single and dramatic pass. The two planets met in the same position in the same zodiac sign, signifying a very powerful merging of planetary energies. Although Saturn and Pluto conjoin every 31 to 37 years in different zodiac signs, it was over 500 years since they conjoined in Capricorn! 

In astrology, Saturn is associated with restriction and limitation. Most astrologers concur that this Saturn/Pluto conjunction signified major impacts on power structures, more so because Capricorn ‘rules’ the domain of government (previous Saturn/Pluto conjunctions took place at recent turning points in world history, for example, in 1913-1916 and 1946-1948). 

As it turned out, Covid-19 was officially identified by scientists right on the conjoin of Saturn/Pluto in January 2020. Uprisings and protests across the globe correlated with this dynamic. The push and pull of this conjunction reflected in the collapse of outdated structures but also helped solidify newly emerging bodies.

Historian and professor of philosophy and psychology Richard Tarnas describes these Saturn/Pluto periods as bringing an “irrevocable termination of an established order of existence” and “a widespread sense of victimisation and suffering under the impact of cataclysmic and oppressive forces of history.”

Pandemic Patterns

Next up in 2020 was Jupiter and Pluto conjoining in Capricorn on 5 April, 30 June and 12 November. There hadn’t been a Jupiter/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn since the year 1771.

Throughout history, many plagues and pandemics coincided with the conjunction of Jupiter – the planet of expansion and knowledge – and shadowy Pluto, which rules all things hidden and buried.

Three examples: In September 1771, the Russian plague (Jupiter/Pluto in Capricorn) hit its peak, killing an estimated 1,000 Moscow residents a day (20,000 confirmed dead that month alone). 

In 1981, the HIV epidemic officially arrived, spawning the AIDS crisis. Jupiter and Pluto were meeting up in Libra, the sign of relationships, from October and November 1981.

In January and February 1918, Jupiter and Pluto were travelling together in Cancer. A terrible flu pandemic – known as the ‘Spanish flu’ – broke out during this time, infecting an estimated 500 million people – one-quarter of the world’s population – and resulting in 50 million deaths worldwide.

There is an interesting dynamic between the events of 1918 and 2020 in regard to scientific and technological developments in medicine. 

Journalist and historian John M. Barry, in his book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, notes that the history of the ‘Spanish flu’ is not just “chaos, death and desolation of society in a war against nature,” but also “a history of science, of discovery, of how one thinks and how to change the way one thinks, how, in the midst of almost absolute chaos, some men sought the coldness of contemplation, the absolute calm that precedes not philosophy but, rather, severe and determined action.” Barry says the ‘Spanish flu’ was “the first major clash between nature and modern science.” 

Modern science’s way out of the Covid-19 crisis, building upon this foundation, has been to rely on experimental vaccines based on new technologies (largely ignoring natural immunity strategies). This invokes dystopian visions of life inside techno-bubble worlds cut off from nature. 

Great Conjunction

On 21 December 2020, in an extra-special rare celestial event, Jupiter and Saturn appeared as one bright star when both planets conjoined or ‘kissed’. The Great Conjunction of 2020 was visible from across the world. To view it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

The Great Conjunction significantly occurred at the beginning degree of Aquarius (on the Solstice point). The last time these two planets conjoined in Aquarius was back on 7 January 1405. 

This powerful dynamic is considered a celestial omen and the preeminent method of demarcating historical eras in traditional astrology. Great Conjunctions were always closely observed by astrologers and linked to the rise and fall of royalty, leaders, and societies. 

The fact this Great Conjunction inaugurates a new Air element Grand Mutation cycle, with all the related Aquarian symbolism, suggests we have stepped through one of the entry doors into this long-heralded new age. 

2021 Onwards to the New Age

The incredibly volatile period stirred up in 2020 continued into 2021. The year started with a massive sequence of transits in January, including the major Saturn/Uranus Square running from 2020 to 2023. 

On the horizon looms Pluto’s tour through Aquarius from 2024 to 2044. This dynamic is seen as formally marking our official entry into the Age of Aquarius.

Prophecy scholar and astrologer John Hogue sees Pluto’s 2024 entry into Aquarius marking the birth of “Generation One or Generation Zero.” It is they who will decide whether to look “backward into the past and give birth to human extinction,” or “open to the new and celebrate the unknown… in this oncoming time of the Great Purification [as foreseen by the Hopi].” 

Different Perspectives on NOW

What does it all mean for now? It depends on your perspective and where you’re coming from (culture) and as an individual (mental programming, beliefs etc.). 

At the end of 2020, Russian astrologer Tatiana Borsch predicted that 2021 would be a year of challenges for the US and most countries of the world.

Different Perspectives on NOW

What does it all mean for now? It depends on your perspective and where you’re coming from (culture) and as an individual (mental programming, beliefs etc.). 

At the end of 2020, Russian astrologer Tatiana Borsch predicted that 2021 would be a year of challenges for the US and most countries of the world.

“As this global financial crisis unfolds, expect a stronger China and a weakened US and Europe. America’s economic and political system might waste away, which could take place faster than we think,” said Tatiana.

This is contrasted by predictions made by various astrologers in Western countries like the United States and Australia. For many of them, the world is moving into an Aquarian Age that embraces Western liberal values and lifestyles. The tragedy is they build their outlook on Piscean era foundations of exceptionalism and superiority, conflating their belief in the modern myth of progress with an “evolution of consciousness.”

Truth is, says the talented UK-based writer and astrologer Jessica Davidson, in the coming years “we can be sure there’ll be no sudden shift into a liberal and progressive paradise of freedom and equality.” 

When the signs in the sky match the events on the ground, all we do know is something big is at hand. Your best bet is to stand objectively above the prejudices and biases of your age and culture and drop the pretentious claptrap. All transitions involve pain and adjustments – and one would hope much reflection.

Brazilian Insights

At the time of the Great Conjunction in December 2020, the well-informed Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar spoke to the respected Brazilian astrologer Vanessa Guazzelli. For over a decade, Escobar has been reporting on the emerging multipolar world and the rise of Russia and China, amidst the structural collapse of the old order.

All this was outlined by farsighted Mehmet Sabeheddin back in 2003 (in the wake of the Anglo-American war on Iraq):

The current turmoil and conflict unleashed on the planet by the United States and Britain is only the beginning of the climax of a struggle between cosmic influences of which most people are completely unaware. Today, America and Britain embody atrophied and degraded Piscean energies. The Anglo-Americans, as the standard-bearers of bankrupt Western materialism, are trying to reorganise the world, imposing their imbalanced, egoistic approach to life on all societies. Yet their latest brutal and insane actions, witnessed in the tragic invasion of Iraq, are part of a frantic effort to prolong their collapsing system. Despite all their apparent power and wealth, Anglo-American universalism is in a state of rapid decline leading to death. 

A new era, a new consciousness, and a new people are on the horizon as the planet goes through a turbulent transitional period paving the way to the Aquarian Age.

In 2022, the United States experienced its Pluto return. This astrological phenomenon occurs when transiting Pluto returns to the same zodiac sign and degree as it holds within the natal chart – in this case, not an individual but a country – the USA, born on 4 July 1776. It’s a cycle of approximately 247 years. Pluto always has a sense of fate to it, especially in this critical time of major world changes. 

“The return of the lord of the underworld also speaks of the return of that which was repressed, hidden or rejected. It had three exact hits throughout 2022, and the final and definitive of the next Pluto cycle has the planet of death and regeneration facing Black Moon Lilith in Cancer, in opposition. Karma is a bitch and hits home,” warns Guazzelli.

However, “this doesn’t mean the American Empire will fall by 2022" said Guazzelli, "but it is collapsing and will undergo dramatic transformations in the coming decade.”

From Pisces to Aquarius

We may not have overcome the cliches and New Age connotations associated with the line out of the 1967 musical ‘Hair’ – This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius – but the astrological truth of the situation is clear-cut for anyone with eyes to see.

On the level of cosmic time, we are tentatively stepping into the Age of Aquarius from the Age of Pisces. Astrology posits a cosmic imprint over the course of the Ages on human society – its religion, philosophy, myths, science, music, arts, etc. Over immense periods, subtle but distinct patterns manifest in the consciousness of humanity – a sort of unfolding of the collective spiritual state of humankind in a grand cycle known as the ‘Great Year’ that measures 25,920 years. 

The Great Year divides into 12 months, each lasting approximately 2,160 years, corresponding to the 12 divisions of the zodiac. 

The imprint of Aquarius is all around to see – electricity, computers, the internet, flight, space exploration, individual freedom, humanitarianism, idealism, rebellion, nonconformity, and even the renewed interest in astrology. 

As an ‘Air’ zodiac sign, Aquarius pertains to the mental realms. As the element of the incoming age, Air makes communication and inventiveness two of its most outstanding characteristics. This factor also stimulates the mental sphere of humanity towards brotherhood and the integration of knowledge. 

“Aquarius’s energies are feeding the dark side of human beings at the same time they are stimulating a higher calling…” And: “The dying energies (and systems of thought) of the previous age intensify and poison the winds of change blowing in from the new age.” 

We’re living in a period when the old energies mix with the first rays of the new – but the old (outwardly and inwardly) very much runs the show. 

The energies of Aquarius – seeping into the minds of a humanity born in the twilight of the Piscean Age – are liable to have negative impacts to that predicted by the believers in positive change: a manifestation of the worse tendencies of Aquarian nature – its dark side.

“[Y]ou will feel as if you are happy, as if you are a citizen living in the harmonious New Age,” writes John Hogue. “You will be seduced into believing it. In fact, in the darker realm of the future, the more people will be programmed not to think for themselves at all.” 

These negative aspects of Aquarius resonate in today’s world.

Covid-Control

Aquarius the Water Bearer in a horoscope from the Book of the Birth of Iskandar, 1411. The complexion of the saturnine sign is purposively dark.

Aquarius may be the humanitarian, but he is easily corrupted by the simple fact that he is fixed Air. This can manifest as something of the benevolent, somewhat chilly tyrant.
– P. James Clark, classical astrologer

The traditional planetary ruler of Aquarius, Saturn, was seen as the ‘great malefic’ because it represents restrictions, difficulties, scarcity and was connected to the Lord of Time – Chronos – of Greek mythology. 

The global response to Covid has a saturnine Aquarian feel about it. Worshipping at the altar of science, health surveillance & control systems, lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, the constant appeals and declarations of humanitarianism. 

The ‘new normal’ quickly became an embrace of ‘Big Brother’ as governments of all political orientations around the world assumed unprecedented control over their citizens’ daily lives in response to Covid. Governments in so-called democracies like Australia assumed emergency powers. 

Cynical observers are increasingly thinking the response to Covid hides another agenda. 

If politicians consulted learned astrologers, they would have been forewarned to prepare for a difficult period. J.P. Morgan, America’s first billionaire banker, apparently held that millionaires don’t need astrologers, but billionaires do. 

Great Resets

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
– Jiddu Krishnamurti

Most have heard about the ‘Great Reset’ of World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab – a tectonic society-wide shift that imposes changes on how we live, work and interact with each other.

The Great Reset entails a transformation of society resulting in permanent restrictions on fundamental liberties and mass surveillance as entire sectors are sacrificed to boost the monopoly and hegemony of pharmaceuticals corporations, high-tech/big data giants, Amazon, Google, major global chains, the digital payments sector, etc.

Under cover of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions, a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is being rolled out in which older enterprises are to be driven to bankruptcy or absorbed into monopolies, effectively shutting down vast sections of the pre-Covid economy.

Astrologer Guazzelli was astonished to learn that the Great Reset launched in January 2021, “so close to the Great Mutation at the end of December 2020. I doubt this is a mere coincidence or ‘synchronicity’.” 

“Possibly aware of this great transition,” she told Escobar, “the [WEF] Davos crew seem to be actually trying to reset the system they already rule with their own settings and revive the dying system as a cyborg from hell.”

Only the arrogantly foolish believe Schwab and the old global elite wouldn’t take a look at what humanity’s oldest science has to say about NOW – especially with so much hanging on a Great Reset to keep a hold on power.

Perhaps they know, writes Jessica Davidson, that “Pluto in Aquarius means the power shifts to the people and society at large, rather than a small group that dominates from the top down. But they won’t give up their power easily.”

“That means things won’t change unless we change.”

Eastern Winds

Now winds blow from the East and from Eurasia, inspiring new forms of co-existence. But the controllers of capital, wealth and worldly power won’t give it up without a fight – or a few wars and a heavy load of social control via technology, capturing bodies and minds. What will it be – Great Reset or Great Mutation?
– Vanessa Guazzelli

Two hundred years ago, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte famously remarked that “China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep for when she wakes up, she will move the world.”

China is well and truly on the move, along with a resurgent and confident Russia. 

“With the end of the Piscean era, history and civilisation are reorienting,” Mehmet Sabeheddin observed back in 2003. “We are seeing a return to origins with the emergence of a new power centre at the cross-roads of the East and West, in Eurasia.”

Pepe Escobar has written extensively on the multipolar world and belated failing Anglo-American plans to forge a full spectrum anti-China front.

Trying to ‘teach’ others how to live is also a failed strategy. To avoid bitter conflict, now is a better time to accept coexistence with the diverse cultures on Earth which express different spiritual, ethical, political and economic frameworks. Who knows what gems of wisdom and human possibility may bloom in Aquarius’ seedbed?

Faulty Thinking

Although we’re in the eye of an astrological storm – on a tipping point of chaos and uncertainty – the time is also pregnant for positive change and sudden breakthroughs. But we need to avoid misconceptions and false judgments – especially regarding how Westerners have projected fears and their values onto other societies. 

Harnessing Aquarian impulses from the perspective of Piscean thinking will get you nowhere. Despite being high-minded and for universal brotherhood – hallmarks of the coming age when it flowers – Aquarius isn’t as objective as it thinks it is, and can get caught up in groupthink and fanaticism. The shadow side of Aquarius is its propensity to want to reform everybody and a skewed view of equality, limited to the realm of ideas and debate but lacking in terms of the heart and emotion. 

This is all playing today in the era of Covid control and the emerging biopower. As noted by Guazzelli, “the nefarious potential of the Aquarian emphasis is the control of society through technology, be it techno-feudalism or, gods forbid, techno-slavery. On the brighter side of the Force, Aquarius is about a social project to sustain life and meet the needs of the people. Both dimensions or systems might co-exist on Earth for a while.”

Astrologer John Hogue suggests the authorities of the coming age might “fashion psycho-weapons out of the Aquarian element of atmosphere and mood… and you may not even feel the repression.”

“The police state of tomorrow will be clean and corporate, and you will be happy. You can’t help it because your genes were altered at birth. And whatever bad moods or antisocial behaviour that cannot be altered by gene splicing can be dulled by drugs or distracted by an entertainment fix. Tomorrow’s negative Utopia will be more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,” predicted Hogue in his 1994 book The Millennium Book of Prophecy.

Ultimately, faulty thinking will likely land us in a dead-end passage of no return. 

This is best encapsulated by the technocentric and anthropocentric Transhumanist movement which views the Earth merely as the backdrop for human ‘enhancement’. Unmoved one inch from its foundation stones of materialism and the progress myth, the human being is regarded as a biological computer to be enhanced and its life extended in perpetuity in the cloud – a techno-version of Heaven. Cleverness and artificial intelligence replace wisdom, spiritual insight and genuine self-actualisation. “The goal of humanity is conceived as being to become more and more clever, as if this were the equivalent of becoming spiritually fulfilled,” says philosopher Jeremy Naydler.

Just as Transhumanist ideology envisages the human future as inseparable from the machine, so too it envisages nature’s destiny as to serve as a kind of substratum of a vast artificial Global Brain. What the Internet of Things, and the creation of a so-called ‘intelligent planet’, means is the total saturation of the Earth with non-biological ‘intelligence’. Through emerging nanotechnologies and enhanced microelectronics, ‘intelligent’ control of the natural environment and many of the organisms within it will be greatly strengthened. And so the Global Brain awakens…. Thus the destiny of the universe is conceived as being ultimately to become an enormous supercomputer. It is a dream of insane proportions…

The Struggle for a Human Future by Jeremy Naydler

Near-Death Experience

Aquarius will be the new age, the new life. First, there will be disastrous events, gigantic upheavals, turmoil and change of all kinds….
– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov (1900–1986)

When individuals have close brushes with death, they often have profound experiences and undergo significant changes in outlook and personality. Similarly, a near-death experience (NDE) for a whole society could instigate a process of reflection and healing.

Devastating changes can be understood as necessary purgations affecting the transformation of humanity into a new mode of being, says NDE expert and psychologist Kenneth Ring:

By analogy, just as the individual near-death experiencer may have to endure the pain and suffering associated with the trauma of almost dying before positive personal transformation can take place, so the world may need to undergo a “planetary near-death experience” before it can awaken to higher, more spiritual, collective consciousness with universal love at its core. 

The Aquarian Mode

Whether the Age of Aquarius turns out to be a utopia or an Orwellian nightmare, we ultimately have responsibility for our own awareness and attitudes – and in some ways that may be the most Aquarian lesson of all.
– Ray Grasse

The hallmarks of the Age of Aquarius, we are told, are universal brotherhood, peace, unity, higher consciousness, and harmony. In the far distant future – beyond the lifetimes of current humanity – a magnificent flowering of Aquarian civilisation will bloom. It won’t be anything like we can imagine from our place in the grand scheme of the unfoldment of the Ages.

What can we do to facilitate the highest expression of the coming era? Pluto’s entry into Aquarius in 2024 will coincide with society re-organisation and the application of new technologies – tinged by dystopian Piscean energies.

Self-knowledge is the key to surviving this transition period. 

“It’s time for us to figure out what it means to be human and how to live together on this planet without fighting over everything,” urges Jessica Davidson. “Aquarius is future-oriented and wants to make society, and the future, a better place. But before you can do that, you have to understand who you are and why you’re here.”

Writer and astrologer Ray Grasse, in his book Signs of the Times, says that “enhancing the higher potentials of the Aquarian Age will involve, among other things, developing one’s own higher mind and critical faculties, allowing one to remain free from the hypnotising qualities of society’s mental ‘grid’ – the sociocultural matrix of our collective beliefs.” 

“Can you stand apart from the crowd and think for yourself?” asks Grasse. 

Way of the Heart 

The Soul is the means that vivifies human life. It descends from the invisible Spiritual Reality to push the individual to act according to the plans of Life. The individual who knows how to awaken his Soul, walking the Path of the Heart (Love), becomes a helper of humanity.
– Bernardino del Boca, artist & Aquarian Age pioneer

Beyond the cliches, superficial renditions and preaching on how to embark on the spiritual journey, there is a simple truth. It can only be approached and reached from a position of equanimity, fortitude, and an internal orientation for Self-Knowledge.

Humans in this current era are immersed and glamoured by the intellect, thinking there is no other way to be. Aquarius is about mental energy and stimulation which manifests today in an overbearing obsession with the thinking function to the exclusion of all else. 

In the game of life, we like to think our mind directs the play – and in most cases it does – but in the maze of Maya (unreality), we easily deceive ourselves and often deepen the illusion. Thinking and naming divides the One Being. The function of logic used by a thinker is a subtle trap. That which is named becomes a spell enslaving the namer. 

Eventually, people in the Age of Aquarius will have mastered the higher range of intellectual functions to integrate and use the full range of ‘information’ from different levels of Being.

We approach the Way of the Heart, as it is called in various spiritual traditions, by posing a question with ‘heart’. Contemplating the question is not an intellectual activity but a process of engaging and submitting one’s whole being freely in relationship to the object of inquiry.

The ‘spiritual heart’ rests beyond mere emotion and sentimentality – it is an ‘organ’ for spiritual perception. It has been said that the human, fully alive, is one who is able to rest in the heart, integrating the finite with the Infinite.

Awakening individuals, acting from this place of centredness, can ‘make a difference’ and play a positive role in this world of transition and suffering. They can point to the light and the new world to come, inspiring younger generations to act from pure intention.

“If we create the body of civilisation,” the late philosopher Manly Palmer Hall once remarked, “then the soul body of civilisation – which is the ‘New Atlantis’ – will move in and vitalise it. And instead of being a mechanistic culture defended only by mortal laws, it will be the manifestation of a loving being receiving light from the Eternal source of light.”

The Great Ages come and go, but you never need to be dragged under by external circumstances or restricted by worldly affairs. As the famed yogi Paramahansa Yogananda once remarked:

“You do not have to wait for the end of the world in order to be free. There is another way: rise above the age in which you are born.” 

Jason Jeffrey https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/living-through-a-great-shift-of-the-ages

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