There’s been much excitement about this Conjunction. Saturn and Jupiter don’t meet that often. Their cycles have a pattern that means in the course of two hundred years they meet four times. The first two in the same element, the third in the next element and the last back to the original element. In the last two hundred years, they have been meeting in Earth with a dip into air in the eighties.
There has been much written about how the last two hundred years have been tainted by the greed and acquisitiveness of Earth; how suddenly we will find utopia because the energy is shifting to air. Am I missing something? Is human nature suddenly to change? History would tell us to be cautious about being both judgemental and idealistic.
There seems to be a bias against Earth amongst many Astrologers. They judge it to be too dull, uninspiring and worst of all greedy. They decry it’s conservative values. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what this element represents. If I were to take the wand of judgement and apply it fairly, I would say that Air is intellectually arrogant and dogmatic, water emotionally self indulgent to the point of selfishness and fire so impulsive that it risks destroying everything in its path! I choose instead to say that every element has its shadow side, just as it has its potential for genius. This is because Astrology is an expression and reflection of our humanity. We each hold the power of demons and angels within us. The choices we make define us.
If we want to truly understand what the next two hundred years of Jupiter Saturn Conjunctions in Air will bring, we need to better understand the last two hundred years, as defined by Earth.
In this time we have focused on creating wealth. This is not merely an impulse of greed. It is about creating a better standard of living so that life expectancy improves and poverty decreases. It is about marshalling the Earth’s resources, food, energy etc, to create a better life for ourselves. It is about building something sound, a structure that supports us on a planet that throws storms, earthquakes and disease at us.
In the last two hundred years we have developed Medicine to help with disease at a rate that propelled us to where we are. We have made huge developments in science which have created revolutions in manufacturing, communication and transportation. No aspect of life has remained unchanged. In the middle of it all, we have learned that we need to treat each other better with universal voting rights, recognition of human rights and movements towards equality between the sexes and races, etc. In addition, we have less wars, and poverty has been reduced globally.
We have also had to discover that our activities have an impact on the Earth. There have been several ecological disasters throughout the twentieth Century brought about through a lack of understanding of what we are doing. As we learn we change. The healing of the Ozone layer is a good example of how understanding led to change. There are many others, although perhaps less dramatic.
We have a long way to go but essentially, the last two hundred years have been about better understanding our planet and the laws of nature. After all, it was also during this period that Charles Darwin explained evolution, bringing about a revolution in the way we see nature, biology and ourselves. Earth is about understanding and manipulating materials as well as learning how to use them. We’ve certainly been doing that!
I can you hear you calling out all the things that are wrong with the world. We do indeed have a long way to go. The potential for greed and power to ruin everything is ever present because these twin demons lie within us all, irrespective of what element we’re dealing with. It is a process of evolution too. We cannot forcibly create utopia. This brings me to Air and the next two hundred years. Air is about relationships. Gemini’s focus is on communication, one to one, broadcasting and teaching. Libra is about fairness in one to one relationships, balancing varying needs. Aquarius is about relationships within groups and between groups. The next two hundred years will be about learning to better live with each other.
We begin with the first Conjunction in Aquarius. This sign above all the other signs, seems to be idealised. It holds the promise of unity and the current buzzword of community. As human beings we yearn to sing as a choir, one unified voice. We are in trouble if we forget that a choir is made up of individual voices voluntarily coming together to harmonise with each other! The rub is that all too often individuality is seen as a threat to unity. This has ever been the problem for humanity. One person or group imposing its view of utopia upon another, thereby turning utopia into hell. This would be the shadow side of Aquarius, seen during the Russian Revolution when Uranus was in Aquarius. The quest for utopia led to Stalin, the Soviet gulags and millions of deaths.
More recently and less dramatically, it was evident to me as an Astrologer in the late ‘90’s and early naughties, also with Uranus in Aquarius. During this period, because we don’t fit in with modern science’s view of what is real and true, Astrologers were made to be insured by law and told that they must tell their clients that their services are for entertainment purposes only. So much for freedom of belief, and the notion of diversity! I also found that all my different slots on BBC local radio stations were cancelled because Astrology went against Producer’s guidelines which held it as a pseudoscience, the death knell judgement of the current dogma.
So where is the hope? We need to look deeper to understand the promise of Aquarius. This is about grass roots movements. We can look to the American Declaration of Independence which happened at the end of Pluto’s sojourn in Capricorn. That declaration defined what many countries hold as our human rights to this day. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We’re still working on this. The American war of independence can be seen as a spontaneous grass roots movement towards a more equal and free society. By the time the war was won, Pluto was in Aquarius. The founding Fathers of America were wise men. They created a society where the aim was that the State did not hold power over the people arbitrarily. It respected the individual and promised freedom of expression, belief and speech. This created a society that individuals from all over the world envied. Indeed millions have flocked to America searching for that world of freedom and equality.
We fail to respect our individuality at our peril. We do argue and debate. Through doing this, we learn and we progress. This is it not merely a cacophony of discord. It becomes war and chaos when we fail to respect each other and want to impose our will or vision on others.
This then is the challenge of the next two hundred years, to learn to listen to each other with respect and tolerance. If we can manage this, we will have a real Utopia. It begins right here, right now! In my lifetime, I have never seen so much demonising of others and intolerance as I have seen in the last three years. Aquarius unity means stop judging and start embracing! It’s time to bring back hugs!
You benefit most from this energy if you’re an Aquarius, Gemini or Libra
You also benefit if you’re an Aries or Sagittarius
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