Whence – Where – Whither

Part 2 – Where

Astro­log­i­cal­ly, 2018 will be like many years. We will have three peri­ods of Mer­cury in Ret­ro­grade, (March 22—April 15, July 25—August 18, Novem­ber 16—December 6), and Mars will turn Ret­ro­grade too, (June 26—August 27). There will be New Moons and Full Moons and many of the oth­er typ­i­cal phe­nom­e­na that form the warp and weave of Ener­gy-Forms that thrill through your world year after year.

But there are some sig­nif­i­cant changes com­ing to you in 2018. As the last year end­ed, Sat­urn entered Capri­corn, (until Decem­ber 2020). And, anoth­er major Sign shift lies ahead in 2018; Uranus will enter Tau­rus in May and remain there until 2026. We are mov­ing into a new mod­u­la­tion of ener­gies, (both plan­e­tary moves will shift the bal­ance of ener­gy, from Fire Signs to Earth Signs), and the dom­i­nant sen­si­bil­i­ties and themes in your life will change accordingly.

These two Sign shifts will com­bine with a crit­i­cal phase in anoth­er plan­e­tary pair­ing of out­er plan­ets, (Uranus Semi­square Nep­tune). This Plan­e­tary Pair artic­u­lates the ever-shift­ing inte­gral evo­lu­tion and bal­ance between Indi­vid­u­al­iz­ing Ener­gies (Uranus), and Com­mu­nal­iz­ing Ener­gies (Nep­tune). It is here, through these star­ry Avatars, it is here you will see play out our Spir­i­tu­al Jour­ney in the weaving/warping of our Greater Aware­ness; it is here that the sto­ry of your awak­en­ing will unfold in the dynam­ic inter­play (and often­times strug­gle) between Mind and Intu­ition, between Rea­son and Faith, between Sci­ence and Religion.

Yes, what lies ahead for you is quite a “seis­mic shift” in The Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, (The Zodi­ac), that form and inform your life here on Earth. The Winds of Spir­it are blow­ing now, the Plan­e­tary Tides are sweep­ing away the old, as they bring glad tid­ings of a New Age to you and your world.

Sat­urn in Capri­corn – The Test of Responsibility
I have already writ­ten a piece on this shift of Sat­urn into Capri­corn, and I would refer you to that blog entry for a deep­er analy­sis of this most impor­tant pas­sage here: Sat­urn in Capri­corn. But I did not then note the sig­nif­i­cance of Sat­urn (or any plan­et) mov­ing from a Fire Sign into an Earth Sign. Where­as you are to expe­ri­ence the Ideals and Inspi­ra­tions of Spir­i­tu­al Truths when plan­ets move through Fire Signs, it is in the ele­ment of Earth that you bring these Shin­ing Truths into the man­i­fest­ed forms of your world. As Sat­urn now, (and Uranus soon), move into Earth, it is time to make real what you know and hold to be dear and true; for after all that is thought, writ­ten and spo­ken, you are here to be this Truth, you are here to make the Dream of Spir­it shine in all that you make and do.

But from a more Mun­dane or World­ly per­spec­tive, Sat­urn in Capri­corn has been asso­ci­at­ed with chal­leng­ing peri­ods in US His­to­ry, (this is prob­a­bly because the USA is a Can­cer, the oppo­site Sign to Capri­corn), and more espe­cial­ly because both Venus and Jupiter, the less­er and greater benefics, are in Can­cer too. The last three times Sat­urn went through Capri­corn, (1988–91, 1959–1962 and 1929–32), the USA expe­ri­enced eco­nom­ic and finan­cial chal­lenges. Reces­sions and worse led to cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal upheavals, remind­ing us once again that what dri­ves all mar­kets is the one thing com­mon to all of them, human nature. Though many fac­tors must be inte­grat­ed to under­stand the ups and downs of eco­nom­ic life, it all comes down to Faith and Fear. Now the past is no cer­tain indi­ca­tor of our future, pat­terns nev­er repeat exact­ly, but they do car­ry remark­able res­o­nances, and so it would be wise or pru­dent to pre­pare for some chal­leng­ing times ahead.

Uranus in Tau­rus – Trans­for­ma­tion of Value
Uranus in Tau­rus, (2018–2026) will bring star­tling trans­for­ma­tions to the realm of Val­ues. The pre­vi­ous times for Uranus in Tau­rus were 1935–1942, 1851–59 and 1768–75. Those peri­ods were char­ac­ter­ized by upheavals and rapid changes in Soci­ety and Cul­ture, and brought about new order­ings of Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal struc­tures. These Uran­ian shocks and turn­ings break old iden­ti­fi­ca­tions, lead­ing to rev­o­lu­tion­ary break­throughs in Ideas and Tech­nol­o­gy, in Soci­ety and Cul­ture. Uranus leads us beyond our self-cre­at­ed Sat­urn­ian bound­aries, and in Tau­rus it cre­ates a new Fab­ric of Mean­ing. Uranus in Tau­rus will ush­er in a new Val­ue Hier­ar­chy, and a so new kind of Human too. The self-lim­it­ing attach­ments to out­worn ways and val­ues are bro­ken, and a new way of being emerges.

Uranus & Nep­tune – Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty vs Community
The more con­se­quen­tial (yet more hid­den or obscure) ener­gy-form of 2018 is the next sig­nif­i­cant cycle moment in the rela­tion­ship between Uranus and Nep­tune. The inter­play of Uranus and Nep­tune artic­u­late the dynam­ic and inte­gral devel­op­ment of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty ver­sus Com­mu­ni­ty. Their rela­tion­ship inspires our spir­i­tu­al jour­ney and reminds us to hold togeth­er the devel­op­ment of ever Freer Minds with a com­men­su­rate deep­en­ing of our Uncon­di­tion­al Love. Their cycle from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion is about 170 years and the last one hap­pened in 1993. The most recent pre­vi­ous con­junc­tions were 1821 and 1650, and each time a new order­ing of the inte­gral rela­tion­ship between the Indi­vid­ual and their Com­mu­ni­ty was articulated.

When either of these ener­gy-forms becomes imbal­anced with the oth­er, we either move towards extreme forms of inde­pen­dence, (and break our bonds of fel­low­ship), or we bind our­selves into indi­vid­u­al­i­ty-deny­ing forms of com­mu­nal­ism, (and break the integri­ty of each mem­ber of the group). There is a need for Life, for Spir­it to find itself by being One and True, but it also can only do this by being part of some­thing greater, of belong­ing and being formed by some­thing larg­er too. We all want to be One of a Kind; but we also can only find our Mean­ings and Val­ues by being part of some Kind.

The release of a new order­ing of these two prin­ci­ples in 1993 has now reached a crit­i­cal moment, (the sim­i­lar peri­od before was 1845–47). Clear­ly, through­out the world the ten­sion between Free­dom and Com­mu­nal life-ways is rip­ping cul­tures into ever more frag­ment­ed sub-cul­tures and group­ings; the Cen­tripetal force of Free­dom has become severe­ly unbal­anced in its inte­gral rela­tion­ship with the Cen­trifu­gal force of Love. Each is seem­ing­ly devolv­ing into a warped ver­sion of its high­er nature. Free­dom becomes ripped from shared affec­tions, becom­ing self­ish and nihilis­tic; Love becomes bound­ed by fear of the unfa­mil­iar, affec­tions nar­row and retreat inward­ly to anachro­nis­tic anchors of “blood and soil”. The spir­i­tu­al­ly true com­mu­nal foun­da­tions founder and break, the Cen­ter that is Love can­not hold, and soci­eties devolve into dis­as­so­ci­at­ed groups, made of tribes formed upon fear.

But just as in the same cyclic moment of the 1840’s, new notions and pat­terns are emerg­ing for us now, and there is hope that the bonds formed by our affec­tions for one another’s restored and shared core val­ues will equal­ly be matched by our sup­port for one another’s essen­tial need to be a unique expres­sion of those shared affec­tions and values.

There is much to give one hope, but there is need on the part of one and all to re-estab­lish trust in one anoth­er; we need to build our greater faith on kind­li­ness and lov­ing deeds. These small and greater acts of indi­vid­u­als and their com­mu­ni­ties are hap­pen­ing all around us too…and we must do every­thing we can to hold our­selves to our ori­gins and orig­i­nal intent, to hon­or and remem­ber the com­pact we have formed freely, and as inscribed upon the Great Seal of our nation­al motto:

E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many One

As the great dra­ma of “Light and Shad­ows” unfolds in this trou­bled time of an Age that is End­ing, when you feel the need to re-cen­ter your­self and one anoth­er, remem­ber the Great Invo­ca­tion and be assured that you are not alone and the Dawn of and New Age is all around you too:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

Next, “Whith­er are we going?”