Transcript of Radio Show: 2022 — A look ahead, the 2022 Forecast – Part 3 — Uranus
(If you wish to listen to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Podcasts)
Today we will complete our initial overview of 2022 by considering the third of the outer planets, Uranus. In truth, I find it quite impossible to understand any one of the three outer planets without at the very same time holding in my mind the other two. They are for me or form, as I have often mentioned, what I call the Triad of Spirit. Their individual meanings can only be truly understood when you also hold the other two as well, as they each contribute to one another, forming an integral whole that inspire and guide our spiritual awakening.
Symphony of the Planets
One example of their interdependency and interrelationship is simply to be found in their relative positions with one another. It is quite extraordinary how their orbital ratios form a perfect numerical progression or resonance pattern. This is so clear when we arrange them in their relative position from us, that is from Uranus to Neptune to Pluto. Uranus’ orbit is 84 years; Neptune’s orbit is roughly twice that at 164 years; and Pluto is three times Uranus or 248 years; so that means they form a progression in years of 1 to 2 to 3.
Since these planets are what we call the Sacred three beyond Saturn, I like to look at them as the Avatars of our spiritual journey, of becoming more than what have been made by our mere conditioning from our past successes and failures, which is held by Saturn. Saturn should be held in this context as the planet of Reality, of what we have made along with our self-limitations. Another Astrological name for Saturn is the “Ring Pass Not”, and this means that when we move beyond the rings of Saturn we move into a more sublime place, a realm beyond seemingly fixed and materialized worlds of the more inner planets.
The Three Outer Planets as a Process
So, one way to look at these outer three with regards to our Spiritual journey and Consciousness is that they operate simultaneously, but also step by step. From a fixed and formed state of belief and knowing, we find ourselves by the activation of Uranus to be shook or shocked from our more limited beliefs and thought forms. Uranus operates like an electrical discharge or lightning bolt, and we experience that “Ah-hah”, of suddenly seeing something beyond what we had heretofore imagined.
Then Neptune comes along, as the Universal Solvent, to dissolve the boundaries between one thing, idea or realm and another, and so it lifts us to see through to a more inclusive understanding (after we have passed through the necessary state or interregnum that we label confusion).
Finally, Pluto brings the principle of Alchemy, the magic of combination and recombination, of birth, death, and rebirth, leading to the formation and fusion of a new Understanding.
So, one could say that in many instances in our journey of spirit we are first shocked out of our certainties by Uranus, then we move through a state of wonder and confusion by Neptune, so that we might finally arrive in a rebirth of our consciousness and meaning at Pluto.
Today, for us, the question is what does Uranus’ orbital position contribute to our understanding that we have gathered in my two previous shows on Pluto and Neptune? Remember, in the last show I commented upon that consistent pattern of Pluto’s passage through Capricorn every 245 years being counterpointed by Neptune’s passage through Pisces (as now), or in Virgo.
Uranus in Aries and Taurus
What is equally fascinating for us currently is this fact. That just as it was in the 1500’s and in the 1700’s, we also have the planet Uranus moving through the signs of Aries and Taurus in our period too. But here we have something quite extraordinary. The resonance pattern of Pluto in Capricorn corresponding with Neptune in either Pisces or Virgo has held for literally thousands of years, but the orbit of Uranus has formed a pattern of Uranus slowly moving backwards through the signs for each passage of Pluto in Capricorn.
So, maybe this difference may contribute to our understanding of what we have experienced in our spiritual journey for the past 500 years, which is the fact that Uranus has held steady for the last three passages of Pluto in Capricorn, because Uranus has been in Aries/Taurus for the 1500’s, 1700’s and for our period in the 2000’s. But if we look to the 1200’s it was in Taurus/Gemini, then in the prior period of the 1000’s it was in Gemini/Cancer, and in the 700’s it was in Cancer/Leo, and so on.
For whatever reason, and perhaps this may be play in role in how different and distinct our spiritual journey in awakening has been since the 1500’s, we have experienced a consistent or insistent messaging with regards to Uranus being in Aries and Taurus. What might this mean?
Though many other historical approaches and analyses will try to explain why we have had a rather distinctive or unique historical period since the 1500’s, when we consider our history through the lens of an Astrological and/or Spiritual perspective, I firmly believe that this pattern of Pluto in Capricorn, with Neptune in Pisces or Virgo, combined with Uranus in Aries and Taurus, can be very instructive and illuminating for us.
What I would argue is with regards to the spiritual journey of humanity, and the very real changes we have seen in human self-understanding, the shift in human consciousness, and the concomitant evolution our communities and cultures, we have most certainly witnessed the emergence of a very different kind of human over the past 500 years. The question is why?
We have already discussed somewhat the nature of the shift from the 1500’s to the 1700’s and then to our present day when we considered the integral influences of Pluto in Capricorn combined with that of Neptune in either Virgo or Pisces. Now with the addition of Uranus we can perhaps see why these past 500 years have been so very different from those before.
Whereas Neptune will complete one and one-half an orbit each time Pluto goes through Capricorn, Uranus will have gone around three times. But as I noted, it will slowly move backwards through the sign it is in when Pluto returns to Capricorn. What might be so very special about it remaining or holding for these past 500 years in the first two signs of the Zodiac while Pluto is in Capricorn?
I would argue that we can understand this significance by examining the message of Uranus when it is moving through Aries as focusing its influence upon the very nature of the “I”, as Aries rules the experience of “Who am I”; and that equally, we can see that while Uranus is in Taurus it shakes up the very notion of the second question of life, “What am I”?
Uranus’ Role combined with Neptune and Pluto
While it is true that no matter what sign Uranus is moving through, (and it is in each sign for about 7 years), its purpose or role is to individualize, individuate and free that part of our being or nature so that we may continue our spiritual journey of becoming a quintessential being, because our true nature is to become our very own unique spark of the Divine. So, with this understanding, we could see that Uranus in Aries during each breakdown of a previous order in structure and meaning (that is by Pluto in Capricorn, and Neptune in Virgo or Pisces), would significantly elicit a disturbance and questioning of the very notion of “what is this thing” that we experience as the “I”. Many observers have noted that our very notion of subject and object, our manner or attitude by which we think, speak and write has changed dramatically as we moved through the 1500’s and beyond. In fact, many historians posit that modernity itself, and the modern sense of “the self” emerged during that Pluto-Neptune-Uranus cycle in the 1500s.
Likewise, Uranus in Taurus elicits or brings shocks to our second most important sense of ourselves and our world; that is what is value, what is our value and what is of value for us? We can certainly see that by examining the conception of and the hierarchy of values that existed prior to the 1500s and then compare that to where we find ourselves today, our experience of value and own knowledge of the material worlds (and those beyond the material) has been totally transformed.
Indeed, that very essential construct of “the Subject” versus whatever is “the Object”, the I and the not‑I, has been transformed from the 1500s down to this very day.
For our purposes, in examining the spiritual journey of humanity from the 1500s onwards, the main consideration or shift would be experienced in this evolution (or revolution) in our perspective, our way of seeing ourselves and our understanding of the world around us; what has quite fundamentally driven our history for the past 500 years is the revolution in our consciousness, (which is by no means done of course).
As I mentioned in Parts 1 and 2 of our 2022 overview, the signature shift that has taken place in the last 500 years is in how we think, how we know or think we know, and how that has shaped what dreams we dream, and from this what we think of ourselves and how we live our lives.
The Ways of Knowing
Before the shocks that began in the 1500s by Uranus, and the dissolving’s by Neptune, and in the renewals of Pluto, we could understand the “way of knowing” by humans as being derived from one of three approaches or methods:
- For much of human history, and for the greatest number of people, there is the understanding established and enforced by Authority, wherein the answers to life are determined by those who hold position and wield power over the many, whether they be from realms secular or sectarian. And this way of knowing by force is still quite prevalent of course for far too many souls.
- Then for some, there is the fixing of the answers to life by what one wishes to believe to be true, a holding of or to a point of view, and to a reality, by sheer determination and often through deliberate or willful ignorance. In effect, one is an authority to oneself, but with no critical or reflective correction possible or sought for.
- And then there is the approach for some, and which seems somewhat more reasonable, and it is known as “a priori” reasoning. It is an approach which is formed by assuming that one is being reasonable, or that we are being reasonable, and that by using our individual reason we can form certain assumptions and approaches to what we know, and it seems to work for us. But there is no method or practice within this approach that provides for testing or corrections or validation. So, by each of us assuming that we are right, and then by our confirmation biases in which we keep the data or experience that confirms what we assumed and ignore the rest, we end up creating a thought-reality structure that makes sense to us, but it can be truly nonsensical and even dangerous to ourselves or others.
Revolution in Consciousness
Finally, what emerged in the 1500s was quite extraordinary and exceptional, and this is what I would call a key part of the Spiritual Transformation brought about via the agency of Pluto/Neptune/Uranus. A significant element of this awakening forged what we have come to know as a means or process of understanding ourselves and our world called “the Scientific Method”.
The Scientific Method is the critical reasoning process whereby we can determine and separate fact from fiction. And it rests upon this most essential quality, that our transformational self-awareness created the capacity for us to be “self-critical”. That gift of self-criticalness is bestowed by our development of having some greater or lesser degree of objectivity, of our being able to observe not just what we may be trying to understand, but to hold ourselves as equally objective about our own perceptions and reasonings too.
By this leap in self-awareness, Knowledge and Truth became something forged and created by our Living Spirit. That what we know and believe would not be derived by fiat through some Authority, nor by ignorant and willful determination, nor by reasoning without critical reflection (the three previously mentioned ways). Now it became possible for knowledge and truth to be determined by a process of greater self-understanding and openness to the wonder of the world around us.
The Scientific Method
We would start, as one must if one seeks to truly know, with the knowledge that we do not know but we seek to understand. And so, we would propose something, a postulate or hypothesis about something, and then by observation, and testing, and re-hypothesizing, and more testing, and then the refining of our findings we could arrive at a conclusion with a reasonable certainty about something.
To be able to adopt this method of knowing, we must start from the first and truest position of spirit, that is just like in the mind of a child, we begin with an open mind, a mind unfilled with assumptions or ideas as such, but rather filled by a curious, inquisitive spirit that seeks to know more about the world and of ourselves.
The result over the past 500 years has been an ever increasing and exponential growth in our knowledge of the world. We unlocked the secrets of physics, chemistry, and biology and so we became like the gods, with the protean ability to radically alter our world and ourselves too. The world that was in the 1500s looks nothing like the world we have now. And we are certainly a very different type of human than our ancestors.
Yes, it is by this Spiritual leap in Consciousness, we found some of the keys to the Universe; we have magnified our powers and extended our range of influence over ourselves and all other life-forms on this planet. And herein we made and met our fate, we discovered a “ring” of great power, but we did not understand how we should use it or what we would create.
This is because, unfortunately, our leap in power was not matched by an equally greater wisdom or a deeper humility. It seems we have become the instruments of our own undoing by harnessing the secrets of the universe. Yes, we face the greatest of perils we have ever faced by our own making, because our knowledge was incomplete, and the consequences of our actions not fully understood.
Limited Consciousness
Moreover, for many, many souls, and truly for most of us to some greater or lesser degree, the other methods of determination of fact and truth or belief still hold sway, either partially or wholly, in our understanding of ourselves and our world. Rather than be filled with curiosity, wonder and humility, too often many choose to live in certainties founded in and circumscribed by fear.
Yes, far, far too many humans place their faith (or really their fear) into some one individual or group of “Authorities” who hold neither Truth nor Wisdom but merely their Power as the source of meaning. And far too many of us think that we are “reasonable”, and that we can use our reason and our modern indexes of information to sort fact from fantasy, and be an island of self-formed knowledge, our very own arbiters of truth and reason. And so, our fealty to authorities, or our egotistical self-assurances blinds us to the Living Truth that is Spirit.
We Need One Another to Know Truth
Because our foundation of understanding, from the very beginning of our awakening, has been anchored in this fundamental principle of our human knowing, which is that we are social beings, and we need one another to find our way to what is reasonable, to what may it factual and perhaps even True. Our very word for this, “Consciousness”, means “Together Knowing”. Which quite simply means that if we do not share with one another, and tell our stories, and listen to one another, we will be lost upon the raging seas of misunderstandings.
That is why we need to help one another to find our way out of our confusion and fear by simply being there for one another; we must listen, we need to offer support and comfort, to provide insight and criticism, and we must equally be eager to receive it too. We are one another’s means to the truth, whose fundamental source is to be found in the One or Unconditional Love.
More than many may know or understand, we make what we are and what we will be by how we think, by what we think and what we share with one another. To that end I will leave you with some words from a very wise one, Manly Palmer Hall, who wrote in his book “Self-Unfoldment by Disciplines of Realization”:
“Let your realization through all this time be that simply, naturally, gently, normally and happily, you are growing up through the many to the One, and that you are accomplishing this through the gradual processes of discovering as a series of joyous experiences the One in each of the many. Realization is the conscious understanding of the unity of life, and of the unity of the living Self with the deathless Cause which abides in the innermost parts of the world.
Be patient, and in all things be kind – and time and eternity will be patient and kind through you.”
