Sat­urn in Pisces and a look at Ukraine and Rus­sia (Feb­ru­ary 26, 2023)

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

I thought it would be help­ful as we approach the entry of Sat­urn into Pisces, and as we have just observed on Feb­ru­ary 24^th the first year of the war of Rus­sia against Ukraine, that we should review the sig­nif­i­cance of Saturn’s pas­sage into Pisces and also con­sid­er the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions for what 2023 looks like for the Rus­sia-Ukraine War.

Sat­urn in Pisces

When I spoke about Sat­urn mov­ing into the sign of Pisces in my show in Decem­ber 2022, I sug­gest­ed that the pas­sage of Sat­urn through the signs of the Zodi­ac is one of the prin­ci­pal shapers of our expe­ri­ence of real­i­ty. Though I will always con­sid­er that the three out­er­most plan­ets have deep­er and longer-term indi­ca­tions for the qual­i­ty of the peri­od of human his­to­ry we are expe­ri­enc­ing, Sat­urn is impor­tant because it is the avatar or hold­er of the struc­tures of real­i­ty by which we ful­fill our needs, as we make and estab­lish the means to meet our needs and pre­serve our ways of living.

I will always main­tain that the plan­ets do not cause any­thing, that is they do not cre­ate the con­tent of what we are faced with and/or are about to encounter. Those facts and mat­ters of sub­stance are made by us, by our past actions as cre­ators of our present and our future real­i­ties. But the plan­ets can help us under­stand the mean­ings behind a peri­od, help us to under­stand what phase or stage of an expe­ri­ence we are going through indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, and guide us as to how we might best face this moment in any cycle, and by this what we might be able to ful­fill of our spir­i­tu­al des­tiny, what we are meant to be, which is sim­ply to be and become bet­ter humans, to be ever-more con­scious cre­ators of our reality.

And the rea­son Saturn’s pas­sage through Pisces should be under­stood as sig­nif­i­cant sim­ply comes from the fact that in Pisces, (and this is true of whichev­er plan­et is mov­ing through Pisces), we will expe­ri­ence the con­se­quences or reap­ing of what we have sown dur­ing this last 29-year cycle of Sat­urn from Aries through Pisces. For our pur­pos­es, that would mean we are to expe­ri­ence a reap­ing in the realm of real­i­ty of Sat­urn from 1996 until now. (And of course, because the echoes of kar­ma are man­i­fold and deep, there will be many influ­ences that orig­i­nate in the pre­vi­ous cycles begun in 1967 and 1937 and even ear­li­er too).

When a plan­et enters the Sign of Pisces, it enters the Foun­tain-Source of Cre­ation, the seed and heart of all cre­ations, the source of our dreams and equal­ly the fruits of their man­i­fes­ta­tions. Pisces is the Dream, and here at the end of any cycle it is equal­ly the har­vest or fruit of that cycle of expe­ri­ence too. And know this, that what we har­vest is what will form the mate­r­i­al of what we will sow. But it is not a mere repeat or loop­ing of real­i­ty that we will cre­ate. Because what we actu­al­ly sow will be formed by the man­ner in which we receive and work with the fruits of our cre­ation, by how we har­vest those pri­or expe­ri­ences, by what under­stand­ing we can bring to bear upon our Kar­ma, and by this ever-expand­ing exer­cise of our Spir­i­tu­al nature we will form the Dhar­ma, the path, of mak­ing our way in the next cycle of becom­ing in the hous­es of the Holy Ones. It is by our cre­ativ­i­ty, through our imag­i­na­tion and the pow­er of Cre­ation, by our Spir­i­tu­al Will or Alche­my, it is by these spir­i­tu­al gifts that we can form our har­vest into the seeds of the next and hope­ful­ly bet­ter cycle of our lives.

If we face our har­vests with fear, then what we form now as our seeds, and what we will plant in 2026 and beyond, will lead to a more bit­ter­sweet fruit at the end of the upcom­ing cycle, which in our case will be in 2053. But if we can face the har­vest of our con­se­quences with love, humil­i­ty and grace, if we can under­stand why things turned out as they did, to see through to the truths that steered us to cre­ations that we did well and also show us how and why what was more poor­ly done, if we can under­stand what errors of com­mis­sion or omis­sion we need to amend, and if we choose to live by our faith and so act with courage to do and be bet­ter, then we will sow our seeds of a more mean­ing­ful and beau­ti­ful future for one and for all.

It begins with each of us, in our sacred cen­ter where we are held in the wis­dom, love and guid­ance of our high­er self. There is no judge­ment there, no reward or pun­ish­ment to be had. The true nature of the spir­it at the cen­ter of each one of us and of every­thing, is sim­ply pure divine love. It is through this Love and For­give­ness that we can turn our errors into bless­ings, change our doubts into wis­dom, and our fears into the liv­ing faith that we are the mak­ers of what we are and what we will be, because we real­ly do have a choice. We will make many more mis­takes, but we will learn to be bet­ter too.

Then we need in our most inti­mate rela­tion­ships with our loved ones and friends, and then with our fel­low­ships, com­mu­ni­ties and so on, we need to coop­er­a­tive­ly per­form these same re-exam­i­na­tions of the har­vests from our cre­at­ed shared spaces, of all our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er. We only grow through our com­bi­na­tions with one anoth­er, and depend­ing upon how each of us has con­duct­ed our­selves with one anoth­er, these shared fruits will be sweet or bit­ter­sweet. But here too we must remem­ber that what holds us in our will­ing­ly and lov­ing­ly cre­at­ed unions with each oth­er is this essen­tial ener­gy-form that binds one and all, which is Divine Love. If we remem­ber to form and hold our­selves and our shared sacred spaces by this eter­nal truth, we will for­give one anoth­er our tres­pass­es, and so be able to cre­ate those bet­ter sacred spaces for a deep­er and more com­plete union with one another.

Sat­urn in Pisces brings the final test of Sat­urn, which is our “test of faith”. The ques­tion for us all is what is the source of your faith, what is the source of your hope for a bet­ter future? The Ancient Wis­dom holds that your faith is embed­ded in your true nature, that you are a spark of the Divine Light who is on a jour­ney of self-becom­ing with innu­mer­able fel­low mon­ads of the One, and that your true nature is formed by the light that shines in all the realms of Cre­ation, which is Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

So, as Sat­urn enters Pisces here in March 2023, we must each indi­vid­u­al­ly, and in our com­mu­ni­ties, fel­low­ships, cul­tures, and nations too, we must all use this time of har­vest to con­sid­er what we have made and what we have learned since the present cycle of Sat­urn start­ed in 1996. But it is not only what we did or did not do in 1996, but in all the years that fol­lowed, in 1997 and 1998, in 2008 and 2016, and 2020, yes all of it was made by you and me, made for you and me, and now we have to accept the fruits of our dream­ing and doing. We have to face “the dweller on the thresh­old”, the shad­owed fears of yes­ter­days and yes­ter­years, and choose to turn towards the Light of Love in our hearts.

Just as Sat­urn start­ed a new cycle by mov­ing into Aries 27 years ago, I also would like to note that Putin’s rise to pow­er began in 1996 when he moved from St Peters­burg to Moscow to work with Yeltsin, and then suc­ceed him, first as Prime Min­is­ter in 1999 and then in 2000 as Pres­i­dent. This would mean that as Sat­urn goes through Pisces, that we are watch­ing the entire­ty of Putin’s his­to­ry in lead­ing Rus­sia, both for him and for oth­ers who rose to pow­er then, and that they are to be reap­ing all that they have done since 1996 until now. With that in mind, let us now con­sid­er what the Astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions are for Rus­sia and Ukraine in 2023.

Ukraine and Russia

With regards to the sig­nif­i­cance of the plan­e­tary ener­gies for 2023 that help under­stand the influ­ences and mean­ings for Vladimir Putin and Rus­sia, and Volodymyr Zelen­sky and Ukraine, we should review what was indi­cat­ed for 2022 and see what changes lie ahead for 2023.

Putin
For 2022, the “trig­ger­ing” plan­et for Putin’s inva­sion of Ukraine was the same “influ­encer” as his inva­sion and seizure of Crimea 8 years ear­li­er, which was Uranus oppo­site his Sun in 2014. For 2022, Uranus was oppo­site his Sun’s ruler, which is Venus. More­over, the “real­i­ty” plan­et of Sat­urn was squar­ing his Plu­to and oppo­site his Jupiter in 2014, and then in 2022 he had Sat­urn oppo­site his Plu­to and squar­ing his Jupiter, (and we should note that each of these align­ments would trig­ger or acti­vate his propen­si­ty, giv­en his Jupiter/Pluto natal square, to seek to impose or force one’s beliefs upon others).

In 2023, there are sev­er­al major tran­sits in Putin’s chart. Uranus will be on or con­junct his Jupiter while it is also squar­ing his Plu­to, which is the very natal aspect (his Jupiter/Pluto square) that Sat­urn acti­vat­ed last year. This time Putin will be sur­prised, if not expe­ri­ence shocks by this move over his Jupiter, and his emo­tion­al attach­ments will be severe­ly test­ed as Uranus goes over his Plu­to. More­over, Nep­tune will be squar­ing his Mars for the entire year, which will bring about con­fu­sion and mis­guid­ed actions, as well as bring an influ­ence that brings about a loss of ener­gy and vital­i­ty through­out the year. And final­ly, the plan­et of real­i­ty, Sat­urn, will square his Moon all year and as a result he will be emo­tion­al­ly iso­lat­ed and depressed. All in all, I do not think that Putin is going to have a good year at all.

Rus­sia
For 2022, I not­ed that the major influ­ences in Russia’s chart were sim­i­lar also to what hap­pened in 2014 and sim­i­lar to align­ments in Putin’s chart. In 2014 Rus­sia had Plu­to oppo­site Jupiter and Uranus squared Jupiter too, while Sat­urn was semi­square to Uranus. Just like in Putin’s chart, that com­bi­na­tion of Plu­to and Uranus to Jupiter indi­cat­ed the very strong pos­si­bil­i­ty of attempt­ing by the force of Will to impose one’s beliefs upon anoth­er. The Saturn/Uranus aspect added to the ten­sion between the estab­lished order and the desire for free­dom to do as one wish­es. For 2022, that same Saturn/Uranus aspect was back, this time as a wax­ing aspect, but this time it was with Uranus on Venus and Oppo­site Russia’s Plu­to, indi­cat­ing a more extreme exam­ple of the strug­gle between Free­dom, Will and Val­ue. Final­ly, the most elu­sive but most telling tran­sit was the square of Nep­tune to the Mid­heav­en and Nadir of Russia’s chart. I described it as some­thing like an exis­ten­tial cri­sis as with the house of roots and ori­gins, and the house of des­tiny being shaped influ­enced by Nep­tune, there was bound to be a great deal of con­fu­sion for Rus­sians as they ques­tioned the foun­da­tions for their nation, of where it is root­ed and where it finds its secu­ri­ty, and equal­ly on its pur­pose or des­tiny. Dis­il­lu­sion­ment and con­fu­sion would be the result.

In 2023, an even more pow­er­ful align­ment of Nep­tune is hap­pen­ing for Rus­sia, as it now enters the 7^th house, the house of rela­tion­ships. What this means is that the expe­ri­ence and nature of Russia’s rela­tion­ships with the rest of the world will become more con­fused, as they face dis­il­lu­sion­ment and/or decep­tion and self-decep­tion. Com­pound­ing this will be Sat­urn align­ing with Russia’s Mer­cury, so that the state or qual­i­ty of think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion will become test­ed, shad­owed, and fear­ful, the state of mind in Rus­sia will be con­strained by doubts and fears.

Zelen­sky
For Zelen­sky in 2022, I not­ed that Uranus was oppo­site his own Uranus, which is one of the main indi­ca­tors for any­one of going through the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of the so-called mid-life cri­sis. It calls upon all of us at such a time, to choose to become a more tru­ly indi­vid­u­at­ed per­son, a more authen­tic ver­sion of one­self. And he also had Sat­urn oppo­site his Moon, which cre­ates a deep sad­ness and fear of being cut off from the sup­port one needs. In 2023, Zelen­sky has Nep­tune squar­ing his Jupiter, (actu­al­ly for 2023 and 2024), and this brings about a peri­od where one must ques­tion and reex­am­ine the truths that guide one’s life, whether those be cul­tur­al, sci­en­tif­ic, or spir­i­tu­al truths. It can bring about a cri­sis of faith but is real­ly an instru­ment to let go of old assump­tions and half-truths and make one’s way to a greater under­stand­ing. More­over, 2023 is the year in which Plu­to, the plan­et of the Will, is oppo­site to Zelensky’s Mars. This is also in effect for 2024, and it indi­cates that Zelen­sky is engaged in a great strug­gle for sur­vival, and he will have to draw upon his deter­mi­na­tion and per­son­al strength to face very great challenges.

Ukraine
Ukraine in 2022 had Uranus enter the 4^th house of Roots and Foun­da­tions, while it also opposed Ukraine’s Plu­to in the 10^th house of Des­tiny. This most cer­tain­ly indi­cat­ed a test of will and deter­mi­na­tion, and the expe­ri­ence of the vio­la­tion of one’s bound­aries or sacred space. And just like Zelen­sky, Ukraine had Sat­urn on its Moon, and the coun­try equal­ly expe­ri­enced a deep sad­ness and a feel­ing of being cut-off from sup­port. For 2023, Ukraine has Uranus squar­ing the Moon, which indi­cates a very unset­tled qual­i­ty for the peo­ple of Ukraine, a high­er degree of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty but equal­ly a time to break reac­tive behav­iors and so that one may be more inno­v­a­tive and sur­pris­ing in one’s respons­es. Also in 2023, Sat­urn is oppo­site the Sun in Ukraine’s chart, which means it is under­go­ing an endurance test, a crit­i­cal test of its char­ac­ter and for­ti­tude. The chal­lenge is to endure, but equal­ly to focus on respon­si­bil­i­ties let go of struc­tures or pat­terns which are not supportive.

The pic­ture for both Putin and Rus­sia, and Zelen­sky and Ukraine is most cer­tain­ly chal­leng­ing, and one would expect this to be the real­i­ty of a bru­tal war of aggres­sion. It is not sur­pris­ing after all, as there is almost no sce­nario where there is a win­ner and a los­er in any war, because the very great­est of spir­i­tu­al crimes is occur­ring on the largest scale imag­in­able, and there is so much pain and suf­fer­ing on both sides that the echoes of this fail­ure to love rather than hate will be with us for many years to come.

The most basic and hor­rif­ic of spir­i­tu­al crimes is the tres­pass­ing or inva­sion of the sacred space of any human. Spir­i­tu­al­ly this is the “first crime”, the ulti­mate sin of not expe­ri­enc­ing and treat­ing any “oth­er” who is before us as a spir­i­tu­al­ly divine pres­ence too. This is why the first “step” for any aggres­sor in a war is to dehu­man­ize, or demo­nize their oppo­nent, as Putin has done by labelling many of the peo­ple of Ukraine, and the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment as being Nazi’s. As always, the first casu­al­ty in any war is the truth.

But the Light of Truth is with­in every one of us, and “we have eyes that see, and ears that hear”, and we know who is stand­ing for love and who is con­sumed by hate. Our heart and thoughts are for all those who are fac­ing the fear­ful dark­ness of hate that has turned rel­a­tives and neigh­bors against one anoth­er, all because of the hatred and fear that has seized one man and some peo­ple who have cho­sen the dark­ness over the light.

May peace return to Ukraine and her peo­ple and may they and many oth­ers plant the seeds of a bet­ter world in the weeks, months, and years to come.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — Sat­urn in Pisces, and a look at Ukraine and Russia

In my sec­ond show of 2023, we will look again at the upcom­ing move of Sat­urn in Pisces on March 7, 2023, and take a look at where we are one year after Russia’s war with Ukraine.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 26^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2023/02/26/astrological-musings-saturn-in-pisces-and-a-look-at-ukraine-and-russia

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638

Please join me on Sun­day Feb­ru­ary 26^th @ 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

Alpha and Omega, The Nev­er-end­ing Sto­ry, the end is but a beginning.

Today we reach the “end” of the Astro­log­i­cal year, and at this time every year, and for­ev­er some­where in your very own chart too, you are giv­en this holy peri­od and this sacred space so that you can “see and hold as one” your life of lights and shad­ows. You are only here and walk for­ev­er in one space-time, the shin­ing pres­ence of the Eter­nal Now, ever reap­ing what you have sown and sow­ing what you will become. But let us remem­ber that to become the human you will some­day be, you will need to move into these sacred times and spaces of con­tem­pla­tion and inte­gra­tion, of remem­brance and dream­ing, as you walk with faith through the cos­mos, where dark­ness dances with the light.

Here at Pisces, at the end of a cycle, you will find your next begin­ning. Because your life is not a line, it is a spi­ral­ing jour­ney, a danc­ing ener­gy-form made by and from your Love. From the first les­son of “pres­ence” in Aries, to the “cen­ter­ing” of self by Can­cer, from the “cre­ation” of shared space in Libra and the “self-ful­fill­ment” of respon­si­bil­i­ties in Capri­corn, and from all the ways and signs in between, you have come around the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones once more to receive this final gift of the Spir­it for you.

This gift of grace holds the truth to them all, which is that you are the dream­er cre­at­ing the future you will be. For the dreams you dream will become the thoughts that you think, and those thoughts will inform and form the actions you take. The Law of Kar­ma will be ful­filled, so that what you give is what you will get, and it will be as it always has been, that you are the cre­ator-mak­er and the reaper of you. And from the deep­est part of you, from the inti­ma­tions lov­ing­ly held in your high­er self you will know, that you were made by the Light and Love of the One, and your only true pur­pose is to love one anoth­er and be the love that you are.

From your begin­ning in anoth­er life in Aries, you strove to be and become what you are, a unique shin­ing pres­ence of the one. And through each house of the Liv­ing Ones, you forged a life that was held togeth­er by your courage and humil­i­ty, by your deter­mi­na­tion and adapt­abil­i­ty, and through each domini­um of the liv­ing ones you strove to be what you are, to be a unique and spe­cial spark of the divine, a quin­tes­sen­tial one among the infi­nite hosts of the One.

But here in Pisces you must look back and ahead because you must pre­pare your­self to begin again. You under­stand that all those tri­als and tribu­la­tions, all those many stum­bles and falls is how you moved toward a greater self-mas­tery, as you learned what not to do and how to be bet­ter. This is “the way”, this is the path of Spir­it that is forged by choos­ing to love rather than fear, to meet­ing the next moment in the eter­nal now with hope as you let go of regret, to for­give your­self and one anoth­er because you feel it now from deep with­in you, and you see it now because it is all around you too, that the Light of the One is shin­ing in every­thing and every­one, and also in you.

You are the sto­ry­teller and the sto­ry, the mak­er and cre­ator of you. You have noth­ing to fear, because what­ev­er lies before you was made by you, and you have made your­self ready to meet your des­tiny of Light with Love. Your faith is woven into the very essence of who and what you are, you are a spark of the Divine, an immor­tal in mor­tal worlds.

Because you are made of Eter­nal Love, and your true nature is not fixed but is des­tined to be what was made at the dawn of Cre­ation, you are the “ever becom­ing”, a resplen­dent spark of the Divine, whose jour­ney through the stars, dwelling in the Hous­es of the Holy, is filled with the Light of a Liv­ing Faith found­ed and forged in the Uncon­di­tion­al Love of the One.

Pisces is Clo­sure; Pisces is the Dream; Pisces is the Future. Trea­sure this space and time of Pisces, as it is like the final chap­ter of any sto­ry, and by this sum­ming up, by weav­ing all the strands of your tri­umphs and so-called defeats, by har­vest­ing the wis­dom of it all, in hold­ing as one the entire jour­ney of your life to this point, it is by this reap­ing that you will cre­ate the seed that will be the source of your next great chap­ter in the book of life.

At this time of end­ing, as it was at the begin­ning of Cre­ation, the sto­ry remains the same.

There is only one truth, there is only one way.

Love one another.

Aquar­ius by Michael Trossman 

To Be Human

Since your jour­ney began, since cross­ing that spir­i­tu­al thresh­old where the dark­ness meets the light, long, long ago, you and all humans have wan­dered and won­dered. We have been try­ing to under­stand, we have strug­gled to com­pre­hend, we have searched for the answer to the ques­tion that lies behind all of our ques­tions which is “Why”?

Why are we here? Which leads to why is that here; and to final­ly why, why is any­thing here?

Why?

As we wan­dered and won­dered, we looked up, and we began to see pat­terns form­ing in the star­ry fir­ma­ment; and we looked around our world, and we looked at one anoth­er, and we saw those pat­terns down here as well. And as we lis­tened to the qui­et whis­pers of our high­er self, as we fol­lowed our intu­ition, we felt some­thing famil­iar, and so we came to know that there is mean­ing­ful­ness with­in us, and that there is mean­ing, and beau­ty, and truth all around us too. And we smiled, and we laughed, and we shared in the won­der of our being part of this Cre­ation, of being togeth­er in this jour­ney of the Divine through the stars.

Today we cel­e­brate the entry of our Star into the sign of Aquar­ius, and at this time of the year, and for­ev­er shin­ing some­where in your chart too, we con­sid­er once again the why and the how of being human here on this Earth. Because at the root of answer­ing the “why” for us is to equal­ly appre­ci­ate the “how” of us. How did we become, how were we made, and then ask why are we, what is all this for?

The answer, of course, is in our hearts, as it is woven into the heart with­in every atom and star of the Cos­mos. For this is the most essen­tial nature and qual­i­ty of Spir­it, and it forms the Root of all Mean­ings and Pur­pos­es of the Uni­verse. The answer to the why of any­thing is this, that Spirit’s essen­tial nature is “to be and to become”. Cre­ation is the Jour­ney of Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it, which is dri­ven by the agency of Self-Becom­ing, which means that “Becom­ing” is what Cre­ation is. It is the “One in all” form­ing all the ones that are Cre­ation. And there in the beat­ing heart of Cre­ation, the dri­ving force is Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

From our desire and inspi­ra­tion to find mean­ing in our exis­tence, to tru­ly under­stand this sto­ry of Spir­it, which is the Sto­ry of Cre­ation, we came to feel with­in our­selves, and to see in one anoth­er, and in the entire­ty of the Cos­mos all around us, that we are a host among many hosts or forms of Spir­it, a host of divine sparks or mon­ads. We are part of the Sto­ry of Cre­ation, which is this jour­ney of a hier­ar­chy of hosts, who are held togeth­er as mul­ti­plic­i­ties of indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ties by affil­i­a­tion and by love, and that each of these great hosts of life is shaped, guid­ed, and inspired indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly by their unique spark of the Divine. The whole of Cre­ation is the jour­ney of innu­mer­able ones who are on the sacred path of the essen­tial nature of Spir­it which is “Self-Becom­ing by Self-Fulfillment”.

The Truths of why we are here has been passed down through the ages by Wise Ones and Seek­ers, held in trust by the Peren­ni­al Teach­ings, and it holds that we are here for one pur­pose. We are here to strive and to grow through tri­al and error, to learn from our mis­takes and by our suc­cess­es too, so that over the span of many years, and through many, many lives, that we will become bet­ter humans, and that each one of us, and togeth­er as a host of Divine Sparks, we may shine ever brighter like Cre­ation itself, as beings full of Light and Love.

We are equal­ly made by our own efforts, and by one anoth­er and for one anoth­er too. That is because the Divine, our mon­ad, is formed by the inte­gral expe­ri­ence of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty, so that these truths are inter­wo­ven through­out the fab­ric of the Uni­verse. For humans, we all wish to be “one of a kind”; but we also are made by our kinds, as we alchem­i­cal­ly forge our unique­ness from the diver­si­ty of mean­ing­ful­ness root­ed in the many groups, com­mu­ni­ties, and cul­tures that we weave into our­selves too.

And it is here in Aquar­ius that we find the ves­sel or Avatar of this essen­tial and para­dox­i­cal Truth, that we are One and we are also the Many. Every one of us is here to be a unique and excep­tion­al human, yet we have made our­selves by and through the many groups or “kinds” to which we belong. We are all in one anoth­er, made up by one anoth­er and for one anoth­er; and we know, because it is true, that we are all for one, and one for all because we are sparks of Divine Love.

And as much as we are shaped by our join­ing and blend­ing of these var­i­ous kinds into the spe­cial human that we are, we equal­ly con­tribute our own sen­si­bil­i­ties and expe­ri­ences back into these var­i­ous groups, com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures, and part­ner­ships. It is this dynam­ic, alchemic and pro­tean cre­ation made by your weav­ing of the per­son­al and social, it is by this that “you become you” and equal­ly help one anoth­er to become a bet­ter human too. Tru­ly, we are the means to make one another’s dreams come true, as our dreams are made through and by one anoth­er, and our dreams hold us to one anoth­er by friend­ship, com­pan­ion­ship, and love.

This is the Truth of Aquar­ius; that we are only what we are because we are part of a sacred fel­low­ship, a band of broth­ers and sis­ters who are for­ev­er seek­ing to cre­ate a bet­ter future, to help one anoth­er to be the very means by which our dreams come true. We are here for one anoth­er; we are for one anoth­er the liv­ing proof of our dreams com­ing true because our hap­pi­ness is their hap­pi­ness, and their hap­pi­ness is ours. And because we love one anoth­er we also know this, that we must equal­ly look to pre­serve and pro­tect the dreams of our chil­dren and all those who may fol­low us too, for what we are made from is not bound by space or time.

We are not here for us or what was, because we know, because we under­stand, that with­in us is the spark of the Divine, the immor­tal seed of Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love and that we have not seen our fin­er days. We have hope and believe in the dream of what has yet to be, of a day that is brighter, and a world that is healed, and so we set our sights on the far horizon.

Why are we here?

We are here to dream, to cre­ate, and to love one another.

We are here to love and be loved and to shine.

We are here,

To Dream, to Be and Become,

We are here to Love.

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

Today we will con­tin­ue our overview of 2023 by turn­ing to the most impor­tant shift for the year ahead (and for many years into the future), which is the entrance of Plu­to into the sign of Aquar­ius. As you know, I find it quite impos­si­ble to con­sid­er one plan­et mov­ing through one sign to be suf­fi­cient to under­stand any peri­od in his­to­ry, or cer­tain­ly give us clar­i­ty for our cur­rent events. Just like in a dance per­for­mance, for instance like a bal­let, where you may at times focus upon one or anoth­er dancer, and then upon a cou­ple danc­ing, you real­ly can­not appre­ci­ate the choreographer’s mean­ing and mes­sage with­out pulling back, and look­ing at the whole bal­let, with all the dancers mov­ing in shift­ing pat­terns of rela­tion­ships and mean­ings with one anoth­er. (That is one rea­son I like to call our plan­e­tary com­pan­ions’ move­ments around the solar sys­tem, a “Dance of the Planets”).

I think it is most impor­tant to our under­stand­ing as to “the why and the what” that we are expe­ri­enc­ing here on Earth, is for us to exam­ine the cycle of rela­tion­ship of the three out­er plan­ets which form the long-term his­tor­i­cal dri­vers of spir­i­tu­al ener­gy in our sys­tem. Their move­ments with one anoth­er form­ing what we call a syn­od­ic cycle, (from a con­junc­tion to an oppo­si­tion with one anoth­er, and then back to the next con­junc­tion), form the inte­gral or essen­tial heart­beat of our spir­i­tu­al jour­ney through the stars.

Tri­ad of Spir­it, Pluto-Neptune-Uranus
What we need to remem­ber is what each plan­et holds as an Avatar, and then to con­sid­er what the com­bi­na­tion of one with anoth­er would cre­ate. I like to describe the three out­er plan­ets as form­ing the Tri­ad of Spir­it, and that by Plu­to we strive towards Self-Mas­tery from a “Cen­tered Will”; by Nep­tune we are sup­port­ed to hold real­i­ty and one anoth­er in “Uncon­di­tion­al Love”; and by Uranus we are helped to become a unique Spark of the Divine by mov­ing into ever “Freer Minds”. On the Uni­ver­sal lev­el, Plu­to as the Avatar of Divine Will cre­ates and forms the Spaces or Con­tain­ers for any being or group of beings, and Nep­tune as the Avatar of Uncon­di­tion­al Love holds the expe­ri­ence and root ener­gy-form of each mon­ad as part of the One Life of the Spir­it, as part of the One host or Com­mu­ni­ty of Light and Love, and Uranus as the Avatar of Freer Mind shapes the aware­ness of any being or group towards every greater Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, to the real­iza­tion that each and every instance of the One is spe­cial and unique.

Plu­to
For our pur­pos­es today, let us con­sid­er the roles of Plu­to and Nep­tune as they work togeth­er. Plu­to is the Shaper of Forms; Nep­tune the Ener­gy-Sub­stance of those forms. Our Uni­verse which is the sto­ry of the One, is formed and pow­ered by what we know as Chem­istry (phys­i­cal­ly) or Alche­my (spir­i­tu­al­ly), and this Foun­tain Source or Pri­mal Ener­gy for Cre­ation cease­less­ly unfolds as the prime mover or the Self-Becom­ing ener­gy that forges the innu­mer­able com­bi­na­tions and trans­for­ma­tions of the hier­ar­chy of Ener­gy-Forms of the One Spirit.

From the One came all the many ones, who then began to forge unions to cre­ate every greater ones, and it is these ones who fill and form the spaces of space which form and are the body of the One. To do this, the Alchem­i­cal nature of Spir­it forges the con­tain­ers of spir­it, with­in which each one is bound­ed and held sep­a­rate from oth­er ones. Then, through the Alchem­i­cal mys­tery of com­bi­na­tion, by the Spir­i­tu­al Will as chemistry/alchemy, atoms com­bine with atoms to form larg­er atoms, mol­e­cules with greater mol­e­cules, organ­isms with larg­er organ­isms, on up to the plan­ets, stars, and galax­ies. What dri­ves Cre­ation is the Pro­tean Pow­er that is Alche­my, which is the mag­ic and the mys­tery of com­bi­na­tion. This secret to Cre­ation, the majesties, and the mys­ter­ies that we call Birth, Death, and Rebirth, is held by the Sign of Scor­pio, and also for us in our Solar Sys­tem by the Plan­et Pluto.

Nep­tune
Nep­tune is the avatar of the Uni­ver­sal ener­gy-form that holds the entire­ty of cre­ation as it is. There is but One Life, there is but One Spir­it, and there is but One Mind, and it holds the whole of Cre­ation as ONE, (the many ones held as One). This Uni­ver­sal and Omnipresent Ener­gy-form is the Love of the One which we know as Uncon­di­tion­al or Uni­ver­sal Divine Love. Through this Ener­gy-Form, all the Spaces of Space are filled, as the Uni­verse is a Plero­ma, a full­ness not an empti­ness, so that ulti­mate­ly the bound­aries between the hier­ar­chies and ranges of all ener­gy-forms are tran­scend­ed and held togeth­er as one, and it is this expe­ri­ence which is the true seed for your expe­ri­ence of com­pas­sion and empa­thy between one anoth­er and real­ly between all life-forms, and tru­ly for the whole of Creation.

So, we could say that Neptune’s mes­sage is almost the “oppo­site” or coun­ter­point to that of Plu­to as the Lord of Will and Bound­aries. Or per­haps it is bet­ter to say that this reminds us of the para­dox­i­cal nature of a true spir­i­tu­al under­stand­ing of and liv­ing a life guid­ed by spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. While it is cer­tain that we must be respect­ful­ly “sep­a­rate from one anoth­er”, we must at the same time see through all our var­i­ous sep­a­ra­tions, bound­aries, and bor­ders between one anoth­er and know that they are nec­es­sary, but they are also at the root an Illu­sion, for every­thing and every­one is con­nect­ed, inter­pen­e­trat­ed by, and shaped by all oth­ers. There is but One Spir­it, and Nep­tune is the Avatar of exact­ly this, the Holy Spir­it. We must there­fore also live with this wis­dom and act towards one anoth­er by hold­ing to this com­ple­men­tary spir­i­tu­al truth, that we are all in essence one with one anoth­er. A great and Ancient Teach­ing that should guide is that “We are all relat­ed”, so that if we bring harm to any­one at all, we will cause equal harm to our own true self too.

What we need to do, at least for our pur­pos­es today, is to not only con­sid­er what this move­ment of Plu­to into Aquar­ius means, but to also con­sid­er what stage or cycle moment Plu­to is going through in its most sig­nif­i­cant cycle of rela­tion­ship, which is with Nep­tune. As I have not­ed before, their rough­ly 490-year cycle is quite inter­est­ing, as Plu­to will go around the Solar Sys­tem in about 248 years and Nep­tune in about 165 years, mean­ing that from one of their con­junc­tions to the next, Plu­to will go around the Zodi­ac twice and Nep­tune three times.

Neptune/Pluto Con­junc­tions as a Series
As they dance with one anoth­er, we have found that their series of con­junc­tions, which are like New Moons where a new spir­i­tu­al seed is plant­ed, is that these seedings/plantings will move for­ward through the zodi­ac by about 6 degrees each time they meet up rough­ly every 500 years. For the last two con­junc­tions, they have met in Gem­i­ni, both in 1398 and for our cur­rent cycle in 1891, and they will do so again in 2384, and twice more after that. Pri­or to this, Plu­to and Nep­tune aligned with one anoth­er in the sign of Tau­rus. That shift to Tau­rus con­junc­tions start­ed in 1071 BCE, which was a very sig­nif­i­cant shift in human his­to­ry, as is our cur­rent series of Gem­i­ni seed­ings that began in 1398. What this also means more broad­ly is that every 2500 years we humans expe­ri­ence a series of seed­ings of Nep­tune and Plu­to in one Sign before mov­ing onto the next, form­ing a com­plete cycle in about 30,000 years!

Tau­rus Series of Conjunctions
The series of con­junc­tions from 1071 BCE to 1398 CE were focused through the mean­ing and mes­sage of Tau­rus, which con­cerns the nature of our human expe­ri­ence of Val­ue, of what is wor­thy, of what is beau­ti­ful, of what makes for and what cre­ates val­ue for us. Great civ­i­liza­tions were formed dur­ing this peri­od, rang­ing from Per­sia, to Baby­lon, to Greece and Rome, and the Han in Chi­na, and the Mayan and Olmec in the West­ern hemisphere.

Gem­i­ni Series of Conjunctions
The series in Gem­i­ni that began in 1398, and that was reini­tial­ized for us in 1891, holds as a focus what has been a spir­i­tu­al quick­en­ing for humans, trans­form­ing our minds and our intel­lect, pow­er­ful­ly shap­ing our intel­li­gence and means of net­work­ing and communications.

We can see that what began at the first Gem­i­ni phase of 1398 with­in 500 years led to a world­wide spread of cul­tures, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty that spanned (for the first time as far as we know) all around the Earth by the late 1800’s. The sec­ond impulse of 1891 has unfold­ed until the present day with a ver­i­ta­ble explo­sion of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions that in no small degree has shaped how we humans think and relate to one anoth­er. This trans­for­ma­tion has changed and con­tin­ues to change our very under­stand­ing of what it means to be human, and it has most cer­tain­ly trans­formed and dis­rupt­ed the expe­ri­ences of most oth­er life-forms on the Earth.

Sex­tile Phase for Neptune/Pluto
What we also need to under­stand is that as Nep­tune and Plu­to con­tin­ue on their 490-year cycle, they will come to sig­nif­i­cant moments in their cycle of rela­tion­ship, which are formed by their angu­lar sep­a­ra­tions from one anoth­er, what we Astrologers call aspects. Anoth­er way to under­stand where we are now, and how what hap­pened in the past may inform our under­stand­ing as to what is before us now, is that for quite some time now, begin­ning in the 1950’s, and con­tin­u­ing off and on through our very own peri­od now, is that Nep­tune and Plu­to have been form­ing a 60-degree sep­a­ra­tion or Sex­tile aspect. That aspect is a time of con­cretiza­tion and con­sol­i­da­tion, of mate­ri­al­iz­ing or quick­en­ing of what­ev­er began at the con­junc­tion, which in our peri­od was 1891.

Let us com­pare our moment now to what was hap­pen­ing dur­ing the pre­vi­ous Sex­tile for the 1398 con­junc­tion. Just like in our peri­od, and this is due to the unusu­al nature of the orbit of Plu­to, that it is very ellip­ti­cal and goes through some signs more quick­ly or slow­ly than oth­ers, (three times longer in Tau­rus than in the oppo­site Sign of Scor­pio, 36 years ver­sus 12 years), there was a rather long wax­ing Sex­tile phase dur­ing this ear­li­er peri­od too.

Sex­tile from 1461 to 1540
This extend­ed sex­tile for this Neptune/Pluto cycle came in two phas­es, from 1461 to 1480, where Plu­to was in Leo and Nep­tune in Libra and lat­er when they were in Sagit­tar­ius and Libra. And then anoth­er phase from 1536 to 1540 with Nep­tune in Aries and Plu­to in Aquar­ius. So, all in all there was a Sex­tile aspect for about 80 years. This was what has been termed in Europe as the peri­od of the High Renais­sance lead­ing to, (as we would expect of Plu­to as the hold­er of the Pow­er of Alche­my), the Death and Rebirth of the Euro­pean order which cul­mi­nat­ed in the Ref­or­ma­tion. Dur­ing this peri­od, just like our own, there was a ver­i­ta­ble rush of ideas, a quick­en­ing of cre­ativ­i­ty and intel­lect, and social and eco­nom­ic change.

The Break­ing of the Euro­pean Catholic Order between the Sacred Realms and the Sec­u­lar Order led to many wars on that con­ti­nent and also to con­quests and col­o­niza­tion around the world. The most con­se­quen­tial and destruc­tive for our part of the world was the Span­ish destruc­tion of the Aztec, and the Mayan and Incan civ­i­liza­tions from the 1520s-30s. We can see how this sex­tile brought relent­less change and devel­op­ment in tech­nol­o­gy, ideas, and beliefs, but also very great suf­fer­ing for mil­lions of souls as well.

Sex­tile from 1950 to 2032
We have been expe­ri­enc­ing this same or sim­i­lar influ­ence in our mod­ern era after the 1891 Con­junc­tion of Nep­tune with Plu­to. For us, the quickening/manifesting stage of the Sex­tile has been in effect from 1950 to 1956, with Nep­tune in Libra and Plu­to in Leo, just as in the pre­vi­ous cycle, and then again from 1976 to 1986, as before with Nep­tune in Sagit­tar­ius and Plu­to in Libra, and then Nep­tune in Capri­corn and Plu­to in Scor­pio. And we will expe­ri­ence it exact­ly one more time from 2026 to 2032, and again like in the 1500’s with Nep­tune in Aries and Plu­to in Aquar­ius (which Plu­to will begin to enter this year). That means we will have had this very con­se­quen­tial align­ment of Nep­tune and Plu­to for over 82 years, just like in the 14 and 1500’s.

I have for many years been stat­ing that what we have been expe­ri­enc­ing with Plu­to in Capri­corn from 2008 to 2023 makes our peri­od like that of the 1500’s, in that it rep­re­sents the “end of an age”, and that in some form we are hav­ing our own expe­ri­ence that is much like our ances­tors, which was of the old order framed by the Pope and the King, between realms Sec­tar­i­an and Sec­u­lar, of gov­ern­ments and economies and cul­tures, of a type of human and what it means to be human, trans­form­ing into what we under­stand now as our mod­ern-age of nation states, with a pro­lif­er­a­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and inten­si­fi­ca­tion of net­work­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and tru­ly mak­ing us just as it did them into a dif­fer­ent kind of human.

But for us today, what our ances­tors forged as an Insti­tu­tion­al Order, and Econ­o­my, and Gov­ern­ment and a Way of Life in order to meet their chal­lenges and secure their needs, the very solu­tions that they cre­at­ed and invent­ed to solve their prob­lems and ful­fil their dreams, those very solu­tions have end­ed up in many ways being the source of the very chal­lenges we face today. Just as the pas­sage of Plu­to through Capri­corn was to be a time for the Death of many Insti­tu­tions of the world, it has also been, in fact it must be, the begin­ning of the birth of new means of meet­ing our needs, of new cre­ations, but also for pre­serv­ing and sup­port­ing a rich and diverse hier­ar­chy of earth ecosys­tems; we need a new Order and/or rebirth in our Insti­tu­tions and our way of life, of how we live with our world in order to pre­serve and pro­tect all life on this Earth. Many of us look around and see a world in per­il, of life leav­ing the plan­et, of our world becom­ing less vibrant and dimin­ished, and of our own lives and our dreams for the future being cir­cum­scribed and bound by appre­hen­sions and fears.

The Sec­ond Age of Gemini
We are mov­ing through the quick­en­ing of the sec­ond age of Gem­i­ni. In the first age and into this sec­ond age of Gem­i­ni, what many call the Indus­tri­al and Post-Indus­tri­al Ages, humans wield­ed their sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge and tech­ni­cal means to bend and shape the Earth and her life-forms to meet our needs, which result­ed in a mas­sive Growth in Mate­r­i­al Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for human Goods and Ser­vices and cre­at­ed for a type of rel­a­tive Plen­ty for many. But it equal­ly set in motion fun­da­men­tal changes in the bal­ance of ener­gy and life-forms on this plan­et which has brought us today to a ver­i­ta­ble globe cir­cling war of destruc­tion and dev­as­ta­tion for most oth­er life-forms on this plan­et. Here in this Sec­ond Age of Gem­i­ni, we are moved into a time that will require max­i­mum adapt­abil­i­ty to the glob­al changes that our pre­vi­ous way of life has forged, and that chal­lenge cer­tain­ly seems to be grow­ing expo­nen­tial­ly, and it seems to be over­whelm­ing for many of us.

The approach­es and solu­tions of the first wave of the Gem­i­ni con­junc­tions of Plu­to and Nep­tune led to what became the first tru­ly glob­al or Mod­ern World. This sec­ond Gem­i­ni seed­ing wave begin­ning in 1898 is now mov­ing towards the last crit­i­cal series of Neptune/Pluto sex­tiles. Begin­ning this year with the start of Pluto’s jour­ney through Aquar­ius and becom­ing ever more pow­er­ful as Nep­tune moves into Aries in 2026 and into the 2030’s, we will meet the heart of what will forge our futures, our des­tiny and lega­cy to those who will fol­low us.

Plu­to in Capri­corn ver­sus Plu­to in Aquarius
The pas­sage of Plu­to through Capri­corn her­ald­ed the end of an Insti­tu­tion­al Age. What is the mes­sage of Plu­to in Aquar­ius, what does it offer and what are we enter­ing into now from 2024 to 2044? For Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, Aquar­ius rules “Fel­low­ship” or “Com­mu­ni­ty”, the nature and sub­stance of what are known as our so-called vol­un­tary asso­ci­a­tions with one anoth­er, what you and I would expe­ri­ence as the world beyond our fam­i­lies, that larg­er human social expe­ri­ence that we know as Friendship.

As you know, I like to say we are made of one anoth­er, and that all with whom we jour­ney have in some way become part of us and we have become part of them. We share our dreams and doubts, our hopes, and our fears, and we gath­er togeth­er to help one anoth­er, to be and become for one anoth­er our dreams come true.

Rebirth of Dreams
Aquar­ius is our Dream; of the world we wish to pre­serve and the world we hope to cre­ate. Plu­to mov­ing through Aquar­ius will her­ald the break­ing down of our old dreams for our futures and the birth and remak­ing of a New World Dream. As much as Plu­to in Capri­corn was the break­ing down of the Insti­tu­tion­al Order that was cre­at­ed to pre­serve and sup­port our dreams, Plu­to in Aquar­ius will bring us to the neces­si­ty to change the very con­tent or Sub­stance of our Dreams themselves.

The dream that drove the first Age of Gem­i­ni was that through our inge­nu­ity and crafti­ness, through our sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, we would bend and form the rest of this Earth to meet our ever-expand­ing need for things, for the basics of food, cloth­ing, shel­ter, and for an ever-increas­ing range of desires. But unfor­tu­nate­ly, this ever-increas­ing growth of wants and desires was met with­out con­sid­er­a­tion for the effects and con­se­quences that our means of secur­ing those wants cre­at­ed. We were very smart, we were very crafty, but we cer­tain­ly lacked Wis­dom and Humil­i­ty. But forces greater than ours are remind­ing us that we are not the mas­ters of the Earth.

Now we must con­sid­er what should be at the heart of our dreams for this Age. Is it to be more of more; are we so enam­ored of hav­ing more, of con­sum­ing more, that we are held cap­tive by this val­ue of quan­ti­ty only, of this mate­r­i­al mea­sure of the good life, so that to have more of more is what it means to be human. Or will we dream of a dif­fer­ent pur­pose and mean­ing for our lives?

I do not think we will, ulti­mate­ly, have a choice. We will have to humbly and wise­ly and grace­ful­ly accept our need to turn are dreams from the Illu­sion­ary Right to do what we wish with the Earth and forge a Way of Life built upon our Respon­si­bil­i­ties to one anoth­er and to all life-forms with whom we share this world. We must cen­ter our dreams upon heal­ing, pre­serv­ing, and pro­tect­ing all the life and lives on this plan­et, on our home, on our moth­er, on this beau­ti­ful Earth with whom we trav­el through the stars.