The Joys and Perils of Prediction, or, The Chronocrators approach Aquarius
This weekend I was at an astrology conference, listening to an interesting mix of papers and being given much food for thought.There was a paper on William Lilly, who made some extraordinarily accurate predictions back in the sixteenth century, and gained a good deal of notoriety for it. Following this, and the attendant debate about how much we can accurately predict specific events rather than potential developments, and even whether we should (nobody wants to be a self fulfilling prophecy), there was a paper predicting some possible effects of the Jupiter Saturn conjunction which is coming up in 2020. Because whatever we say, and no matter the technicalities of prediction, one of the gifts and joys of astrology is looking to the future and interpreting the possibilities the planets will bring us.
Jupiter and Saturn are known as the social planets, the boundary between the personal planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars) which describe our inner landscape, and the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) which describe the transpersonal or generational energies around us. Every twenty years or so, Jupiter and Saturn form a conjunction as they come together in the heavens, and these conjunctions generally mark deep social and economic changes. The cycle they form has been called the ground base of human development, and shows the ways our society develops and changes. Every two hundred years or so, the conjunction changes elements, and the energies around us undergo a profound shift. The most recent cycle has been in the earth signs, beginning in 1802, and this has been an age of materialism. The industrial revolution in the nineteenth century changed not only the way we worked, bringing us into factories and offices, but also the way we live. Security is based around how much money we have, our home, our earnings and our worldly achievements. Society is divided into "haves" and "have nots", based mostly on how much stuff we have. Security is owning our own home, driving the latest car, wearing the latest fashion. "Stuff" is central to many of our lives.
On December 21, 2020, the Jupiter Saturn conjunction moves into Aquarius, an air sign, signalling the beginning of a new cycle. Actually, because of the apparent retrograde motion of the planets, there is an overlap between the cycles. There was a conjunction in the air sign of Libra back in 1981, and then the conjunction moved back into Taurus in 2000. Now we move into Aquarius, and there is much excitement about the "Age of Aquarius" finally starting. Much of the paper I heard last Saturday was about the ways we may become more Aquarian, with less barriers to communication, an increasing focus on consciousness and how the brain works, and new technologies which will enhance our lives. Maybe we will work more closely with artificial intelligence, we will all wear ear pieces allowing us to translate between different languages, we will get our nutritional needs from pills instead of food. The internet and social media have already profoundly changed the way we connect with each other and form communities and social bonds. We'll be concerned with the sky, we were told, with air and peace and togetherness. So far, so Aquarian.
But there is a whiff of utopia about all this, this brave new world full of connection and life enhancing technology. The images the speaker showed were of futuristic cities, all glass and steel. I find this really unsettling, and I speak as a double Aquarian (triple if you count Jupiter). Aquarius is also detachment and dogma, the righteousness of those who believe that they are more intelligent than their fellows, and know what's best for others. Technology can make haves and have nots just as money can. Humans are creatures of earth as well as air, and water and fire and spirit too. Food taken as a pill would not nourish us the way food grown in the earth, nourished by sun and rain, and cooked with love, nourishes us. Living high in skyscrapers would leave us disconnected from the earth that gives us life. Those images of future cities had not a single green leaf amongst them, not a blade of grass. I wouldn't want to live in one of them (although I am Aquarian enough that I kind of love the idea of living high in the sky!).
To be fair to the speaker, I don't think she meant to be utopian, it's just that her list of possible social developments came across that way. She noted that big, probably difficult, changes would likely occur to trigger this new, more inclusive way of thinking. The chart for the Jupiter Saturn conjunction, at least set for London, shows isolation and conflict, the breaking down of existing organisations. She noted that air, an as element, moves much faster than earth, that these changes may come quicker than we expect. I think we've all had that Uranian sensation of shock and surprise and the way the world is changing over the last year or so. I'm not even sure where to start with that, especially given that I'm typing this on the day of a general election here in the UK, and I fear for where it will end up.
Another thing that unsettled me about the paper was the lack of feminine or receptive energy, the strong emphasis on airy objectivity and reason, control and definition. I do believe that feminine energy is rising, that many people are learning again to get in touch with their earthy, watery, cyclical feminine self (no matter what gender they identify as, if any). But there was no place for that in the vision of the future I heard on Saturday. There's an Aquarian ideal there too perhaps, maybe we will finally learn to move beyond the binary, beyond putting ourselves in boxes for the convenience of others. Maybe we'll all learn to honour all the sides of ourselves, cyclical and linear, active and receptive, and function fully as our individual selves. I have hope as well, when I look at the more mindful connections to earth energy which have been developing in recent years. The rise of yoga, mindfulness (an overused word, but an important concept), holistic medicine, deep ecology. I went to a fantastic event last week, an evening learning about herbs but also consciously building community, bringing people together to connect to local plants as well as local people. The earth element meets the air element.
And that's what the age of Aquarius should be, for me. If we are going to build this airy utopia, I believe that we need to go beyond our current definition of the air element, to be mindful rather than intellectual, to seek connection as well as scientific advances. We need to stop seeing human as the only kind of consciousness worth having, and our way of being in the world as the only way worth trying. The potential is there, the moral compass is already shifting and social conscience growing. Sometimes I feel hope, and other times despair. Usually both at once. We need to open up our thinking, and what could be more Aquarian than that? So if you are voting today, well firstly, make sure that you do. Vote with your head to be sure, but engage the rest of your being too - what sort of world do you want to live in? What sort of world do you want to create?
On December 21, 2020, the Jupiter Saturn conjunction moves into Aquarius, an air sign, signalling the beginning of a new cycle. Actually, because of the apparent retrograde motion of the planets, there is an overlap between the cycles. There was a conjunction in the air sign of Libra back in 1981, and then the conjunction moved back into Taurus in 2000. Now we move into Aquarius, and there is much excitement about the "Age of Aquarius" finally starting. Much of the paper I heard last Saturday was about the ways we may become more Aquarian, with less barriers to communication, an increasing focus on consciousness and how the brain works, and new technologies which will enhance our lives. Maybe we will work more closely with artificial intelligence, we will all wear ear pieces allowing us to translate between different languages, we will get our nutritional needs from pills instead of food. The internet and social media have already profoundly changed the way we connect with each other and form communities and social bonds. We'll be concerned with the sky, we were told, with air and peace and togetherness. So far, so Aquarian.
To be fair to the speaker, I don't think she meant to be utopian, it's just that her list of possible social developments came across that way. She noted that big, probably difficult, changes would likely occur to trigger this new, more inclusive way of thinking. The chart for the Jupiter Saturn conjunction, at least set for London, shows isolation and conflict, the breaking down of existing organisations. She noted that air, an as element, moves much faster than earth, that these changes may come quicker than we expect. I think we've all had that Uranian sensation of shock and surprise and the way the world is changing over the last year or so. I'm not even sure where to start with that, especially given that I'm typing this on the day of a general election here in the UK, and I fear for where it will end up.
Another thing that unsettled me about the paper was the lack of feminine or receptive energy, the strong emphasis on airy objectivity and reason, control and definition. I do believe that feminine energy is rising, that many people are learning again to get in touch with their earthy, watery, cyclical feminine self (no matter what gender they identify as, if any). But there was no place for that in the vision of the future I heard on Saturday. There's an Aquarian ideal there too perhaps, maybe we will finally learn to move beyond the binary, beyond putting ourselves in boxes for the convenience of others. Maybe we'll all learn to honour all the sides of ourselves, cyclical and linear, active and receptive, and function fully as our individual selves. I have hope as well, when I look at the more mindful connections to earth energy which have been developing in recent years. The rise of yoga, mindfulness (an overused word, but an important concept), holistic medicine, deep ecology. I went to a fantastic event last week, an evening learning about herbs but also consciously building community, bringing people together to connect to local plants as well as local people. The earth element meets the air element.
And that's what the age of Aquarius should be, for me. If we are going to build this airy utopia, I believe that we need to go beyond our current definition of the air element, to be mindful rather than intellectual, to seek connection as well as scientific advances. We need to stop seeing human as the only kind of consciousness worth having, and our way of being in the world as the only way worth trying. The potential is there, the moral compass is already shifting and social conscience growing. Sometimes I feel hope, and other times despair. Usually both at once. We need to open up our thinking, and what could be more Aquarian than that? So if you are voting today, well firstly, make sure that you do. Vote with your head to be sure, but engage the rest of your being too - what sort of world do you want to live in? What sort of world do you want to create?