I thought it might be help­ful, espe­cial­ly for those who pre­fer to read rather than lis­ten, to have a Tran­script of my com­ments on this top­ic on my lat­est Radio Show:

One of the more con­se­quen­tial themes of human social devel­op­ment through the ages has been the ongo­ing inter­de­pen­dent, ever-chang­ing bal­ance between the con­di­tions of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty. At var­i­ous points in his­to­ry, with­in any cul­ture as well as between dif­fer­ent cul­tures, there has been this rec­i­p­ro­cal bal­ance between the degree to which peo­ple are freer to express them­selves as more indi­vid­ual, to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves from their var­i­ous groups, and times when the larg­er social order, (of fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, eth­nic­i­ty, and state) are able to more close­ly or nar­row­ly define and often cir­cum­scribe that indi­vid­ual freedom.

In exam­in­ing the cycle of Uranus and Nep­tune, we can dis­cern a rhythm or heart­beat of this cen­tral theme of human devel­op­ment. Their cycle of rela­tion­ship is about 170 years long, begin­ning at their con­junc­tion. The last con­junc­tions were 1993, 1821 and 1650. At each of these moments an old order of the rela­tion­ship between the indi­vid­ual and their “com­mu­ni­ties” end­ed, and a new one began. In 2017 and 2018 and into 2019 we have arrived at the first stage of their new cycle, the semi-square or 45-degree angle, or what we would call a cres­cent moon phase. The pre­vi­ous times we were at such a moment were 1845–47, and 1673–75.

It is at such a time, at the cres­cent phase of any plan­e­tary pair, when the emerg­ing new theme released at the con­junc­tion (or New Moon) is encoun­ter­ing the counter-vail­ing forces of the past. It is very much a strug­gle between a new way of being that is brought face to face with the fear­ful pulls and push­es of the old order try­ing to restore itself. This strug­gle between more indi­vid­ual free­dom and more com­mu­ni­ty or com­mu­nal con­for­mi­ty will play out dur­ing the entire 170-year cycle again and again. But at these par­tic­u­lar peri­ods or moments it will cer­tain­ly become more acute. We are at such a time right now.

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, (which can or will lead to the break­down in 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. As I like to say, “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 cycle that began in 1993 has now reached a crit­i­cal moment. It should be appar­ent and clear to many if not most peo­ple, that we are wit­ness­ing through­out the world this high­er ten­sion between Free­dom and Com­mu­nal life-ways, and it is rip­ping cul­tures, eth­nic­i­ties, com­mu­ni­ties and even fam­i­lies into ever more frag­ment­ed rela­tion­ships and group­ings. You could say that the Cen­tripetal force of Free­dom has become severe­ly unbal­anced in its inte­gral rela­tion­ship with the Cen­trifu­gal force of Love. The ego­is­tic, nar­cis­sis­tic and divi­sive ener­gies appear ascen­dant; Love, sac­ri­fice and com­mu­nal­ism are in retreat. As they become unhinged or out of bal­ance with one anoth­er, each seem­ing­ly devolves into a twist­ed or warped ver­sion of its high­er nature.

In such a time, Free­dom becomes ripped from shared affec­tions, becom­ing self­ish and nihilis­tic; then equal­ly in response, the prin­ci­ple of Love becomes bound­ed by the fear of the unfa­mil­iar, affec­tions are nar­rowed and retreat inward­ly to often anachro­nis­tic anchors like trib­al group­ings based on “blood and soil”. The true com­mu­nal foun­da­tions of our com­mon ances­try, that we all can trace our phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al roots to the same cause, this essen­tial root of us all seems to devolve, and the Cen­ter that is the force that binds the entire uni­verse, true spir­i­tu­al Love, that love can­not hold for a time and soci­eties devolve into dis­as­so­ci­at­ed groups, made of fear-filled group­ings, tribes formed upon fear, who look upon the “the oth­er” as the car­ri­er of dark­ness, blame and fear.

Yes, it would appear, if we were only to go by the head­lines and news sto­ries, that the cata­bol­ic forces of fear and hatred are out-pac­ing the one abid­ing, true and supreme force of in this uni­verse, Love. But we need not, nor should we retreat or suc­cumb to fear. Because we can also find com­fort and reas­sur­ance in our his­to­ry. We can find inspi­ra­tion and con­fir­ma­tion of our own respons­es to this chal­lenge by look­ing at what came before in a time such as this. Dur­ing the same moment in the pre­vi­ous cycle, dur­ing the 1840’s, we saw the emer­gence of new forms of con­scious­ness and social organizations.

In the USA, the ris­ing tide against slav­ery, the cease­less efforts of peo­ple and groups, find­ing com­mon pur­pose and sen­si­bil­i­ties guid­ed by love, flowed into the abo­li­tion­ist and oth­er social jus­tice move­ments that were coun­ter­points to the ris­ing tide of anti-immi­grant fears and oth­er ret­ro­gres­sive reac­tions. These fear-filled and love-coun­tered actions were fueled and fos­tered by the changes in the econ­o­my and cul­ture, as the USA steadi­ly moved from a rur­al and agrar­i­an cul­ture into a more indus­tri­al and city-based one.

You could argue that it is not unlike our attempt to deal with the new­ly inter­con­nect­ed and fast chang­ing world of tech­nol­o­gy that we are attempt­ing to deal with in our own time. But as Life equals Spir­it, and Spir­it equals Life, the one con­stant truth in our jour­ney is this expe­ri­ence of change. What is not con­stant or con­sis­tent is how we respond or react to this change. We all have a choice, to respond with fear or hope, with love or hate.

Where can we find such stir­rings that will to the right bal­ance of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty in our time? I would argue that it peren­ni­al­ly emerges and/or remains ever-present “local­ly”. That there are in fact innu­mer­able instances, sto­ries, and strug­gles of love-formed efforts being made in local towns and larg­er com­mu­ni­ties to solve their prob­lems in this fast-chang­ing world. Though we may look to lead­er­ship from “on high”, it is in these small­er, more inti­mate set­tings that our new world is being formed.

Spir­it fills the spaces that are in need of greater under­stand­ing and kind­li­ness. Each of us can do our part to right some wrong, to be more con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers and to help those in need. All these so-called “lit­tle acts” of love are the build­ing blocks for the bet­ter world that is coming…for that world is com­ing through each and every one of us help­ing to make it so.