Tran­script of Radio Show: The Sol­stice and The New Age

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

In my show on Novem­ber 15 (you can read the tran­script for it here), I exam­ined the sig­nif­i­cance of what Astrologers call The Great Muta­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn. About every 200 years or so, the Jupiter and Sat­urn Cycle of Rela­tion­ship, that is from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion every 20 years, shifts from one Ele­ment into the next. Since 1840 they have been align­ing in Earth Signs but start­ing tomor­row, they begin a new series of con­junc­tions in the Air Signs, start­ing with Aquar­ius (tomor­row), then Libra in 2040, and Gem­i­ni in 2060 and so on.

As many of you know, I pre­fer to under­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of plan­e­tary influ­ences as being bet­ter under­stood as peri­ods of times rather than dis­crete events, to be viewed more as waves of ener­gy-forms that build in or wax and then recede or wane; and that wax­ing and wan­ing occur over a longer or short­er peri­od of time depend­ing upon the plan­ets involved. Yet, it is equal­ly true that at any one moment in our jour­ney we can feel these waves of ener­gy formed by the Dance of the Plan­ets as reach­ing some defin­i­tive shift, cli­max or turn­ing point. These more dis­crete or crit­i­cal moments are found at cer­tain points in their cycle of rela­tion­ships, espe­cial­ly the Con­junc­tion, Wax­ing Square, Oppo­si­tion, Wan­ing Square and back to Conjunction.

Astro­log­i­cal Timing
Today I want to talk more about the tim­ing of this sig­nif­i­cant shift of plan­e­tary ener­gy-forms of the rela­tion­ship of Jupiter and Sat­urn, and its impact for us. I want to note or point out that it is a rather strik­ing coin­ci­dence, or acci­dent of tim­ing, or per­haps part of some divine plan, that this begin­ning of a new 200-year cycle is hap­pen­ing on one of the Four Sacred Turn­ing points in our Astro­log­i­cal Cal­en­dar, the Win­ter Sol­stice of Capricorn.

The Web of Consciousness
The mag­is­te­r­i­al nature of the Cos­mos, and the beau­ty and har­mo­ny of our Dance of the Plan­ets, and the rev­o­lu­tions and vor­tices of the Stars and Galax­ies form what I like to see as a com­plex spir­i­tu­al-neur­al net­work; it is an Infi­nite Web of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, and of course we are very much part of that Mind of Spir­it too. Just as we humans are made of and by one anoth­er, even though we often live with the illu­sion that we are sep­a­rate indi­vid­u­als because we seem­ing­ly appear to be so dis­tinct from each oth­er giv­en our bod­i­ly forms; we real­ly are not sep­a­rate from one anoth­er at all, not in the least. We, like every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation, are formed by a hier­ar­chy of ener­gy-forms with­in our bod­ies and equal­ly by a hier­ar­chy of ener­gy-forms between one anoth­er. I like to say, we are made of one anoth­er in so many, many ways, and not the least of which is by all our expe­ri­ences we cre­ate with and through one anoth­er. Tru­ly, our Dance of Human Life mir­rors the Dance of the Plan­ets, and that is anoth­er affir­ma­tion of the great teach­ing, “as above so below”.

Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty
This is most cer­tain­ly true on the plan­e­tary lev­el, as the plan­ets form rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er that mutu­al­ly affect them, as well as cre­ate ener­gy-forms of mean­ing and influ­ence for us here on Earth. More­over, in our Earth’s dance around the Sun, we do not fol­low a reg­u­lar cir­cuit or cir­cle. Like any indi­vid­ual, and know this, all Ener­gy-Forms are sparks of the Divine, the entire­ty of the Uni­verse is com­posed by an infini­tude of unique instances of Spir­it, where­in every par­ti­cle and ener­gy-form is in some man­ner an Indi­vid­ual. That means that there is noth­ing that is exact­ly like any oth­er nor could it ever be. The One becom­ing man­i­fest is the body, soul, and spir­it of the Cos­mos, and that Cos­mos is made so by indi­vid­u­a­tion, dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, and diversity.

Motions and Meaning
Earth is a being too; Earth is an Indi­vid­ual too. Earth’s orbit is Ellip­ti­cal, mov­ing clos­er and fur­ther away from the Sun as we orbit around our star. Our Earth also bob­bles and weaves, it goes back and forth, it moves up and down in var­i­ous planes of motion. One of these vari­a­tions forms our pre­ces­sion of the equinox­es which spans about 25,000 years, form­ing the Astro­log­i­cal Ages. Anoth­er vari­a­tion of motion defines our year­ly cycle around the Sun, as each polar region of the Earth will point more towards and then away from the Sun dur­ing one cir­cuit. This tilt­ing back and forth forms our sea­son­al cycling here on Earth.

The Sol­stice
And this is what the Capri­corn Sol­stice rep­re­sents tomor­row; it is one of those dis­crete moments when some­thing “ends” and some­thing “begins”; when we mark the chang­ing of the sea­sons, formed by the dance of light shift­ing between the Day and the Night. I like to say that the Sol­stices of Winter/Summer and the Equinox­es of Spring/Fall, they are like the “Four Cor­ners” of our year. They mark the South, the East, the North, and the West of our jour­ney dur­ing the year; it is this very motion that defines what we call a year.

From the Win­ter Sol­stice, the short­est of days and the longest of nights, the Earth begins to tilt back towards the Sun in the North­ern Hemi­sphere, reach­ing an equi­lib­ri­um of Day and Night at the Spring Equinox. Earth con­tin­ues to bend toward the Sun until we reach the longest of days and the short­est of nights at the Sum­mer Sol­stice. From then until the next Win­ter Sol­stice, the days grow short­er and the shad­ows length­en reach­ing a bal­ance of Day and Night at the Autum­nal Equinox, and a return to the longest night at the Win­ter Sol­stice again.

Sacred Turn­ings
In many cul­tures, one of these moments or “Four Cor­ners” that is said to her­ald the “begin­ning of the year”, spir­i­tu­al­ly, cul­tur­al­ly, or legal­is­ti­cal­ly. With regards to the Ancient Wis­dom, each of these turn­ings have been held as Sacred moments in Spir­i­tu­al Teach­ings through­out the ages. Though the spir­i­tu­al jour­ney of awak­en­ing and self-mas­tery is con­tin­u­ous and ongo­ing, these four moments are when the most impor­tant cer­e­monies are held for aspi­rants, and the great­est Ini­ti­a­tions for those on the path are held at these sacred times of the year.

Many tra­di­tions hold cel­e­bra­tions and cer­e­monies dur­ing this peri­od in hon­or of this moment. Imag­ine your­self back in time, and the days are get­ting short­er and short­er, and the nights are longer and longer, and the Sun, upon which your entire exis­tence depends, is dis­ap­pear­ing. Using our civ­il cal­en­dar, it is on or about Decem­ber 21^st, that the Sun will rise or set at the low­est point on the hori­zon since June 21^st. Then, for the next sev­er­al days, it will rise and set at the same point on the hori­zon. That is what the term Sol­stice means, “The Sun Stands Still”, and you and the whole world waits. Will the Sun return, or will the light go out; will life con­tin­ue or not? On the 3^rd or 4^th day after the Sol­stice, on Decem­ber 24^th or 25^th, the Sun begins to move back north­wards once more. The Light is return­ing; the Dark­ness is in retreat, and the promise of life, of your future and your world is there for all to see.

Ini­ti­a­tion of the Sun
The Win­ter Sol­stice rep­re­sents for one and for all the Re-Birth of the Sun; in ancient sacred rit­u­als and cer­e­monies, an aspi­rant would have tak­en many steps to pre­pare them­selves for this moment. In the Ancient Wis­dom, the Ini­ti­a­tion under­tak­en at Capri­corn rep­re­sents the “Mys­tic Birth of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty”. It is often known as the “Ini­ti­a­tion into the Sun”.

It seems rather fit­ting that on the very day of the Sol­stice we are also wit­ness­ing the birth of a New Age, her­ald­ed by the Jupiter/Saturn Great Muta­tion into Air. These shifts in Ener­gy-Forms are very real, whether the begin­ning of Win­ter for the next 90 days, or an Age of Air for the next 200 years. But these, of them­selves alone, will not “cre­ate” or “make” change hap­pen here on Earth. Enlight­en­ment is not doled out; it is earned. A New Age is not giv­en; it is made by what we do.

Respon­si­bil­i­ty
This is our respon­si­bil­i­ty; and you will know this is your duty when you lis­ten to your heart. Here is the plan­e­tary mes­sage and mean­ing of this moment; and this mes­sage is the core expe­ri­ence of spir­it at this time of year. Capri­corn is the Sign of Respon­si­bil­i­ty. All the Signs from Aries through Sagit­tar­ius have pre­pared you for this moment. The Uni­verse is ask­ing every one of us a ques­tion: What is your Respon­si­bil­i­ty; what is your Duty?

The plan­ets are Avatars of Mean­ings and Tim­ings; they hold the mes­sages and mean­ings of our jour­ney here on Earth; they pro­vide inspi­ra­tion, guid­ance, and the tim­ing for the unfold­ing of celes­tial ener­gies. But it is on us, on you and me, it is on all of us to be the change we wish to see. We are the ones who will be the awak­en­ing; and we must under­stand and so act in accor­dance with the Spir­i­tu­al prin­ci­ples that gov­ern our Creation.

Each of us must strug­gle and strive for a greater under­stand­ing about the Laws of Spir­it. We do this out­ward­ly by observ­ing and learn­ing about the world around us, to see the world as it real­ly is; and we do this inward­ly, by lis­ten­ing to our high­er intu­ition­al self, and by know­ing in our hearts what is true and good and lov­ing. And, over time we learn to align our aims and actions, our desires, and our will to that which is more than just us; slow­ly but steadi­ly we learn to choose that which is true and good and lov­ing. We learn to live by Love; and we learn to align our will with the Will of the One.

Let Thy Will Be Done
That is what is meant by that mys­ti­cal but beau­ti­ful say­ing, “Let thy will be done”. It is not the sur­ren­der of our lim­it­ed desires and will to some out­side deity or pow­er. No, this beau­ti­ful say­ing is the affir­ma­tion of the Heart Doc­trine of the Wis­dom Teach­ing. The Light of the Uni­verse is not some­where out there; it is the stead­fast gen­tle light with­in you.

The Will of the One is with­in us all. It is the Voice of the Silence; it is the Uncon­di­tion­al Love of the One for one and for all. It is your Spark of the Divine; it is your beloved who reminds you that you are awak­ened when you are self-for­get­ful, when you act to serve and help and care for one anoth­er. That is the sign, that is the proof that you are on the Path of Awak­en­ing. Quite sim­ply, but tru­ly, it is the way of the Wise Ones; it is the true path of Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

And that is the way we will build this New Age. That with this Great Muta­tion Con­junc­tion of Jupiter and Sat­urn, we are being asked once more to “Let thy Will be done”.

Our Respon­si­bil­i­ty
We must think not of our­selves, but for those who will come after, those who have not yet had the gift of liv­ing and lov­ing, of striv­ing and lift­ing them­selves up on this beau­ti­ful gar­den we call Earth. We must under­stand that our respon­si­bil­i­ty is to all of life on this plan­et, for it is pre­cious. Now that we know what we have done to the bal­ance of life on this plan­et, we must put aside our igno­rance and self­ish­ness and act for the future of life on this planet.

The plan­ets are say­ing it is time, and we should heed the call.

We are here to forge a New Path; we are here to pre­serve, pro­tect and love all crea­tures great and small. For Love is Life; and Life is Love.

We humans are here to love and be loved.

We are here to be ones of the One.

Let us make it so, and

Let Thy Will be Done.

The Sol­stice — A New Age

You have wan­dered and won­dered in the Tem­ples of Truth; and by Meta­physics, Reli­gion, Phi­los­o­phy and Sci­ence, you have found the fram­ing, prin­ci­ples, and mes­sag­ing for the expe­ri­ences of your life. You have shared, by words, images, sounds and many oth­er means, your sto­ries with one anoth­er. And this is how you have made one anoth­er as human since the begin­ning of time itself, for we are Sto­ry­tellers, one and all.

Yes, it was in Sagit­tar­ius that you came a lit­tle clos­er to the truth of your­self and your world. Yes, now you know what is good and true…but that is not enough.

Here at the Sol­stice, at one of the Four Turn­ings of Aware­ness and Con­scious­ness, you are asked the four-fold ques­tion of life once more, the asks of Aries, Libra, Can­cer and Capricorn:

Who am I, and Who art thou?
Where do I come from, and What is my Destiny?

The Four Car­di­nal Signs hold the four cor­ners of your iden­ti­ty. They must be held togeth­er as it is only by their inter­re­la­tion­ship and com­bi­na­tion that you can be made whole. They inform one anoth­er and form you; and each ques­tion they ask must be answered by you today and every day.

But now and for the next 30 days you should con­sid­er more care­ful­ly the fourth ques­tion, “Des­tiny”, for that is the realm you enter here in the time of Capricorn.

From each car­di­nal point you will find your answer by the oth­ers. For exam­ple, the ques­tion of Aries, “Who am I”, meets the reply in Libra, that you are made of many; you are in effect a web of ener­gy-forms that form you through all your rela­tion­ships. Tru­ly, you are more a “We” than a mere “I”, as you are made by and for one anoth­er. And that is why we say:

“We are all Related”

Like­wise, the ques­tion of Can­cer, “Where do I come from”, meets the reply in Capri­corn. You may think that you are as you appear, a human, and that your imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and bio­log­i­cal ances­try holds the key to your essence. The Truth is that you are a spark of the Divine, a being of Light, who left on a Jour­ney through the Stars long, long ago.

One day, you will arrive at your Des­tiny. It will be then, at the Apoth­e­o­sis of your Human jour­ney that you will be “com­plete”, a ful­ly con­scious co-cre­ator of Cre­ation. You will be ful­ly human, and yet, as you always were in the heart of you, Divine. Your Des­tiny is to return to where you began, a being of Light, for that is what you essen­tial­ly were, are now, and will always be. Quite sim­ply but tru­ly, you are a beau­ti­ful and lumi­nous Spark of the Divine.

Your Jour­ney is the Sto­ry of Cre­ation; Your jour­ney is the Sto­ry of the One. It is Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness mov­ing through innu­mer­able ener­gy-forms that are the Cre­ation. These count­less Sparks of the Divine are the One, and by and through their inter­re­lat­ed jour­ney with each anoth­er, they lift each oth­er up into high­er and high­er realms of self-real­iza­tion and divine ful­fill­ment. The entire Uni­verse is a Hier­ar­chy of Life and Light; and our human king­dom is one among the many, many king­doms of the One.

Through count­less lives, you have lived and have forged a more per­fect form of you. The Law of the Uni­verse, Kar­ma, gov­erns all Ener­gy-Forms in this Cos­mos. The Law is per­fect and just; what­ev­er you make is what you will receive. By count­less steps in any life, and through count­less lives, you do the Mas­ter-Work; you take what you have bestowed upon your­self from your past lives and forge today the future that awaits you too.

This is the Heart of Capri­corn, Respon­si­bil­i­ty. You are the Mak­er of you, you are respon­si­ble for what you are and equal­ly for what hap­pens to you. As Shake­speare so elo­quent­ly put it,

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars,
But in our­selves that we are under­lings”.

Each and every day you must take up the task of mak­ing and being a bet­ter you. You are respon­si­ble for you, and you must accept what is before you now and walk the path you made long ago.

But, of course, you have not done this by your­self, or mere­ly for your­self. Our actions bind our­selves to one anoth­er; and our expe­ri­ences with one anoth­er form our char­ac­ter and future for one anoth­er too.

You are respon­si­ble for your­self; and you are respon­si­ble for one anoth­er too.

Tru­ly, our lives and our for­tunes are bound to one anoth­er because we have forged them togeth­er; we have made one anoth­er, we are all part of one anoth­er, and our des­tinies are inex­tri­ca­bly woven togeth­er like a lumi­nous band of Light.

This Lumi­nous Band of Light, this Hier­ar­chy of Life and Love holds all of us in our jour­ney through the stars. With one hand you reach down to help a soul who is strug­gling to reach where you are now; and equal­ly, with your oth­er hand you will reach up to anoth­er who can help you too.

The Heart Doc­trine is clear, we are here to care for one anoth­er, to help one anoth­er, to be self-for­get­ful, to love and be loved. That is what we are des­tined to be, to see through the illu­sion and know that we are One.

And watch­ing over one and all are those who have reached the thresh­old of Divin­i­ty. They have climbed the moun­tain; they are free from the wheel of Human Kar­ma, and they could have cho­sen to leave our world for places more sub­lime. But they did not…

For hav­ing seen the promised land, and all their trou­bles behind them now, they turned with Love and Com­pas­sion, and by Joy­ful Sac­ri­fice they chose to wait for us. They stand at the Por­tal of Lib­er­a­tion, and they will not cross because they are what we will be some day, Pure Love.

They can­not inter­fere with our jour­ney, for we must earn our Awak­en­ing; we must walk the path as they did long ago. But by their love, through their inspi­ra­tion and gen­tle guid­ance, they help us to find our way out of the dark­ness and into the Light.

Here in Capri­corn, we face our respon­si­bil­i­ties, to our­selves, to one anoth­er, and to the whole of Cre­ation. We ded­i­cate our­selves once more to do what is good and true and loving.

In our hearts, and by our love, we ask for help from those who watch over us until the end of days:

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.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings – The Sol­stice and The New Age (Decem­ber 20, 2020)

In my twen­ty-fifth show of 2020, we will con­sid­er our entrance into a New Sea­son and a New Age. I will talk about the mean­ing of the Sol­stice and the promise of the Jupiter/Saturn Con­junc­tion, each occur­ring tomor­row on Decem­ber 21, 2020.

As before, I will answer your ques­tions dur­ing the show, whether on this top­ic or some oth­er mat­ter, includ­ing per­son­al ques­tions about your astro­log­i­cal chart. If you do wish to ask a per­son­al ques­tion, please be ready to pro­vide at least your birth date and birth­place, and time of your birth if you have that too.

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 Decem­ber 20^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2020/12/20/astrologer-bill-attride-radio-show-the-solstice-and-the-new-age-12202020

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 Decem­ber 20^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.

Tran­script of Radio Show: 2020 to 2021 — A look back and a look ahead

(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 2020 winds down, to con­sid­er the major Astro­log­i­cal themes of this year and what lies ahead for 2021. There are always two major influ­ences to con­sid­er in Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, the gen­er­al effects that hold for one and all on Earth which are indi­cat­ed by the plan­e­tary align­ments with one anoth­er in the heav­ens, what we call tran­sits to tran­sits. And sec­ond­ly, we con­sid­er the plan­e­tary tran­sits to the plan­ets of a Natal chart that is of interest.

Tran­sit to Tran­sit 2020, Jupiter Con­junct Pluto
The most con­se­quen­tial Tran­sit to Tran­sit for 2020 was the align­ment (Con­junc­tion) of Jupiter with Plu­to in Capri­corn. Rough­ly every 12 years or so, Jupiter will “catch up” to the posi­tion of Plu­to and form what is like a New Moon in their cycle of rela­tion­ship. Jupiter holds the mean­ings and truths for us and indi­cates the poten­tial for growth and expan­sion. Plu­to, being the plan­et of Will and Sacred Space, holds for me as the Avatar of the fun­da­men­tal dri­ving force for Cre­ation, Alche­my. Alche­my is the pow­er of com­bi­na­tions, whether atoms with atoms, mol­e­cules with mol­e­cules, organ­isms with organ­isms, stars with stars. It is from these com­bi­na­tions, trans­for­ma­tion, deaths, and rebirths, of evo­lu­tions and muta­tions, it is by this that the whole of Cre­ation and every­thing and every­one in it becomes the many who form the One. At the high­est, I con­sid­er Plu­to to be the Avatar of the Will of God.

The meet­ing of Jupiter with Plu­to indi­cat­ed that this year would sig­nal an end­ing (and a begin­ning) for us in the meanings/truths/science/beliefs about how we grow, how we die, and how we are to be reborn. Cer­tain­ly, from the most basic con­di­tions of our phys­i­cal lives, of how we live for our­selves and with one anoth­er, 2020 was cer­tain­ly a trans­for­ma­tion­al year. I think we can all agree that there is no going back to our old lives and ways of liv­ing, and we are all try­ing to fig­ure out what will be our “new normal”.

Tran­sit to Tran­sit 2021, Sat­urn Square Uranus
For 2021, the most sig­nif­i­cant tran­sit to tran­sit aspect will be Sat­urn Squar­ing Uranus. Their cycle of rela­tion­ship, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion is 45 years, and in 2021 we are at their Wan­ing Square. There are four crit­i­cal moments in any plan­e­tary cycle pair­ing: Con­junc­tion, Wax­ing Square, Oppo­si­tion, and Wan­ing Square and then back to their next Conjunction.

The cur­rent cycle of Saturn/Uranus began in 1988; they reached their wax­ing square in 1999–2000, and their oppo­si­tion in 2008 to 2010, and now for 2021 their wan­ing square. It is quite strik­ing to me, that their pre­vi­ous wan­ing squares, (as well as oth­er crit­i­cal cycle turn­ings), came dur­ing crit­i­cal shifts for the world and the USA. Those pre­vi­ous moments like our own moment of the wan­ing square were 1975–77 and 1930–31. Also, of note are the pre­vi­ous con­junc­tions or seed-moments which were, in addi­tion to ours of 1988, those of 1942 and 1897. We would want to pay spe­cial atten­tion to their peri­ods of cli­max or rev­e­la­tion (by oppo­si­tion) which were in 1918–20, 1965–67, and for our peri­od 2008-10. What we need to under­stand or ask our­selves is this, “what is the mes­sage or mean­ing of their cycle of rela­tion­ship, and what does this mean for us in 2021?”

Sat­urn and Uranus
Sat­urn is the Avatar of Real­i­ty, of Insti­tu­tions and Tra­di­tions; it rules the sta­tus quo, the “tried and true”, what has been relied upon and proven to be nec­es­sary or use­ful. Uranus is the Avatar of Inven­tion, it rules New Ideas and Inde­pen­dence; it works by stim­u­lat­ing Orig­i­nal­i­ty and Con­trari­ness, by chal­leng­ing the old with some new con­cep­tu­al frame­work, idea, or tech­nique. In a way, their cycle of rela­tion­ship can be under­stood as the dynam­ic inter­play of Order and Free­dom, of Tra­di­tion ver­sus Inno­va­tion, and when pushed to extremes, of being Reac­tionary ver­sus Rev­o­lu­tion­ary. They are and should be under­stood like most plan­e­tary pairs as nec­es­sary to one anoth­er, for they each hold an aspect of truth that only becomes pos­si­ble and ful­filled by com­bi­na­tion with the other.

From Saturn’s “point of view”, what has worked is what one should hold to, it has proven to be the best or the only way to func­tion in the real world. The coun­ter­point would be, just because it has worked, that does not mean it will con­tin­ue to work, or that it could not be improved. Uranus would add, and you must remem­ber this, what­ev­er old tech­nique, prac­tice or tra­di­tion you fol­low, at some point it was an inno­va­tion, it was a dis­cov­ery or real­iza­tion that became after­wards a part of the tradition.

But equal­ly, for Uranus’ part, just because you have found some new inno­v­a­tive way of being, or way of accom­plish­ing some task or meet­ing your needs, that does not mean it is bet­ter than the old way. Many times, we will attempt a new approach or tech­nique and lat­er find the wis­dom of the old way is, well, sim­ply better.
What we must do, what we are doing con­stant­ly, is to hold the old and the new togeth­er, the tra­di­tion with the inno­va­tion, to inte­grate Sat­urn and Uranus; we must see the wis­dom of hold­ing and work­ing them togeth­er always. What hap­pens at these crit­i­cal moments in their cycle is that this cre­ative ten­sion between the old way and the new way reach­es a turn­ing point for us.

2021, The Wan­ing Square
2021 should hold some of the same core mean­ings as the pre­vi­ous wan­ing squares, which were 1975–77 and 1930–31. But we need to under­stand the dif­fer­ence between wax­ing and wan­ing squares. Dur­ing the wax­ing square, which in our cycle was 1999–2000, we are in a time where we make a defin­i­tive, con­crete choice between one way or anoth­er, we are faced with the chal­lenge to cleave to one way and cut away the oth­er, and by this we build upon the new begin­ning (which was in 1988 for this cycle). Now at the wan­ing square, we are being asked to “let go and grow”, to real­ize that giv­en the result of 2008–2010 when we were at the oppo­si­tion, we must now see the whole cycle from the seed of 1988, to the square 1999–20 to that cli­max or out­come in 2008-10 and face the truth now about what we have learned.

What is pos­si­ble (but by no means guar­an­teed) is that at the wan­ing square we need to find a way to tran­scend the old polar­i­ties, to let go of the old fram­ing of the chal­lenges we face and the solu­tions we wield. Cer­tain­ly, if we look to a pre­vi­ous wan­ing square of 1930–31, we can see that the cri­sis of the Great Depres­sion led to the attempts to fix a bro­ken eco­nom­ic order by mas­sive gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion and guid­ance, it seemed we rose to the challenge.

But In 1975–77 at the next wan­ing square, when we were faced with the after­ef­fects of the Viet­nam War, and the unfund­ed man­dates of the Great Soci­ety, the result­ing stag­na­tion of growth and infla­tion of prices, (called at the time Stagfla­tion), com­bined with the scan­dals of Water­gate, well it would seem as if we did not rise to the chal­lenge as well then. Yes, there were some major reforms imple­ment­ed with regards to cam­paign financ­ing and gov­ern­ment account­abil­i­ty. But the eco­nom­ic reforms need­ed to cor­rect the grow­ing imbal­ances from the 1960’s and ear­ly 1970’s were not imple­ment­ed. I would argue that the cri­sis of the 30’s was bet­ter met than the cri­sis of the 70’s.

We should expect our chal­lenge and cri­sis, for all squares present as some form of cri­sis, to be a moment of dan­ger but equal­ly of oppor­tu­ni­ty. The dan­ger usu­al­ly comes from fail­ing to rise to the chal­lenge that we face, and to hold to fear and retreat into the old ways and prac­tices. If we instead see this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty, and that by refram­ing our ques­tions we may find bet­ter solu­tions. Then we can rise above our cul­tur­al, polit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic divi­sions and find our turn­ing point to be more like the New Deal of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Tran­sit to USA 2020, Plu­to Oppo­site Mercury
The major tran­sit in the chart of the USA for 2020 was Plu­to oppo­site Mer­cury, and I have writ­ten and spo­ken exten­sive­ly about this. Here is some of what I said and wrote about this year:

The USA Plu­to is oppo­site to Mer­cury, and Mer­cury rules a nation’s means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, like a being’s ner­vous sys­tem. It rules the thought-form pat­terns and the devel­op­ment (or lack) of intel­li­gence. Each time Plu­to has aligned with Mer­cury and then with itself in his­to­ry, the USA has con­front­ed the nature of how we val­ue one anoth­er. The pre­vi­ous times in the late 1840s and into the 1850s wit­nessed the strug­gle over new states being allowed to enter as slave or free states; the 1930s with FDR and “The New Deal” in the attempt to pro­vide some greater sup­port to the gen­er­al wel­fare after the Great Depres­sion; and the 1980s and the Rea­gan rev­o­lu­tion, which in the suc­ceed­ing 40 years since then, has led to the most unequal dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth in the USA since the 1920s, a fac­tor which had led to the Great Depression.

Now we are here in 2020, with Plu­to oppo­site Mer­cury and Plu­to return­ing to its Natal posi­tion too. The plan­ets do not deter­mine what will hap­pen. We are the cre­ators and instru­ments of Action and Will, and the con­tent of what we made and the pain and joy we face is formed by us not the plan­ets. They time the unfold­ment of pat­terns, they guide our steps with mean­ings and under­ly­ing causal­i­ty, but we choose well or poorly.

The choic­es made in the 1980s and beyond, with­in the eco­nom­ic struc­tures them­selves and with­in the legal and tax struc­tures of gov­ern­ment, led to the great divide we face between one anoth­er now. For exam­ple, from 1980 to 2020 the gross domes­tic prod­uct of the USA rose by 80% in 40 years, it almost dou­bled. But the way that growth was dis­trib­uted was far less equal than the pre­vi­ous peri­od from 1940 to 1980. In the last 40 years, the bot­tom 20% of the USA pop­u­la­tion gain 20% more wealth; the mid­dle 40% gain 50% more wealth; but the top .01% gained 420% more in their wealth.

In terms of wealth dis­tri­b­u­tion, the USA is one of the worst of all the so-called “advanced soci­eties” and this inequal­i­ty is even greater when dis­trib­uted and defined by race and eth­nic­i­ty. This is the prin­ci­ple rea­son why the USA has appalling life expectan­cies and health out­comes com­pared to much of the world.

Once again, here in 2020, we are being asked to look at how we treat the val­ue of our nation, of how we care for the true wealth of the land, which is our peo­ple.

Now of course all that remains true to this day (and for all our days to come), but what you want to know is what is ahead for 2021.

Tran­sit to USA 2021, Nep­tune Oppo­site Nep­tune, Nep­tune Square Mars
In some way, what is com­ing into focus in 2021 in the USA chart has been build­ing up ever since Nep­tune entered its own sign of Pisces in 2010. One of the most dis­tinc­tive fea­tures in the chart of the USA is Nep­tune placed high in the 9^th house with the plan­et Mars 90 degrees away, squar­ing it from the 7^th house. What does this indicate?

The plan­et Nep­tune rules the dreams and visions of an enti­ty; Mars rules its desires and actions. The USA car­ries an ener­gy-form that is char­ac­ter­ized by hold­ing to a belief or faith (Nep­tune) that it is on a spe­cial mis­sion, formed into a dream of a more per­fect order (Nep­tune in Vir­go), that is guid­ed by high­er truths (Nep­tune in the 9^th house). This influ­ence shapes the USA’s desires/actions (Mars) as being guid­ed by this vision, that what is “right action” for Amer­i­ca is right Universally.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this belief in our excep­tion­al nature has led us to impose our truths (or half-truths) around the world, with the most recent dis­as­trous results revealed in the dis­as­trous inter­ven­tions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and oth­er nations by our “war against ter­ror”. We can and should lead by exam­ple, but we lose and destroy our very mes­sage, of “free self-deter­mi­na­tion” as a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, when we seek to impose it by force of arms. This is a les­son we still face and have yet to mas­ter. The USA must learn to lead with deep­er wis­dom and greater humility.

In 2021, Nep­tune is align­ing with our Nep­tune and Mars once again. If we look at the his­tor­i­cal record of pre­vi­ous align­ments, we can gain some insight into our own moment now.

Neptune’s Turn­ing Points
Neptune’s orbit is about 163 years, and it will align with the USA Nep­tune and Mars every 40 years or so. The dates are: 1816–17, 1857–58, 1897–98, 1938–39, 1980–81, and now 2021–22. What we need to con­sid­er is the type of aspect being formed by Nep­tune to Nep­tune, and Nep­tune to Mars. The most sig­nif­i­cant align­ments would be the oppo­si­tion of Nep­tune to itself, and its return to its natal posi­tion. The first and only return to its natal posi­tion was 1938–39; and the two oppo­si­tions in USA his­to­ry were 1857–58 and the upcom­ing oppo­si­tion of 2021–22.

Astrologers con­sid­er any plan­e­tary return like a “New Moon”, a seed­ing of a new vari­a­tion of the ener­gy-form that Nep­tune holds in this case. That would mean that a new seed was plant­ed dur­ing the pres­i­den­cy of FDR, with his efforts to restore the USA econ­o­my after the Great Depres­sion, while he equal­ly led the USA to pre­pare for the exis­ten­tial con­fronta­tion with the rise of Fas­cism in Europe and Asia in World War II.

Oppo­si­tion of 1857–1858
The oppo­si­tion should be under­stood as the rev­e­la­tion and out­come of that vari­a­tion of expres­sion from the first or natal imprint­ing and then any suc­ceed­ing returns. The seed plant­ed in 1776 of Neptune’s “Dream of Amer­i­ca” became ful­ly revealed in the first oppo­si­tion (like a Full Moon) of 1857–58. I have writ­ten and spo­ken about this his­toric peri­od sev­er­al times, with ref­er­ence to this Nep­tune align­ment in the USA chart.

From Neptune’s embod­i­ment of the dream of Amer­i­ca in 1776, “That all men are cre­at­ed equal…”, a polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic order was estab­lished by a very small num­ber of white, prop­er­ty-own­ing men. For many of those men, they had secured their wealth through own­ing oth­er humans as prop­er­ty. This polit­i­cal-eco­nom­ic order evolved into two ways of life, divid­ing into two very dif­fer­ent soci­eties and cul­tures which came to a cli­mat­ic con­fronta­tion dur­ing the 1850’s over this ques­tion: Would the USA become a ful­ly “free labor coun­try” or a ful­ly “slave labor country”?

1857–1858
The years pri­or to 1857–58 wit­nessed the grow­ing pow­er of the slave­hold­ing states in the Con­gress and over the courts. The cli­max of their pow­er was enshrined dur­ing 1857 by the Dred Scott deci­sion in the Supreme Court, in which it deter­mined that the law of the land would be that, “slaves and descen­dants of slaves were nev­er nor would they ever be cit­i­zens, and that they would remain the per­ma­nent prop­er­ty of their mas­ters”. The con­flict was best sum­ma­rized in 1858 in the famous Lincoln/Douglas debates. Lin­coln spoke of this divi­sion of humans from one anoth­er in the coun­try, between the slave states and the free states, in which he declared, “that a house divid­ed from itself can­not stand”. He pro­posed that this divi­sion would be resolved one way or anoth­er, and that the US would either become a nation where in every state all humans would be free and equal or in every state there would be slav­ery and inequality.

Nep­tune Return 1938–1939, the Dream restated
In 2021 with the oppo­si­tion of Nep­tune, just like it was in 1857–58 when the nation faced the final irrec­on­cil­able divi­sions and con­flicts before the Civ­il War, we are expe­ri­enc­ing the end result from the restate­ment of the Dream of Amer­i­ca by FDR in the 1930’s. His New Deal was sup­posed to be a Fair Deal for all Amer­i­cans, and equal­ly his dec­la­ra­tion for all humankind of the Four Free­doms for the world.

Yes, it was after FDR and for many years there­after, that the gen­er­al growth in the pros­per­i­ty of the Unit­ed States was more fair­ly shared by the entire pop­u­la­tion, from the 1940’s into the 1970’s. It cer­tain­ly was not per­fect for all, but there was a gen­er­al feel­ing that there was more equi­ty, more bal­ance and fair­ness in how we share in the val­ues we cre­ate; and, because of this most par­ents were sure that their chil­dren would have a bet­ter life than they had had. The Amer­i­can Dream of self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-ful­fill­ment was made pos­si­ble and became more real for many.

But then it went all wrong, why? What changed? What hap­pened to the Dream of America?

2021, Our Division
Though it would seem to many that we are divid­ed by space, between the coasts and the heart­land, between the urban and rur­al pop­u­la­tions, I do not believe this fair­ly or accu­rate­ly cap­tures what is at the root of our divi­sions between one anoth­er. Just as our found­ing dichoto­my of Slave and Free states led to the Civ­il War, our divide is between two dif­fer­ing ver­sions of how we under­stand our val­ue to one anoth­er, and how we share in our wealth. Today, we have a coun­try that is divid­ed into the very wealthy few, and then a shrink­ing upper and mid­dle class, and final­ly the rest who are just strug­gling to survive.

Nep­tune Square, 1980–1981
It is impor­tant to note when the USA changed. I would point to the wax­ing square of Nep­tune, the turn­ing point between 1938 and 2021, which was in 1980–81. And that is exact­ly when the growth of wealth for the peo­ple of the USA became divid­ed and unfair. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of the growth of wealth from 1940 to 1980 is stark­ly dif­fer­ent than that from 1980 to 2020; real­ly, it is of two quite dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The rea­son is that choic­es were made to turn away from fair­ness for the many, and to pro­mote ram­pant self-inter­est­ed beliefs and actions that led to self­ish­ness, greed, and great wealth for the few.

Here is an inter­est­ing math­e­mat­i­cal sce­nario: if you were to equal­ly divide the USA nation­al income and wealth, each house­hold in the USA would earn about $140,000 a year and have a net worth of almost $1 mil­lion! Think about that; that is how unequal our sys­tem has become. And it is that gross imbal­ance which has formed and solid­i­fied our polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al divides.

We are con­front­ed with a coun­try that is deeply divid­ed once again, that is fun­da­men­tal­ly shaped by a vari­a­tion of the same ques­tions put before us in the 1850’s: Who is a cit­i­zen of this coun­try; are we tru­ly equal to one anoth­er; do we have an equal voice and oppor­tu­ni­ty to deter­mine our future in a ful­ly func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy or not?

Democ­ra­cy or not
The answer is of course is we do not have a tru­ly func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. That is not pos­si­ble when the wealth and pow­er in the USA is in the hands of so few indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies. The USA is an Oli­garchy, where­in great wealth bestows polit­i­cal con­trol; it is a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem ruled by Plu­to­crats. From a small group of white men of prop­er­ty in 1776, the USA in over 200 years has arrived at a place where the rel­a­tive­ly few con­trol much of the wealth that all Amer­i­cans create.

We are divid­ed because the Amer­i­can Dream of self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-ful­fill­ment is increas­ing­ly unreach­able for more and more Amer­i­cans. Many par­ents today know that they have less than their par­ents, and they cer­tain­ly fear that their chil­dren will have even less.

Love, the Path to Healing
To tru­ly heal this divide in the USA, we must address the fun­da­men­tal divide between one anoth­er. At its root, just as it was in the begin­ning of the Dream of Amer­i­ca, we need to under­stand the essen­tial val­ue of one anoth­er in each oth­er, we need to under­stand how we real­ly cre­ate value.

The val­ue of any human enter­prise is made by the inher­ent val­ue of each human which is brought to life and made man­i­fest by our com­bi­na­tions with one anoth­er; it is by our col­lab­o­ra­tions and joint ven­tures, by our com­mu­ni­ties, fel­low­ships and friend­ships, that we real­ize our val­ue to one anoth­er and for another.

As I like to say, we would be noth­ing (for the most part) with­out one anoth­er. From Father/Mother, to Grandfather/Grandmother, to Sis­ters and Broth­ers, Friends, Col­leagues and Loved Ones, we are all made by one anoth­er and our true val­ue is com­plete­ly inter­twined, inter­de­pen­dent and bound to one another.

Our True Value
We owe our well-being, we have our val­ue, from what we have made with one anoth­er and shared with one anoth­er. We are, as in every­thing in this Uni­verse, made by and become what we are through the mys­tery of Alche­my; we are what we are through com­bin­ing with one anoth­er in our sacred spaces of Union. We are indi­vis­i­ble from one anoth­er, and we must treat one anoth­er with love, respect, and honor.

We do not have a prob­lem in cre­at­ing val­ue; we have a very real prob­lem in shar­ing with one another.

We need to acknowl­edge this basic spir­i­tu­al truth, that all our val­ues are made by each oth­er for one another.

If we are to meet our chal­lenges, if we are to rise above the exis­ten­tial threat of Cli­mate Change (which we cre­at­ed in our igno­rance), if we are to cre­ate a fair, just and sus­tain­able soci­ety, then we must make a sacred com­mit­ment to ensure that each and every per­son has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ful­fill their potential.

We must turn to one anoth­er, as we did over 200 years ago, and agree that “we mutu­al­ly pledge to each oth­er our Lives, our For­tunes and our Sacred Honor”.

This is the promise we made; this is the promise we must fulfill.