The Way of Happiness

Do you know the pur­pose of your life?
Why are you here? And, where are you going?
What are your Hopes and Dreams?

Today you leave the space of Capri­corn and enter the realm of Aquar­ius. The last 30 days have been about under­stand­ing the pur­pose of your life. It is from this under­stand­ing that you are able to assume your respon­si­bil­i­ties and take your prop­er place in your com­mu­ni­ty and the larg­er world. And, by “doing your duty” you are equal­ly able to enjoy the rights you may claim by the ful­fill­ment of those responsibilities.

You are part of a great Hier­ar­chy of Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, where you find and ful­fill your­self in a vast and inter­de­pen­dent struc­ture of car­ing and being cared for. You are here, in life after life, to reach deep­er into your­self so that you may reach a lit­tle high­er in each life, as you slow­ly but sure­ly approach self-mas­tery through an inte­gral bal­ance of wis­dom and humility.

Along this path of pur­pose­ful­ness, it does not mat­ter “where” you are going; but it very much mat­ters “why” you are going there. You will find that your jour­ney is not about being “suc­cess­ful”; it is about being true to who you are so that you remain on the path of Self-Fulfillment.

But, of course, you do not, you can­not, walk this path alone. You could not be you or become what you will be with­out a host of oth­er souls who walk this path too. You are human, and so you are formed and forged by all those with whom you walk on this path of becoming.

This is the Truth of Aquar­ius, that you are here to be some­one spe­cial, to shine and sparkle with the light of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty. But the very mate­ri­als you form into that indi­vid­ual that is you, that spe­cial essence that shines through as “you”, are formed by those build­ing blocks that come from all with whom you have shared this life (and many lives before). What you have, (your feel­ings, thoughts and spir­i­tu­al sen­si­bil­i­ties), and what you share with all with whom you jour­ney, comes from your par­ents, sib­lings, class­mates, friends, col­leagues and of course, most heart­felt, from those dear­est to your heart too.

You are all mixed up in one anoth­er, and your true Hap­pi­ness comes from this being one who is part of many oth­er ones too. You are part of many cir­cles of life, and they are in you, and you are most cer­tain­ly part of them too. Here is what I wrote in my 2019 Fore­cast – Part 3 about the nature of the “Age of Aquarius”:

The prin­ci­ple of Aquar­ius is Fel­low­ship, it is Broth­er­hood and Sis­ter­hood, it is Com­pan­ion­ship and Com­mu­ni­ty and the Spir­i­tu­al Truth that we are all made of and by one anoth­er. We can­not be, Life can­not be, with­out blend­ing, mix­ing, com­bin­ing, and then shar­ing and grow­ing togeth­er. Life, Con­scious­ness and Spir­it are forged and formed by Inter­re­la­tion­ship, Diver­si­ty, Com­plex­i­ty and our essen­tial Inter­de­pen­dence with one anoth­er and all Life-Forms. Every Par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is a Spark of the Divine, formed in its core by its own Quin­tes­sence. Every tree and every leaf on every tree, every being and each cell form­ing that being, every­thing is formed by “ones” formed into a greater One. All of life is part of some­thing greater, yet it is pre­cious­ly and won­drous­ly its own unique instance of that Greater Whole.

Aquar­ius is all about the One and the Many, and we are each a pre­cious part, a unique one of a “Kind”, but formed and held and made pos­si­ble by that Kind, by that whole, and then the next greater whole, which ulti­mate­ly forms the whole of this entire Cre­ation or the ONE.

We are made of one anoth­er, and we see our­selves in each oth­er, as we share our love for this life and for one anoth­er. We can­not be hap­py by our­selves; that is just not pos­si­ble. That is most sim­ply but pro­found­ly because we can­not be our­selves, we can­not be or become human with­out one anoth­er. Our true Hap­pi­ness (our smiles and laugh­ter) are essen­tial­ly human and social expe­ri­ences; we shine with the light of spir­it as we share and show our love for one anoth­er. Our hopes and dreams are made of and by one anoth­er. And our well-being, our true Hap­pi­ness, comes from being with our fel­low-trav­el­ers in this amaz­ing Jour­ney of Spirit.

Yes, your Hap­pi­ness comes from your Self-Ful­fill­ment; but you can only and tru­ly expe­ri­ence this when those whom you love and care for have their Self-Ful­fill­ment and Hap­pi­ness too. You find and extend your hap­pi­ness by help­ing one anoth­er to pre­serve your way of life in your fam­i­ly, through your com­mu­ni­ty and out into the larg­er world too. Then you turn your atten­tion to your dreams of a bet­ter life, as you join togeth­er to improve your world and one anoth­er. And then you look even high­er, and you dream of what might be, and you look to that far hori­zon and say, “Let us strive to make a new Gold­en Age, let us build that Shin­ing City on a Hill, and let us live and love and laugh as we make a bet­ter world for one and for all.”

This is real­ly the deep­er mes­sage of Aquar­ius: That until we cre­ate a world where self-ful­fill­ment is pos­si­ble for one and for all, none of us will be ful­ly or tru­ly happy.

This is the dream of Aquar­ius, this is the far­away look you see in an Aquar­ius’ eyes, (and in your own Aquar­i­an nature that each of you has some­where in your chart). Humans are dream­ers and cre­ators, and we yearn to live (once more) in a gold­en age where the val­ue and worth of each indi­vid­ual is cel­e­brat­ed, hon­ored and fulfilled.

We know and feel in our sacred cen­ter and by the light of our high­est self, that we are here for this: “We are all for one and one for all”.

Your Hap­pi­ness, our hap­pi­ness is found in one anoth­er. We feel it in our smiles and laugh­ter. Because what makes us hap­py is the hap­pi­ness of our fam­i­ly and friends.

And our life is good, true and beau­ti­ful when it is lived with and for one another.

For this is why we came, this is what we are here for.

You are what you are because of love.

And all you have to do,

Is Just love one another.

The First “Earth Rise” for Human­i­ty — Apol­lo 8 mis­sion — Our Beau­ti­ful, Blue Home

 

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 3 – Whither

So, let us now cast our gaze for­ward to the years that lie ahead. As I have already not­ed, there are sev­er­al plan­e­tary influ­ences that are remain­ing in place now, some for quite a few years, yet their influ­ence will be con­stant­ly influ­enced and mod­u­lat­ed by align­ments and tran­si­tions of oth­er plan­ets too. The Uni­verse is formed by these undu­lat­ing rhythms of Con­stan­cy amidst con­stant Change; for the under­ly­ing essence of Spir­it is formed by these Eter­nal Truths. which play out in these worlds of Being as the pro­found­ly mov­ing res­o­nances of the cos­mos, the eter­nal Songs of Spir­it.

As I men­tioned in last year’s look ahead, we have now, (after Uranus moves into Tau­rus to stay for sev­en years on March 6^th), Sat­urn, Uranus and Plu­to all mov­ing through Earth Signs. It is per­haps a fit­ting and final chap­ter in this “Age of Earth” that we have been mov­ing through since the 1840’s, as indi­cat­ed by one of the sig­na­ture cycles in Astrol­o­gy, the con­junc­tions of Jupiter and Sat­urn every 20 years occur­ring in one ele­ment after another.

Astrologers have always paid very close atten­tion to this series of align­ments, each one defin­ing a peri­od char­ac­ter­ized by a def­i­nite spir­i­tu­al-cul­tur­al res­o­nance, the “tone of the time”. I have named the last 3 ele­men­tal pas­sages, and the upcom­ing 4^th as:

Water             1425–1663 (The Age of Faith) pre­vi­ous was 571–809

Fire                 1663–1842 (The Age of Explo­rations) pre­vi­ous was 809‑1047

Earth              1842–2020 (The Age of Man­i­fes­ta­tion) pre­vi­ous was 1047–1226

Air                  2020–2219 (The Age of Ide­al­iza­tion) pre­vi­ous was 1226–1425

 

This is known as the “Great Muta­tion Cycle”, the series of Jupiter/Saturn con­junc­tions tak­ing place in the Four Ele­ments one after the oth­er, (Water, Fire, Earth, and Air). The com­plete series is formed by 40 con­junc­tions around the zodi­ac, which is divid­ed into rough­ly 4 peri­ods of about 180 to 230 years each, or an entire series last­ing about 800 years.

What this means is that we are on the cusp of some very impor­tant shifts as we move from this Age of Man­i­fes­ta­tion (or Mate­ri­al­iza­tion) into an Age of Ide­al­iza­tion (or what I call Ethe­re­al­iza­tion). Per­haps, our pas­sage will mir­ror that of the 1200’s to 1400’s, and that this New Age will equal­ly bring forth a “lit­tle Renais­sance”, (or some­thing even more profound)?

It will begin as 2020 ends, as Sat­urn moves into Aquar­ius and Jupiter joins it on the very day of the Win­ter Sol­stice of Decem­ber 21, 2020. Then in the year 2024, Plu­to will leave Capri­corn and like­wise enter Aquar­ius. And yes, there are some who believe that these shifts, along with oth­er indi­ca­tors, point to the true begin­ning of what many have called the Age of Aquar­ius.

This much longer cycle of Astro­log­i­cal Ages, (which is also known as the Pre­ces­sion of the Equinox­es) is formed by the Earth’s posi­tion as indi­cat­ed by the North Pole being aligned to a series of Polar stars over the course of about 26,000 years, (or about 2,100 years per sign). As these align­ments unfold, the first day of Spring rotates back­wards through the Zodi­ac, (from Aries to Pisces to Aquar­ius…). It forms the dif­fer­ence between what Astrologers know as the Trop­i­cal Zodi­ac (mov­ing) and the Side­re­al Zodi­ac (fixed) which were aligned at 0 Aries around 254 BCE.

We are said to be at end of Pisces and the begin­ning of Aquar­ius, though the tran­si­tion between one to the oth­er is not def­i­nite, and there are var­i­ous dates for when the Aquar­i­an Age will begin (or has already begun). There are seri­ous (but also wild and rather sil­ly) the­o­ries about what this Age of Aquar­ius will bring. I hold that we can more clear­ly under­stand what may be com­ing, by look­ing to the most sig­nif­i­cant theme of the past 2,000 years, or what was the root issue that formed this Age of Pisces. It is from this that we may be able to dis­cern what may lie ahead for us all.

Though vol­umes have (and will) be writ­ten about the 20 Cen­turies we have just come through, the most salient fea­ture to me comes from the cen­ter that forms the Sign of Pisces. I like to say that Pisces, being the last sign, (and from a strict­ly “human” per­spec­tive of course), is the sum­ma­tion and com­ple­tion of the jour­ney in spir­it that we humans are all engaged upon.

What dri­ves our sto­ry as human is not our won­der­ful “oppos­able thumb”, (though cer­tain­ly it has spurred the devel­op­ment of our tool-mak­ing nature and the growth of our self-con­scious­ness). Or, some would point to that fea­ture as the key to form­ing our capac­i­ty to make tools, and it was this which led to our defin­ing fea­ture, to our “self-aware­ness”, which then forms the key to what makes us human, and we are cer­tain­ly clos­er to the “truth” with this it seems.

But I am fond of say­ing, that in the end it all comes down to this, and look­ing to this last sign of Pisces, (and we all have Pisces some­where in our chart and nature), what tru­ly makes us human is our Capac­i­ty to Dream, to look at the world and one anoth­er with won­der. We are endowed with Imag­i­na­tion, and so our great­est gift is formed and held by the very heart of Spir­it, we are Cre­ators.

We dream, we imag­ine and so we create…and then we dream again. We encounter the world “as it is”, and we dream of a bet­ter one. We have and find our way through this Liv­ing Faith as Cre­ators, and we under­stand, because we know, that we can form a bet­ter life, and a bet­ter world for us and for those who follow.

We are not so much “human beings” as much as we are “human becoming’s”. It is pre­cise­ly from this essen­tial qual­i­ty of Spir­it, of being “Cre­ators”, that we have brought about remark­able changes in our very nature, and in the world around us. But now our “Ring of Pow­er”, (our Imag­i­na­tion and Intel­li­gence, our Curios­i­ty and Cre­ativ­i­ty), threat­ens to under­mine our very exis­tence, as well as fun­da­men­tal­ly change the com­plex hier­ar­chy of fel­low Life-Forms on our Earth.

Yes, into our “Cre­ations” we have poured our hopes and dreams and revealed the awe­some gift of our Imag­i­na­tion and Dreams. But we are also imper­fect, and we have nei­ther the req­ui­site wis­dom nor humil­i­ty, as yet, to use our pow­er with true under­stand­ing and com­pas­sion. So, the trag­ic result has been that we inevitably wove into our cre­ations the anx­i­eties, doubts and fears that have shad­owed our jour­ney of awakening.

Yes, we had dreams and visions, and we had inven­tive­ness, curios­i­ty and crit­i­cal think­ing and we acquired more and more knowl­edge. But both the Dream and this Knowl­edge were imper­fect and woe­ful­ly inad­e­quate. We lit­er­al­ly opened “Pandora’s Box”, and set so many things in motion that we now threat­en to over­whelm our­selves and the life­forms that share this world with us.

When we exam­ine the his­to­ry of life on Earth, sci­en­tists have deter­mined that sev­er­al Great Extinc­tion events have occurred. Today many observers are not­ing that what they are call­ing the “Sixth Great Extinc­tion” is tak­ing place all around us now…and the rea­son for this tragedy is quite sim­ply us.

For the human part in this Sto­ry of Life we have come through sev­er­al key turn­ing points: What is known as the Cog­ni­tive Rev­o­lu­tion 70,000 years ago, and then the Agri­cul­tur­al Rev­o­lu­tion 12,000 years ago, and most cer­tain­ly since what we know as the Sci­en­tif­ic Rev­o­lu­tion 500 years ago.But nev­er have our future prospects (and the world’s) been so shad­owed by the fear of what may be unfold­ing now and by what lies ahead.

I have hope, that we will find a way to use our amaz­ing gifts, to Dream and Rea­son, to be guid­ed by our Spir­i­tu­al Intu­ition, Com­pas­sion and Wis­dom, and that this will lead to a New Age in the years ahead. Per­haps this is what this Age of Aquar­ius will bring. That it will be wit­ness to the next great step in Human Awak­en­ing, and we will come to a Greater Under­stand­ing through the core expe­ri­ence of Aquarius.

The prin­ci­ple of Aquar­ius is Fel­low­ship, it is Broth­er­hood and Sis­ter­hood, it is Com­pan­ion­ship and Com­mu­ni­ty and the Spir­i­tu­al Truth that we are all made of and by one anoth­er. We can­not be, Life can­not be, with­out blend­ing, mix­ing, com­bin­ing, and then shar­ing and grow­ing togeth­er. Life, Con­scious­ness and Spir­it are forged and formed by Inter­re­la­tion­ship, Diver­si­ty, Com­plex­i­ty and our essen­tial Inter­de­pen­dence with one anoth­er and all Life-Forms. Every Par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is a Spark of the Divine, formed in its core by its own Quin­tes­sence. Every tree and every leaf on every tree, every being and each cell form­ing that being, every­thing is formed by “ones” formed into a greater One. All of life is part of some­thing greater, yet it is pre­cious­ly and won­drous­ly its own unique instance of that Greater Whole.

Aquar­ius is all about the One and the Many, and we are each a pre­cious part, a unique one of a “Kind”, but formed and held and made pos­si­ble by that Kind, by that whole, and then the next greater whole, which ulti­mate­ly forms the whole of this entire Cre­ation or the ONE.

Let us make this pledge to one anoth­er, in the spir­it of Human­i­ty, with Love for one anoth­er and for all of Spirit-Life-Consciousness:

May we lis­ten to our High­er Self and find in our hearts the Wis­dom and Love to approach this Sto­ry of Life on Earth as our respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect. May we turn our Dreams and Intel­li­gence to pur­pose­ful preser­va­tion of Life in all its mag­nif­i­cent Diver­si­ty. May we become ever more Con­scious Co-Cre­ators of this beau­ti­ful blue Ark of Life. May we take care, and think of our chil­dren, and our children’s chil­dren, and all who will come after us. May we rise and shine as the Stars in the heaven’s above and be tru­ly Con­scious Co-Cre­ators of this Creation.

Let us hope, when we are all long gone from this world, that our descen­dants will look back upon us and say that we rose to our chal­lenge, that we faced our fears and found our faith. That we made com­mon cause among our­selves and with all who would fol­low us. We lis­tened to the Winds of the Spir­it, and we passed the torch of Light, Love and Will for the gen­er­a­tions to come.

May it be so.

Next, The Chart of the USA

The Androm­e­da Galaxy — Our near­est neigh­bor and thought to look much as our own Milky Way.
It is pre­dict­ed that our Milky Way and Androm­e­da will meet and merge in about 4 Bil­lion years.

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings – The New Year ­Part 2 – What lies ahead (Jan­u­ary 19, 2019)

In my sec­ond show of 2019 I will con­tin­ue our look at the major Astro­log­i­cal themes of 2019 and beyond as we con­sid­er what may lie ahead in the years to come.

As before, I will answer your ques­tions dur­ing the show, whether on these top­ics 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 birth place, 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 Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 19^th @ 2 pm EST:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2019/01/19/astrologer-bill-attride-radio-show-the-new-year-2019-part‑2

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

Please join me on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 19^th at 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 2 – Where

The Astro­log­i­cal cal­en­dar for 2019 appears to be some­what less event­ful than recent years, but appear­ances are often not what they seem. What are the Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions that will pre­vail this year?

2019 will be like many oth­er years. We will have three peri­ods of Mer­cury ret­ro­grade, (March 5—March 28, July 7—July 31, and Octo­ber 31—November 20). There will be three Solar Eclipses (Jan­u­ary 5, July 2, and Decem­ber 26) and two Lunar Eclipses (Jan­u­ary 21 and July 16). Of course, there will be New Moons and Full Moons each month, and the year­ly pas­sage of the sea­sons and signs that mark your jour­ney through the stars. But what are the most impor­tant ele­ments that will inform your jour­ney this year?

Uranus in Tau­rus – Trans­for­ma­tion of Value

Many plan­e­tary fac­tors that were true for 2018 will con­tin­ue with mod­i­fi­ca­tions in 2019. The only sig­nif­i­cant shift of sign posi­tion will be the final move of Uranus into Tau­rus on March 6^th, where it will remain now until July 2025, (it had moved into Tau­rus on May 15^th, but it turned ret­ro­grade and re-entered Aries on Novem­ber 6^th, 2018).

The pre­vi­ous times for Uranus in Tau­rus were 1935–1942, 1851–59 and 1768–75. In each of those peri­ods, the effect of Uranus (The Awak­en­er) mov­ing through the sign of Val­ue (Tau­rus) wit­nessed sig­nif­i­cant shocks and con­flicts, lead­ing to cathar­tic trans­for­ma­tions, as dif­fer­ing val­ue sys­tems with­in and between cul­tures, broke the bonds of mean­ing­ful­ness that hold soci­eties togeth­er. With­out a strong con­sen­sus, lack­ing a sig­nif­i­cant agree­ment on com­mon­ly accept­ed val­ues and virtues, the “cen­ter can­not hold” because it seem­ing­ly (or actu­al­ly) does not exist.

For exam­ple, in the Unit­ed States the most recent pas­sage in the late 1930’s formed the lead up to the “War of Democ­ra­cies ver­sus Fas­cism” or World War II; the 1850’s led up to our defin­ing con­flict, “The Civ­il War” (1860–65), and the 1760’s‑70’s wit­nessed the break­down between the Amer­i­can colonies and Eng­land, lead­ing to our “The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War”. The his­to­ry of those three pre­vi­ous peri­ods should cer­tain­ly give us rea­son for con­cern as to what may lie ahead for us.

It is very appar­ent that our own peri­od is build­ing to a spir­i­tu­al­ly nec­es­sary and cathar­tic cri­sis from dif­fer­ences over, and con­flicts between val­ues once again. There comes a point when the divide with­in a peo­ple, or between one peo­ple and anoth­er, becomes so great that only a fun­da­men­tal shock to those sys­tems will pro­vide the rebirth need­ed to set things right again. Uranus ever serves the cause of Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and Free­dom. The frac­tures and clash­es that Uranus elic­its will always serve to steer the human sto­ry towards the endur­ing light of this fun­da­men­tal Truth:

Until we cre­ate a world where all are free to be and be self-ful­filled, then none of us are tru­ly free.

Though it may be painful to expe­ri­ence these shocks that Uranus deliv­ers, it brings about the nec­es­sary next step we must take to cre­ate a world of freer minds and lives.

 

Sat­urn in Capri­corn – The Test of Responsibility

Sat­urn con­tin­ues to move through Capri­corn in 2019, and although it will enter Aquar­ius on March 20, 2020, it will ret­ro­grade back into Capri­corn on July 1, 2020, and then re-enter Aquar­ius on Decem­ber 17, 2020. This means that the plan­et known as “The Teacher”, will con­tin­ue to chal­lenge every indi­vid­ual, com­mu­ni­ty, and cul­ture as it tests and so reveals the essen­tial char­ac­ter or wor­thi­ness of the var­i­ous hier­ar­chies and insti­tu­tions that we have formed to meet our needs for one another.

Whether we con­sid­er the most fun­da­men­tal struc­tur­al unit of the fam­i­ly, then on up through more encom­pass­ing com­mu­ni­ties formed by geog­ra­phy, inter­est or belief, or cor­po­rate struc­tures, or state and nation­al polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions, it is through and by means of all these hier­ar­chies that we have incor­po­rat­ed our val­ues and formed the endur­ing lega­cies of our ways of meet­ing one another’s needs. This Hier­ar­chy of Insti­tu­tions form and serve to ful­fill the real­ized (or crystallized/materialized) rela­tion­ships of each of us to one anoth­er. From them we cre­ate our titles and roles, and we under­take our respon­si­bil­i­ties so that we can claim our rights with­in the social order that we have made with one another.

But it is pre­cise­ly this Insti­tu­tion­al Order that is being bro­ken down and trans­formed by the pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn (from 2008–2024), just as it did in the late 1700’s and in the ear­ly 1500’s. Now joined by Sat­urn in Capri­corn, we see this chal­lenge to our Insti­tu­tion­al order fac­ing extreme stress­es and strain. Each of us, with Sat­urn mov­ing through Capri­corn needs to be ask­ing, “What is my pur­pose here?” What is the respon­si­ble way to act in a world turned upside down? What is our prop­er role and what is the truth that will guide us as we face this “end of an age”?

Of course, I main­tain that the answer must always be that these crit­i­cal moments require a return to the ever-last­ing val­ues that have guid­ed our foot­steps from the very begin­ning. The answer is always the same: we must hold to the Spir­i­tu­al, Philo­soph­i­cal and Sci­en­tif­ic truths that form the foun­da­tion of the Human Story.

But, in each cri­sis of tran­si­tion through­out his­to­ry, there have been three nec­es­sary, dif­fer­ent and yet inte­gral respons­es and call­ings depend­ing upon the indi­vid­ual and their community:

There are those who are called to pre­serve, who will seek to main­tain what is good and true, to hold fast to that which still has val­ue and meaning.

There are those who cre­ate, who look ahead, as they seek to build a new mod­el of meet­ing needs and ful­fill­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties for the new age that is dawning.

There are those whose role is to destroy, to be the very break­ers of the old idols and icons, and though they are often seen as pure­ly neg­a­tive and with­out a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty or hon­or, they also serve to bring about the new age.

More­over, (and I will com­ment more about this in the fore­cast for the Unit­ed States), I not­ed last year that this pas­sage of Sat­urn through Capri­corn has his­tor­i­cal­ly been a rather chal­leng­ing time for the USA. That is prin­ci­pal­ly because as Sat­urn moves through ear­ly to mid-Capri­corn degrees, it forms an Oppo­si­tion to the Venus, Jupiter and Sun in the Unit­ed States’ chart.

In pre­vi­ous Sat­urn pas­sages, (1988–91, 1959–1962 and 1929–32), the USA expe­ri­enced strong if not severe social, eco­nom­ic and busi­ness chal­lenges. These dis­rup­tions were fol­lowed by cul­tur­al upheavals and polit­i­cal upsets. We can now see that although 2018 start­ed with rosy fore­casts, the clouds of doubt (and fear) came to shad­ow the eco­nom­ic land­scape as 2018 end­ed. It will take thought­ful and wise mea­sures to pre­vent even fur­ther upsets and loss­es in 2019.

Yes, 2019 will be a chal­leng­ing year, and you may be for­giv­en for wish­ing that you lived in a qui­eter, more har­mo­nious peri­od of his­to­ry. But you must know, that all who live through such trou­bled times have wished for this too. But they found a way through and helped to bring about a new age, as you will too.

You are here because it is your sacred duty and hon­or to cre­ate a new­er and bet­ter world for your loved ones, com­mu­ni­ty, and soci­ety. The prob­lems and chal­lenges we face are for the most part self-made; we are the Cre­ators and we made the world that is.

The great and good news that we should take from this is that we also have the very Intel­li­gence, Love and Will to make a bet­ter world too. It is real­ly a choice you must make, each and every day, to stay true to the path of Light and Love. And remem­ber this is often made so through the small­est acts of kind­li­ness and con­sid­er­a­tion, and by this you will help one anoth­er to turn back the shad­ow­ing clouds of doubt and fear and build a bet­ter tomorrow.

When­ev­er you find your mind is trou­bled or fear is grow­ing with­in you, remem­ber the ancient Invo­ca­tion that can help you hold to the path of Light, Love and Will:

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.

 Next, “Whith­er are we going?”

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As we attempt to dis­cern the spir­i­tu­al themes of the com­ing year, it is help­ful to con­sid­er what we have just encoun­tered in 2018. It is most cer­tain­ly true that the tests faced, and the lessons learned in any one year may con­tin­ue into the fol­low­ing year (or sev­er­al years), as the unfold­ment of one day into the next is cer­tain­ly dri­ven and informed by ener­gies and expe­ri­ences that wax and wane over many weeks, months and years.

Plu­to in Capri­corn — The End of an Age

For Earth as a whole, the most impor­tant plan­e­tary influ­ences remain in place, with some vari­a­tions on a theme we have been faced with for some time now. Cer­tain­ly, the pas­sage of Plu­to through the Sign of Capri­corn, (2008 through 2024), con­tin­ues to pro­vide the pri­ma­ry heart­beat of our spir­i­tu­al chal­lenge. I have called this once every 250-year cyclic peri­od the “end of an age”, which was clear­ly so for the pre­vi­ous pas­sages in the ear­ly 1500’s and the 1700’s. In those ear­li­er peri­ods, and I would think most by now would agree it is true for our own time too, the world seemed to fall apart as Polit­i­cal, Eco­nom­ic and Cul­tur­al dis­in­te­gra­tions rever­ber­at­ed through all realms. But these spir­i­tu­al earth­quakes also her­ald­ed each time that a new age was dawning.

A new world is com­ing, but that requires that an old order give way. Of course, the fun­da­men­tal nature of what it means to be human, our needs for food, shel­ter, com­pan­ion­ship, love and secu­ri­ty are ever-present, but they are also evolving/transforming, seem­ing­ly (or actu­al­ly) at an expo­nen­tial rate, which is in large part due to what is known as “the sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tion” that began sev­er­al cen­turies ago.

Coper­ni­cus, Bacon, Galileo, New­ton among many oth­er “less­er knowns”, ques­tioned assump­tions passed down from time immemo­r­i­al. This quick­en­ing of the human capa­bil­i­ty to know and alter our world has endowed human­i­ty with pow­ers that have seem­ing­ly out­stripped our wis­dom to wield them, whether in Physics = Nuclear weapons, or Biol­o­gy = Bio-engineering.

Much that was will con­tin­ue in some form of course, but much more of our social, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal struc­tures will be reformed/transformed into new modes of expres­sion, and they will cer­tain­ly be informed by new ideas (or old ideas renewed) and mean­ings. The ques­tion remains, will we devel­op enough wis­dom and humil­i­ty to wield our “ring of pow­er” (Intel­li­gence) with uncon­di­tion­al love and compassion.

Uranus and Nep­tune — Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty vs. Communality

Con­tribut­ing to this shift of his­tor­i­cal pat­terns last year (and the year before), was the first major align­ment of Uranus with Nep­tune after their his­toric con­junc­tion in 1993. From 2017 on through into the begin­ning of 2019, we have been influ­enced by the Uranus/Neptune Semi­Square which is the first sig­nif­i­cant aspect in their 170 cycle from con­junc­tion to conjunction.

Uranus rules “Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty”; I call Uranus the “Awak­en­er”, as it is the Avatar of the High­er or Freer Mind that forms one of the three aspects of Spir­it. Nep­tune rules “Com­mu­nal­i­ty”; Nep­tune is the Avatar of the Ener­gy-Form that holds the whole of Cre­ation as One, the one abid­ing force that binds all to all, Uni­ver­sal or Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

The inte­gral rela­tion­ship between these two reveals the para­dox­i­cal truth behind the mys­tery of the Universe’s con­sti­tu­tion. Every­thing, every par­ti­cle and every “Being” in this Uni­verse is an indi­vid­ual that is a unique instance of spir­it informed by its own Quin­tes­sence; yet all of these “ones” are One in Spir­it and fun­da­men­tal­ly indi­vis­i­ble from one anoth­er. Through­out all king­doms of life, in age after age, there is an ever-shift­ing bal­ance between these two prin­ci­ples, between the One and the many.

The ten­sion between the Indi­vid­ual and the Com­mu­ni­ty wax­es and wanes in any cul­ture or civ­i­liza­tion. Whether we look at human “types” like Hunter/Gatherer, Farmer/Craftsperson or Rural/Urban (among many pos­si­ble dis­tinc­tions and dif­fer­ences), there will be found dif­fer­ing mix­tures and bal­ances (and often­times like now, imbal­ances), between these two great Ener­gy-Forms that deter­mine the degree to which Indi­vid­ual Free­dom and Com­mu­nal Har­mo­ny does or does not co-exist.

The recent past has seen a world­wide upheaval, marked now by the extremes of anar­chic indi­vid­u­al­ism and suf­fo­cat­ing com­mu­nal­ism, which sig­nals we are at a most crit­i­cal stage, where the old mod­el of bal­anc­ing Individuality/Communality has bro­ken down, and the yet to emerge new mod­el has not been ful­ly formed nor under­stood. This world-wide con­fu­sion has pro­duced a cri­sis of order and mean­ing­ful­ness for the many who yearn for a life and world that is “Fair and Free”. With­out a sig­nif­i­cant major­i­ty of peo­ple who hold to and act through an accept­ed inte­gra­tion of these two ener­gy-forms, we are liv­ing through a peri­od that is like an “in-between world”, where extrem­ists are dri­ving and divid­ing us fur­ther from one another.

How we hold these prin­ci­pals of Free­dom and Com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er with­in our­selves, and between one anoth­er, is part of our Spir­i­tu­al Jour­ney which can only be formed and forged by hold­ing to an Inte­gral Way of Liv­ing. We are on a jour­ney from uncon­scious­ness to full spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing, and as we remake our­selves and our world, we must strive towards ever more encom­pass­ing ways of hold­ing togeth­er our “par­a­digms of under­stand­ing” and our “ways of being”.

From the phys­i­cal through the spir­i­tu­al, from the sim­plest to the most com­plex enti­ties and sys­tems, we must always strive to live a whole life, a good and beau­ty-filled life, which can be found and restored by remem­ber­ing that there is a way to do this. That way can be found by remem­ber­ing that these crises have come before, and at each moment our ances­tors found a way by hold­ing firm to the great­est truths, those pre­cious jew­els of spir­it which nev­er fade or fal­ter. We need to remem­ber that these lumi­nous truths were dis­cov­ered and passed down to us from the very begin­ning of our journey.

The Way

When­ev­er you are in doubt, you should turn (and so return) to the eter­nal truths of the Ancient Wis­dom that con­tin­u­al­ly re-emerge in age after age. This is so because Truth is equal­ly with­in you as it forms all the worlds that sur­round you too. These Spir­i­tu­al Truths are to be found every­where you look, but most impor­tant­ly, those very answers that you find “out there” will res­onate with­in you because your high­er self, your intu­itive-know­ing-self, will gen­tly whis­per “this is true”. This is because these Ancient Truths form the very sub­stance of your heart and mind too.

At the true core of any Reli­gion or Phi­los­o­phy, with­in what is known as the Eso­teric as dis­tinct from the Exo­teric forms of under­stand­ing, the Peren­ni­al Teach­ings are revealed and illu­mi­nate for you the one essen­tial path. The Great Ones, the teach­ers who form a lumi­nous riv­er of truth about life and love, all of them came to serve this cause of spir­i­tu­al integri­ty and truth, and they were guid­ed in their heart and through their soul by the fun­da­men­tal pre­cept that there is “no reli­gion high­er than truth”.

As you look back now to the year that was, and turn to face the year that is dawn­ing, take com­fort from those who showed you the way long, long ago. You will be filled with a renewed faith, and you will know that you will make a bet­ter future for your­self and for one anoth­er. Remem­ber you are nev­er alone, and you walk the same path of the Great Souls who came before you, and they strug­gled for their self-mas­tery which you will achieve one day too:

Be guid­ed by the Wise Ones, who know there is no reli­gion high­er than Truth.
Walk the path of the Great-Souls, who prac­tice the Wis­dom of Love.
Find inspi­ra­tion in the Lone­ly Ones, their Will­ing-Sac­ri­fice hon­ored by 
the Angels and Devas above.
Lis­ten for the Voice of the Silence, attend the gen­tle whis­pers in your Heart,
And you will find “The Way”.

Next, “Where are we now?”