The Aquarian New Moon and the Year of the Dragon

As we spoke about last week, we had the beginning of a Mars retrograde time period  (Jan 24th - April 14th) as the red planet is making an apparent slip backwards against the backdrop of the stars.  We also had a New Moon in Aquarius.  The Sun, the planet (not really) signifying our goals and purpose, unites with the Moon, the vehicle for expressing that purpose, and we get a monthly new beginning in the house or department of life in your chart ruled by Aquarius.  Aquarius is the sign ruled in part by Uranus, the planet that innovates, liberates, awakens us.  He was discovered in 1781 in time to influence our country's founding and the French Revolution.  Both events can be remembered as times of great chaos when the new was birthing with the old still holding on.

At this time we have both the sense that something new wants to be born in us, but as Mars is not on our side but creating headwinds that push against us the going seems to be tough.  One might say that the new beginning will have to be about going back to something we have done before, something we started last fall and have to redo or just a general lack of drive, courage and assertion.

But there is hope as this week also began the Chinese New Year and it is the Year of the Water Dragon.  I am not familiar with Chinese astrology but in my readings this week I am very impressed with the propitiousness of the Dragon.  He is the most fortunate of all the Chinese signs and bringer of great good fortune.  The Dragon brings four blessings: wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity, as he is mystical rather than earthy.  2012 is a Water year and will be the year that many dreams will come true at long last.

As we come to the end of the Mayan calendar (December 21st), we have also come to the end of a very long and very unfavorable 60 year cycle in Chinese astrology when luck was hard to come by.  Instead of stagnation, in this Water year ideas will flow, creativity abound, economies and love blossom, new leaders chosen and new choices made. There will be a huge serge in personal Chi or Qi with of course many upheavals, natural disasters and political and cultural developments.  But we have the opportunity to choose new leaders, as the way forward (after Mars is at our back), seems to be in reforming what community, nation and leadership look like.

source for the Chinese astrology:  www.ProAstro.com

Coming Attractions

It is always interesting to watch what happens in our lives when one of the personal planets changes its orientation to the Sun.  The personal planets symbolize affairs in our lives that we have control over (our thoughts, desires, actions).  Come 8:00 PM tomorrow night  it is Mars, the Roman god of war, that is doing the dance.

 Mars has been in Virgo since mid November and will not leave that sign until the July 4th weekend.  So instead of staying in one sign for 6 weeks, the planet of courage, will force, anger, strife, aggression, passion, spirit, wrath, rage, unconscious desire and conscious volition will stay for 8 months, as he will go back and forth over one area of the zodiac.  Mars is outside our orbit around the Sun. Every 26 months our Earth passes between Mars and the Sun and so it looks like he is going backwards or retrograde. Every 15 years he repeats the extra long passage in the same area of the zodiac, gradually moving backwards through the signs. It denotes a time when a change in orientation takes place in regards the "doing" in our lives.

Everyone has Virgo someplace in their horoscopes.  It can rule a department of life (or house), you can have it as your rising sign or culminating one, a planet or your Sun or Moon can be in the sign Virgo and therefore its symbolism will be important to you. Degrees count here too.  Today Mars is at 23 degrees and will go back to 3 degrees on April 14th, when he returns to apparent forward motion in the zodiac; that becomes the area of Virgo that will get crossed 3 times, giving us extra chances to align our passion and get it right.

Getting things right is what Virgo is good at.  Judging what job is important for us, what is important in our job, what is important for us in our health regime, in our diet, and in the rhythmn of our daily life. Virgo demands personal integrity.  If you are involved in affairs that are not truly representing who you are, Mars going retrograde will bring the urge to refrain from moving ahead.  Around March 4th when Earth passes exactly between Mars and the Sun we can expect to feel more connected to our true selves.

So anyone with a strong emphasis in Virgo, or the signs Mars has rulership over, Scorpio and Aries, is in the hot seat. (But remember some area of everyone's life will be affected by this passage). Mars did not have such a good reputation in mythology, always being on the scene when there was  trouble, violence and war.  There is a primitive aspect to Mars, acting without thinking of consequences for instance. At these times of his retrograde the consequences of our former actions come to the surface, or have to be revisited.

As Mars is blocked from having the freedom of outward expression he turns inward hypothetically and withdraws.   If someone you know has had an argument with another person, or someone you know has repressed aggression or unexpressed resentments, there can be an explosion of sorts as these repressed feelings come to the surface, creating socially awkward situations.   Or if Mars is retrograding in your 5th house of creative pursuits, for instance, you might go back to learning to play the piano, something begun earlier and forsaken.

I find it interesting that Newt Gingrich just won the South Carolina primary as Mars is at 23 Virgo. This station of Mars sets off his Full Moon birthday, his Sun and Moon-coming out into full light. Mars will be here again at the end of June igniting these same places.   It also hits the USA natal Neptune-where we do not see clearly;  and it also hits President Obama's natal Mars.  Mars puts fire in your belly, but for what is the question.  I doubt political affairs will be the same by then. Watch for it!!!

It's Official!!

The NY Times  had a piece last Thursday the 12th that reported on the results of the recent Pew Research Center poll.  About 2/3's of Americans now believe there are "strong conflicts" between rich and poor in the US.  This conflict now eclipses racial strife between immigrants and native born Americans as the source of our greatest  tension. The article continues to say that the message from the Occupy Wall Street movement "may be seeping into the national consciousness". In the last survey in 2009,  47 percent of Americans thought class inequality was the biggest conflict, with immigration being the biggest challenge.  The new survey represents a 50% increase in public opinion regarding the issues surrounding income inequality.

The  Sunday Times had a front page piece on who and where across the US the 1% represent.  In Stamford, Connecticut, for instance, you have to earn $908, 000 to be included in the local 1% ;  in  Jamestown NY earning $176,00 will get you into the local 1%.  There is a long and detailed exploration with maps of what professions and jobs the top earners have and where they live.

The discussion has entered into the political arena as well, with the Republicans arguing over whether Romney the millionaire, created or destroyed jobs in his tenure at Bain Capital.  Americans are beginning to understand that some of the policies that the Republicans advocate, dismantling regulations and unions and keeping taxes low for the wealthy are in part responsible for the growing divide of the rich and poor.  This awakening might affect the chance of a Republican win in November. The median income for top earners is soaring while that of the average household has declined.

My point in bringing all this to your attention is that whenever you hear it said that the Occupy Movement was a failure because they did not have a specific goal, leader or agenda, the Pew Center poll and the pages of the NY Times  are refuting that notion.  It has come to 2/3's of Americans attention, in part because of the Occupy Movement, that there is income inequality here in the US and that the trend is moving towards more of the same.  The question becomes what to do about it.

Bipolar America

Sunday's NY Times book review section reviewed 3 books that speak to the polarization in current American politics.  The Republicans are in the process of choosing a candidate, moderate or conservative? The thrust of the thinking is that our future depends on which person wins the election in November, that that person will make  a difference, and to some extent it does make a difference;  but there is another consideration that also must be taken into account.

The moment the incumbent takes the oath of office is a moment in time, unique as any other, and foretells the course of events in that administration for the next 4 years. Whether it is Obama or the current Republican front runner Romney, the next president will be greeted with affairs conditioning forward from the moment he says "I do".  The planets are in one position at noon on the 20th and keep moving to create new geometric patterns to each other. As they do so "stuff happens".  I will give you 2 examples.

As you may recall in Obama's swearing in-he and Chief Justice John Roberts messed things up and the swearing in was redone the next day.  The moon at noon on the 20th was 29 degrees and 45 minutes of Scorpio and termed "void of course" where it is making no more geometric relationships to other planets before moving in to the next sign. When we do things during these times, which occur for varying lengths of time, we often have to do things over, or those events do not have the intended outcomes.

On May 2nd last year Osama bin Laden was killed by a special forces unit commanded by President Obama, a signature moment for this administration, which we should see following on from the moment he took office. In the chart for the 1st oath, Mercury, the planet symbolizing the messenger, the Midheaven- public recognition and the Sun-the leader or goal of the administration were moving into a exact conjunction with the planet of luck and success, Jupiter.  On May 2nd this progression had moved to within 30 minutes to lucky Jupiter.  (Only the MC and the Sun made it-Mercury was moving backwards in the zodiac-and ran into the progressed Moon for the 2nd of May-part of the story).

Venus, the planet of satisfaction, also had moved to within 2 minutes of the planet of surprises, Uranus.  So pleasant surprises anticipated from the moment the oath was taken occurred with the coming to exactness.   Faster moving planets move towards slower moving ones and marry them for a minute before moving on.  The geometric aspects that are forming are more powerful than those separating and indicate events coming in the future, rather than those that have already occurred.  (One can also see the great polarization that has occurred these last 3 years symbolized by the opposition of the planet of conservatism, Saturn, facing off against the planet of the progressives, Uranus in the oath taking moment in time.)

So back to my original thought, whomever wins the November election has to contend with the moment in time he takes office.  Assuming that moment will be noon on the 20th, and setting up a chart for then we see the Moon in Taurus is  the people, the people's mood, coming quite quickly in time to a 90 degree aspect to Mars the planet of war, anger, energy, violence, aggression, very visible and working 100%. The Moon likes to be in Taurus so the public's values are noble but the move into Mars indicates action of some sort.     Instead of having the Sun, the leader, surrounded by the MC, Mercury, Jupiter, the North Node, which affords a great deal of protection, as we have in the 2009 Inauguration chart, we have an angry populace,  the South Node which symbolizes a letting go or sacrifice and the planet of success and protection, Jupiter, very weak.

There are other factors coming into play here in 2012 which we have spoken of before and will again.  But at this stage in our evolution it is wrong to think that we will have a knight in shining armor come and rescue us.  The man who becomes president in 2013 will have to contend with the destiny of the United States.  There is a change of consciousness taking place, here and all over the planet, although you will not see it if you are not looking for it.  (4 million Americans doing yoga in 2000, 20 million in 2007-NY Times).  As Sai Baba says:
Each thought, each emotion, each new awakening of a human being towards the consciousness of God elevates the vibration of the planet. This might seem a paradox, due to the fact that the majority sees around themselves more hatred and misery, but this is not so.

More Evidence a Month Later

Writing this Thanksgiving Sunday, a month after my last blog, I am noticing all the mounting evidence for this last gasp of Neptune's passage through the end of Aquarius, that we discussed (see previous blog).  "Occupy Wall Street" has become "Occupy Everywhere".  The Nation Magazine and the New School held a forum with that title November 10th.  The "Occupy Everywhere" panel was about the next steps and the continuing possibilities in the movement against corporate power.  When people criticize the movement and do not see it as successful, as the occupiers made no demands, they are missing the point. 

The movement is surprisingly successful only to those not following the astrological trends; spreading all over the country in small cities like Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Nevada City, California where 400 people showed up at each place at a moments notice to the small cities in Greece where local occupy movements can address specific needs.  The movement doesn't need one location, it is spreading all over the world like fire because it is part of the zeitgeist and has struck a chord that is resonating everywhere. 

There is an Occupy Harlem movement for helping people not have their heat shut off, an Occupy Bronx movement to help people not get evicted from their homes;  there is talk of Occupy the Food Movement to bring attention to the corporate takeover of our food supply and  Occupy Roof movement to highlight the importance of solar energy.  It can happen anywhere at any time. As was said at this forum, "they have permission to be their own leader".  This is the essence of  Aquarian ideals -everybody and nobody is in charge.  It is the "people" who rule in direct democracy just as these occupiers are demonstrating. 

Any movement's goal is to shift public will by changing the conversation. The Occupy Wall Street movement has done just that by changing the media focus.  A month ago the news reports  were all about raising the debt ceiling for the 103rd time.  Today on the front page of the NYTimes was a investgative piece on Ronald Lauder, heir to his mother's cosmetic company, worth $3.1 billion. Lauder hides all his assets in tax shelters, foundations and tax avoiding schemes that are only available to the very rich.  "There's real truth that the taxcode for the 1% is different from the tax code for the 99%", says Victor Fleischer, a law professor at the U of Colorado.  Now instead of the debt ceiling distraction conversation, you hear stories about economic equality, the conversation has changed; inequality the 1% vs 99% -the real issue has taken center stage. 

Why now?  The Moon in a country's natal chart describes the public and its mood.  In the July 4th 1776 chart for the USA the Moon was at 27 degrees of Aquarius. We are a people that have a real sense of the brotherhood of man, as the founding fathers said and promised,"where all men are created equal". The planet Neptune has been sitting on top of our Moon since April 2009, symbolically bringing clouds and fog over us all and obscurring our core issues.  Apathy, despair and a sense of  loss (real too) are associated with Neptune's passage.  The Moon symbolizes your home, so we have been suffering from a loss of our homes and our Aquarian values. 

When Neptune began its forward motion as we view it in relation to the Sun in the beginning of November, it began to leave the Moon and so just as the fog lifts to reveal  what was there all the time but we could not see it, so in Neptune's moving on from our Moon,  the American people come out of the doldrums, and our core need  for economic and social equality comes to the forefront.  How often is it said that you never really know how much you value something until you lose it. 

One can also attribute the White House's decision made November 10th to delay the determination on whether to build the Keystone XL pipeline to the Occupy Movement.  Although this civil disobedience action started demonstrating  in Washington in August, it spread as rapidly as the Occupy movement.  The TransCanada company has already been working on permits for two years and it was wildly regarded as a shoe-in for the next ok. But in a surprise move, President Obama delayed it.  During his cross country jobs tour in September and October, he was confronted by hundreds of signs reminding him of his campaign pledge to "be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil". The people began waking up to the collossal environmental disaster that pipeline would be.  It is not only a question of economic inequality but the collusion between the government and corporate interests that the current system fosters to the detriment of the common people.

Slowly but surely we are seeing a cultural shift happening, here and all over the world.  Who would have thought that Mayor Bloomberg would let the occupiers stay there for 2 months? How many heads of state have been replaced this year?  I mowed the lawn this Thanksgiving weekend and took some pink roses from the garden to sit beside the Indian corn on the table.  Movements, uprisings, demonstrations, revolutions and occupys can happen very quickly thanks to the technology.  Masses of people come together. This is what Aquarius is all about-social and economic parity.  Ideas are becoming the new commodity.  You do not need demands when you have a movement with an idea whose time has come.

Neptune and what it Brings

As well as having the interesting New Moon in Scorpio last Wednesday, when we get to begin to think about starting something new in the area of life where we feel the most passionate, we have the planet Neptune making an change in orientation as it orbits the Sun. This occurs next Wednesday the 9th of November. Neptune is at the very end of the sign Aquarius (tropical zodiac) for the last time.  The planet will move into Pisces to stay for 14 years or so in February 2012.

As a planet leaves a sign all the evidence of the trends that the planet in a particular sign has brought comes to a head.  Neptune brings (and I am not saying causes) an atmosphere of boundlessness.  When one is having a Neptune experience one feels like meditating, composing a song, escaping to the movies, getting loaded, merging with another, having an out of body experience, designing a piece of art, day dreaming about the future or longing for a more perfect world.

The sign Aquarius has to do with technology, brotherhood, social and political ideals, humanitarian impulses, freedom, independence, progressive causes, gender and economic equality, groups of people, revolutions.  As Neptune passes through the end of Aquarius we can combine the planet with the sign and see evidence in the media of this passage of Neptune in Aquarius since 1998.  (I can remember in my own life that year, I joined a network marketing company and went to conventions where the hopes and wishes of thousands of people to realize their financial goals -the cars, trips and a no-work lifestyle with life long financial security were promised. Neptune=dreams and network marketing group=Aquarius-by the way it never happened).

This past week though, I have seen some pieces in the paper that epitomize for me this passage.  One is Tom Friedman's op-ed piece in the NYTimes Oct 22nd which speaks to the two revolutions occurring; one on Wall Street with the social revolution that has mushroomed all over the world and the other in Silicon Valley which is having a technological revolution which will change how companies and societies operate.

All the social media Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Groupon, Zynga are converging because of cheap wireless technology, web enabled smart phones and "the cloud".  "The cloud" (Neptune) are these enormous server farms that hold and constantly update thousands of software applications speeding up innovation, product cycles and competition.  Think of Kickstarter where one person with a good idea and no money can post it on the web and have $1 million dollars from 13,500 people in 50 countries within a month. (Aquarius)

Another example was in the Sunday October 23rd, NYT Styles section announcing that the lost art of group portraits is having a renaissance.  These banquet photos where one hundred or more guests pose at the same time had gone out of style in the  late 1960's.  "These photos (camera technology-Aquarius) create a classic sense of connectedness" (Neptune), says photographer Terry Gruber.

I also read in the October 10th New Yorker about "bitcoin".  This is a currency that you buy online if you have a fast computer and can be used like money-the rate of exchange can vary but it does not depend on the banks.  (The wave of the future IMO).  The article was presented in part to explain the process but also try to figure out who put the website up.  That person or persons has remained anonymous for obvious reasons.

Of course we can consider that the "Occupy Wall Street" movement is also part of the Neptune in Aquarius swan song.  A dozen people sat in a circle in Bowling Green last August 2nd at the very first meeting of what came to be know as "Occupy Wall Street" This self appointed "process committee" had a dream to create a New York General Assembly which would operate like the committee, by consensus (Neptune in Aquarius).

This model for a truly democratic society has never really been tried (except perhaps in the native American and Quaker traditions,  the Civil Rights Movement and the SDS of the 60's)), but this group of Aquarian dreamers are still operating this way 3 months later.  There is no voting, decisions are reached by general assent.  "The process toward creative synthesis is really the essence of the thing" says David Graeber in Issue 3 of " The Occupied Wall Street Journal".

Truly this is the very essence of Neptune in Aquarius where the impossible, direct democracy and a society based on human solidarity is being demonstrated.  We are taught that this country was founded with these principles, and now we see a movement taking place to put those principles into action.

Something's Happening Here

Last week Tom Friedman, op-ed columnist for the New York Times wrote a piece entitled "Something's Happening Here",  about two books that present alternate views on the general social turbulence of the times.  One author sees current events as a "Great Disruption" and the other as a "Big Shift". Paul Gilding, an Australian environmentalist, sees the world wide demonstrations as evidence that our growth obsessed capitalistic system is breaking down. "Our system of economic growth, ineffective democracy, of overloading planet earth-our system- is eating itself alive." He argues that the demonstrations that are occurring are a result of the realization that for last 30 years all economic growth has affected only the one percent of people at the top.

Two other authors, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown in their book "The Power of the Pull", see what is happening as the early stages of the "Big Shift", which merges globalization with the Information Technology Revolution.  We experience this shift as the growing stress that comes as we continue to operate with institutions and systems that are increasingly dysfunctional. However, this cultural shift also brings with it a huge flow of new ideas, innovations, markets and collaborations.   It is this flow of innovation that brings human potential to the forefront as both individually and collectively we have to respond to this flood of new opportunities, and we will be the better for it.  I am always amazed how often Friedman has his finger on the pulse of things.  I use astrology to understand, he just intuits.

Ultimately both positions are correct.  The demonstrators in Lower Manhattan are evidence of the "Great Disruption" as were the young people in Tahrir Square last January, and  Mohamed Bouazizi, the young man of Tunisia who set himself on fire in protest of governmental harrassment last December the 17th, which event triggered all the disruptions since.  Since "Occupy Wall Street" began about a month ago, as of today, it has spead to 105 cities in this country (even our small village on eastern Long Island had a demonstration Saturday) and other European capitals. 

I would guess that most of these demonstrators are part of the generation born 1984-1998, those individuals aged 13-26 (Mohamed Bouazizi was). This group has the planet Neptune in Capricorn, as Wendell Perry points out in his article in the current Mountain Astrologer magazine, "Are You Ready for the Neptune in Capricorn Generation?" Neptune is the planet of our dreams, what we idolize, our hope for the future, our visions of what utopia will be like.  This generation is very idealistic about government and institutions (Capricorn) wanting them to take RESPONSIBILITY for the common good (Capricorn).

The last time Neptune was in Capricorn was 1820-1834.  Those young people were just coming of age in 1848-9 when  there was a wave of evolutionary upheavals in almost every capital in Europe, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Baden, Prague, Rome, Milan.  The University students in Vienna forced the Austrian Emperor to dismiss his minister, Prince Metternich, who had been in power for 30 years (sound familiar?). The students  (later disenfranchised workers stood with them)  had to march while being fired at by the autocratic Austrian government. Each generation's job is to bring the world's attention to what they see as the defining injustice of the era.  We did it with the Vietnam War.

In addition to their innate sense of wanting the best for all of society, not just the privledged , the current generation has the planet Pluto in Scorpio.  Pluto rules Scorpio in part and so is very powerful.  These demonstrators have a tenacity, ruthlessness and passion which will set them apart.  What they choose to take on as their cause they will never give up on until it is accomplished, or they die (Mohammed Bouazizi) as it comes from the deepest part of their being.

I also see evidence of Friedman's second book, of this time being a great opportunity.  I was in NYC on Friday and took a taxi.  The taxi driver was quite excited with an almond bar he had dreamt up and was going to have produced.  He showed me all the wrappers of the ones on the market now, that his was better than.  He said he would never get rich driving a taxi but instead of complaining, used his ingenuity to come up with a product to sell to the masses.    I am sure there are lots of other examples out there.

The "Big Shift" that astrologers talk about is the move into more Aquarian principles-where ideas, inventions, group collaborations, wealth and gender equality and freedom of the individual to live with dignity are among the important themes.  The big shift for this astrologer is this move into a post-materialistic society. Believe it or not by the time that Saturn and Jupiter met again in early Aquarius in December of 2020 and Pluto enters Aquarius in 2023, we will be in an era where our relations with our fellow men will be valued, not the size of our bank account.