February 13, 2006

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  The Age of Aquarius:  what it means
  
  One reason I love astrology is because of  the way it helps me understand what is going on now.  It is far from infallible, but it is a darn sight more reliable than, say, the daily weather report.  Or triple-bypass surgery, for that matter.  Anyway, I intend to expound here on the Age of Aquarius and what it means, but first, I will explain–more or less–what an astrological age is.
  
  Astrological ages are delineated by the precession of the equinoxes, which in turn arises from the fact that the planet wobbles on its axis due to gravitational forces exerted by the Sun on the bulges of the oblately spheroidal Earth at the Equator.  As you know, the earth is somewhat tilted relative to the plane of the ecliptic–this is what makes seasons.  In the temperate zone, at different times of the year, sunlight is more or less direct–most so at the summer solstice, when the days are longest and the sun appears to be most nearly overhead.  Winter is just the opposite–short cold days.  On the equinoxes, the days have twelve hours each of light and dark. 
  
  The precession thing means that over a span of time, the Sun’s position at the Vernal and Autumnal equinoxes, relative to the Zodiacal Constellations on the plane of the ecliptic, moves widdershins (“backwards” relative to the conventional Aries, Taurus, Gemini… order) through the signs.  At this time, on the Vernal Equinox, the Sun appears, to an observer on Earth, to be between Pisces and Aquarius.  This also means that the Earth’s axis, which in the Northern Hemisphere is now pointing, more or less, at Polaris in the constellation of Ursa Minor (“little bear” AKA the little dipper), will in time point at a portion of space where there are no visible stars, or at a different star that will then be known as the Pole Star.   In 13,000 years, the Pole Star with be Vega, a bright star in the constellation Lyra.  In 26,000 years, it will be Polaris again.    Okay, with me so far?
  
  For the past 2000 years or so, the north end of the axis has been pretty much leaning toward the constellation Pisces so that the northern hemisphere, where this astronomical/-logical system was developed, “faces” that constellation on the plane of the Ecliptic, the Celestial Equator–hence, the Age of Pisces started, roughly, with the birth of Christ.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  It is also no coincidence that one of the seminal events of the 2000 years preceding that–the Age of Aries the ram–was the sacrifice of the ram by Abraham. 
  
  Two thousand years before that was the Age of Taurus, the bull, during which time one of the primal images was the sacred bull of Crete.  Throughout the Age of Pisces, one of the most influential and central images was that of a fish, which is a symbol of Christianity (also a rather involved pun in Greek, which I don’t want to get into here).  Aquarius–the age we are entering now– means water-bearer. (Exactly when this age started is a matter of some debate–one astrologer sets the date at January 23, 1997.)  Has anyone else noted how prevalent water has been in the news?  The Indonesian tsunami of December 26, 2004, for one thing.  A little thing known as Katrina, for another.  Not to mention all the associated floods, or the rise of sea level due to global warming.  Here at the start of the Age of Aquarius, the polar ice caps are turning to water, and polar bears are drowning.  Oh, and the permafrost in the tundra is melting.  These times are not speculation, they are observed phenomena.
  
  Traditionally, Aquarians are said to generally friendly and humane; honest and loyal; independant and intellectual.  Some of these traits were seen at their best during the Summer of Love, 1964.  However, today’s airy-fairy New Agers who think that it is all unicorns and rainbows, who think evil is a myth  and folks like Stalin are merely misguided are in for a crushing disllusionment when the Age of Aquarius comes to full flower.  Some of the dark-side attributes of Aquarius include being “intractable and contrary, perverse and unpredictable, unemotional and detached.” (This from http:www.astrology-online.com/aquarius.htm).  The good stuff–inventive and intellectual–seems to be manifesting largely in the area of computer and solid-state technology.  Other positive triats–humanitarian–seem to be manifesting in a lessening of homophobia among the young folks.

  
  

  
  By way of contrast, some of the dark-side attributes of the Age of Pisces–gullibility, fearfulness, dogmatism, clinging to traditional beliefs while denying evidence to the contrary, etc–coincide with some of the worst excesses that we all are witnessing now.  The Age of Pisces is dying–there can be no doubt of this–but it is dying slowly, and dying hard, wreaking havoc on the environment and culture with its death throes.

  
  

  Please note: the visible constellations only roughly correspond to the metaphysical Zodiac of signs.  Constellations are not uniform in size, but each sign takes up a uniform 30 degrees of the 360-degree Celestial Equator.  An intuitive inference from this might be that the metaphysical cycles were pre-existant when the ancient sky-watchers superimposed it on the Zodiacal map and did their connect-the-dots thing to create the corresponding symbols.

  
  

  Also, it should be noted that the keynote of the Age of Pisces was “I believe”; the keynote of the Age of Aquarious is “I know.”  In my book, the less you believe, and the more you know, the better off you are.
  
  
  Precession illustrated and explained:  http://www.revealer.com/platonic.htm
  More on precession: http://ancientegypt.hypermart.net/royalarch/
  

  
  

  Credit:  Thanks and a tip of the Greyfox fedora to my righteous old lady, soulmate, and partner in crime, Kathy Lynn Douglass, for proofing this, and making helpful suggestions and additions, and providing the last two  links.  Any screw-ups are mine alone.
  

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