I can hardly see the computer screen,
because of the glare of the sun through the window. But I don’t want to draw the curtain. I need all this sunlight, to remind me that
warmer weather lies ahead. I need it, to
set the crystals on my desk on fire and to cast rainbows on the wall behind
me. Sunlight is fuel, and for us here in
the Northern Hemisphere, a little extra fuel can help a lot right now.
One thing I’m grateful about, right
at the moment, is that we’re coming to the end of the tense and combative Uranus/Pluto
square. This has been in orb – off and on, but mostly
on – since June 2011. It doesn’t
officially end – given a 2° orb - until March of 2016, but the last exact
aspect has just passed, and it will never be at peak strength again. Now it just has to do some long, slow winding
down.
But will it do it this month? No, not really. Even though it is generally becoming less
powerful, it will be stimulated by the total lunar eclipse on April 4. The sun will conjunct Uranus, and Pluto will
square both the sun and moon, so many the issues of the Uranus/Pluto square will
be revisited all month. It’s as though
we’re walking down a stormy road at night, and we have strokes of lightning to
light our way. We have to keep jumping
out of the way, but we are also dazzled by sudden bolts of enlightenment.
So what has this turbulent aspect
brought us, through the last five years, and where are we now?
Uranus, the planet of sudden new
beginnings, is in the most hot-blooded and impulsive of signs, Aries, and so there’s
been an increase in revolutionary acts, audacious rebellions, and military
maneuvers. Pluto in Capricorn holds an
internal contradiction, since Pluto deals with deeper transformations and yet
Capricorn is one of the most conservative signs in the zodiac. So Pluto upholds Capricorn values, but at the
same time, breaks them down in order to change them on a deeper level.
How can you both uphold something and
uproot it? Actually, this is the way it
always works. Everything is changing –
or you could say, evolving - and when
you give attention to something, you accelerate the process of change. The deeper and more intrinsic the change, the
longer it takes.
Capricorn institutions are
well-established, one might even say hoary.
Age gives respectability and authority.
There are structures in place which make those in power feel comfortable.
But everything breaks down in time, and
all the Uranian threats to Capricorn institutions have accelerated that
process.
But as we can see, it hasn’t been just
an either/or proposition, with the hot-heads on one side and the establishment
on the other. Sometimes it’s been that
way. But we’ve also seen a hybrid spring up, with attributes both of Uranus in Aries
and Pluto in Capricorn. This is the conservative
radical.
Of course, this phenomenon is not new. Ronald Reagan was one of the founding fathers
of this approach. But it’s really
proliferated under the Uranus/Pluto square:
groups that claim a conservative mantel, an allegiance to tradition, and
yet are intent on redrawing the contours of the world, with lots of blood and
artillery.
We see this in the Tea Party, which
is rebelling against (mostly imagined) government oppression. Since this is a democracy, albeit a very
imperfect one, this rebellion has ended up in a number of Tea Party activists
having positions in Congress. That means
if they do anything useful at all, they end up as the Government Oppressors, so
they’ve been most forced to spend most of their time fuming, and trying to get
rid of as many laws and regulations as possible.
This has been pretty frustrating for
them, and they could use more fresh air.
Hopefully they will be replaced soon, and they can spend their time
practicing with their muskets, and telling tall tales of all the things they
did in Congress.
We also see this phenomenon in the
Arab world. Here we have people who have
been fighting a battle over succession since the 7th century, and
are still very wedded to the authority conveyed then. Here in the US, it’s hard to imagine
traditions that old, or a sense of rightness that runs that deep. Taking those centuries of religious commitment,
and driving them out into the world with bombs and guns, is the focus of
several groups of conservative radicals.
In the end, you do have to follow the
money, and the power is not in the past, but very much alive in the
present. But these traditions are not
just a pageant, but a real cry for some vanished authenticity. At the same time, there’s a violent rejection
of the modern world, and this negation of present-day realities is what makes
these conservative radicals dangerous to other human beings, not to mention the
planet.
They can’t go back, but they can go backwards. We’ve seen it happen before. There’s always a Renaissance eventually, but
it’s really a drag to have centuries of torture, plagues, and a lack of indoor
plumbing before it comes around again.
But would all these shock troops
exist, if established power wasn’t so deeply threatened, if it wasn’t breaking
down? I don’t think so. Of course, many of these conservative
radicals are well-funded by those firmly in power. But I would say that the establishment has
never really had control of them, and that’s why there’s so much fighting going
on these days. As I write this, the wars
in the Arab world are shifting, growing, developing new branches, as oil-rich
governments move to claim their authority over smaller militias.
Coming back to the U.S., the Uranus/Pluto square has also brought some radical
action on the progressive side. There’s
the Black Lives Matter movement, which carries the fifty-year-old mantel of the
Civil Rights Movement, and so a claim to history. At the same time, it’s all about the need to
make sure that the Movement doesn’t get calcified into a powerless monument,
but rather is recognized as an unfinished work.
And then there was Occupy, which raised
a lot of important class issues on a global level. The class structure underpins everything
else, and so it will take a lot of work to have any progress at all in this
area. But the Occupy people began by
raising consciousness, and this is always the first step.
On the other hand, we in the gay and
lesbian community have won enormous ground during this Uranus/Pluto square. As a lesbian, one of my biggest challenges now
is getting used to using the word “wife” instead of “partner” or “lover” to
describe the woman who’s been at my side for almost thirty years. I personally feel a much stronger sense of
social support than I did five years ago.
Looking at the current
situation in Indiana, I’m actually heartened.
There was a time when there would’ve been no response to a law pitting
right-wing Christians against gay people.
And now there are a lot of people, all over the spectrum, in our
corner. For once, the homophobes are on
the defensive.
So a lot has changed during this
period, and some momentum has been established in various areas. But there are still quite a few live wires
out there, and we’ll have to be careful not to step on them during April. And there are some parts of the world which
will see even more explosions.
The upcoming total lunar eclipse,
which sets a tone for the next six months, is in Aries/Libra, the zodiacal axis
that has to do with relationships. So
although everyone’s needs are strong and immediate, we all need to learn more about negotiating. This is our work: to find a balance between our own urgent
changes, and the rights and needs of others. As we do this, we give our own lives more meaning,
and we learn, step by step, what it is to be peaceful. It may
still be a while coming, but just like the buds of spring, it’s on the horizon.
