A Changing Landscape

 

There’s so much going on, so many changes. Last month, I couldn’t write, though. Just as 2020 came to an end, my only brother died, and I was flattened into silence. It’s still hard to believe, but it’s time to climb out of this hole and look around again.

 

There are some things that are the same about this landscape. Covid-19 is even more lethal, but now there are vaccines, and they’re being distributed, if slowly and imperfectly. It was the promise of Saturn and Jupiter both going into Aquarius, that science would once again be respected.

 

Science, truth, information – these things comprise the home turf of Aquarius. As a fixed air sign, Aquarius’ role in the zodiac is to pin down what’s true, and to promote it. This involves experimentation, research, and a willingness to consider every possible idea, which is why Aquarians are often seen as wild, different, far-out, or outrageous.  

 

And of course, many Aquarians are harassed or persecuted during their lives, because they’re several steps ahead of everyone else.  People with the sun in Aquarius like Charles Darwin, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Huey Newton, and Angela Davis. Or people with Aquarius rising like Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx, Emmeline Pankhurst, Thoreau, Ralph Nader, or Barack Obama.

 

Of course, not all Aquarians are progressives. Their most common trait is a willingness to argue everybody else into the ground, based on the truths that they have determined. Most Aquarians are open-minded enough to take new evidence into account, and change their minds if necessary. But if they held their positions lightly, they wouldn’t be as effective in making change in the world.

 

February is a very Aquarian month. It begins with the sun, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn all in this sign. Mercury spends the whole of February in Aquarius, mostly retrograde. The old order is represented only by Pluto in Capricorn.  

 

When the Capitol was stormed, on January 6, this Aquarian surge had only just begun, with Jupiter and Saturn there. Capricorn was still the dominant influence.  You can see that event as a threshold event between the old and the new. As the face of the old order, Trump was holding on to the past with everything he had. But Democracy itself is an Aquarian phenomenon, and we were moving inexorably into the new Aquarian phase.

 

Of course, what we know in this country as democracy is not a purebred beast, any more than all those Aquarians I mentioned were wholly dedicated to a progressive vision. There is no purity, except in the dreams of idealists. Everything on this earth is mixed – every person, every idea, every manifestation.  

 

And yet, mixed as all manifestations are, there is always something that predominates and that gives things their shape. And so the democracy that we have, here in the US, flawed as it is, has a rock-hard concept at its core. It’s fixed, just like the fixed air sign Aquarius. It’s a stubborn belief that people should choose their leaders, and it took more than Trump’s scattered and ill-organized power plays to upend it.

 

And now that democracy has shown itself strong enough for another go-around, now that Aquarian principles have prevailed, where do we go from here?  Joe Biden has gotten a good start in the two weeks since taking office, getting rid of some of Trump’s most damaging mandates, via executive orders. Correcting old injustices is an excellent use of a Mercury retrograde. McConnell tried a feint, which didn’t work. And now there’s a Covid-19 relief bill being wrangled in Congress.

 

Joe Biden, by the way, has no planets in Aquarius, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. We all knew he wasn’t a trailblazer. He does have his sun and moon in fixed signs, however, and so he has the ability to stick to a position, once he’s taken it. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has Saturn in Aquarius right at the top of her chart, forming a great trine with her sun and ascendent, so she is very much attuned to this moment in history, and she has both the forward vision and the determination to make things happen. Of course, she has a more pivotal role than most vice-presidents, as the deciding vote in Congress.  

 

I wish I could say that it will all be smooth sailing from here on out, but there’s a very sharp, divisive aspect affecting us all this month: the square between Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus. Saturn is generally the rigid, conservative planet, but now it’s in a progressive, enlightened sign. Uranus is the rebel planet, but now it’s in a solid, earthy sign. What this means is that the progressives are the mature, grown-up ones these days, while the conservatives are the ones acting wild and crazy.  

 

It’s easy to become fascinated with Q-Anon and their ilk, just because they’re so strange. On Inauguration Day, I was mesmerized by the stories about them sitting around their TVs, just like I was. But where I was admiring Michelle Obama’s outfit, and enjoying Lady Gaga’s voice, and getting all excited about Kamala being sworn in by Sonia Sotomayor, they were on the edge of their seats, expecting all the Democrats to be arrested and dragged away any minute. Then they were all disillusioned that it didn’t happen.

 

The cruelty of the Trump era is what I see reflected in his followers, including the ones who are inhabiting their own alternative realities. And these are strange times we live in, when the headwinds of change have to blow so strongly, and overcome so much resistance, just to promote policies that aren’t cruel. The bottom line is that we all have the right to live, to love each other, and to vote.  Why is that so controversial?