I Love Springtime in a Paradigm Shift

Though every moment in time is new, and every breaking day is as well, there are some times when new is even newer. Springtime is an example of extra newness. So is the beginning of a new age.

On March 23, 2023, just days past the spring equinox, powerful Pluto moves into Aquarius where it will stay until it retrogrades back into Capricorn for the summer, and then back for good by the fall.  Pluto will continue traveling in Aquarius until the year 2043!

History itself can become new through the eyes of foresight. The last time Pluto traveled through Aquarius was at the end of the ‘long 18th century’ better known as the Enlightenment. Scientific discovery was yielding so much exciting truth, it filled the atmosphere with questions. Both the French and American Revolutions occurred at this time. There was an unprecedented atmosphere of ‘thinking for oneself’. For their salvation no longer was in the church, but somewhere else.

This period gave way to the Romantic era of the 19th century, which pushed back against the Scientific reductionist view. Poets such as Wordsworth and Blake insisted on the ‘aliveness’ of nature; a potency beyond the measurable world. The only way of knowing this potency was through one’s private viewpoint; thus the spirit of individualism carried its way deep into the heart of the artist, which is everyone’s birthright.

Over 200 years later, we find ourselves in a new atmosphere that demands a new kind of “thinking for ourselves”. It used to be that physical space and imaginal dream space were the only spaces in which we could move about. Now, digital space is such a part of life that it has one questioning the nature of reality in a new way. We know we want connection, but we also know that connection is not a game of numbers. What is it that we seek? New ideas and old ideas are more accessible than ever. Less accessible are the instincts of nature that we are not only born with but born for. We were meant to perfect these natural powers of creativity and productivity and carry them to new heights and depths.

We navigate the digital space everyday amidst a sea of screaming salesmen wielding a thumbs up. The paradoxical freedom and alienation of a digital age is similar to the freedom and alienation of the Enlightenment. People were free of the church’s authority, yet alienated from a familiar and secure worldview. 

But the alienation is productive. It drives one towards a stricter grasp of what is meaningful and towards what is real. Some very interesting modern physicists argue that time is the realist thing in the universe.

Time’s arrow moves forward. Within every emerging moment is the spirited reality of newness. 

The question becomes not ‘what is life’ but rather: how do you want to live in a world that is, in essence, a continual Springtime?

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The Future of Value. Uranus Moves Direct

 The planet of future moves forward today in Taurus, the sign of value, after having been retrograde since mid August.  

Uranus has been called the Great Awakener.  These awakenings are born from a kind of shaking, a moving, a turbulence, or perhaps a strange moment of wonder that renders us back to a freshness as a beginner.

The past year has shook the entire globe up into a collective new reality.  The question is, from such a change, what is the future of value itself? 

Is there a future where wellbeing is deemed more valuable than money?  What would such a future look like?  John Lennon painted such a future, from his imagination outward.  When he said he was not the only dreamer, he understood full well the joy of the beginner.  Embracing what is fresh, and yet to be.  

Uranus is the planet of future because it is the essence of yet to be.  In Taurus we tie in an element of goodness.  Taurus is the kinds of response we prefer to hold on to, to constitute ourselves, to be secure and strong.  Be it food, thought, relations, environment, tradition, habit, what have you.  Taurus uses whatever it can to continue to constitute itself and make itself strong.

The future lives in every moment, as we are free to shake off the imposing qualities of the immediate past (as philosopher Alfred North Whitehead talks about) and create something new with a “bid for freedom”.  In this way, we step into the realm of yet to be instead of sinking into the swamp of that’s just the way it is.

As the future gains its forward stride, cultivate moments of well-being, that inform you from the inside the true meaning of value.  Lightning visions of intuition may find you in such moments, illuminating this question even more, then gone in a flash, yet hopefully rediscovered through… pondering! 

As always, happy astro pondering! 

Uranus won’t retrograde again until August 2022, and will be in Taurus until April 2026.

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