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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Weekly Astrology Metaphorcast 9/21-27, 2020

Sealed with a kiss, it is time to say goodbye to the summer.  Tuesday marks the first day of fall. The Sun goes into Libra the lover, with all the mystery of the other.  The equinox brings the phenomenon of equal day and night- will you try to stand an egg?  9:30 am is the official time for here in the  Eastern part of the US, if you care to give it a go.  Only during the equinox is the Earth’s axis not tilting toward or away from the Sun.  It is very bizarre to think of this only coming down to two moments of each passing year.  Egg or not it’s worth a pause of receptivity.  What will you notice during this rare World event?  Every other moment we stand upon a tilted Earth.  In her style of leaning, she blesses us with the Seasons!  In her spirit of duality she is leaning.  Instead of perfection there is a striving.

Fall has begun!  That “Second Spring” in the words of Albert Camus, “where every leaf is a flower.”  People are drawn from all over to get a literal peep.  Better get out those sweaters, and favor those flavors, of cinnamon, clove, apple and spice!  After all the primordial apple is wrapped up in the Fall- be it the fall of gravity on Newton’s dozing head, or the fall of innocence in a paradise garden.  Snow white took a fall when she bit her apple, into a deep slumber, only to be awakened by true loves kiss.  The crisp snap of an apple is the bold outline of Romantic Reality.  To acknowledge a Fall, and rise from it.  Falling down on the ground?  Well you must rise up again.  Falling asleep?  Well you must rise in the morning.  Falling in love?  Well, you must rise to cultivate that love and help it grow.  To Fall is to anticipate a rise.  Choose a course of action.  Make distinctions about what will and won’t work. This is the esoteric root of Libra’s freedom in decision-making.  Decision which means to “cut off” one route from another.  Perhaps that’s why King Arthur’s sword Excalibur was forged in Avalon, the island of apples.

Mercury the planet of perception in it’s final week of Libra- the apple of the eye used to mean the pupil; the zero-index blackness of in-drawing images.  A place where the world is translated upside-down. Cutting-edge and romantic.  Apples have always had a knack for being cutting edge, whether of the eye or the iphone.  As Cezanne declared, “give me an apple, and I will astonish Paris!”

Venus, the love Goddess, who makes pretty pentagrams in the sky, like the ones found in apples.  Wouldn’t it be she who took the first forbidden bite.  Now in Leo, the sign of the Sun, she imitates as a Morning Star. Rising like a true Romantic, who first had to acknowledge a fall.

Mars, the red hot planet in red hot aries and retrograde.  Fire.  The terror and the power.  Days of hazy skies.  The fire behind our appled eyes.  The principal of action, behind every moment of perception.   

Jupiter, the planet of heights, stationed direc in Capricorn, the sign of the world.  Serious-Saturn and Metamorphosis-Pluto also in Capricorn, its easy to feel as though the world really is upside-down.  Good thing the Fall favors Romance, which lives on heights, and chooses hope in spite of despair.  As Abraham Lincoln said, “Teach hope to all, despair to none.”

Uranus, the most leaning of all planets, in bountiful Taurus.  Leaning with awareness, and learning from the seasons of your own life.

Neptune in Pisces, the low-dose poison in the center of the apple rendering its beauty all the more sublime.

The Moon

The Moon will be in Scorpio for half of Monday the last day of Summer, sprinkling some last bit of secrets into the wide open air.  Look for mist and nature winking back at you.

By 3:30 and through most of Wednesday she will be waxing crescent in Sagittarius- the high flying horse.  Fond of apples, the Horsey Moon welcomes in the Autumn Equinox on Tuesday and the air contains the potential for major lift off.  Lift off of spirits that is, if the right perspective is gleaned.  Fall, with all of it’s associations with melancholy challenge our powers of optimism.  As Emerson said “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

By 7pm Wednesday and a new Season in full swing, the Moon waxes into it’s first quarter in Capricorn through Friday.  Learn to love those bold outlines of your life.  Those boundaries that allow you to create more freedom.  The crisp snap of apple otherness– that keeps you from sinking into too much subjective seawater! 

The weekend hosts a waxing gibbous Aquarius Moon, always potent for breakthrough as it is the sign of the times.  Strong winds are likely- crescendoing the song of the trees.  Changing in color, escalating in song, what can trees tell us that we’ve known all along, about our true nature, as artist and seer, evolving this way to be ever more freer.

As always, happy astro pondering!

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