New Ages as Months of the Great Year

What Is the Age of Aquarius? (Updated)

With this yearÕs winter solstice (2020) featuring a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in the 1st degree of Aquarius, many are again asking, is this really it, the Ôdawning of the Age of AquariusÕ? Or is it possible ÔAquariusÕ, for some of us, is only one of those vague astrological fads that pretends to tell you whether this is a favorable day for business or romance? I grew up to the 5th Dimension singing the ÔAge of AquariusÕ (Ôharmony and understanding - - sympathy and human loveÕ). Have I simply assumed the whole world ought to know the tune?

Speaking in terms of Astronomy, Aquarius is one of 12 'Ages of the Zodiac' or 'Months of the Great Year'. 'Great Year' refers to the fact that the Earth, which spins on its axis like a top, also wobbles like a top, but the 'wobble' is very long-term - a 26,000 year period. The Great Year has seasons, and can be measured as follows: when on a solar year equinox or solstice (the 21st or 22nd of June, September, December or March) a line can be drawn through the center of the Earth and the center of the Sun and arrive directly at (or very nearly so) the Center of the Galaxy, then we have begun a new Great Year Season - about every 6400 years. We have just passed through such a time, as we move into 'Aquarius'. The preceding Season, Taurus-Aries-Pisces, now just ending, began about 6,400 years ago.. That, in very, very brief outline, is the astronomy of the Age of Aquarius.

But what of human terms? Applied astronomy? That is, astrology? The three Ages of the previous ÔGreat SeasonÕ again are Taurus, Aries and Pisces. They represent three Ôperiods of developmentÕ for humanity. Taurus was a tribal period, a time of collective consciousness, with nothing like the sense of individuality we take for granted today. That individuating impluse was the work of the Age of Aries. During Taurus, for example, there were artists, but they did not sign their work; they did not think of it as ÔtheirsÕ, but only an expression of the surrounding world emerging through them. Another example: only toward the end of the Age of Aries did anyone think to invent horoscopes for individuals. Before that, horoscopes were caste for royalty, in the assumption that the fate of the leader was the fate of the tribe.

Just as the purpose of the Age of Aries was to separate individual from tribe, make one stand out and claim selfhood, so the Age of Pisces turned to an apparently antithetical principle, that of universality. The Taurean tribe wanted itÕs own territory; it might compete or war with another tribe, but only until it had secured its own boundaries or borders. The Aries individual wanted personal territory - wealth, recognition, dominance, reputation. The influence of the Piscean Age tempted the developed Arien individual to go farther - to seek not local, but universal connection, or in the negative sense, universal dominance. To claim that he himself was the world (Caesar) or He Himself was the Universal Spirit (Christ). The creation of the Superheroe, or Universal Individual, was the meeting or cusp of Aries and Pisces. Whether as empire, as religion, as race, or later as socio-economic system, the Pisces principle attempted to unify the world - under Rome or Christianity, Fascism or Communism, Islam or Capitalism. (The ÔDark SideÕ of Pisces is its willingness to destroy the world in order to save it.)

What then of Aquarius? Aquarius, as beginning a new season, returns us to many of the themes of Taurus. Aquarius is also tribal, or collective. However, we are now at a more evolved level of the spiral (or ought to be). Which is to say, we now must include in our consciousness the work of the two preceeding periods, Aries, which began teaching us individual consciousness, and Pisces, which teaches that we cannot be simply aware of our own community (tribe) or our own personal interest, but must also be aware of and function in terms of the world as a whole.

The 'enlightened' Aquarian individual finds selfhood in the context of a collective or 'circle' of individuals, and through that circle, in service to the world. She or he is not seeking personal salvation or attainment (Aries alone), but a place to make a unique contribution (Aries) which serves the greater good or tribe (Taurus) within a universal context (Pisces).

Take the internet as an expression of the Pisces-Aquarius cusp, or transition. It is 'World-Wide' (Pisces). But each person (Aries) has to be able to navigate through an almost infinite morass of irrelevance to find one's own circle of allies and common interests (Aquarius).

Or take the issue of race. In Taurus, the tribe, and your function within it, defined reality. In the Age of Aries, race was either an advantage, or a disadvantage, in your own struggle to gain position, and could be changed (gaining Roman citizenship, for instance) through your own effort. In the Age of Pisces, race was either a source of world domination (the ÔWhite ManÕs BurdenÕ) or something to be overcome, since all souls were equal before God, and Angels are all the same color (ÔWhite LightÕ, presumably). But in the Age of Aquarius, race becomes diversity, since all colors contribute to each other by their contrast. In other words, what we are learning is that the individual is valuable by virtue of self-uniqueness (Aries), valuable by reason of group, race, religious or tribal uniqueness (Taurus) and also valuable by reason of being universal, one with Great Mystery, Spirit, Source, God, or The Mother (Pisces). The Age of Aquarius is our dance of integration of the three-themed season which preceded it.

But, with the goal of achieving a vital pluralism and multi-culturalism, how do we survive the clashes and antagonisms, the totalitarian spasms which are the 'dark side' of the exiting Piscen Age? Militant Islam vs. global Americanism; 'humanist' religions versus the doctrine of the afterlife; rich against poor; expanding economies and populations versus declining resources; Patriarchy versus enraged Feminism; black-white; North against South, East against West, and all the other dichotomies and polarities which threaten to tear our world apart?

Recall the 'wobble' of that 'spinning top' the Earth. As Earth moves (or 'precesses',to use the technical term) through that wobble, the North-South polar axis circumscribes a great circle in the sky. The direction of North in the sky, and consequently of the 'North Star', is gradually shifting. The star we presently call the North Star doesn't move. But after a period of time, our 'north' will no longer point directly toward it. And in fact the stars which play the role of 'north star' shift over time. Why is that important? Perhaps because of something peculiar about their names. We call our present North Star Polaris. And in fact it describes the present period, beginning with Aries, as one of 'polarity', or conflict, as we attempt to resolve the Prime Polarities of Self and Other, Group and Individual, Dark and Light, Male and Female.

But earlier, during the Age of Taurus, the Pole Star was in the constellation of Draco, the Dragon. The dragon symbolizes primal forces and collective or tribal awareness. Later, after we have hopefully passed through the test of resolving Polarity, in future Ages the North Star will be in the constallation of Cygnus, the Whale - Whale being a Native American totem for integration, memory and wholeness. Then on to Cygnus the Swan, the emergence into beauty. Draco-Polaris-Whale-Swan; Dragon-Polarity-Integration-Beauty. IsnÕt it curious that we have managed to name our North Stars to describe a journey much of which we have not yet taken? Some may imagine there is some collective consciousness, some locus of understanding from which we are being guided, or guiding ourselves. Count me among them.