March 29, 2007

• Not to insult anyone’s intelligence…

  …but do you know that the Age of Aquarius is nowhere near its end?  It has only just begun, but apparently not everyone is clued into that fact.  Recently, in the space of two days I found as many references in print to Aquarius’s being on the way out.  One of those references was in a novel by Dennis Lehane, and I’m somewhat inclined to disregard such floaters in works of fiction.  To give the author the benefit of the doubt, he might be feigning ignorance in the voice of a character.  The other one, however, saying, “…as the Age of Aquarius recedes,” was in Archaeology Magazine, and I would expect the editors and fact checkers to be more alert and knowledgeable.

  I fully understand how the misinformation originated.  Those who are uninformed about astrology and know nothing of the Precession of the Equinoxes are likely to equate the Age of Aquarius with the chaotic and Piscean-flavored hippie-led celebration of its dawning back in the late 1960s.  Being uninformed and ignorant, they cannot be expected to understand that we were celebrating the coming of an age that will last approximately two thousand years.  Indubitably, their errors stem from a general ignorance of astrology, which is probably an indication that they have bought into the dominant paradigm’s belief that it has no validity.

  In my youth, I too believed that astrology was nonsense, just an ignorant superstition.  I was a true skeptic, not easy to convince otherwise, but not adamant in my prejudice either.  Then, near the end of the three years I spent with outlaw bikers, about the time I was gardening with Little Carol, I spent a week or so in bed with the flu and Carol brought me a little paperback book to help me pass the time.  It was an early edition of Goodavage’s Write Your Own Horoscope.  I’m sure I’ve written about it here previously, but cannot at this time find that entry.

  Until I read that book, my only awareness of astrology was sun sign astrology as found in the daily horoscopes in newspapers.  After I had calculated a rough version of my detailed natal chart and saw how accurately it described my personality, I was intrigued.  After I read about the Precession of the Equinoxes and matched up the Zodiacal Ages with what I knew of history and prehistoric times, I was hooked.  It was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and in harmony with the planet I was moving out of Piscean beliefs and into Aquarian knowledge.

  From the context in which I found that reference in Archaeology Magazine, it was apparent that the writer mistook typical Piscean Age gullibility, which characterizes this transitional period, for the essence of the Age of Aquarius.  It is an understandable error.  For one thing, as soon as Aquarius became a meme in the public consciousness, it became a marketing tool for every entrepreneurial charlatan around (and charlatans have abounded throughout the Age of Pisces).  For another thing, it is typical at the transition into a new age for the outgoing paradigm to assert itself aggressively in a last-ditch effort to survive.  As current evidence of this, just look at the Religious Right.  Pisces is still dragging its feet, kicking and screaming, but it is definitely on its way out.

  There are many differing opinions as to the boundaries, in time and in space, between one astrological age and those before and after it.  Some astrologers divide the Zodiac into twelve equal portions, while others shift a boundary one way or another to accomodate a larger or smaller constellation.  Some of those who slice the celestial pie up equally also assign a round number, two thousand years, to each Age.  The ancient Chaldean astrologers would probably be enraged to see how liberally their careful observations and records have been distorted in the name of simplicity.  For astronomical reasons, the past ages were of longer duration than those which came after.   In general, each succeeding age reaches the fullest expression of its sign’s significance toward the end of the age, when it expresses that theme to wretched and ridiculous excess just before humanity begins trying to extricate itself so it can move into the new age.

  The two millennia (plus a century or so) just past have been the astrological age of the fish, the Piscean Age.  It has been characterized by the rise of the great religions, and dominated by faith.  The Zodiacal Age preceding Pisces, the Age of Aries, saw much violent conquest and the growth of the ancient empires.  Toward its end, as it moved into Pisces, the greatest empire, that of Rome, was at the height of its power.  One of the religions in the Roman Empire during that age was Mithraism.  Mithra is iconically portrayed subduing or slaying a bull.  The bull was the symbol of the Age of Taurus, which came just before Aries.

  In the earthy age of Taurus the Bull, mankind made the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to agriculture.  The settled lifestyle required for the care of crops brought about civilization.  The Bull was an important icon for the Minoan and Mycenean cultures which were at their peak in that Zodiacal Age.   Before Taurus was the earliest historical age, that of Gemini, the Twins.  It’s not when precession and the sequence of Zodiacal Ages began, but when history began.

  Gemini is an Air sign, and Air is classically related to intellect and communication.  This was the beginning of history because it was the beginning of writing.  Sculptural images that remain from the Phoenician, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Vedic cultures of that time show many winged figures and pairs of twins, even winged twins.  Aquarius is also an Air sign, and we might expect some revolutionary changes in thinking and communication during the coming two millennia.  I mean that astrologers might expect them because that is implied by the precession into that Age, and also that anyone else who pays attention to current trends might expect them as well.

  Predating the Age of Gemini was the Age of Cancer, the Neolithic Era.  Archaeology, paleontology and geology can fill in some of the details of that prehistoric period.  It was the era of the Mother Goddess, and people born with Sun in Cancer tend to be more maternal than most.  The Age of Leo is the time when the Sphinx, the man-lion, is believed to have been created, according to recent research that shows it is much older than previously thought, predating the pyramids.  Some theorists think that the Sphinx was created during the transition from the Age of Virgo into the Age of Leo.

  There are enough ambiguities and outright unknowns in this subject to stimulate endless debate.  And that’s just among those who have already decided that the idea of Zodiacal Ages has validity.

  

  • 12:15 am
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