The astrological ages
To see where we are going, it helps to look at where we’ve been.
Soooo…anyone feeling some major cosmic shifts? With natural disasters, social revolutions, and a global pandemic, it seems like the energy all around the world is exploding. Institutions, collective thinking, and ways of living are being turned on their head. If you’re tapped into any astrology talk, you may be hearing whispers of the Age of Aquarius and possibly wondering just what the heck that is and how it’s connected.
It all started in 127 BC when Greek astrologer Hipparchus was like….”Wait, the stars aren’t fixed in place…the whole universe is shifting eastward.” Despite being discovered so long ago, there is still no widely accepted consensus on astrological ages. Some astrologers don’t even acknowledge their existence! How rude!
How about this: I’ll tell you everything I know and you can be the judge.
Before you can become an astrological age expert, you need to know what a Great Year is. As we know, the earth orbits the sun in what is called the earth ecliptic. At an angle to the earth ecliptic is the celestial equator, which is the path that the sun itself orbits through space. Twice a year, these orbits intersect which causes our two equinoxes: spring and winter. Each year, the spring equinox occurs against the backdrop of our 12 sidereal zodiacs constellations; Cancer, Gemini, etc. Whatever zodiac our spring equinox occurs in, tells us what age we are in.
Because of the gravitational pull of the moon orbiting the earth, the angle of the intersection between the earth ecliptic to the celestial equator shifts which means that the zodiac placement of our spring equinox changes one degree every 72 years. When you do the math, that means that each age takes about 2,150 years. A Great Year is an age in all 12 zodiacs, and a whopping 25,800 years.
Also, because of the direction of the sun orbiting the celestial equator, the astrological ages progress in reverse order of the traditional zodiac.
Wow.
So, when does – or did – the great Age of Aquarius begin? Exact dates to mark the end and beginning of ages are non-existent. Those who give importance to The Great Conjunction think that December of 2020 was the big move. At this time, Jupiter and Saturn were closer than they had ever been for 800 years, and on the 21st they appeared as one giant star. At the same time, the two planets had been meeting in air signs—Capricorn, Taurus, and Virgo – but in December of 2020 they met in Aquarius for the first time in 200 years. In an interview with L’Officiel Magazine, Astrologist Jake Register notes that Annabel Gat thinks that the Age of Aquarius began in 1996 when Uranus entered Aquarius. Register believes that “the Age of Aquarius won’t properly start until 2024 when Pluto enters Aquarius.”
Personally, why waste time pinning down exact dates? This is not like daily horoscopes, where exact minutes mean unique trines and squares. Astrologer Paul Wright correctly reminds us that “the beginning of an age cannot be defined to a single year or a decade, but blends its influences with the previous age for a period until the new age can stand in its own right.” When you realise that it can take up to 800 years for ages to transition between ages, it makes sense to focus on the big picture or lead with intuition. When looking inward, one thing is impossible to refute: we are on the cusp of Aquarius. Where on the cusp is up to interpretation, but we can feel that something is changing. Even those who may not keep an ear to the invisible underworld of the cosmos can sense it. The sensibilities of the Age of Aquarius are dawning on us slowly but surely, and the energy will only intensify throughout the next millennium.
To see where we are going, it might help us to look at where we’ve been.
What was happening 2,000 years ago at the beginning of our last age, Pisces? Oh, yea that guy Jesus was born and began the Gregorian calendar as we know it. When you take a closer look, the number of synchronicities between Pisces and the development of Christianity are astounding. The symbol for Pisces is a fish, which also happens to be a common symbol in Christianity. Even the word Christ itself is an ideogram of the word ICHTUS, which describes a fish symbol that the first Christians adopted to secretly signal their faith, which was persecuted at the time. Baptism, the introduction into Christianity that cleanses your soul with water, also began with Christianity. Pisces is a water sign.
Pisces is a sign of compassion and introspection. Lent, a time of introspection and sacrifice, falls in the Pisces sign dates. Pisces is associated with sacred sites that attract crowds and also rules the feet. During this age, pilgrimages became an important aspect of many religions, with Mohammad, the Islamic prophet, making his first trip to Mecca at the beginning of age of Pisces in the 620’s CE.
Pisces is the ruler of the 12th house of the zodiac, which rules all that is below the surface. The psyche, the subconscious, the unconscious, the separate and unseen where karmic energy bubbles and manifests from past lives. It rules what sets us free and what confines us. Our dreams and fears. During this age, prisons, mental institutions, monasteries, modern day cults, and so many other physical manifestations of this house were realised. Pisces co-rules the 12th house with the planet Neptune that is associated with spirituality and collective consciousness. The Age of Pisces was an incredibly spiritual one. Teachings reached mass levels and collective consciousness and identities blossomed in the form of distribution of texts and the printing press, and theatre and other forms of entertainment.
Unfortunately, as we stand on the cusp of an age, it’s impossible to view the cosmic implications of Aquarius with the same clarity that we see Pisces. That being said, there is some common consensus about what the next two thousand years hold, and we can investigate the sign of Aquarius for clues. Aquarius is all about innovations in the arts, technology, and new ideology. Aquarius suggests a former tension coming into focus with clarity and collective harmony. Aquarius is visionary, rebellious, capable of challenging authority but also creating new structures. Many astrologers predict a newly symbiotic relationship between humans and machines.
We are in transformation. Aquarius is on the horizon and so is all of humanity. It’s a horizon filled with the warm yellow of a rising sun. We are the dark silhouette of the old age, juxtaposed against the beautiful colour of what’s to come.
