The following is an excerpt from Aquarius Dawns by VerDarLuz.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges….Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
From 2010 to 2016, the planets Uranus and Pluto face off in a tense, dynamic square. All coinciding world events should be viewed under the umbrella of this catalytic and revolutionary merger of two archetypal behemoths–Uranus and Pluto, who will be exactly squaring an unprecedented seven times in four years. The square is an aspect of friction, tension, and dynamic change.
In a sense, the first 5 years of the 2010s, each individual and all aspects of culture and social structure are being pummeled, remolded, and transfigured by the relentless Uranus-Pluto force.
With this planetary configuration, we can think of the enduring impact of the 1960’s on the succeeding decades, for this was the last time these giant forces impacted planet earth. In a similar way, the energies, ideas, and movements of the 2010’s will ripple out far into the future, especially as this Uranus-Pluto square correlates exactly to the close of the alignment between the galactic center, the earth, and the winter solstice sun.
In 2010, Uranus began a new phase of its evolution in our collective psyche, as it moved from the last sign of the zodiac, Pisces, to the first sign Aries. Simultaneously, Uranus began its intense and powerful square to Pluto.
Uranus is the great awakener, the paradigm shifter, the revolutionary genius–a rebellious Prometheus stealing fire from the gods to liberate humanity. Pluto is Lord of the Underworld, the harbinger of cathartic and profound evolutionary shift, through relentless transformation, regeneration, death, and rebirth.
The two in the dynamic square aspect promise a totalizing effect that catalyzes a radical shapeshift in all aspects of culture, stripping us of what is no longer essential and what has outlived its usefulness. Consistent themes of Uranus-Pluto as expressed in Richard Tarnas’ thorough and fascinating research into planetary cycles, Cosmos and Psyche, include:
-Widespread radical social and political change
-Often destructive upheaval
-Massive empowerment of revolutionary and rebellious impulse
-Intensified artistic and intellectual creativity
-Extremely rapid technological advancement
-An underlying spirit of restless experiment
-Drive for innovation
-Urge for freedom resulting in a revolt against oppression
-Embrace of radical political philosophies
-Intensified collective will to bring forth a new world
-Massive demographic shifts
-Fervent, often violent intensity
-Excitement of moving rapidly toward new horizons
2011’s worldwide revolutions, including Egypt, the Middle East, and the Occupy Wall St. and global Occupy movements, all reflect the volcanic intensity and transformational potency of the Uranus-Pluto square.
It will be up to the artists, healers, and lightworkers to vibrate at a frequency so high as to magnetize others in our collective ascension to a more enlightened species.
Every thought, vision, and action is a step towards this. Every gathering, every intimate encounter, every conversation is an opportunity to answer the evolutionary call.
Uranus in Aries: Call to Freedom
Uranus steps boldly into Aries beginning April of 2011–the warrior, freedom-fighter, pioneer, and competitive reactionary–during its square to Pluto in Capricorn. Whatever slumber some of us have been in, fascinated with the distractions of our gizmos, keeping up with our online profiles, or drowning in the dramas of the Piscean seas, Uranus in Aries will now demand that we manifest those Piscean dreams in the world, as he asserts a forceful call to action and a thrust towards greater freedom.
The catalyzing fires of this transit have been demonstrated on the geophysical plane, for instance during Uranus’s first ferocious months in Aries in summer 2010. This included the summer volcano over Iceland. Worldwide, 2010‘s summer was often found to be the hottest on record. And in 2011, according to climatecentral.org, “June, July, and August saw more warm temperature records tied or broken than any other summer in the past decade: more than 26,500 record warm temperatures were set across the nation. The blazing storm of Uranus in Aries was also depicted in Summer 2011‘s nuclear disaster in Japan.
The blood, like the earth, literally boils under Uranus in Aries, which compels all of us to forge into territory never thought possible before. The risk-taker dares us to not only think, but ACT outside of the box. Keep talking about that sustainable community or retreat center you want to build, or class you want to teach or education you’re dying to know? It’s time to experiment, as Aries learns by doing. The acceleration of the 2010’s cannot be overestimated. Our ability to remain adaptable is a major test and new knowledge is streaming in. As we chase the flame of our evolution, we may find ourselves taking two steps forward and one step back, and we have to learn to accept and adjust.
With Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn, the sudden explosion of changes in our lives demands that we at last embrace the lessons of impermanence. To honor impermanence is to give each moment its gratitude. The Latin phrase Carpe Diem, or “seize the day” is the mantra of Uranus in Aries. Thus, the decade of the 2010’s will be spurned forward by entrepreneurial spirit, daring each one of us to find our original voice, carve our unique niche, spark inspiration in others, and as Joseph Campbell advised, “Follow your bliss.”
We repeatedly here the phrase, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” But, it is Gandhi’s phrase “Be the change you want to see in the world,” which then motivates us to access the avatar–the chosen one–within. To “be the change” is not a passive state of being, but an active and passionate leadership by example.
Gandhi’s salt march occurred during Uranus’ transit in Aries in 1930, when it last squared Pluto. Martin Luther King Jr. was born during this same transit, just two years before the salt march. King led his own protest march during the following connection between Uranus and Pluto throughout the decade of the 60’s.
Both King and Gandhi preached and practiced non-violent resistance, influenced by another Uranus in Aries and Uranus-Pluto figure: Henry David Thoreau, whose On Civil Disobedience stated: “That government is best which governs not at all and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
Pluto in Capricorn: Unveil to Evolve
The inexpediency and irrelevancy of governments today has ignited the civil unrest erupting all over the world as citizens recognize their governments as puppets to corporations who only desire power and only think of people as sources of money.
In essence, Pluto in Capricorn unveils the unconscious forces we have all participated in, as related to the structures of the world. These Capricornian systems include governments, corporations, banking and money, resource management. Through a process of revealing the ugly, hidden truth of these areas, Pluto destroys through decay all of that which is no longer evolutionary in the Capricorn archetype. Necessarily, this will give rise to that which is sustainable, a concept which drives Capricornian ethics.
This helps us to understand the resurgence in the 2010’s of native and indigenous traditions, ceremonies, and medicines, all of which invoke the healthiest expression of Capricorn–the wise elder. Each one of us is being challenged to become accountable for our actions, and respond with integrity and sincerity to life’s challenges, as a chief or a leader required to make tough decisions which will affect the whole.
We should ask how can we take the militant fervor we feel within and cultivate courage in the face of our personal and collective fears. As MLK Jr. stated, “Militancy means persistence, to be demanding, to be insistent…”
How do we update the revolutionary fervor of the 1960’s (last Uranus-Pluto alignment) and avoid the destructive, violent potential of previous cycles, such as the French and American Revolution?
Spiritual and artistic rebellions are at the core of inspiring mass change through example. Yoga and meditation flash mobs on state capitols, such as January 2011’s Austin, Texas flash mob, as well as the incorporation of music, live painting, and art, into a protest environment, inspire the creative pulse and the tribal bonds which unite humanity.
At the close of Galactic Alignment, humanity worldwide is now insisting on a new system altogether, inspired by visions such as the resource-based economy, as described in Zeitgeist Addendum and Zeitgeist Moving Forward. The Zeitgeist movement (zeitgeistmovie.com) is a worldwide revolution occurring with planetary activists everywhere, supporting many ideas espoused by the Venus Project, especially the implementation of an economy that moves beyond money and its capitalist, consumerist model of competition and scarcity, choosing instead equal distribution of the earth’s naturally abundant and renewable resources.
It is important for us to consider here the Hindu deity of Shiva, for Shiva is both creator and destroyer. We must allow the natural dissolving of those outdated and toxic structures, so that a cleansed womb may be sculpted out of which humanity’s fertile creative potential may erupt into its luminous existence.
For this shift is not an overnight process, but begins to transmute slowly as more of us look to our local communities for support, including neighborhood gardens and community sponsored agriculture. These, coupled with permacultural practices and the implementation of worldwide educational ecovillages, support individuals accessing their personal power and responsibility–acute expressions of the archetypes of both Aries and Capricorn.
Living environments and educational centers which support holistic experiences of growth–artistically, ecologically, and in personal healing practices–will continue to proliferate as more of us become aware of our creative potential at the close of Galactic Alignment. At the end of one age, this foundation will birth the “New Sun,” of which the Mayan prophecies speak.
In addition, the cultural innovations consistent during Uranus-Pluto cycles will accelerate and inspire us to push the limits of our imagination. We can think of the new forms of art, music, and ideas that proliferated during the psychedelic fervor of the 1960’s, during the last Uranus-Pluto conjunction. Yet now, psychedelic conferences and scientific studies on the effects of psychedelics, meditation, and other altered states of consciousness are happening worldwide, as medical marijuana continues to be integrated and accepted by cities and states across the United States.
What differentiates this Uranus-Pluto cycle from the chaotic conjunction of the 1960’s is that the square requires more solid ground, more stable roots under its experimental excitement. Thus, the wild “Electric Kool-Aid” LSD reveries of the 60’s give way to plant medicine ceremonies, often incorporating native shamans, or tools and techniques from global wisdom traditions.
The “free love” of the 60’s now invites us into deeper practices of evolutionary intimacy, such as heart-opening pujas and eyegazing of White Tantra, the yogic alchemy of Red Tantra between two beloveds. These also include cuddle parties and play parties–environments which support arousal and experimentation with many people within a community container–or commitment ceremonies such as handfastings and handpartings, which allow stable support for couples for sacred periods of time, such as from solstice to solstice, or for a year and a day.
The jam and rock music and the abstract expressionist art of the 60‘s or the dada surrealists of the 1930s Uranus-Pluto square now upgrades into the unlimited potential of the internet artist–a collage dj, able to mix video and sound from any time period, any genre, and culture, into a glorious puzzle of collective consciousness.
Thus, under Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn, the political revolutions are founded upon the revelations within the individual soul. For, the closing of the Galactic Alignment window has also included the Chiron-Neptune conjunction of 2009-2011. This merger of cosmic forces has helped to blossom the Wounded Healer archetype, who has united with the Shamanic Artist within each one of us, activating our inner mentor often through a painful experience which revealed areas of core wounding.
The unveiling of our unconscious wounds has helped to promote the personal healing journey, invoking the teacher and creative within, but only to the extent that we continue to will our trance-formations. For, like a zen master slapping our slacked posture, Chiron continuously modifies and tweaks our consciousness, demonstrating what is lacking, the skills undeveloped, the lessons not integrated, the unhealthy practices. Chiron whispers at us from within, that voice that says, “If I don’t do my yoga today, then I’m going to be unbalanced for the rest of my day,” or “I need to move this negative emotion through some breathwork or dance or a medicine ceremony.” The connection with Neptune has helped unify this movement to return to the innocence of our spiritual essence. We are constantly reminded of this potential for re-union from the healers and artists within and around us. We can gain support from our imaginations and the endless beauty and majesty of the spirit-world
Healing is an active verb, a constant process, a total commitment. We try to balance ourselves on the Middle Way path to the cessation of suffering. With our meditation, with our spiritual practice, with archetypal languages of soul, and by crafting the artistic channel, prying our third eyes open wide, this healing unfolds from ever wider circles of holistic awareness and integral wisdom. Our wounds are experienced with less suffering and perceived as a necessary teacher and instructive guide for our spiritual service to the beings of this precious earth.
For more from VerDarLuz, check out his new Evolver Editions/North Atlantic Books title Codex of the Soul: Astrology, Archetypes, and Your Sacred Blueprint, a guide book through the multifaceted nature of astrology, focusing on its practical use and spiritual nature.
