photo by Tony Howell

Dharmaruci wrote a post yesterday citing my comments about the return of the outer planets to the earth element after nearly ten years, and noting the connection to the lack of achievement and accomplishment on the world stage since then:

it is no surprise, for example, that it has been impossible to establish an international agreement on the environment and climate change. The earth element is concerned with the facts on the ground (to borrow an unfortunate Israeli expression). If earth is lacking, then these facts don’t count for very much, they don’t impact. The Kyoto protocol was agreed in 1997 – the last gasp of Neptune in Capricorn – but has since proved impossible to implement.

Incredibly, in 2003 the US went to war in Iraq without a proper plan as to what to do afterwards, and without reasons that could be backed up by facts. During the 90s, with Neptune and Uranus in Capricorn, the US had been able to restrain itself.

Since 1998, we have had 2 financial bubbles: the dotcom bubble of 2000, when stocks prices in the newly established dotcom sector went way over the top, causing a hangover for the US economy . . . ; and now there has been a credit bubble, in which banks have lent huge amounts of money in irresponsible ways and passed the buck all over the world, so no-one knows who is liable; and in which consumers have also built up large amounts of debt.

The downside of earth is that the imagination can get stifled, everything becomes defined by what seem to be fixed practical limitations and traditions. This time of no earth has also been the period in which the internet has taken off in all sorts of ways that couldn’t have been predicted, unhampered by too much legislation or financial limitations (it can still be pretty much free to get your stuff out there). So this has been a positive outcome, the imagination has had free rein. It can be seen as the result of the mutual reception between Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius, which still has a few years to run.

The return to earth brings not only stability and practicality, but a deeper connection to life on earth and the needs of the natural world which is so crucial at this time of climate change. Earth is quiet and possesses a deep wisdom that connects us as humans to the other members of the Earth community. Under the influence of earth ideology becomes less important, as do personal opinions and philosophies that have ruled the Pluto in Sagittarius era. Earth tends to slow everything down and bring a more deliberate approach to life.

The earth element is considered “feminine,” or yin, and sometimes termed in astrological texts as “negative” because of its more receptive quality. The downside of earth, as Dharma writes, is the tendency to become bogged down in detail or too attached to routine. There can be a dislike of the mystic or subtle experiences that are not based in what is commonly perceived as material reality. In most magical traditions, the element of earth is associated with gnomes and the direction North. Midnight is its time and winter its season.

We’ll be entering this earthy period while still in the visionary Uranus/Pisces Neptune/Aquarius period, so there’s not too much danger over the next few years of becoming too routinized.

Phil Brown investigates the connection between the Saturn Neptune opposition and the new “cloaking” device invented by scientists in this article he posted a few days ago:

Physics has developed a “cloaking” device composed of copper rings and wires patterned onto fiberglass sheets. This cloaking device can hide objects—and the cloaking materials themselves—by bending light so that the space appears to be virtually empty. An article in the N.Y. Times, “Light Fantastic: Flirting with Invisibility, ”notes that “…the demonstration showed the newfound ability of scientists to manipulate light through structures they call ‘metamaterials.’” An object literally becomes invisible, at least to microwaves. . . .
Times).

The Saturn-Neptune opposition has to do with, among other things, creating form or giving form to that which is formless. This cloaking device does just the opposite: it gives formlessness to a form. Either way, however, it’s Saturn (form) and Neptune (formless).

This invisibility device is also a metaphor for the larger socio-political manifestations of the Saturn-Neptune opposition. The 1971-72 Saturn-Neptune opposition coincided with the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which made visible the secret planning that went into the Vietnam War; revelation of the secret Tuskegee syphilis experiments; and the beginnings of the Nixon government’s secret Watergate activities–a real invisibility device which, fortunately for the country, malfunctioned and was later exposed through the “Watergate tapes.” These all took place very close to one of the exact oppositions of Saturn and Neptune.

read more here…

Jupiter and Neptune have also been tightly linked to the invisibility discoveries: according to the NY Times article the early Duke experiments took place last October as Jupiter (expansion) was square to Neptune (the hidden), suggesting that the project may have been overambitious, and also trine Uranus (new discoveries). Earlier experiments in March 2005 at the University of Pennsylvania occurred when Jupiter was trine to Neptune, opening the doors of the mysterious, although a square from Saturn to Jupiter did reveal some limitations in the earlier models. And going back even farther, in September 2003, with Jupiter opposite Neptune, scientists in Japan invested an “invisibility coat.”

The mutual reception of Uranus (ruler of Aquarius) now traveling through Pisces (ruled by Neptune) and Neptune (ruler of Pisces) now traveling through Aquarius (ruled by Uranus) is also stimulating new thought patterns and creativity as the Uranian desire for radical change collides with Neptune’s urge for transcendence. Robert Wilkinson reports a resulting increase in the strength of the unified field which is also affecting us on a more personal level, enhancing our intuition and our own abilities to tune in to other dimensions of awareness.

There’s no doubt that this is an exciting time to be alive, despite the trauma that occurs elsewhere on the world stage.

Image from Mima Gallery, click to enlarge.

Phil Brown and I must have been having an astral conference, because the other day while I was browsing through articles discussing the relationship between spirituality and science, Phil was writing an excellent article on the subject, quoting an article in the NY Times Magazine:

Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God — evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God, what then? Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away? Are the nonbelievers right, and is religion at its core an empty undertaking, a misdirection, a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or are the believers right, and does the fact that we have the mental capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them there?

Although I have sworn a vow to myself to refrain from making frivolous astrological connections, it does appear that the heated arguments over astrology and religion that have been circulating the net lately seem to coincide with the opposition between Saturn (realism) and Neptune (transcendentalism). Perhaps it is the ever-increasing number of astrology and other consciousness-oriented blogs (Uranus-technology in Pisces-mysticism in mutual reception with Neptune-spirituality in Aquarius-innovation) which makes these fields a growing target for skeptics.

Phil mentions the new best-seller The God Delusion by biologist Richard Dawkins, who puts religion to the test of scientific scrutiny. This book was first published in September as Saturn and Neptune were first in oppositional alignment. Under Pluto in Sagittarius (since 1995) there has been an increasing willingness to take apart the foundations of religion and the theological framework (Jupiter/Sagittarius) that form the basis of the world’s religions. Neptune/Pisces has more to do with an individual experience of the divine and connectivity to the cosmos, as opposed to Jupiter/Sagittarius which is more concerned with the theology of ideas and a shared understanding of truth.

Neptune is also associated with delusion, and it is certainly a positive step to lift the veil of illusion from our ability to see clearly the process of our experience. Perhaps this is where the opposition of Saturn to Neptune can have it’s greatest effect. With all oppositions there is a tendency to swing from one extreme (Saturn) to the other (Neptune), when ideally we find balance between the two, maintaining a reverence for the mystery of life (Neptune) while keeping our eyes open to the truth (Saturn). Deepak Chopra, a medical doctor and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, does just this in a four-part article that debates Dawkins’ claims. Some excerpts:

A materialist could conceivably analyze the brain functions of a Mozart or Beethoven down to the last synaptic firing, but that would tell us nothing about why music exists, why it is beautiful, where great symphonies come from, why inspiration uplifts the listener, or in fact any relevant thing about the meaning of music. The world in general has meaning, deep meaning at times. This cannot be dismissed as a delusion, an artifact of chemicals. The same analogy comes to mind whenever one hears that brain research will eventually explain all human thought and behavior. If a scientist could map every molecule in a radio as it was playing the Beethoven Fifth, there would be a complete diagram of the symphony at the level of matter. But the radio isn’t Beethoven. It isn’t his mind, and a diagram of Beethoven’s brain, which would also be at the level of matter, is equally futile to explain what his mind was like except in the crudest terms.
. . .
The second worldview [that the universe contains design] can be called religious, but it’s a trap to say that only a Christian God explains intelligence in the universe. There is room for a new paradigm that preserves all the achievements of science–as upheld by the first worldview–while giving the universe meaning and significance. Dawkins shows no interest in uniting these two perspectives ([Dawkins]disdains the whole notion of a religious scientist), but many of his colleagues do.
. . .
random chance is one of the worst ways to explain how the universe evolved. Here are a few reasons why:

–The various constants in nature, such as gravity and the speed of light, are too precisely fitted with each other for this to happen by chance.
–If any one of six constants had been off by less than a millionth of 1 percent, the material universe couldn’t exist.
–Events at opposite ends of the universe are paired with each other, so that a change in the spin of one electron immediately produces a twin effect in another electron. This ability to communicate instantly across millions of light years cannot be explained by materialism. It defies all notions of cause and effect. It defies chance.
–Every electron in the universe exists as a wave function that is everywhere at once. When this wave function collapses, we observe a specific isolated electron. Before the wave collapses, however, matter is non-local.

An interesting debate and one that is likely to continue for quite some time.

Neith posted this article by Raymond Merriman:

We are living in a Renaissance time, and most of us do not even know it, or cannot find the time to step back and appreciate it. Every 500 years Neptune and Pluto return to their same spatial relationship to one another. Every 171 years, Uranus and Neptune do the same. And every 126 years, Uranus and Pluto do the same. Three Uranus-Neptune cycles approximately equals one Neptune-Pluto cycle. And four Uranus-Pluto cycles equal approximately one Neptune-Pluto cycle. That means every 500 years or so, these 3 outermost planets in our solar system (well, they were until scientists re-labeled them this past year) are in approximately the same position in reference to the zodiac and one another.

In 1398-1399, Neptune and Pluto formed their conjunction at 2-4 degrees of Gemini, which was just about the time that Italian Renaissance officially began. These two planets did not come together again until 1891-1892 at 7-9 degrees of Gemini, which could be argued as the approximate period of the start of another renaissance that we are still living today.

But what is most interesting is that Neptune and Pluto moved into a long sextile (60 degree) aspect to one another from 1460 through 1540. This same relationship returned again 1950-2032. Due to Pluto’s elliptical orbit, Neptune actually comes inside of Pluto’s orbit and is closer to the Sun during some of this period. That is why this aspect remains in effect so long. In the late 15th century, as this sextile was in effect, the intellectual and artistic climate of Europe was extremely exciting. It was a time of innovative movements that completely transformed several aspects of life, from economics, to art, to religion and philosophy. The height of this was even more defined as Uranus and Neptune came into conjunction in 1478-79, and then into mutual reception with one another in the first decade of the 16th century (through 1509). The same thing is happening now, as Uranus and Neptune conjunct in 1993, and they entered into mutual reception (where each planet is in the other’s ruling sign) from 2003 through 2011 – while Neptune and Pluto remain in sextile.

We are in another Renaissance right now. In fact, I believe in time historians may look back upon the first decade of this 21st century and see that it too shared many characteristics of Renaissance Europe (and especially Italy ). The difference is that back then we didn’t know that Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto existed, which may be symbolic of the fact that we didn’t know how to handle this type of eclectic and electric excitement. Now we know of their existence, and with Neptune and Pluto in harmonious sextile, astrologers know that this is a signature of opportunity – opportunity to solve any crisis if we put our mind to it. After all, Neptune is the imaginative mind, and the quest for peace and beauty. And Pluto is to urge to reform – to get rid of that which is holding us back, and bring forth new models that are more relevant to the current and futures needs of humanity.

That’s why there is hope at the end of 2006. In the late 15th century, they didn’t know how to handle this dynamic. They weren’t even aware it existed, except perhaps on an intuitive plane. The heights that art, philosophy, and economics reached during that 100 year period, from 1390 through 1490, were incredible. But it all came toppling down at the end through excesses and indulgences on the part of the leaders of that period. That was the first time in thousands of years that Neptune and Pluto were sextile, while Uranus and Neptune were in mutual reception, for these orbital cycles are only approximately proportionate to one another. It will only happen twice.

And this is second and last time. Let’s get it right this time, and enjoy the greatness of what we have achieved as a human family occupying this beautiful planet, we call Earth.

An interesting thing to me is that this period generally corresponds with the conjunction of Pluto to the Galactic Center in 1510-1512. In the 1500s, humans were not concerned with matters of consciousness. The Church ruled and began at that time to rule with an iron fist, but the Neptunian creativity arose through music, art and literature. During this period we are experiencing an expansion of consciousness that has never been seen before on such a mass level. The Dog Whisperer is bringing the concept of “energy” into millions of homes, and every six-year old is learning how to do magic thanks to Harry Potter. Intention is the key here, and manifestation en masse for a world that we want to live in.

Thanks Neith, for this very interesting article.

Ascension, by Willow Arlenea

I don’t pretend to know anything about physics, but clearly there is an acceleration of energy on our planet and possibly beyond (see Time is Speeding Up.) The sign Aquarius and its ruler Uranus are associated with electromagnetic energy and the science of quantum physics, and currently we are under an influence called “mutual reception” where Uranus is in the sign of Pisces which is ruled by Neptune, and Neptune is in the sign of Aquarius which is ruled by Uranus. Neptune and Pisces are associated with the experience of transcendence as well as dissolution of the Self and delusion, and the combination of Uranus and Neptune tends to bring about extreme changes in consciousness, both positive and negative. Uranus deals with the electromagnetic energy of the auric field and awakens us to new understandings while Neptune softens the boundaries of material reality to expose us to a more transcendent meaning of life.

The conjunction of Uranus and Neptune in 1992-1995 witnessed a psychic opening for many people and an expansion of awareness as the “new age” movement went mainstream. The commercialization of consciousness resulted in a vast number of charlatans and so-called channelers and mediums. Science (Uranus) fiction (Neptune) blurred with reality during this period when UFO research took over the mainstream media with the X-files and the Roswell Alien Autopsy video.

I found this interesting article which claims that energy from space (a very Uranian concept) is contributing to the changes we are experiencing here on earth, particularly changes in our geological environment such as climate changes. I have no idea whether any of this makes scientific sense, but it certainly fits the Uranus/Neptune cosmology:

It is quite natural for the whole biota of the Earth to be subjected to these changing conditions of the electromagnetic field, and to the significant deep alterations of Earth’s climatic machinery. These fundamental processes of change create a demand within all of Earth’s life organisms for new forms of adaptation. The natural development of these new forms may lead to a total global revision of the range of species, and life, on Earth. New deeper qualities of life itself may come forth, bringing the new physical state of the Earth to an equilibrium with the new organismic possibilities of development, reproduction, and perfection. In this sense it is evident that we are faced with a problem of the adaptation of humanity to this new state of the Earth; new conditions on Earth whose biospheric qualities are varying, and non-uniformly distributed. Therefore the current period of transformation is transient, and the transition of life’s representatives to the future may take place only after a deep evaluation of what it will take to comply with these new Earthly biospheric conditions. Each living representative on Earth will be getting a thorough “examination,” or “quality control inspection,” to determine it’s ability to comply with these new conditions.These evolutionary challenges always require effort, or endurance, be it individual organisms, species, or communities. Therefore, it is not only the climate that is becoming new, but we as human beings are experiencing a global change in the vital processes of living organisms, or life itself; which is yet another link in the total process.

This sounds very much like what I wrote about the transition between the Piscean and Aquarian age which according to most astronomers begins in 2658 (although certainly we are in the transition period now). This means that the last Aquarian Age took place at about 28,000 BCE, marking the end of the Neanderthal and the birth of Cro Magnon Man. Perhaps we are indeed at the dawning of a new species.