"When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars...
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius..."
—
The Fifth Dimension
Though I
didn't vote for Barack Obama, and am too politically cynical to get
caught up in the national euphoria, I still found myself checking to
see where the moon, Jupiter and Mars will be astrologically situated
on Inauguration Day. If this really is the dawning of a new age, I
want to notice when it happens.
The sun
enters the sign of Aquarius the day before, at 5:40 p.m, and will
stay there approximately a month. This happens every year at this
time and is not politically significant, though one wonders why some
national schedulers decided to have all Inauguration days occur in
late January, under the astrological sign of "change." Serendipity?
The moon
is in the eighth house, Scorpio, as the swearing-in ceremony begins,
moving into the ninth house, Sagittarius, at 12:30 p.m. Because any
moon transition period does not bode well for successful enterprise,
we should hope that something delays the actual swearing-in until
half past twelve. Someone should ask Joe Biden to "say a few words"
around noon.
Aside
from this, the moon doesn't matter, since the song writers picked
"seventh" house only because the two-syllable word fit the rhyme
better than singing "when the moon is in the eighth (eight-eth?)
house."
Jupiter
and Mars align fairly often, and this year they will align not on
Inauguration Day, but on my birthday, Feb. 17. Close enough, though,
if you are looking for a sign, or signs, of the coming of a
Messianic leader on Jan. 20.
Within a
month of the Obama inauguration, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune
will all be in Aquarius: i.e, the powerful sun, along with the
planets of, respectively, war, luck and moonbat self-delusion, will
be hanging out together in the zodiac and working for "change."
The next
four years, at the very least, have got to be interesting.
Let me
join in the hopeful national celebration, interpreting the
astrological data in the most positive way possible.
Though
astrologers differ on the actual date of the beginning of the Age of
Aquarius (with opinions ranging from 1844 to 2600 and beyond), I
have always considered the late '60s to have started the final
drug-addled surge out of the Age of Pisces into the age of science,
communication, and personal revolution.
As an
Aquarian myself, I prefer to disregard the negative tendencies of
the sign (extremism and chaos) and focus on its positive
possibilities: A world that is more friendly, honest, inventive, and
humanitarian in a detached sort of way. I agree with "Megatrends"
author John Naisbitt, who wrote in his forward to Marilyn Ferguson's
1980 book "The Aquarian Conspiracy" that "optimism is the necessary
condition to get through life. Pessimism is no help at all."
I read
in one of those end-of-year lists that Ferguson died last April,
without ever renouncing her belief in the power of the individual to
effect change. Though her book was called the Bible of the New Age,
she didn't call herself a New Ager — its title came from the Fifth
Dimension song that promises "personal and social transformation in
our time" led by "ordinary" people.
I
discovered Ferguson during the Proposition 2½ campaign and related
especially to her chapter on "Right Power" in which she advocates
leadership from the bottom up, decentralization, and "small focused
central government" controlled by voters from the "Radical Center —
a synthesis of conservative and liberal traditions in place of Left
vs. Right and political parties." I figured that the initiative
petition process fit her new paradigm well.
Many
years of bottom-up activism later, I struggle to cling to what she
called "our 'foolish illusion' that we can effect change (which)
fosters in us the capacity to act." Her new paradigm requires voters
who are really paying attention, and media feeding a voracious
appetite for valid information.
"Hope"
for "change, whatever" is not a great reason to vote for anyone.
Still,
I'll admit that while I think Sarah Palin would have been an
excellent vice president, a McCain presidency wouldn't have brought
the change that I'm sure everyone knows is necessary, though we may
disagree about how it should look.
I like
the theme of the Inauguration: "Renewing America's Promise." I
suspect we all know that we've been squandering it, and saying that
isn't being unpatriotic, just honest.
It
really is time to set aside Left, Right, and political parties, and
wish our new president well. Let's not jump on him, the way very
partisan Republicans and Democrats jumped on Clinton and Bush, from
Day One, without giving them a chance.
So until
we have good reason to be disappointed or horrified, I think we
should all celebrate, for at least one Inauguration Day, the
possibility of:
"Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding;
No
more falsehoods or derisions, golden living dreams of visions;
Mystic crystal revelation, and the mind's true liberation...
Aquarius!"