Revolutionary Times 1.
What Astrology has to say about then and now.
Painted in 1851, Emanuel Leutze a German American painted the General’s attack on the Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey. Residing at the MET, this 12’x21’ (approximately) painting that has become a powerful symbol of the tenacity and sacrifice made during the Revolutionary War that is our American heritage and birth story.
The broad study of the heavens can be done with a grain of salt or with the curiosity similar to our ancestors. Less a predictive art and more of a meditative art to understand the present more thoroughly, approach is all and this is the approach broadly taken in this and in articles on the subject to come.
Astrology uses the astronomical book called an ephemeris a word derived from ephemerides, Latin for diary and Greek (ephemeris) for diary, and also journal. It’s shown here for a peak since it’s not a common book to see laying around. One page is one month and used like a flip book, the months and years fly by in a dizzying blur of gray made by mostly numbers. Every day the heavens change and the planets as well, all are noted here including the moon, asteroids and a few theoretical astronomical points that are meticulously charted. Each planet in a sign is considered along with the relationship of the planets to each other.
A page from the Ephemeris. In particular it is January of 2024, when Pluto enters Aquarius for the first time since the 1700’s. Glyphs in color are the signs of the zodiac and others in color are the relationships between the planets as their relationship constantly changes. (squares, triangles known as trines etc.)
The Earth itself is the unspoken or unseen vantage point to how this is all made meaningful to us as a civilization or as individuals. Information can be gleaned about a country, an event, a person or looked to for trends of a society. So, lets have a look at what is happening.
The numbers can be read as they are by some as a matter of habit or made into a chart which takes a kind of snapshot of a moment in time like a birth or natal chart does. Here you can see in the last column, the numbers go from 29 and then to 0. (There are 30 degrees in each sign and 60 minutes to each degree) This is the planet Pluto entering the sign of Aquarius for the first time in this particular journey. As mentioned, Pluto had been in that sign last in 1778 a very significant year for the United States and the world as the Revolutionary War was fully engaged. Interestingly, Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands that year.
The entry and approach by this tiny planet Pluto itself into the sign of Aquarius certainly does not specifically signal war. Pluto is a powerful transforming agent that bubbles information up from the depths of consciousness in need of fundamental change. The change itself can be turgid or more easy but Pluto generally brings a certain amount of pain as the transformation is forged. To be clear, Pluto is considered a generational planet since it takes about 20 years to travel through a sign and seems to brand each generation born in it with a kind of theme.
The significance of Pluto in Aquarius will be touched on further in subsequent articles. For now, some groundwork has been laid and one more thing needs to be made clear and that is this is not about the Age of Aquarius. The musical Hair however points to another cultural revolutionary time of 1968, but the reference to the coming of the Age of Aquarius in that famous song relates to Astrological Ages that last for roughly 2100 years. We will be entering the Age of Aquarius in about 2600 and are currently in the Picean age that began about the year 50 CE.
With some groundwork and some possible confusion cleared in advance, please subscribe for further thoughts on this time typified by unprecedented upheaval we are experiencing.