by Robert Wilkinson
Today we look at a recurring question in our world. Many wonder whether we've already entered the new Age of Aquarius, or whether we're still transitioning out of the Age of Pisces and the new Age is yet to come. My computations indicate we're definitely on the cusp of a new era, with many signals showing we're in a period of accelerating events that will lead us directly into the Age of Aquarius.
Over the years I've explored some important issues around the "change of the age," and figured this would be a good time to review key elements of the life-and-planet altering events we're living through. I wrote this a while back, but it's as relevant today as it was then. For your renewed consideration, rewritten and re-edited for readability, here's
"The Age of Aquarius - Signs and Signals."
Today's article arises from a fragment of a comment stream where I stated "Neptune is now embedding into collective consciousness what was awakened when Uranus transited those points (in Aquarius). When Pluto eventually crosses those same points, it will awaken the seeds of the Aquarian era. It'll look much different than most 20th century thinkers suspect. Thank God for time." We have had momentous activity in Aquarius as a prelude to the next Great Age of 2100+ years, with more to come.
Any effort to thoroughly explore what will characterize "the Age of Aquarius," would easily take up the rest of our lives. That said, we can begin the study by remembering that a Great Age, being 2100+ years, yields about 72 years per degree in a Great Age.
That must be juxtaposed with our sense of time, and how fast/slow things develop, since understanding how one Great Age shifts to another requires a much larger perspective than we are accustomed to. This necessitates more patience with the larger process than what is usually demanded of us.
It is very human to want to believe "the Age of Aquarius will begin on December 12, 2012, and from then on it's all good" or some variation of that. The problem with this approach is that life usually does not proceed like a Hollywood movie, with everything occurring in definite measurable steps and a point where the hero wins the day and the evil-doers are vanquished.
The evolution of an Age is more like the movement of a glacier, with very gradual shifts that may not be noticed for many years or decades. Of course, using that metaphor is fraught with potential implications right now, given the rapid melting of glacier ice in both North and South polar regions. Things are shifting rapidly on our Earth, which we are told is a portent of larger shifts in the human condition.
Shifts in a Great Age also correspond with shifts in worldly power structures, economies, belief systems, and even larger ecological changes. The prelude to any new forms presenting themselves and being widely accepted requires periods of relative chaos and the dis-integration of old forms, since an old order is never open to a new order that can supersede it.
We also are told that humanity must have reached a state of tension, of yearning for something new, that will satisfy basic human needs not being addressed by the old systems. It is fairly easy to see that we have hit that situation globally in our world today.
My sense of things is that we are still at the very end of the old Age of Pisces, and are approximately at 1 degree of that sign, preparing to enter Aquarius after mid-century. The precession of the Equinox is why we are moving backwards through the signs from 30 degrees to 1 degree before moving into the next sign.
If we conservatively estimate that the first 5 degrees of a sign and the last 5 degrees of the preceding sign represent a transition period, then if each degree equals approximately 72 years, then we're looking at a transition period of about 720 years. Even if we shorten the transition to 2 1/2 degrees exiting and entering signs, we're still looking at about 360 years of transition.
I believe we began to move into the transition zone leading us out of the Age of Pisces about 225 years ago, around the time of Uranus' discovery, the American and French Revolutions, and the end of the "divine right" of kings, queens, and the priesthood that allowed them to believe they were better than the rest of humanity. While it might be fanciful to believe the Age of Aquarius is already upon us, unfortunately the reality is that we are still dealing with many elements of Piscean thinking and belief systems throughout our present world.
To me, since we are still dealing with divisive religions and other dualistic systems (Piscean problems) throughout the world, that just shows we have not yet left the Piscean era with its ghosts of "belief versus doubt," and the need for the mass of people to follow leaders and saviors rather than cooperate as Aquarian equals.
If my own computations are correct, we will be slipping into the Age of Aquarius sometime in the third quarter of this century. That does not mean there will not be signs up to then; in fact, everything that we confront in the near and distant future will aid the coming of the next era, and will show us the transitional forms that will be the preliminary building blocks for life in the next era. So how can we take advantage of what is, and is yet to come, so that we move into our higher possibilities both individually and collectively?
This is where "past is prologue" to the future. Uranus transited Aquarius between April 1995 and December 2003. During that span, Uranus awakened the Aquarius in us all, and each had their opportunities to individuate and find their unique talents and place in the worldly drama we call life. Any planets we have in Aquarius were revolutionized and individualized in that span, and no doubt if it happened to you, you're living a radically different life in that area than you were before 1995. It was a time of many opportunities to practice the Aquarian ideal, to ground Spirit in matter in our own unique way so we can do it more perfectly in the future.
Since Aquarius exteriorizes through Leo, its polar opposite, this period would have offered many opportunities to demonstrate a sense of purposeful creativity and genuine, spontaneous sincere engaged Love in every life approach, these being Leo qualities. During that time, we all had the Aquarian ideal awakened in some way, and collectively, it is easy to see we are in a completely unique "unknown zone" as a human race relative to the atmosphere we lived in before 1995.
In the next article in this series, I'll comment more about the Neptune and Pluto transits in Aquarius, and how we have holographically molded the collective future through our dreams during the time of Neptune in Aquarius.
© Copyright 2006, 2007, 2011 Robert Wilkinson
Loved this piece! Thanks Robert
Posted by: Sue Moon | July 18, 2011 at 02:02 PM