I found this article quite interesting:
What is the 21st century going to be about? If you had asked me 20 years ago, on, say, Sept. 10, 2001, I would have had a clear answer: advancing liberalism. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in China, a set of values seemed to be on the march — democracy, capitalism, egalitarianism, individual freedom.
Then over the ensuing decades, democracy’s spread was halted and then reversed. Authoritarians in China, Central and Eastern Europe and beyond wielded power. We settled into the now familiar contest between democratic liberalism and authoritarianism.
But over the last several years something interesting happened: Authoritarians found God. They used religious symbols as nationalist identity markers and rallying cries. They unified the masses behind them by whipping up perpetual culture wars. They reframed the global debate: It was no longer between democracy and dictatorship; it was between the moral decadence of Western elites and traditional values and superior spirituality of the good normal people in their own homelands.
The 21st century is turning into an era of globe-spanning holy wars at a time when the appeal of actual religion seems to be on the wane.
read more here… In the mid 20th century, which we might argue was the beginning of the shift from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, the push for liberal change was powerful and frightening to many who did not want to see that kind of change. The fall of the Berlin Wall. Increased rights for women. An attempt to expand the rights of minorities. The Age of Aquarius will be an age of Reason – the blind belief of Piscean religion will have no place there, for better or worse. (Of course that means the magic of Piscean mysticism may also fall by the wayside, but that’s a story for another time.) So why are autocratic leaders using religion to promote their agendas?
This move towards traditionalism encompasses a dislike of the “other” – the ones who do not believe, who look different, who have different cultures and values. The exact people who are the representatives of the Aquarian future. This is no less than a war between the dying Age of Pisces and the new Age of Aquarius and it is especially true in 2021 and 2022 when the two rulers of Aquarius, Saturn and Uranus, are locked in a conflict in the sky.
Those of us who are caught in between have to find new ways to regain our center. We do not have to be caught in this battle. We can, and must, build a new future based on the best of the past even as it is falling away, while keeping an open mind to the new world that is being created every moment. By focusing on uniting rather than dividing, we may be able to stem some of the tide towards disruption and instead turn the balance towards creative renewal.
Lynn, interesting analysis. Do you think astrology will become more scientific and not so intuitive?
I’m not sure I know what you mean, Ginny. Astrology is both an art and a science and for centuries astronomy and astrology were really the same thing. Astrology has always been scientific, but some practitioners like myself utilize intuition along with the astrological data to look more deeply into the underlying archetypes and meanings. Bernadette Brady talks about the Eagle and the Lark. I hope it’s not the case that the Aquarian Age begins to kill off the mysticism of astrology for the sake of a heightened focus on reason over intuition – astrology cannot be proven using the scientific method because humans are not all the same. Two people can have exactly the same chart and be completely different people. This doesn’t mean astrology doesn’t work, it just means that humans have a path to follow. They may have the same map but a very different journey.
Very interesting.
What is it they used to say? “Word”? Very good post. And stunning artwork!
It seems that in some ways I have lived a life that has been a forerunner of the changes you note, here. From the age of 13-29 I was a fundamentalist. In a cult, to be even more precise. Very, very conservative politics. Enter Saturn return, big Pluto transit, yada yada….. Left the cult (got myself kicked out, actually, for daring to think non-approved thoughts), got more education (ages 30-45), then entered the workforce. In the process, my worldview became considerably more liberal.
I have always been aware of how ideas and arguments put forth in the more liberal world might reverberate in a more conservative setting. I dreaded the thought of how those ideas might be used to thwart a more liberal agenda. I’ve also been aware of ways in which the liberal agenda at times, to me, seems to go a bit far out there, and how that would look and feel to conservatives.
Now I’ve lived long enough to see it happen, as I had dreaded. I’ve seen the whole world (it sometimes seems) move toward a worldview that I rejected at age 30. I’ve been filled with anguish that so much of the world is falling for it, just like I did. I’ve seen the liberal world react in ways that at times seem just as rabid and out of proportion as the conservative worldview. I’ve lived to see the two attitudes toward life locked in combat. Ideological and political for now…potentially more deadly than that, even.
I can only hope that the world will follow my life trajectory–a flirtation with an extremely structured and self-focused worldview, widening out into a more encompassing one. The Age of Pisces had both very positive and very negative aspects. I hope this conflictive entry into the Age of Aquarius will not stimulate the very negative aspects of Aquarian energy to manifest themselves.
This struggle has been going on for a long time, maybe since the 18th century Age of Discovery and revokution (and discovery of Uranus), ,emerging into view periodically. .New worlds, unknown cultures. And the beginning of the end of rule by monarchies and landed gentry. The merchants rose in power, and later, industrialization, technology. But there was always recognition of something being lost : the traditional culture of agricultural life and small communitirs, life on the land and home arts and craftsmanship., e.g. the Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century and the literary movement in the U.S. of the 20s and 30s. when industrialization was dominant and people left farms for work in the city.
It’s a process, a long one, of how to maintain individualism and personal interaction while moving into a global, technological, cybernetic world. I see it as the Leo/Aquarius axis. (I wonder if that’s why the generation now mature adults were born with Pluto in Leo. ). We need to produce a balance in this polarity of polarity of mind and heart. . It’s the work of the Age, perhaps.