Astrologer Bill Attride

2020 Half-Year Review – Where are we now? (June 28, 2020) - Transcript of Radio Show

Transcript of Radio Show: 2020 Half-Year Review – Where are we now?

I thought it would be useful as we reach the middle of 2020, to look back at what we have experienced and learned about our world and ourselves. I am sure all of you will agree that this year will stand out in the timeline of history. We have witnessed a series of events and crises that shattered many old certainties into what they were, half-truths and illusions.  

Being a student of history and humanity, and guided by the Ancient Wisdom and Astrology, I choose to look at our present situation as a chapter in a very long story, a brief moment in the circuitous path humans have followed for many years. We humans have always struggled to lift our awareness, and our way of living, from darkness into the light, from fear and selfishness to love and selflessness.

For me and for those who follow the many teachings that are rooted in the Ancient Wisdom, this present time was expected to be a critical juncture, a turning for humanity and the planet. But it was not “destined” to be this way; the exact content of our challenge was not pre-determined. No, we humans are the creators/destroyers on the planet now, and we humans made choices long ago, and running up to this very day, and it is those choices and those actions that have made “what” we are faced with. As I have said before, the stars and planets did not bring about the Pandemic; if you want to know what the cause of that is, we only need to look in the mirror. And of course, that is even more true with regards to our inhumanity to our fellow humans.

But make no mistake, the timing of the crisis, and the deeper themes that are being addressed here, the planets can very much help us understand why now, and what it is for.

I feel like a very broken record sometimes, but what is true remains true. Though we often get captivated and even enthralled by the phenomena of the events in this world, if you really want to know what is going on, you need to move beyond the play of shadows and lights, you must seek for the noumena that encompasses and explains our more limited reality. So, as before I will begin with Pluto.

The End of an Age
Pluto’s journey around our Sun takes about 245 years. As Pluto travels through each sign, it signals a transformational restructuring of the energy-forms for that Sign. From 2008 to 2024, Pluto is moving through the Sign of Capricorn, which in Mundane or Worldly Astrology rules the Institutional order for any entity. What does this mean; why does it happen?

If we consider Pluto’s previous passages, 1762-1778 and 1516-1532 and even before 1269-1287, each of those periods marked the end of a “way of life” and the emergence of a new way. A new way of what? Well, we are concerned with us, with we humans, so it is all about meeting human needs. We have for many thousands of years, created institutionalized structures and roles within those structures to meet our needs for water, food, shelter, clothing, etc.

But behind all of Creation is the one driving principle of Spirit, and that principle is for all of Creation to become, to grow, to expand, to move into new forms and new realms; and if all of Creation is here to grow, it will also ceaselessly change too.

This is why and what happens when Pluto moves through Capricorn; the Institutions that were formed in the previous period of Pluto in Capricorn (which for us was 1762-1778, and the following Aquarian Period of 1778-1798) are no longer adequate to meeting the changes in the nature of the world. The very “problems” that the old hierarchy of reality-forms solved, the very ways and means by which those Institutions met human needs, those crystallized forms have become the very obstacle to meeting our needs now. The old order got us to here, but it cannot take us to there.

Not only do the means to meet our needs have to change because the conditions of the world have changed (and much of that before but certainly dramatically now, those changes in the nature of the world have been caused by us), but we are also different humans. The humans of the 1500s, became the quite different humans of the 1700s, and we here in the 2000s are a vastly different type of human than either of those. We can see elements of each still living on in us, but what we dream of, what we aspire to, what we want would be hardly understandable to someone from the 1700s and even less so to someone from the 1500s.

What happens in each period, (and we certainly are experiencing this dramatically this year), is that the institutional order becomes increasingly unable to fulfill its function to meet our needs. Increasingly from 2008 onwards, in a whole range of institutions, whether local, regional, state, national, or corporate entities, here and around the world, the very instruments we made to make possible our lives and livelihoods, that were created to meet our needs have become less and less viable to the point of becoming hopeless failures fueling mounting crises. The systems fail us; the holders of authority and power fail us; and we realize that the way we wish to live is becoming more impossible to have, or is already lost.

More and more, in all spheres of our society and cultures, people have become disappointed, confused, bitter, angry, and fearful, as the world that was no longer works. Some retreat or wish to turn back to an imagined “golden era”; some want to create a brand new world. Some will fix their aims and actions upon tearing it all down, while others seek to reform and make viable what is failing, and many others look to the making and dawning of a brand-new way.

At times of great crises, at the end of an age which we are in, you will see in stark relief the three primal forces weaving the warp and woof of the universe: The Creators, The Preservers, and the Destroyers. It has always been so; it will always be so.

In simple terms, and looking to Europe and the United States of America, we could say the political-economic-cultural order and type of human in the 1500s was the move from Feudalism to Monarchies; and the orders of institutions we created in the 1700s was the move from Monarchies to Parliamentary Democracies and a world of Nation States. That very system is what is failing now, and the solutions it was built upon to meet our needs is what is destroying the beautiful hierarchies of life-forms, bringing our world to its next great extinction event. Only this time a life-form on this planet is to blame, us. And, since we depend upon all those so-called lesser life-forms for our lives, we face the prospect of creating our own extinction as well.

Fortunately, but I say that with great irony, humility, and sadness, we have created the perfect storm in this world-wide pandemic of Covid-19. Because we are self-aware, because we know that we live in mortal bodies, nothing grabs the attention of humans more than the imminent prospect of death. Mother nature has our attention now! Once again, our institutions have seemingly failed us; and our leaders have abandoned their posts. Once again, we face not a choice but a certainty; we must change our ways, or our ways will continue to destroy us.

But the change we must make is not to find a cure for Covid-19, (though that is certainly a necessity). This pandemic is just the latest warning sign of a world out of balance, a delicate balance that we have massively disrupted and broken.

The Pandemic is a warning. Yes, and one of its signature features is that many will succumb because they cannot breathe. But if we continue to destroy the life-forms that sustain our ability to breathe, from the smallest of life-forms in the oceans to the trees in the forests, we will face a world where no one can breathe.

And the same goes for how we live sustainably in meeting our needs for water, food, shelter, clothing, well, literally everything is or should be addressed and our ways changed. Or the world we will leave for those who come after us will be more and more unlivable. That is just the plain truth; and the truth is we did this. How did we do this?

We through our intelligence and craftiness, figured out how to release the power of energy-forms that had been stored and locked away for millions of years, in coal, oil, gas and nuclear. And we unleashed it all in the blink of an eye in geological terms, so that now some 200+ years later we see what we missed. We did not think of consequences; we had intelligence, but we lacked Wisdom; we had ambition, but we lacked Humility. And now we are being humbled. The lesson we have re-learned is that we all need to become humbler and wiser; we need to be more loving towards our planet and towards one another too.

Our Blind Spot: Social Justice – Neptune and Compassion
Yes, we have divided ourselves, separated ourselves from the natural world, from our fellow life-forms on this planet; and we have equally divided ourselves from one another too. The same blind spot that is at the root of the pandemic and climate change is also the cause of our inhumanity to our fellow humans. That root cause is our failure to consider each one of us as part of every other. The truth is that all humans for one another, and truly all humans with all life-forms on this planet, we are all part of the Family of Earth. And for this consideration, we can turn to the next planet, (of the three outer planets ruling long-wave developments), the planet Neptune.  

Neptune orbits around the Sun every 164 years, spending a little over 13 years in each Sign. Astrology holds that Neptune rules the Sign of Pisces, and Neptune is in Pisces now from 2011 to 2026. I like to say that Neptune rules the Spiritual Truth of Oneness, “that there is but One Life, that there is but One Spirit”. For each of us personally and collectively it rules our Dreams, it is our most signature spiritual gift, the Gift of Imagination. However, when we are not aligned within ourselves, when we lack self-control and fundamental truth to guide us, those Neptunian energy-forms, those meanings, and messages can be misunderstood or misapplied. That is why Neptune is also said to rule our illusions, delusions, and nightmares too.

The crises in our society with regards to injustice, inequality of opportunity, inequality of education, inequality in healthcare, and the basic denial for many to have true freedom and happiness, all of these are the manifest signs of a great Spiritual Crisis here and around the world. For me, all crises ultimately can be understood as spiritual. But that means they are also the signal for an epiphany, that we are experiencing a leavening of Consciousness, we are here at the dawn of a Spiritual Awakening too.

When we look back to the most recent time of Neptune’s stay in Pisces from 1848-1862, we can discern some patterns that are strikingly familiar to our own. Both periods witnessed the growth of spiritual movements brought about by the dissolving of boundaries within various forms of social, cultural, artistic, and spiritual realms; and for many, personal experiences of the veil between worlds becoming thinner and more permeable became much more evident.

There is now as there was then, a growing awareness of the injustices of the age, and an earnest seeking for a new vision and practices to make a more perfect, equal, and just world. For what is our real purpose here anyways? Many wise ones over the course of centuries have pondered this. According to the Ancient Wisdom it simply can be said to this:

What is our Purpose
What is our purpose on Earth? It is that every human is here to become a whole or complete human. Like the entirety of Creation, we humans are ever becoming something more, reaching inwardly and outwardly to understand and fulfill our full potential. We advance over time to a greater understanding of ourselves and of our world too, for they cannot be separated or understood as separate after all. As it is said, “As above, so below”. So, whether you move deeper into the heart of yourself, or you move further outwardly to unveil the mysteries of the Universe, you will find the same Truth in both realms. Whether you follow the path of Faith, or peel back the veil of the cosmos by Reason and Science, you will come to the same understanding. All these roads lead to the same, to the One.

Spiritually, the Truth that will set you free will also make you understand that all you ever wanted or needed was to be loved, and when you awaken you will know that you always were! Because that is what you are made of, that is what you were made for. You were made from Unconditional Love; and you are here to live by Unconditional love. All the wise ones know this; all the wise ones live this way too. Follow the examples of the Teachers; they came to show us the way.

To that end, and in truth, the real promised land we are striving to reach cannot be found or made “out there”. First, it is and must be made in each of us, in each one’s heart and mind. Yet equally, because we are human, because we are made by the quality and character of our relationships with one another, we are also the means for one another to become fully conscious and living embodiments of the unconditional love that resides in each individual’s spark of the Divine. You can be self-awakened, but your Consciousness is formed by all with whom you journey. Again, there is no separation; that is the Illusion we must constantly dissolve by our love.

What we face now is what we have always faced; we are here to understand our journey and the route we have taken so far. What we must do is what is stay mindful and alert; take responsibility for what we do next. We cannot change the past; and we cannot know the future, because it is still being formed by us here and now.

The only place you can be the living spirit is in the “Eternal Now”. The three great Avatars point the way, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

By Uranus, we are here to move increasingly towards ever Freer Minds. We are to expand our understanding by freeing ourselves from unreason and fear. We form our awareness and consciousness together, as that very word Consciousness means “Knowing-Together”.

By Neptune, we are to live by Unconditional Love. We are to feel and know that whoever is before me is my relation, “That we are all related”. Therefore, without Equality and without Justice there is no true Love.

And by Pluto, we are to use our Will to stay Centered in our Sacred Space; and to know equally that we are never to violate the Sacred Space of any other. As it is said, “Thou shall not Trespass”, for whatever you do to any other, you do to yourself, and to the One.

May the Light of Truth, Love and Understanding guide our path to the dawning of this New Age.

Astrologer Bill Attride Radio Show – 2020 Half-Year Review (Sunday June 28, 2020 @ 2 pm EDT)

Astrological Musings – 2020 Half-Year Review – Where are we now? (June 28, 2020)

In my sixteenth show of 2020, I want to look at where we are now, the halfway point in our calendar year. Certainly, a lot has happened in 2020; and the meanings and messages in the heavens keep reverberating and combining, forming a complex symphony of pain and growth, of loss and love. Though these crises and challenges impact all the realms of our lives, fundamentally they should always be understood as what they are, that a great Spiritual Crisis is facing humanity at this time. The challenges of Climate Change (Pandemic) and the struggle for Social Justice (Genocide/Racism) are part of the existential challenge facing all humans on Earth. The challenges we face are very profound and yet equally so clear and simple. What we must ask ourselves is this: How will we live with one another; and how will we live with all the other lifeforms on this planet.

Life hangs in the balance now; the future for humanity and for many life-forms will be decided in the next few years. What world will we leave for those who come after us; will we be honored or cursed? That is the question.

As before, I will answer your questions during the show, whether on this topic or some other matter, including personal questions about your astrological chart. If you do wish to ask a personal question, please be ready to provide at least your birth date and birthplace, and time of your birth if you have that too.

If you wish to suggest a subject or topic for a future show, please email me as I would be happy to hear from you. My email is: [email protected].

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio: 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sunday June 28^th @ 2 pm EDT:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2020/06/28/astrologer-bill-attride-radio-show-2020-half-year-review

The phone number to call if you wish to ask a question during the live show is: (516) 531-9638.

Please join me on Sunday June 28th @ 2 pm EDT as we look at the current astrological indications and what they mean for you.

Sun Enters Cancer (June 20, 2020)

In Aries you ask, “Who am I?”; in Taurus you ask, “What am I?”; in Gemini you ask, “How do I Know?” And now in the time of Cancer, you ask yourself, “Where do I come from?”

The “four corners” of the year, and of your life, are held by the Cardinal Signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. These are the signs of beginnings, and they are especially sacred as they are the portals and pathways to your enlightenment or Initiation.

In your own chart, the four cardinal signs point the way, much like a compass, revealing through their polarities the four directions of life as you establish and secure your sense of Identity. As posited by these equinoxes and solstices, you will experience the subject/object and inner/outer ways of being through Aries to Libra as in “Who am I, who are you”; and, by Cancer to Capricorn, as in “Where did I come from, where am I going”?

Today we enter one of these four sacred portals again, today we enter the realm of Feeling, as we seek to find our way to our true center by the Way of Cancer. For there is only so much you know and can understand by your intellect; there is only so much that will be encompassed by your present knowledge, by your concepts and categories of thought. Beyond these defined, determined data points and categories of reality there lies what is always beyond; out there beyond the known, there you meet “the mystery”. Yes, out there, and equally within your very own self too, you encounter the wonders of the unknown, what is beyond “knowing”; both in here and out there, you will experience the beauty and majesty of the All.

Somewhere in your chart, there you will find this special realm that is the Sign of Cancer. This is the space you enter now, the realm of feelings, of intuitions and intimations of what is beyond your conscious knowing. We cannot, yet, fully understand what we sense within and around us; these impressions, sensibilities and messages are part of what remains beyond our thoughts and reason. We experience this ability as our “sixth sense”, where we apprehend by our intuitional sense what is beyond the finite realm of conscious understanding.

Yes, now in Cancer we will move into our feelings, through sensations that take us beyond definite borders and boundaries. We have entered into a realm where reality is felt as more encompassing, as it connects us deeply within and then outwardly with everyone and everything, from the smallest of particles to the greatest of stellar bodies of unimaginable size. In the end, when we feel the fullness of our connections with all that is, we will feel our true kinship with the entirety of Creation.

But first, before we reach upwards and outward, to the One and to the many, something we will most certainly consider in the time of Pisces, we feel the pull, and we must turn and consider the principal matter of Cancer, which is our first mystery, where do we come from? Before we can imagine or experience what is “out there”, we need to feel what is at the root of us; we need to understand what lies at the foundation and center of our journey.

Though we experience ourselves as body, mind and spirit, (and so many subdivisions within those realms), we also feel the truth, we all feel the need to have all these “parts” of us somehow yoked together, to hold all these parts as one. We are formed by a beautiful hierarchy, made of fields of energy-forms; we are somehow also held together as just a one. What is this sense of one, where does it come from, where do we come from?

It seems, at first, so clear and present to us. We come from Mother/Father, that is where we are from. But then the sense of yourself begins to grow outwardly and inwardly too. We are shaped and formed by a hierarchy of relations, both near at hand and far away in space and time as well. Yes, it starts with Mother/Father, Grandmother/Grandfather, Aunts and Uncles, Sisters and Brothers. You first feel your roots by your most intimate family members, by your family heritage, and your first circle of life-meanings.

But then your circle widens and deepens, the meanings become more nuanced yet more striking too, as you experience some of these as even more significant than some in the first circle of kinship. You see that your source of feeling whole, of being centered within yourself, is forged by ever more encompassing and affirming intimacies and shared affections with friends, colleagues and most surprisingly but wonderfully in the magical sharing with so-called total strangers too. Yes, you will throughout your journey prune or alter some of the first or “given” roots of you, as you choose to align with other meanings and sensibilities that feel more centered and truer to your journey of becoming.

But it is not merely in the here and now that you will find the true center of you, for your roots continue to grow both in space and through time. You will feel how your sense of center arches back before this life, to your ancestors, to many cultures and art forms and teachings that frame your feelings of meaning in the present today.

Truly, your work of centering, of finding yourself at your center will never end. For it is very much part of the incessant force that binds the universe together as one, as it is true for all Life and Spirit:

You are here to grow; you are here to change.

So, it equally follows, that as much as you alter yourself and your world outwardly, so will you renew, extend, and deepen the roots of you too. And, as you go deeper, you will also rise.

As you lift yourself up, as your roots go deeper, you will come to even greater intuitions as to the nature of you and your world. You will feel the connections to your fellow humans, to all creatures great and small, and you will feel the truth that all of it, the planets, stars and galaxies too, that all Life is held as one by the One. You will understand that your root is the same, that all roots come together in the One whose “Center is Everywhere, and whose Circumference is Nowhere”.

Yes, you will feel and know the truth of the Ancients, which is that we are one family, “We are all Related”. We are all ones of the One, and we are here quite simply to feel this truth and to love one another. This is what you will find at the core of you; there you will feel the truth, that what is at the center of you is the source of one and all:

Unconditional Love.

The time of Cancer is here; let us celebrate the Family of Spirit. Let us bow to our Mother/Father who is in heaven, and who is equally in our own very hearts too.

But this is a most special entrance of the Sun moving into Cancer, (June 20 at 5:44 pm EDT). That is because only a few hours later, there will be a New Moon Eclipse of the Sun (June 21 at 2:41 am EDT).

According to the Ancient Wisdom, the most important ceremonies for Initiation take place at the Spring and Fall Equinoxes, and the Summer and Winter Solstices. They each hold their own special significance, all are holy. An Initiation ceremony is timed with the New Moon, so that the Initiate is carried through the planes and spheres for the 14 days of the waxing Moon.

When the New Moon is also a Solar Eclipse, as is this one, those Initiations are said to be highly significant. The greatest Initiations of all are set at a Total Solar Eclipse, with the ceremony held directly beneath the path of Eclipse on Earth.

This is no ordinary turning of the seasons. We are in a very special time.

May the light of truth, love and understanding guide our steps.

A House Divided – Equality-Justice-Freedom (June 14, 2020) - Transcript of Radio Show

Transcript of Radio Show: A House Divided – Equality-Justice-Freedom

Planetary Cycles
There are no repetitions in the cycling of the planets, with their varied cycles and intersections with one another, they weave a never-ending, ever evolving chorus of harmonies and melodies. But there are repeated patterns that carry resonances with themes and messages that echo down the ages. We can see reflected in times past the universal themes of our spiritual journey, and by looking back and comparing to our present day, we can see how these similar times are connected and form a larger story in our spiritual journey through the stars.

One harmonic that I have noted before is the planet Neptune as it makes its once every 164 years passage through the Sign of Pisces. We are in such a Piscean time now, from 2011 to 2026. Neptune rules the Spiritual Truth of Oneness, “that there is but One Life, that there is but One Spirit”, and personally and collectively it rules our Dreams, but when misunderstood or misapplied it also rules our illusions, delusions and nightmares too. We can gain some greater understanding about our time by looking to its previous passage in Pisces which was from 1848 to 1862. You will see that the themes and energies of that prior passage has more than a passing meaningfulness for our present circumstances.

For the United States, the 1850’s was a time in which we were hurtling towards and crashed into the greatest conflict we have ever faced to date, when two very different economies, two disparate cultures, and two incompatible realities collided in our Civil War. The pain and the promise of that period, tragically, did not remove or resolve our original sin of Slavery (or even address our first sin of Genocide).

As I have repeatedly written and said for many years now, we are at the end of an age, which is equally the beginning of a New World, just as we were during the American Revolutionary War in the 1770’s. But we are also once again being confronted with the dream and the nightmare that is America now. And the same fundamental question that was raised in the 1850’s is laid before us once again between 2011 and 2026. Will we close the gap between our dreams and our reality? Will be turn from fear and hatred; will we become what we pledged and promised ourselves to be in the 1770’s, which was to be a “New Order for the Centuries”?

The Broken Promise
It was then, in our Declaration of Independence, that we stated that our founding principle for the establishment of our nation, would be these immortal words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”.

Yet, at the very beginning of our self-governance, when we agreed to help one another to pursue our Happiness (that we would be the means for one another to achieve self-fulfillment, for that is happiness), we broke our pledge to do this with a great portion of our people who would be denied these rights. And we condemned them to servitude, to being lesser men and women, to be slaves who could be owned, bought, and sold as property.

1858 and 2020 – A House Divided
As I have previously spoken and written, the region of space through which Neptune is moving in 2020 and 2021 parallels the period of 1858-59. In that earlier period, the nature and consequence of the original sin of slavery was laid before the United States by Abraham Lincoln. It was 162 years ago this month, exactly in June 1858, when Lincoln noted the fundamental division in our country, and that division very much shadows us in our present crisis, when he offered up a warning about incompatible beliefs and practices within any society or culture, in his famous paraphrasing of the Bible, in which he said:

“…a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will either become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South.”

Lincoln was making a social and political (but truly spiritual statement), with regards to the incompatibility between two vastly different conceptions of what it means to be human. Are we all equal, or are some less than equal? These totally opposite conceptions of humanity would shape and form two completely incompatible forms of society, economy, and culture. But for me, (I know or feel this to be true), Lincoln was aware and inspired by a deeper understanding about this metaphor, and that this symbol of a “house divided” is truly and fundamentally a spiritual statement regarding the human condition, and speaks to the challenge of our journey of awakening that is true for every human being.

For make no mistake, the multiple crises we are facing, in the Covid-19 pandemic and the Climate Crisis from which it comes, but equally the crises in our society with regards to injustice, inequality of opportunity, inequality of education, inequality in healthcare, and the basic denial for many to have true freedom and happiness, these are all indicative of a great Spiritual Crisis here and around the world.

What is our Purpose
What is our purpose on Earth? It is quite simply for each and every human to become a whole or complete human. We humans are a “work in progress”; and that long journey of awakening has witnessed our struggle to move from a barely self-aware consciousness to an ever more fully formed cosmic consciousness. To that end, and in truth, the real promised land we are striving to reach cannot be found or made “out there”. Instead, it is and must be made in each of us. And because we are human, because we are made by the quality and character of our relationships with one another, that we are here to lift one another up, that we do this with and through one another, we are the means for one another to become fully conscious and living embodiments of the unconditional love that resides in each individual’s spark of the Divine.

The path to get there is long and twisting, and we have fallen many times in the long march of human history. As Martin Luther King so achingly said in his I have a Dream Speech, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

As a student of history and Theosophy, I do believe that there is an incessant bending of light and truth that draws us towards the source of one and all. We cannot know when, but at some point, in any one human’s journey, an individual will seek and find the Truth; they will come to what is known in Buddhism as “The Heart Doctrine”, or in Christianity into the “Consciousness of the Christ Force”. It will happen when they hear the quiet, loving, and gentle voice which integrates and makes possible the triumph of Light over Darkness, of love over fear.

Undivided – The Awakening
Yes, it is when you listen to your own beloved, to your own luminous Higher Self, it is then that you will come into the presence of the Kingdom of Heaven that is within you, and you will know the Truth that is Love. Only then, will you see that whoever is before me is my brother or sister, my father or mother, my dearest companion and friend. And only then will you not see gender, or race, or ethnicity, or creed or any other divider from one another. Only when your house is undivided within yourself will you stop dividing you and your world into “us and them”.

Then it must certainly follow, that it is only when a significant portion of any people wake up, so that they see, feel and understand their true nature together, when they become collectively undivided and turn away from division, of making some “others” less than them, it is only when their hearts lead the way that they will make it equally so in the manner in which they live on this planet, and with all creatures great and small.

That is why any group’s struggle is a struggle for all of us. Again, from Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, he noted the evidence of our common humanity and our shared struggle for justice, as he stated, “for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”

What King and so many have known is this, that no one is free, no one can achieve self-fulfillment or true happiness unless all live together with the same and equal opportunities, period.

How to live Spiritually
But what does this mean, how do you live in the Now, how do you live Spiritually; how do you not only heal your mind and your heart but go out and live righteously too? How do we make right over 500 years of Genocide; how to we make right over 400 years of Racism?

This is not about fixing “policing”; it is not enough to shift or reallocate some resources and retrain the forces that are the very product of injustice and inequality. The change we face now goes much deeper than that. We live in a society, in a world, where the extremes of wealth and poverty, the wholly distorted relationships not just to one another but to all life on this planet have become so overwhelmingly toxic that the viability of life on this planet is in peril. Human life hangs in the balance because of what we have done to one another and to our planet; all creatures great and small are equally imperiled by our way of life.

A New Covenant
What we must do is build a new “way of being” forged upon a new covenant with Life and Spirit. Yes, the problem is poverty; yes, wealth inequality is the problem; and they are both made by one another, and they are forged and maintained by a system that is destroying the diversity and sustainability of life on this planet. The very Political-Economic and Social system that was formed to meet our needs in the 1700’s is killing us. And not only us, as life is leaving the planet at a rate that is growing exponentially. Life on Earth is becoming less diverse, less vibrant, less beautiful, less possible, and we only need to look in the mirror to see the cause.

What must we do? We must forge our new covenant of spirit with one another based upon universal Equality and Justice. We must reallocate the wealth we all produce so that every person has what we owe to one another in our human family: Equal Education, Equal Healthcare, Equal Housing, Equal Opportunity, so that every child and adult has an Equal chance to achieve Self-Fulfillment. For not one of us can be truly fulfilled, not one of us can be truly happy, if so many of our brothers and sisters live in fear and poverty.

We must immediately change the way we produce our Energy, change the ways in which we Source our Food, change the ways we Create our Shelter. We must change our way of living, which has been by “Destroying to Survive” and return to Loving Ways where we are “Creating to Thrive”.

The hour is late, and there is no excuse if you care about your children, and your children’s children, and for the many generations yet to come. This is about their future; this is about the world you are making for them. If you will not sacrifice now, then when? If you will not change for your own children, then who? If you will not listen to reason, will you at least listen to your heart?

The choice before us all is what it has always been.

The choice we face is between Love or Fear, between Truth or Lies.

Astrologer Bill Attride Radio Show – A House Divided (Sunday June 14, 2020 @ 2 pm EDT)

Astrological Musings – A House Divided – Equality-Justice-Freedom (June 14, 2020)

In my fifteenth show of 2020, I will again consider the Spiritual Crisis we face. The Pandemic and the struggle for Social Justice are part of the existential challenge facing the entire planet. We are here to bear witness to the end of an Age and to be the creators of a New Age. We are here to be part of a great Spiritual Awakening for humanity all around the world.

As before, I will answer your questions during the show, whether on this topic or some other matter, including personal questions about your astrological chart. If you do wish to ask a personal question, please be ready to provide at least your birth date and birthplace, and time of your birth if you have that too.

If you wish to suggest a subject or topic for a future show, please email me as I would be happy to hear from you. My email is: [email protected].

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio: 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sunday June 14^th @ 2 pm EDT:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2020/06/14/astrologer-bill-attride-radio-show-a-house-divided

The phone number to call if you wish to ask a question during the live show is: (516) 531-9638.

Please join me on Sunday June 14^th @ 2 pm EDT as we look at the current astrological indications and what they mean for you.

Where are we now – The End of an Age – The Pandemic (March 22, 2020) - Transcript of Radio Show

Transcript of Radio Show: Where are we now – The End of an Age – The Pandemic

The Pandemic
As you might imagine these last couple of weeks almost every session I have done has always begun, though I have hour long sessions, the first 20 or 30 minutes have been taken up with the events of the time, (and then I certainly give that client their one hour session too). But most people want to talk about what is going on and what the stars have to say about it, and we share our experiences and how we are trying to cope with this.

Whether it is clients in Europe who have had an earlier taste of this, and here now in the US and around the world, we are trying to make sense of what is happening here. Of course for me in terms of what I have studied, and relying upon the ancient wisdom, (being a student of history and also student of astrology for many years), I try to understand these things in big historical terms and looking at the “arc of history”, and I try to understand how that fits into the “arc of the planets and their cycling”.

I always tend to frame it that way, and I am always optimistic because we have come through very troubling times before, again and again throughout history, and Spirit and the human spirit finds a way through. It is always a time, I would say, of a quickening of spirit, that when things have great “friction” we reveal the “shining” underneath, and that behind all the incrustations we see our love and compassion and caring for one another

Heroes of Humanity
That is showing up in leaps and bounds now, right here intimately in our daily lives as well as what we watch on the stage of the world with all those heroes out there. The front line, of course, considering the conditions were going through, our health care workers and other leaders who are trying to forestall any greater calamity to us all. And we praise them like we did our 9/11 responders here in New York, who rushed in without thinking of themselves. Their example is truly the shining star of human consciousness; it is our selflessness and sacrifice for one another, which is our love for one another. And it gives me goosebumps when I watch what is going on, and what we will be going through, and hopefully we will have a lot of those shining moments here to look back upon.

The End of an Age
But of course, you want to know why; why is this happening now? And again, Astrologically, as I have been saying, and probably getting very dull now since before 2008, I have kept on this drumbeat that this is going to be a time that we will not forget. Because this is a time much like it was in the 1700s and before that in the 1500s and so on that every 240, 250 years or so, one of those great planets, the planet Pluto the planet that rules Transformation, Death and Rebirth, (I say it rules the will). But it is the power of Creation, of death and rebirth and renewal. When it is moving through certain signs, it is affecting the qualities and conditions that sign governs. It always goes through a series of steps and stages, and we can look at them all at some point historically. But for our purposes, just to focus on today, I have said that in the 1500s was a time where a “world” came undone, in terms of how it was structured economically and politically and culturally and spiritually. It set in motion a new kind of culture and economy and way of life for the next 250 years. And that came undone in the next episode of Pluto through Capricorn which was 1760 to 1770s.

The Answer or Solution becomes the problem
In each of these periods, what had been the dominant way of meeting human needs, because that is what we are talking about, (we are humans, we take care of one another), whether within families or in communities, and then in larger social organizations on up to state and transnational organizations, it is all about meeting human needs. We create these systems to meet our needs within families and then expanding outward, and the systems we put in place, the patterns that we create will work for a time, perhaps for a very long time, but they are not forever. And they need to change because of their own internal dynamic of no longer meeting the nature of what humans need at that time, but also externally, because of external events and changes in climate and other things, that make it no longer tenable to meet our needs that way.

That is what happened in the 1500s, it happened again the 1700s. What happens is the very solution that is formulated and put forth and becomes dominant in a period, that solution creates its own contradictions and limitations. We see these amazing challenges and problems in the 1700s, that set in motion certain dynamics in terms of releasing great wealth and power, and accumulation and growth in societies on the one hand, but also had inherent side effects that were going to be catching up to us at some point. And, here they are, as the very things that we used to solve our problems, (of having enough food and having enough power and having and accumulating more wealth and well-being in the world), is now choking and destroying the world, causing all these dislocations in the natural world and our human made world.

That is the result of things we know, in terms of many scientists for years talking about this, and that as we broke down the natural systems, and they came under greater stress, there would be repercussions. And as we moved into all spaces on the Earth, and came into contact with spaces that we normally would not, with pathogens and lifeforms, and these became introduced into our world, and we would have no defenses against them.

When did this begin?
You could say this goes back 10 to 15,000 years ago, when humans decided (and it maybe longer than that, depending upon how you look at history), when humans became no longer hunter-gatherers, and began to settle down into communities, as agriculturalist and pastoralists, and we began to live with our animals. At that very moment, we began to have more of this interfacing with life-forms that we had no defenses against, and we had to accumulate those defenses.

But of course, that sped up over time, to the point where now it is racing across the globe in a matter of hours, because of how we have connected to one another through these amazing technologies. But the downside is yes, there is this greater connectivity for all things traveling along those pathways including things that are dangerous to us.

And so many people are saying, well why did we let this happen? There were many voices speaking to this, saying it is going to happen again, and to the extent that we have rigorous public health structures, and people looking out for these things, we could catch it in time.

Of course, in many places and cultures they have some of those systems in place, and they may be faring a little better than other places. And, in other systems, they took their “eye off the ball”, and they did not put the funds and resources there, they did not catch it early enough, and now they are trying to play “catch up”. Unfortunately, America and other countries are in that role, of having not been as resilient in terms of some resources that we would like to draw upon at this time.

Why does this happen?
So, people ask, why does this happen? The planets do not cause this. They are what they are, in their regular patterning with each other, and they set in motion periods where there is a beginning of something; and then it comes to a pivot point; then it comes to a climax; and around again until it begins a new cycle. What happens within that cycle, any cycle, whether it is looking at things in the monthly cycle of the Sun and Moon or other kinds of weekly cycles every 7 days, every 14 days, something begins and goes through various stages. Just like in disease, a doctor will note the onset of a disease and then you reach a critical moment at 3 1/2 days, and then another inflection at 7 days. There are these constants in terms of numbers and Fibonacci sequences, that seem to time the unfoldment of natural and beyond natural processes, that seem to shape the timing of things.

But what happens in any one of those times, depending upon what organism we are talking about, is dependent upon that organism, especially when we are talking about humans, since we have much greater powers to change our world and ourselves.

We are the Cause
What is happening here, the content of what we are facing, that is on us. It is not caused by Pluto in Capricorn; it is not caused by Saturn going from Capricorn to Aquarius, which it did last night. And we are thankful for that, because it brings a new kind of test here into the world for us all, one that is quite striking in terms of what we are going through, and I will definitely mention that.

But in terms of what we are facing, there is no determination coming from the planets. They just say when and what the nature of it might be. That this is a time when the institutions fall apart. And what will be revealed to us is how lacking they are in their capacity to handle certain problems, that in some sense they helped to create these problems, that the way we did things help to create these problems.

And we will see individuals, some rising to the occasion and being the heroes of the moment, people who are authorities in various positions, that are carrying out their duties as best they can, given the times they are in. And others we will see, like the institutions themselves, are failing and flailing, because they do not have the character, they do not have the integrity, they do not have the virtue, they do not have the wisdom, and they do not act with truth. That is revealed at a time like this, everything is exposed.

Most of us, as we have been told, will get through this fine. There will be inconveniences, certainly, and devastating economic consequences, but life will go on. There are those we should be rushing to help who are more vulnerable, and those who are in the front lines who need our support because they are putting their life on the line every single moment.

It need not have been this difficult; there is no necessity to how difficult it is now. That is through a series of choices or willful ignorance or what have you, by those who might have taken steps. We never lay this on the planets and say they are the cause of something. They are a way of looking for the meaningfulness of something. And yes, in individual charts we can say this is a time for having stress in your life, and then you need to be able to cope with that.

Certainly, Pluto going through Capricorn is a stressful period in history for all places. But obviously, different places and peoples and cultures will respond differently given their level of development and integrity in handling those crises. And that is what we are seeing play out across the planet right now in this quite literally global pandemic.

Saturn - Test of Responsibility, becomes the Test of Community
So what we can do right now is understand that the test we've been undergoing for the last 2 1/2 years, with Saturn also being in Capricorn was a test of responsibility, where we would see how well our systems were holding and people within those systems understood the exercise of their power and carried it out correctly or did not; or failed to do so, dropped the ball, stumbled and caused greater harm. But just last night and now this morning, and for the next couple of years, the planet Saturn is in Aquarius. The next test for all of us, within this larger test of Pluto going through Capricorn, (which continues till 2024), is that Saturn in Aquarius says we have got to think about and face our understanding of our Social Consciousness and Conscience.

It is really about community, and that we realize that our true nature is not individual but that we are made of one another. And we need one another to develop intelligence, to develop our knowing, develop our feelings and have these connections within ourselves that are formed by all these connections we form out and around ourselves. I like to say, “we are more of a we than an I” and most of our thoughts and feelings and understanding has been formed by all these interactions we have had with people throughout our lives, and through many lives.

What is “the Good”, what is Happiness?
We must work at maintaining and preserving and extending our communities, because it is all about this: How do we achieve the greatest level of self-fulfillment, for one and for all? What is happiness? Happiness is reaching one’s highest level of self-realization, which has to be something we all strive for, to bring everybody up to that greater level of self-realization, because then we will succeed as a culture and a people and a planet.

If we fail to create conditions that allow for this greater self-realization and therefore of happiness, we will go into a darker period. So, right now, as we are being asked to physically separate, we have to ever more pull together, call one another, speak to one another, wave to one another from a respectful distance and hold together and help one another through this time.

Our social connections are being tested, and I am sure that they will be found to be strong and true. This will revive a human spirit in terms of fellowship and community and love of my neighbor. And love of all others in communities around the world, community to community banding together to solve our problems.

The Old Order, The New World
It is in the dark time, by Pluto going to Capricorn when the world falls apart, that a New World is also equally emerging, and that will become ever more evident as we move into 2024 and 25 and 26. It is not going to be easy to build a New World, because we know there are significant problems that we are confronting, not the least of which is the challenge of diseases springing out of nowhere like this, seemingly, but it is not from nowhere. Or watching the ecological destruction of this planet and the sustainability of life itself in peril.

We are, as we like to think, a higher lifeform, having self-awareness and self-consciousness. But we have been acting very stupidly for a long time in terms of thinking we could get away with destroying lower life-forms and our own life-form be unaffected by that.

Life depends on Life
All life depends on life; and the higher lifeforms even more so depend on all lower lifeforms, from the most microscopic to larger macroscopic realms. We are right now removing life from this planet, at an increasing rate. If we do not turn that around, (not that these other ecological systems and other beings have inherent value themselves, vast value) our potential and our value, and our realization will very much diminish as a result.

So, the hour is late, and I see these blows we are receiving in ecological disasters and fires and storms and now waves of pandemics, as signs of the planet is saying: “Stop! Change your way, wake up to the need for considering all life is sacred”, protecting all of life, and protecting your own life through that.

First, we need to reach out to one another and then to all other life forms, to continue upon this wonderful “lifeboat of life” that we call our Earth. But right now the hour is late, and right now we are facing this crisis that we have to get through, and we are being asked to make extraordinary changes and sacrifices, which we will make for one another and for the future. But certainly, it is not a necessity at all that this had to happen. Something would have to breakdown, and things are breaking down and certainly around the world in various ways, but that is also because it was time. But it is equally time to start building better systems, a better way of meeting our needs and meeting the needs for one another that are sustainable and can be passed down to future generations as they improve upon that in many, many years and decades and even centuries to come.

But this is our moment, this is our moment when we see the end of an age. And rather than striking fear into our hearts we should realize: We are grateful for where it brought us, this civilization and culture; but we see its inherent contradictions and limitations and how it is itself a very impediment to future human evolution and fulfillment.

Spiritual Awakening/Spiritual Praxis
Therefore, we must change, we must be these instruments of change, now. There is no time to delay. And maybe this is one of those shocks or wake up calls that makes us see that. That the epidemic, this pandemic COVID-19, is a blessing, because it makes people realize they cannot just get by, they cannot pretend that everything is okay, that this is merely a passing challenge.

There is a spiritual awakening that will take place in many souls and in many hearts, and we are all experiencing it on different levels I am sure. I am certainly hearing that from many people. We all wish it did not have to happen this way, and I do not think it had to happen this way, but it is where we are and it is where we are going to be for some time, to get ourselves out of this self-created mess that we are in.

The Way is Truth
We will do better, we will be fine, but we need to remember how to find our way. And that is why I always return to ancient teachings, to ancient philosophy, to metaphysical principles to hold us true to the fundamental teachings, which are:

Life is sacred and whatever and whomever I encounter is an aspect of the divine, and to treat it as anything less than that is to harm myself.

Love is the is the energy that holds this whole universe together.

In thinking you will find that truth is Wisdom.

In feeling you will find that truth is Beauty.

In living you will find that truth is Virtue.

And in action you will find that truth is Moderation.

Self-Mastery
Many different philosophies understand this and have spoken to this. The stoic philosophers are amazing, and they affirm that we can only control ourselves. And so, self-mastery is the key, which comes from self-knowledge and knowledge of the world around oneself.

So, we need to do our own part in mastering ourselves and conducting ourselves with integrity, and in searching for truth. By finding truth we will establish greater equilibrium and normalcy in ourselves and in our conduct. No one possesses truth, but you can become possessed by it, and know what is right and what is wrong, without thinking about it; it requires no thought whatsoever, it is an intuitive feeling and this is what should guide us.

When will this end?
Probably people want me to say when is this going to end, and there are experts in epidemiology and pandemics that know far better than me, (and we are all reading about these things now), what the timeline is here. But I would stress, and as they stress, the timeline is not fixed; it is determined by how we each act and follow what we find are the reasonable and right authorities who have more understanding, the scientists and those political and other leaders who are staying on the straight and narrow path, and follow their advice and do what we are asked to do and answer the call if we have to, and that will that will determine how long this takes.

But there is no astrological determination that says this or that will happen. Because obviously what is happening here on the planet for everyone is a response and result by each individual and community and nation in its own fashion.

So, each of us must do our utmost and best, if we want to get through this more easily and no longer be under this fearful energy-form that seems to be holding people in place right now. Instead, we should remove the fear by acting in loving manners, in loving ways and loving actions towards one another, that is the greatest thing any of us can do right now, at any point in time, but especially a time when it seems as if we want to retreat and withdraw from one another. We need to stay distant, but we need to be even more connected is the message.

Uranus and Neptune, Freedom and Sacrifice (May 31, 2020) - Transcript of Radio Show

Transcript of Radio Show – Uranus and Neptune, Freedom and Sacrifice

In Mundane or Worldly Astrology, we focus first upon the three outer planets as the Avatars or Instruments that provide illumination and guidance as to what is driving the story of human development. The content of each society, and the individual strengths and weaknesses that drive their story, are created by the choices made in the past and present by the people of that society. But the underlying rhythms and themes, the spiritual nature of the opportunities and challenges, the spiritual meanings in each period or epoch can be framed by the understanding of these interlacing orbits of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

I have been writing and speaking and focusing upon the influence of Pluto for some time. But today I want to look at these other two, Uranus and Neptune, and look at their cycle of relationship by reviewing previous periods in history and comparing those to our time.

Uranus and Neptune
The Orbit of Uranus is roughly 84 years, and Neptune 164. Their cycle with one another, that is from one Conjunction of Uranus with Neptune to the next is about 170 years. As in any planetary pair, we not only consider the Conjunction as being significant, but we also look at the series of aspects from Conjunction to the next Conjunction, their cycling through how far along or apart they are from one another, much like the Sun/Moon cycle, as they go from a “New Moon” to an opposition or “Full Moon” and then back again to their next conjunction.

The conjunction, like a New Moon, is a time of “Seeding”, and releases a new quality or theme in Uranus and Neptune’s relationship to one another, which unfold and manifest over the next 170 years. That theme, as in all planetary pairs, will be structured and informed by the meanings of these two planets. I like to say, that Uranus and Neptune’s relationship illustrates one of the great spiritual truths and challenges we have faced throughout the centuries: How does any society, culture, economy, and political system structure the integral balance of Individuality (Uranus) and Communality (Neptune)?

History of Uranus/Neptune Conjunctions
Their last conjunction was 1993 and it released the seed for the next iteration of this integral balance. Historically, their conjunctions can be seen to frame the weaving and interplay that shapes societies. Those prior conjunctions were: 965, 1136, 1307, 1479, 1650, 1821 and ours in 1993. If we look to Europe, (though there are parallels to periods in Asia and Africa too), the first three could be seen as the beginning, middle and end of what we call the Middle Ages, then 1479 was the Renaissance and Reformation, and 1650 was the Enlightenment and Age of Reason, and 1821 (with the end of Bonaparte’s attempt to form an Empire of Europe), led to the 1800’s and 1900’s, to what we call the “Modern Age” of Liberal Democracy vs. Socialistic/Communistic formations of society, and that paradigm of order ended between 1989 to 1993.

The 1993 Conjunction
What our period is truly about, no one can say for certain, because we were still very much in the beginning or initial phase of the dream-seed that is emerging. But it is now, in 2016 through 2020, and maybe just a little beyond, that we are encountering the first major aspect in the Uranus/Neptune cycle, which is the SemiSquare or 45-degree aspect. Much like when a seed sprouts, there is no knowing what it can mean as it grows beneath the soil; but it is at this moment of the SemiSquare, when the sprout emerges above the ground, it is then, (or for us now) that we face our encounter with what it is or may be. However, just as much as we can get a glimpse of the future, we will also face our past.

This stage of the cycle is likened to a quickening or a spurring to development of the new impulse released by the seed; but it is equally the challenge thrown down by the past which often will resist this new form of being. It is, and we are in it now, a struggle between the future and the past. The movement towards the New meets the resistance of the Past. It is quite understandable, as some of this resistance will come from our inherent, natural uncertainty and hesitation, the caution anyone of us might feel when starting something new. But some of the resistance will be rooted in deeper fears, by the attachment to and fear of the loss of present advantages or privileges which the new way threatens.

The promise of a New World is taken up by some or by the many at the time of the seeding, in our case from 1993 to now; but the fear of loss held by the old reality and its beneficiaries is encountered most clearly at this turning now.

We need to remember, the New is but a dream, it comes from the Spirit within, it is subjective. Now those dreamers meet with the physical reality, with the objective reality of the world as it is; that means in many parts and places, the dreamers encounter those who not wish to change, they do not want to lose what they have, and there are also many who wish to retake what they feel they have already lost.

What is the message of Uranus and Neptune for us now? It is what it has always been:

Message of Uranus/Neptune
Uranus rules “Individuality”; and it is the Avatar of the Higher or Freer Mind that forms one of the three aspects of Spirit. Neptune rules “Communality”; Neptune is the Avatar of the Energy-Form that holds the whole of Creation as One. The truth of Spirit is found by these two being held together, where the essence of the Individual is celebrated and made realizable by the support and the meaningfulness of being part of or one with the many. We are here to be an Individual; we are made of one another too. “I am that; I am”; but also, “I bow to the Divine within you too”.

The integral relationship between Uranus and Neptune illustrates the paradoxical truth behind the mystery of the Universe’s constitution. Everything, every speck and mote of Creation, every particle, every atom and molecule, and every “Being” in this Universe is an individual; each one is a unique instance or manifestation of spirit, formed and informed by what I call its own Quintessence, its essential identity or essence.

Yet, at the very same time, all of these “ones” are part of the One, and so they are fundamentally, essentially, and equally indivisible from one another. They are all part of the One Life, and the One Love that binds and holds all together. But how much of the Individuality manifests, and how much of the Communality shines through, that balance or imbalance between them, as we look at all the kingdoms of life, in the various life-forms and species of animate life, throughout the ages, we will see that there is an ever-shifting balance between these two principles, between the One and the many.

Individual vs. Community
For us humans, this tension between the Individual and their Community has waxed and waned within any culture or civilization as well as between them. For example, when we look at human forms of lifestyle or life ways, like the Hunter/Gatherer, of the Farmer/Craftsperson or in our society for example of Rural/Urban, we will see differing mixtures and balances of the relationship between how much freedom an individual has, and how much limitation of freedom they will experience as they sacrifice for and to their community.

The Whole or Community is essential for all human beings, for their shared sense of belonging to something larger and more encompassing, and so we yield some of our individual freedoms to the very source of our nature, because that very community provides the context of meanings, values and beliefs which form each individual in that community. You cannot have one without the other.

At various points in history, within any culture as well as between different cultures, there has been this reciprocal balance between the degree to which people are freer to express themselves as more individual, to differentiate themselves from their various groups, and times when the larger social order, (of family, community, ethnicity, and state) are able to more closely or narrowly define and often circumscribe that individual freedom.

It is how this balance is achieved and maintained, the extent to which there is a mutual benefit from one to the other, or times like our own which seems out of balance, that determine the degree to which balance of Individual Freedom and Communal Harmony does or does not prevail.

Our Time
Remember, the time we are in is critical; it is when the emerging new theme released at the conjunction (or New Moon) in 1993 is encountering the countervailing forces of the past. It is very much a struggle between a new way of being confronting the fearful pulls and pushes of the old order trying to maintain or restore itself. This struggle between more individual freedom and more community or communal conformity will play out during the entire 170-year cycle again and again. But the greatest promise and the greatest threat is felt at these critical moments of choice. We are at such a time right now.

Whatever paradigm of order had prevailed from 1821 to the late 1980s, those major divisions gave way with a claim by some that “History is over”, with the so-called triumph of Liberal Democracy and the defeat of Communism. We must certainly see now, as we encounter the first turning from the seed that was planted in 1993, that we face the plain and undeniable truth that we are not done with history, nor she with us.

We are experiencing a worldwide upheaval, between the reemergence of Authoritarianism (not that it ever really went away), and the struggle of Liberal Democracies, which in many ways is just a continuation or a new formulation of the old battles, between and within, “the haves and the have nots”, between old and new elites, as the hope for the future for the vast majority of humanity seems to slip further away as they just try to survive.

The Present Crisis
In the North and the South, in the East and in the West, all lands and peoples are marked now by the Social Pandemic of the pathogens of extreme social schisms, of anarchic individualism and suffocating communalism, and these are signs that we are at this critical turning in the Cycle of Uranus and Neptune. The old model of balancing Individuality/Communality has broken down, and the yet to emerge Paradigm has not been clearly stated nor acted upon.

This world-wide confusion has produced a crisis of order and meaningfulness for the many who yearn for a life and world that is “Fair and Free”. Without a significant majority of people who hold to and act through an accepted integration of these two energy-forms, we are living through a period that is like an “in-between world”, where extremists are driving and dividing us further from one another.

When either of these energy-forms becomes imbalanced with the other, we either move towards extreme forms of independence, (and break our bonds of fellowship), or we bind ourselves into individuality-denying forms of communalism, (which can or will lead to the breakdown in the integrity of each member of the group). There is a need for Life, for Spirit to find itself by being One and True, but it also can only do this by being part of something greater, of belonging and being formed by something larger too. As I like to say, “We all want to be One of a Kind; but we also can only find our Meanings and Values by being part of some Kind”.

We are all individuals who are nested within greater and greater “wholes” or communities, from the family unit, to the immediate community, to the region, and state and nation, and ultimately the planet itself as our largest space of community. But the meanings and balance of the Individual and Community are in great peril at this time.

The cycle that began in 1993 has now reached a critical moment. It should be apparent and clear to many if not most people, that we are witnessing throughout the world this higher tension between Freedom and Communal life-ways, and it is ripping cultures, ethnicities, communities and even families into ever more fragmented relationships and groupings.

Freedom vs. Love
On the one hand, you could say that the Centripetal force of Freedom has become severely unbalanced in its integral relationship with the Centrifugal force of Love. The egoistic, narcissistic, and divisive energies appear ascendant; Love, sacrifice and communalism are in retreat. As they become unhinged or out of balance with one another, each seemingly devolves into a twisted or warped version of its higher nature.

Yet, it is equally true, that in such a time, as Freedom becomes ripped from shared affections, becoming selfish and nihilistic; then equally in response, the principle of Love becomes bounded by the fear of the unfamiliar, affections are narrowed and retreat inwardly, to the poisoned wells of tribal attachments and groupings based on Race, Ethnicity, Creed and Class. The true communal foundations of our common ancestry, that we all can trace our physical and spiritual roots to the same cause, this essential root of us all seems to devolve, and the Center that is the force that binds the entire universe, true spiritual Love, that love is lost as societies break apart into dissociations, made of fear-filled groupings, tribes formed upon fear, who look upon the “the other” as the carrier of darkness, blame and fear.

Yes, it seems all too clear today, that what we have experienced in the darkest parts of our history is crashing into us once again; fear and hatred are darkening our minds, hearts, and lives. If we were only to go by the news of this past week, we could conclude that the catabolic forces of fear and hatred are outpacing the one abiding, true and supreme force in this universe, which is Love.

Original Sin
But we cannot, nor should we ever retreat or succumb to fear. Why? Because, we can also find comfort and reassurance that we have faced such times before, and we did take steps to try and right the wrongs of the past, that we did face and accept both the beauty and the horror of how our story began.

Though our story claims we discovered a “virgin land”, this land was filled with the beauty of vibrant cultures and peoples, and they were exterminated. We were founded upon Genocide.

Though our founders wrote those immortal words, “…that all men are created equal”, more than half of them held fellow humans as property. We were founded upon Racism.

This country is being called to account, to answer the call of Spirit, where all creatures, great and small, where all of life on this planet is loved and held sacred; and we should treat any fellow human as who they are, a being who is equal to myself, a luminous spark of the divine.

We cannot escape our history, but we need to heal our broken minds and hearts. We need to re-build the stories we tell one another, of what our lives are for, why we are here, and what we hope to leave to those who come after. We are only here for such a very short time, and many lives are being lost or shortened because of the sins of the past which cast a dark shadow upon on our hearts and minds.

We can take inspiration from our heroes who rose to their challenge and look around to our present-day heroes risking their lives to save others. There is much to give us hope, but there is need on the part of each one of us to re-establish trust in one another; we need to build our greater faith on kindliness and loving deeds.

We can look for inspiration and guidance from one another, in the smaller and greater acts of individuals and their communities, who are putting aside their differences and weaving together a new compact, a fairer and more just society. We each have a vital stake in this, we each have many opportunities to help ourselves and one another. We should remember the spiritual truth that is held in our pledge to one another, and we should honor and remember our spiritual compact, which is inscribed upon the Great Seal of our national motto:

E Pluribus Unum—Out of Many One

The truth is in the stars; the truth is your heart.

You know what to do,

Love one another…

As we are watching the news and events of this time, and our hearts are deeply saddened by the suffering, we are equally inspired by the those who shine, who save and rescue and heal those who are in dire need, it is indeed so clear what is going on right now. We are being asked to choose where we stand in the halls and history of spirit.

Will we stand for love, will we stand for one another, will we reach across the divides that are there but need not be there?

We can and must when we understand that who I have before me is myself.