Hudson Valley Astrologer

This morning I considered a post that looked at the correspondences between life tragedies and the outpouring of emotion on a national and world level: GLOBAL GRIEF. As horrible as these events appear to be there seems to be something else going on; an almost unimaginable re-tuning of Earth. As if the world needs open up, it’s emotional valves re-calibrated, gradually, incrementally, in order to release the collective pressures building up. We are perhaps in the process of avoiding an existential nuclear calamity with much smaller and yet still painfully morbid tragedies. And at the same time these events that are possibly in preparation for an ever greater change. A transformation that by design lifts the veils of Ignorance from our eyes. Simply put, smaller and incremental changes precede a much larger transformation ahead. And these changes have been underway for awhile. Intolerable sufferings on an individual level make change tolerable on a collective level. Each one of those individual sufferings a sacrifice: Meaningful. And the ordeal of it ALL is still difficult. Even when experienced vicariously, the collective for its part is required to pour its heart out. All tearful sincerity flows forth, a collective containment of our sorrow, held in abeyance within a sacred jug. Aquarius. A gusher of souls spill out; collective joy cannot be far behind.

I thought of the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. and his plunge into the dark tempest of the Atlantic like a golf ball sliced off course into the sink just past the Summer Solstice. The properly plaid on the Tee of high summer left amazed and bewildered at the lack of control in life. And a swing that can knock our aim utterly helplessness in the face of the winds of fate; flying without instruments in the darkness of clouds. ¹ At a loss for A Murder Most Foul: “A good day to live and a good day to die.” Unanswerable questions beginning with “why”?

“What is the truth. Where did it go? Ask Oswald and Ruby they ought to know.”

Murder Most Foul by Bob Dylan

John F Kennedy was a world leader and a symbolic representation of hope and possibility. His image embodied the youthful exuberance of potential even though his physical reality bordered on the frail and infirm. Something was other than it seemed. Politics aside, what died with the Kennedy assassination was the promise of that image; a Great Society that was to pickup the baton, dropped perhaps by the previous generation when it struck a New Deal with society as we emerged from the Great Depression and two World Wars. What’s next? Something Universal. A new social contract. Individual freedom reinvented.

The people alive during the upheaval of the 1930’s and 1940’s are in their 80’s and 90’s now. Living memories of those times are faded. The generation coming of age in the 1960’s are themselves now in their 60’s. In both instances, Saturn square Pluto: The closing or culminating aspect to the opening conjunctions which began in 1914 and 1947 respectively. The tumultuous period immediately behind us also represents the closing square, marking the end of the most recent synodic cycle of Saturn-Pluto that began with the conjunction of 1982.

There were a rash of serial killers in the late 70’s leading up to the ’82 conjunction that opened the previous cycle and closed the one before. January 12, 2020 was the official start of a new synodic cycle for Saturn-Pluto that is just now getting underway . Mass shootings have predominated the news leading up to this epic pairing of two of astrology’s more infamous planets. The Pluto-Saturn cycle takes anywhere from 32 to 37 years to complete. The G.I. Generation internalized and battled the external forces of fascism and tyranny around the world. The baby-boom generation was conscripted into battling an ideological war against communism in its various guises. And the millennial generation went to war fighting against global terrorism. There is a lot to grieve. Our collective emotions can no longer be bottled up. We are in the Age of Aquarius. The keynote is Cancer and speaks to a universal need for security. And the first decanate by procession is Libra, ruled by Venus. We need to get our act together. And so, we pour out our fears and anxieties on waves of sympathetic affection for one another despite the differences and polarity encased within the individual ego. Empathy is dramatically being called out center stage. Certain individuals, and events garner worldwide attention with such gravitas that a response for expressing our need for each other elicits our need to love and be loved.

In my post about Kobe Bryant, I happened upon a correspondence between the chart of Bob Dylan and the chart of Kobe. An artist’s signature. An uncanny ability to make connections. To SEE and communicate what others cannot see. There is a connection here beyond planetary analysis of aspects and sign. A broader map of the cosmos that guides our vision may be required to help us understand that some unseen force comes along from time to time and knocks our shot wide of the fairway and into the rough. A map that shows how the best in us can emerge in the worst of times, and how the worst in us can be a reminder of how fragile and insecure we are.

A seed of light infinitesimally small, smaller than a rogue germ, comes to penetrate the soul, invisibly. The spark and glow goes viral, with the ease and speed of a pandemic, less the fear and agony that can takeover the planet during such times. We are powerless to the power of this seed of light. And yet the power has always been there in potential; in seed form, a ‘sacred fullness.’ Surrender to the strength this Will is the cure that ails us. All previous delusion, all previous attachment, worship of the illusory, homage to the falsity must go.

1. 1.      https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/the-disorient-express-474780/?page=1 The life expectancy of an unrated pilot flying under conditions requiring the use of instruments (darkness, clouds, or fog) is 178 seconds. 15% of all aircraft accidents are attributable to these causes of which 90% are fatal. The condition pilots succumb to is known as Spatial Distortion or SD, formerly known as Pilot Vertigo. Pilots lose a sense of speed, altitude and attitude to the horizon. They lose their orientation so that they no longer know which way is up and which way is down. Vestibule illusions are to blame including the “false horizon” effect.