What is happening this year? Social networking sites are exploding. Facebook are having problems with their terms and conditions, they tried to change them giving them rights in perpetuity over any material (text, messages, notes, photos, videos) you may have posted up. Twitter is all over the press...a global text conversation.
Social networking via the Internet, communication without intimacy, without commitment, is about as Aquarian as it gets. "I love you all just don't get too close!"
Dating via the Internet is no longer a source of shame and embarrassment. I've done it loads this year. It doesn't seem to work. I have the ability to fall in love with a pixel, but the reality is crushing. My experiences with internet dating are worthy of a whole blog in itself.
Neil Spencer, the Observer astrologer, who is helping me develop an astro-menu for the 28th of March, gave a talk at the Company of Astrologers last week.
Most astrological gatherings do tend to be populated by "women of a certain age, wearing purple". Neil is a rare breed, a male astrologer. (Of course, like chefs, they tend to be more visible professionally but the vast majority of astrologers are women, just like most cooking is done by women).
The Company of Astrologers is no different; row upon row of hawk-eyed witches stroking their hairy moles whilst peering into the future. Forget girl power. Hag power!
Neil is a stand-up comic of astrology...he does accents, jokes and impersonations in his talks. Here are my notes on his talk:
In the Age of Aquarius, everything will be great, we will all be hippies, it will be a new age of enlightenment. Well it won't be. It will have it's murky side too.
- Nazi Germany is Aquarian, the chart of the third reich is 30/1/33 at 11.15 am. The shadow side of Neptune conjunct Jupiter is catastrophe and death. Saturn in the 10th of this chart...meaningless orders...from Adolf Hitler.
- The French Revolution 10/8/1792 Pluto in Aquarius at 22 degrees in the 7th house. The dark side of equality.
The world wide web has an affinity with Aquarius. Every corporation in the world is saying 'how did we not spot this coming and control it all?'.
The world wide web has revolutionised our world. (Look how many billions were lost last week when googlemail went down. We are totally dependant.)
Neil presented a list of famous Aquarians...lots of scientists (Galileo, Copernicus), politicians, writers (Lewis Carroll, Dickens, Joyce, Miler, Greer, Woolf, Chekhov, Verne) playwrights, but few popstars(and of course the genre is punk... John Lydon/Rotten and Malcolm Maclaren ) or poets (Byron).
Aquarius is also the sign of psychology...dispassionate analysis, voyeurism.
This is Darwin's year, another Aquarian. But Darwinism is a tremendously cynical doctrine which has led, arguably, to eugenics.
The United States has an Aquarian moon. More of it's presidents are Aquarian than any other sign...Reagan, Lincoln, Roosevelt. Nixon and JFK had Aquarian moons.
Oprah Winfrey is an über Aquarian as is Sarah Palin.
In fact the U.S. constitution is Aquarian in itself...the whole idea of human rights had never before existed prior to the discovery of Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius in 1781, the same year as the final American victory over Britain.
Neil goes into an aside about the links between Sagittarius, Science Fiction and space travel.
Mars is also transiting Aquarius. 19.32 Aquarius is the degree of Flight. Has anybody noticed how many plane and helicopter crashes there are at the moment?
The Conservatives have their Jupiter return this year (perhaps why they are feeling so expansive and community minded? see post below)
The discovery of Neptune heralded the arrival of photography, the telephone, the phonograph, the age of sewers.
Interesting note: the moon was in Scorpio at the discovery of all three outer planets.
This year will be about Obama, public service and corporate criminals.
The 'Madoff' scandal is very Pluto in Capricorn and he will not be the last to be exposed.
Questions:
Is Obama a tyrant?
Neil: No I dont think so. I think he is actually that rare thing 'a good man'. An extraordinary politician.
Neil continues: There are only six signs. The first six. The rest are versions of the first six. For instance a Libran is just an Arian with better manners.
While Leo are me, me, me....Aquarius is us, us, us. But within every Aquarian there is a Leo trying to get out. Neil also remarked that Aquarians often have big wavy hair.
The Pluto/Neptune conjunction in the 1890s through to World War I. produced artists such as T.S.Eliot, Tolkein, Nash and Spencer, who were all in the trenches. The Germans on the other side, took that same experience and made a hell of it.
Another thing to watch out for this year is inflation with the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction.
Atheist buses...very Aquarian. Obama is a believer. You cannot have an American president that doesn't believe in God.
I remark that Obama included non-believers in his inauguration address. Somebody else in the audience remarked that in contrast Blair had to hide his faith from the British public.
"It's not the done thing to believe in anything here" she said.
The astrologer Adam Smith notes that "Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day of the same year. Both have Saturn conjunct Neptune in Sagittarius. Time twins."
Neil: There is also Chiron in Aquarius this year. There is always pain with Chiron.
My advice to Aquarians is that ethics count this year. Behave and you will prosper. Put your ideals on your sleeve.
I can't remember how it happened but somebody noticed that I was sending messages on my iPhone.
"Yes I am twittering this talk." I admit.
Crone heads swivel towards me looking inquisitive and curious. I explain what I'm doing.
"You are pirating my talk" Neil says with an amused glint in his eye, for he used to be the editor of the New Musical Express.
"No I'm publicising your talk. Sharing it, globally".
This roomful, constellation of astrologers looks pleased. Despite their age, they are intensely interested in the future.
"I'm so glad you brought Aquarius into the room" remarks one older lady to this particular Aquarian "very appropriate".
