Navigating the Storm of Global Change

Part 1: Birth of the Aquarian Age

In light of the increasing intensity and seriousness of collective events, I’m offering here the first installment of a 4-part essay series that I hope will provide some clarity and perspective about what is going on and can thereby help us navigate these times more consciously.

Part 1 sets out a big picture framework I find helpful for understanding the broader archetypal dynamics at play in our current moment of great upheaval.

Part 2 considers two specific examples, involving seismic changes in technology and spirituality respectively, that illustrate more concretely how these dynamics are manifesting in particular sectors of culture.

Part 3 looks at the dance of ‘dark’ and ‘light’ energies behind the outplay of world events, including how best to recognize and respond to these forces.

Part 4 applies the understanding from the first three parts to various polarizing contemporary cultural issues, while suggesting creative ways forward.

I’m aware, of course, that these are profound and sensitive topics. The perspectives offered here will inevitably be partial explanations of incredibly complex realities. At the same time, I believe our moment is calling each of us to take a step forward in bravery and to stand more resolutely for our truth. This series is my response to that call.

Part 1: Birth of the Aquarian Age

If you are new to astrology, or reflexively dimiss it as new age fluff, I will just say here that we are passing through one of those rare, extraordinarily fertile periods of history in which virtually everything we thought we knew is in flux. This doesn’t mean of course that anything goes, but it is a very good time to be re-examining our foundational assumptions. There are other forums for obtaining an introduction to astrology or learning how it can be coherent with contemporary intellectual thought (I recommend Steven Forrest’s The Inner Sky for the former and Richard Tarnas’s Cosmos and Psyche for the latter).

Personally, I am already way too far down the rabbit hole as a practicing astrologer to want to spend time making the case for it. For me it is simply too cogent an explanatory framework to ignore. With so many of our traditional sense-making systems breaking down, I find the astrological lens invaluable for understanding the archetypal dynamics unfolding in world events. I will proceed here on the ambitious assumption that, even if you have not yet been ‘initiated’ into the astrological worldview, you may still find the following commentary intriguing and hopefully edifying.

In astrological terms, the most important overarching dynamic occurring on the planet today is the shift from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age.

Based on the so-called Precession of the Equinoxes, every 2000 years or so we move into a different astrological era associated with a particular sign of the zodiac. For the last 2000 years, since around the time of the birth of Christ, we’ve been living in the Age of Pisces. For the next 2000 years or so we will be in the Age of Aquarius.

As the new age comes in, the fundamental organizing principles of society start to change in alignment with the archetypal qualities associated with the new sign.

The main difference between the Piscean and Aquarian Ages is that the former was structured primarily by top-down vertical hierarchies, whereas the latter will be organized through horizontal, peer-to-peer decentralized networks.

This distinction corresponds with a fundamental difference between these eras in how people access knowledge and power.

In the Piscean Age, the central tenet is “I Believe.” Most people in the Piscean Age did not have direct access to knowledge, but developed their belief systems based on the edicts, philosophies, religions, or ideologies of the relative few who did. The priests, gurus, emperors, kings and queens — and, later, politicians, scientists, media broadcasters, academics and other elites— passed down knowledge and wisdom to the masses, who absorbed that information and formulated their beliefs accordingly. A natural outcome of this pattern of developing beliefs through intermediaries was the creation of hierarchical power structures of top-down control.

In contrast, the central tenet of the Aquarian Age is “I Know.” The emphasis is on direct access to knowledge and wisdom for everyone, without any intermediaries. This means that more and more people will be able to directly access a source of wisdom from within and navigate life primarily via their own inner compass. People will rely less and less on external sources of information to guide them, but will rather trust their own inner knowing.

The Aquarian archetype is associated both with individual sovereignty and autonomy and the higher collective intelligence that can arise from voluntary associations of sovereign individuals. As we transition from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age, we can thus expect to see a shift from top-down, centralized structures of control to horizontal, decentralized, peer-to-peer networks as the basic organizing pattern of the emerging era. It is hard to overstate just how radical this transformation promises to be.

We are, of course, already well and truly in the midst of this great change.

Because we are dealing with such a long cycle, there is no one moment that definitively marks the end of one era and the beginning of the next. Rather there is a period where the two eras overlap, like intersecting parabolas. Some astrologers, for instance, believe we can trace the first signs of the emerging Aquarian Age as far back as the beginning of the twentieth century, with the development of new technologies like airplanes. (Aquarius is an air sign and is associated with technology.)

Recently, however, we passed through a very significant transit that most astrologers would agree strongly signified that we are now accelerating full steam into the Aquarian era. In December of 2020, Jupiter and Saturn aligned in the sky at 0 degrees of Aquarius, a configuration known as the Great Conjunction. To the ancients, the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the largest of the visible planets, was seen as the most significant celestial event of all, announcing the arrival of a new era. Modern astrologers similarly associate Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, which occur roughly every 20 years, with the start of new eras, often associated with a generational shift in the leadership structures of society.

The fact that this particular Great Conjunction occurred at 0 degrees of Aquarius gave it special significance as a powerful symbol of the birth of the Aquarian Era.

Further, in November 2024, Pluto will also move into Aquarius. (It actually first enters Aquarius in March 2023, but then moves back into Capricorn for much of 2023 and 2024. In November 2024 it leaves Capricorn for good and will then stay in Aquarius for almost 20 years.) Astrologically, this is a big deal. Since 2007, Pluto has been moving through Capricorn, the sign of the established order and the traditional institutions of power in society. Pluto is the great transformer that relentlessly brings to the surface anything hidden in the depths that is out of alignment with truth. The transit of Pluto in Capricorn can be seen as the massive and intense purification of previously hidden corruption in the established systems of the old order in preparation for our entrance into the Aquarian Age.

If the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in December 2020 announced the formal start of the Aquarian Age, the ingress of Pluto into Aquarius in 2024 may be when the new systems and technologies that will form the basis for the Aquarian era will fully come online.

Birth Contractions

Focusing our lens more narrowly on the particular archetypal dynamics of our current times, I want to draw now from the model of transformation developed by psychologist Stan Grof, based on his clinical observations of thousands of supervised LSD sessions. Grof observed that, at critical junctures in their psychedelic therapy, patients consistently cycled through four basic stages of experience that corresponded with identifiable phases of the human birth process. He called these phases “Basic Perinatal Matrices” (BPM). (Perinatal means ‘around the time of birth’.)

BPM I is the phase in the birth process before labor has started and the infant is still safely and fully within the mother’s womb.

BPM II is the phase when labor has started but the cervix has not yet opened, creating an intensely claustrophobic condition, a sense of being stuck and with no way out.

BPM III is when the cervix has opened and the infant starts to move through the birth canal. This phase is usually experienced as a tumultuous, dynamic, and dangerous process — a titanic life-and-death struggle with a truly uncertain outcome.

BPM IV is the moment of birth itself, when the infant emerges from the womb. This tends to be associated with a sense of sudden, unexpected release from an all-or-nothing struggle for survival. It is felt to be the beginning of an entirely new phase of radically expanded possibility.

Grof theorized that the birthing process itself was like a template for the process of transformation more generally, with these same phases constituting the underlying dynamics of all genuine initiatory or transformative processes, whether in individuals or society at large.

If we apply this map to our times and the process of ‘birthing’ the new Aquarian era, we can identify many interesting parallels.

In broad terms, our pre-Covid world could be said to correspond with BPM I in Grof’s model. However problematic those times might have been, we still felt ourselves to be held within the basic contours of our familiar world. The structures of the old era were still essentially intact.

When Covid hit in early 2020, it was like the waters broke. The labor had started, the birth contractions were happening, but for some time there was very little dynamic movement of energy. For most of 2020, we were in lock down — holed up, confined, and isolated. With no vaccine or other solution on the horizon (for most of 2020), we were in a holding pattern with no end in sight. 2020 thus seems to correspond quite well with BPM II in Grof’s model.

In 2021, with the introduction of the vaccines, an apparent solution was presented, and the energy started moving again. Many got the vaccine and there were attempts to re-open the economy, but there was also widespread angry opposition to the official Covid response, an ever-increasing polarization of views, and a near total breakdown in our ability to come to consensus on anything. As of writing, the atmosphere feels increasingly tense, as if something has to give, as if we are waiting for the deeper convulsions of change to erupt forth in the collective. It is starting to dawn on many that we have arrived at a truly dangerous fork in the road, with various dystopian scenarios awaiting us if we choose poorly. There is a growing sense of deep disquiet and genuine uncertainty about our capacity to make it through the initiatory crisis intact. Our current moment thus feels thematically very resonant with Grof’s BPM III.

When might we arrive at BPM IV, the birth moment of the new era?

Let me switch back to astrology now to give a possible answer.

I’ve already mentioned the significance of November 2024, when Pluto moves definitively into the sign of Aquarius. On its own, this transit is a powerful signifier of our entrance into the Age of Aquarius. As I mentioned, it may be then that we will see the decentralized systems and technologies that will underlie the Aquarian era come more fully online. However, within short order of Pluto moving into Aquarius, both Saturn and Neptune move into the sign of Aries (May 2025), and Uranus moves into Gemini (July 2025). Whenever an outer planet changes sign, there is a distinct shift of mood in the collective. When all four outer planets change signs within such a short space of time, you can bank on it registering as a seismic shift in the zeitgeist.

Moreover, in 2025/26 Saturn and Neptune come together in the sky at the very beginning of Aries. (They will be exactly conjunct at 0 degrees of Aries in February 2026.) Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, so the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune (two heavyweight outer planets) at the very first degree of the whole zodiac is another exceptionally potent symbol of the birth of a new era.

Further, the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune in Aries in 2025/26 will be in what is considered a harmonious sextile aspect with both Uranus and Pluto respectively. At the same time, Uranus and Pluto will be in a similarly harmonious trine aspect with each other. Thus in 2025/26, all four outer planets will be in harmonious aspect with each other, accentuating the higher and more creative possibilities of these archetypal configurations.

AND, as we have seen, they will each have recently changed signs, with Saturn and Neptune meeting at the very beginning of the entire zodiac. To me, this points to a genuinely promising possibility of a BPM IV-like birth moment for the world in 2025.

I don’t believe that such a birth is guaranteed. Not every baby survives the birthing process. I will have more to say later on the crucial choice I believe humanity needs to make if we are to find the narrow path through the crisis. And even if we do come through this crucible with our humanity intact, it will likely take several decades before the new systems and ways become firmly established.

Nonetheless, it may be helpful to know that there is a potential light at the end of this extremely long, dark, and dangerous tunnel.

To sum up.

We are in the midst of an epochal shift of the ages from the Piscean to the Aquarian era. The top-down, centralized structures of control characteristic of the Piscean Age are giving way to the emerging horizontal, decentralized networks of the Aquarian era. The formal beginning of the era was announced astrologically with the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 0 degrees Aquarius in December 2020. We are in the throws of the birthing process, now in a dynamic but very dangerous phase akin to moving through the birth canal, with the outcome of the whole process deeply uncertain. In 2024/25, we can expect a dramatic shift in the zeitgeist that may — if we choose wisely and bravely — correspond with a widespread sense of having come through the initiatory crisis and having entered into an entirely new era with radically expanded horizons.

This is my best current big-picture understanding of the epic process of global change we are living through together. In Part 2 of this series, I will look at how these dynamics are manifesting in two specific areas, technology and spirituality, to illustrate more concretely how the change is taking place.