Hat Tip: Laurence Hillman, Professional Astrologer

1.  MILLENNIAL ARCHETYPES - ASTROLOGICAL VIEWS

This is an exciting time. In forty-three days, ready or not, we will find ourselves in a new Millennium. Such an event, of course, only comes around every thousand years or so... What I would like to discuss with you tonight is the understanding of this time as it presents itself to us symbolically. I would like to use the language of astrology, a subject very dear to Carl Jung, to help us get a grasp on what he referred to the Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist literally translates into “the ghost or spirit of our time.” While Jung gives our dreams such tremendous importance, a place where the archetypes appear in symbols, I would like to invite you to see the world around you as what my colleague Ray Grasse calls a “Waking Dream” in his book with the same title. It describes this wondrous idea that the archetypes surround us constantly, that we need not be asleep to experience them, and that reading the symbols in any moment allows us to enjoy the archetypes in action at that time. Did you know that the Goddess Venus lives in every chocolate mousse?

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2.  HAS THE WORLD GONE MAD?

"Three is the formula of all creation."
-- Honoré de Balzac

These are trying times. Even if you aren’t a news junkie and even if you live off the grid somewhere in the woods, it is nearly impossible to miss the collective sense that huge changes, many unpleasant, are afoot. Television specials and YouTube videos show impending annihilation from asteroids, global warming threatens all of us, and a global economic collapse has begun to unravel our lives on countless levels.

In such times when old paradigms don’t answer questions and when the basis of what we believe seems to crumble, there is a tradition to call upon astrologers to give a larger context to collective and personal disintegration. The following is one astrologer’s answer to this call.

I was trained as an architect. I have a tendency to see things structurally and to interact with the world in a practical way. This approach lends itself well to explaining foundational changes of the magnitude we are experiencing. Indeed, the deepest footings that provided support for the pillars of our beliefs now show catastrophic cracks. This in turn has led to the downfall of many institutions that formerly held up our shared roof. Collective beliefs have changed to such a degree and by such a large number of people that critical mass has shifted the ways we look at science, medicine, the environment, religion, education, and even the holiest of grails, free markets.

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3.  IS PLUTO STILL A PLANET?

Today, August 24th, 2006, the International Astronomical Union or IAU "demoted" Pluto from being a planet to being what they call a "dwarf planet." Not only will this affect uncountable millions of schoolbooks around the world but science museums and planetariums all over will need to make adjustments as well.

Of course this has consequences for astrologers too, as now we will be asked more frequently: "Why do you bother to work with Pluto when it is not even a planet!?"

Pluto was discovered in 1930 and perhaps a decade or so after that, empirical information was beginning to accumulate among astrologers, knowledge that described how Pluto's movements through the Zodiac were reflected in historical events, as well as in personal horoscopes. In the sixty-five years or so since then, we have a very good idea of what Pluto represents as an archetypal force and we can justifiably call him the Lord of the Underworld.

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4.  THE AGE OF AQUARIUS - AN INTRODUCTION

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” the famous song title form the musical Hair in the 60's.

What exactly does this mean?

Aquarius is an air sign, a thinking sign. This despite the ancient image for the celestial constellation of Aquarius which features a man pouring out water. What is presented by the "water bearer" is the notion of "humankind," the human race collectively, without reference to gender. In ancient Chaldea the constellation Aquarius was drawn on stones as a human pouring out water. In some old star atlases the water flows directly into the mouth of the next sign, Pisces (the Fish). The water is symbolic of celestial waters and could have its origins with the rainy season. On a symbolic level, the water can be seen as Aquarius quenching our thirst for knowledge.

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