The Times They Are a-changin' (Bob Dylan)

Come gather 'round, people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

Very appropriate words I thought for our current climate.  And for sure ‘the times they are a-changin’.   I have to keep repeating that 2020 astrologically was always going to be a year of change – and big change at that.   But I think it’s the speed at which our lives have changed that almost takes our breath away.   You think to yourself – did this really happen?   How did it all happen?    And there are many theories as to how we have got where we are.  

 Did the virus emanate from the disgusting Chinese wet market practices or is it something more sinister?   I do have my views, but it’s hard to know for sure yet and to be honest it’s almost a waste of energy to keep going over and over that ground.   It has happened and we are where we are.   So, the important thing now is to use energy to look forward and find the best way to deal with our new reality, even if we don’t really know quite what that is going to look like.   There are plenty of downsides to our current situation but there are also opportunities to be different and to change, so long as we allow ourselves to be open and adaptable whilst staying mentally strong enough to rise above the fear factor.

  “Admit that the waters around you have grown” – well what with social distancing already drummed into our psyches, are you feeling like you have a moat round you that prevents people entering your immediate space? “And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone”.   How quickly social distancing has seeped into our psyche.  

 “If your time to you is worth savin’ … you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a-changin”.    I think Bob Dylan’s words here exactly echo my thoughts brilliantly to be honest. And I think it is good to pause for a moment to consider what opportunities we can take forward – and particularly to do this right now.   For those who are interested here’s just a bit of astro-speak - we currently have Saturn (planet of responsibility, structure and controls) in the early degrees of Aquarius at more or less the point where he will meet Jupiter in December ready to start a big new socio-economic cycle.   As this happens both planets will square Uranus (planet of shocks, disruption and turmoil).  This doesn’t look like a party moment for us.

We also currently have Mars in Aquarius.   But in June Saturn will go back into Capricorn and Mars will have found his way into Aries, his home sign, where he will stay an inordinately long time because he will go retrograde at the end of June.   So what does this mean in plain language you might ask.   Well Mars in Aries is about action – cutting through all the c**p that’s going on around you.   It’s about strength, leadership and forward movement (even when he is going backwards it’s time to look at where the action should be).  

 Saturn in one of his guises is Father Time and time is something a lot of us have more of right now.  So use this wisely.  Look for clues around you right now as to how you might be able to consolidate, think outside the box, do things differently, use technology as your friend.   The new cycles indicated by the meeting of Saturn and Pluto and Jupiter and Pluto have heralded the prospect of draconian limits on our freedom, greater than we ever could have considered possible, just before we get to the dawn of a new socio-economic cycle.   And it is the planetary background that infiltrates the collective unconscious and the collective psyche and that is one reason why globally we have reacted in the way we have to the outbreak of COVID19 when we did nothing like this when the H1N1 Bird Flu was declared a pandemic in 2009.   The collective unconscious is primed by the current planetary positions to have exactly this reaction. But I see glimpses of hope for a realisation of the purging of the corruption that afflicts us all too. Whatever you think of President Trump he is taking action. He has taken control of the Federal Reserve and he is recognising the corruption within the WHO. These are really big deals and this is thinking outside the box. Interesting times for sure.

 The Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars are considered to be personal planets.   They are faster moving than the rest and are big players in terms of our personal make-up.   The slower moving guys – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto – have a greater effect on what Jung termed the collective unconscious.  Think of the whole world as having a sub-conscious or a psyche just like individuals do.   So in the same way as the individual reflects their own planetary line up, so do nations and indeed so does the whole world.   It’s a bit like one of those Russian dolls where you keep opening up the doll and finding an even smaller one inside until you get to the teeniest and tiniest one in the middle – that’s you in terms of the world.   You are a drop of the ocean, a grain of sand of the earth – but even so you still count as a part that makes up the whole.  The whole can’t function without the grain or the drop.

 But Dylan continues – “Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen …. keep your eyes wide. The chance won't come again. And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin.”   The words ‘keep your eyes wide’ echo my blog before last, “Eyes Wide Shut’ (up on my website).  Get yourselves informed but don’t jump to conclusions because ‘the wheel’s still in spin’.  Don’t sleepwalk into something much bigger without being prepared.  “For the loser now will be later to win.”  

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls…

 There is no back to our old normal – we are on the train to our new normal.   Richi Sanak, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, said yesterday that we could be heading for one of the biggest financial crises since the depression of the ‘30’s and as I have said in the past – will the coming crisis be recession or depression?   

 I think we are heading for one of the biggest changes in our lives on a scale we could never have imagined.   Take heed of Dylan’s words and use this time wisely.   Please don’t waste it doing Tik-Tok or whatever all the time, even if you’re furloughed and think you’re safe and protected from all of this.   

 You are one of the drops of the ocean and one of the grains of the earth, so that means in the words of Mahatma Gandhi ‘you must be the change you wish to see in the world’.   Astrology allows us to be our best ‘I’ and it allows us to see the many potentials of the planetary cycles so that we can become part of the energy as opposed to watch ourselves from the sidelines being buffeted around by the energy.   When we actually become part of the energy we become an ‘influencer’.   We are the wind rather than the thing that is blown about in the wind.   We are the ocean and not someone that is drowning in it.   We are the Sun and not what is being scorched by it.   We are the Moon and we are living our Souls.   We are a word in the sentence (Mercury), we are part of the Love (Venus) and we are part of the action (Mars).    

 Be part of the doing rather than the being done to – be the change you want to see.