Reconnecting to the Wisdom of the Wise Ones - Thoughts and Beliefs - New Moon
A New Moon is a time for new beginnings and new intentions. It is the start of a new lunar cycle and as such sets the space until the next marker point of the Full Moon. The New Moon of November 26th, 2019 falls in the sign of Sagittarius. Sagittarius, symbolised by the centaur – half man and half horse with a bow and arrow pointing upwards – is the explorer on a quest for knowledge. His arrow points up to the skies as he is propelled to look further and further for the truths that belong to the universe. Once his quest is done he can truly know who he is, why he is here and what his purpose really is. And to do that he knows that he has to look up to the universe with which he intuitively knows he is integrally connected.
At the New Moon the Sun and the Moon are exactly together. Also in Sagittarius are Jupiter, the ruler of the sign, and Pallas Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Ethics. Mercury is now moving forward again, so communication glitches are lessened. However, at this point in the cycle the New Moon makes no aspects to any other planets – the energy is pure Sagittarius with no other influence or tainting of the energy. So we have an opportunity to really be able to look at the bigger picture of life and to raise our consciousness and awareness of what is really happening, just before Jupiter changes signs into Capricorn and brings his own reality check into play. Jupiter and Sagittarius speak of our belief systems. Our beliefs define us and direct our actions. Beliefs based on true wisdom and free of judgment will lead us in a positive direction, whilst limiting beliefs based on our fears and our learned behaviours may hold us back and prevent us from fulfilling our potentials. So expanding our beliefs and exploring and adding to our higher wisdom and higher consciousness are all vital for our development and progress through life.
New planetary cycles are markers of new times, just as a New Moon is a marker of time within the lunar cycle. And when we get groupings of the slower moving planets from Jupiter outwards in the same astrological sign, we know that something new is on the horizon. Such kinds of planetary markers have been visible at times such as the Fall of Rome and the re-flowering of culture afterwards, the Crusades, the dawn of the printed word, the Renaissance period, the Industrial Revolution, World War 2 and the Holocaust, the cultural, political and space exploration changes of the 1960’s, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War – and then 2020!!
The Saturn/Pluto conjunction approaches quickly. It occurs alongside the Capricorn New Moon in mid January and is quickly followed by the Jupiter/Saturn/Pluto planetary line up in February and March 2020.
Saturn/Pluto conjunctions have only occurred three times in the last century – 1914 (World War 1), 1947 (the Cold War, the beginnings of the computer, Roswell, the birth of the CIA and the IMF, and the partitioning of Palestine between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish state of Israel); and lastly 1982-83 (the longest lunar eclipse of the 20th century almost opposite Saturn’s position now, Time Magazine’s Man of the Year is given to a non-human – the computer, the ‘Pearl Harbour of the Middle East’ attack on the US in Beirut leading to the beginning of the western world’s current conflict with Islamic terrorism). Saturn Pluto conjunctions, particularly in Capricorn, herald dynamic changes in power structures and new beginnings in terms of governments, large corporations, as well as banking and financial systems as power is redistributed.
As a race we think we are the most advanced species that has ever walked this earth. But are we? And on what do we base this? If we are the most advanced species we certainly don’t seem to have found the secret of happiness, else our Western world would not be plagued by the current high levels of anxiety and mental health issues that we are facing. History shows us that some of the lost civilisations of the past actually possessed highly advanced levels of knowledge. Think of the Antikythera machine – a mechanism dated to between 200BCE to 150BCE. It was a form of analogue computer with a complex clockwork mechanism consisting of 37 gears. Its function was to predict astronomical positions and eclipses.
This has to have been made in an age of advanced technological knowledge rather than by primitive beings. Our ancient ancestors had an advantage as I see it – they lived in times when they were connected to the rhythms of the planet. With no light pollution their eyes would naturally turn to the stars. They would have been conscious of the waxing and waning of the Moon and with that the ebb and flow of life itself. They lived according to the seasons – enough food had to be gathered to see them through the Winter months – and their very survival meant that they had to understand growing cycles. In the main today we aren’t concerned with survival – we take that for granted – we are perhaps more concerned with how to get more and more and more of everything. We are in a state of separation, disconnection and isolation. And that is so amazing in an age when we are so connected via social media and communication systems. Bizarre isn’t it?
I have been following a quester called Gregg Braden recently. Braden is a geologist and computer science engineer by trade – so no woo woo there. His series on Gaia, ‘Missing Links’, documents ancient civilisations which have long ceased but which demonstrate high levels of technological awareness. I’ve only so far managed to watch a few episodes but it’s for sure a fascinating series – do watch it if you get a chance.[1]
Braden marks lengths of civilisations at around 5000 years with a new one, he considers, due now. And interestingly, according to Braden, the turning points in civilisations seem to occur at points of climate change – climate changes which incidentally occurred naturally and without the triggers on which we blame our current climate change crisis. Braden’s views make sense if we regard the last new big civilisation as the Bronze Age at around 3000BCE (which also follows the last time we had Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn and Uranus in Taurus as we do now). The main issue now though is that we have a coming together of a perfect storm of different crises – global debt reality check, peak use of fossil fuels and planetary resources reality check, destruction of the planet reality check, elite rich and the growing poor reality check, climate change reality check. So, is nature and civilization at a tipping point – that point where we reach critical mass and we can no longer look back? Rather than disconnection, separation and taking everything we can, we need co-operation and giving back. If we are to either avoid the tipping point or at least negotiate the tipping point in a positive fashion, we can’t keep doing the same whilst expecting a different outcome. We are separated and isolated from our habitat and we need to be a part of it.
So, if we take the Bronze Age as the last big change in civilization 3000 years before Jesus, this is also around the time of the start of the Mayan Long Count cycle that ended on 21st December 2012. There was much publicity and hype surrounding this date – was the world going to end or what? It seemingly passed without incident and we appear to have dismissed it now as meaningless and without event. However, I looked back to what fellow astrologer and researcher, William Stickevers, wrote at the time.[2] The core of the Mayan Calendar, he wrote, is a prophetic calendar based on 13 numbers and 20 astrological day signs. According to the Mayans the completion of a Long Count is 5,125 years (very similar to Braden’s view on civilization lengths). The Long Count is further divided into 260 sections of 20 years correlating closely with the Jupiter/Saturn socio-economic cycle (we have a new 250 year Great Cycle beginning in 2020). These 20 year intervals are known as k’atuns, which for the Mayans were generational pointers, marked by sacred ceremonies and prophecies. Each of the 13 k’atuns was named after its concluding day-sign Ahau(Lord). According to the Mayan Elders, during the period of 4-Ahau k’atun (1993-2012) resources would be scarce, natural disasters would increase and the people would be troubled and anxious about what the future might bring. This, they said, would result in mankind’s disharmony of spirit and would be a k’atun of remembering and recording knowledge. However, it was not necessarily that the end of this Long Count meant the end of the world, merely a change or transformation into the next Long Count. Mayan elders believed that the remembering of old knowledge would occur at the end of the Long Count in 2012 and that the Mayan Masters would reincarnate to spread their wisdom and knowledge throughout the world to ease the time of purification and open the way for collective transformation.
As the next k’atun 8-Ahau began on December 21, 2012, Mayan Elders believed that during the period of 8-Ahauk’atun (2012-32) scarcity in essential resources (food, fuel and water) and economic distress would continue to intensify as natural disasters accelerated and increased in frequency. This will be a period, they felt, where there will be a collapse of false belief systems and a new paradigm will emerge. The prophecy states ‘this is a time for uniting for a cause’. The meaning of the end of a Long Count Calendar change is a time of purification and a period where humanity must undergo a collective spiritual death/rebirth transformation in order to overcome its dark destructive nature. Stickevers quotes Jose Arguelles who put the Mayan 2012 end date on the map, – ‘Everything that we know, everything that we are, is about to undergo a substantial and radical alteration’. Stickevers further points out that the end result is that the human mind/body is evolving so that we can become empowered multi-dimensional beings.[3] Therefore, we are not facing a single moment of change but an era of change. So does this mean that we are meant to be awakened now? We currently have Neptune in Pisces, which would increase our ability to reach for our more intuitive potentials – the ones that we can only sense and feel, as opposed to knowing logically. On the other hand though Neptune does very good job of confusion, deception and illusion. But we can awaken to a higher meta-conscious state where eventually we can become capable of, or regain our innate knowledge of, extra sensory perception (ESP) and other altered states of awareness
Astrological cycles would also back up the theory of an impending new age. In addition to the cycles of Saturn/Puto and Jupiter/Saturn, the Barbault Index, developed by Andre Barbault, plots astrological cycles according to their socio-economic effect. Notably, for instance, the index fell at the times of the first and second world wars.
Also note from the above graph (courtesy of williamstickevers.com) how the index peaks in 2014 at the height of the recent seven Uranus/Pluto squares, correlating with a huge period of social and political revolution, and then falls markedly. However, in 2023 the Barbault Cyclic Index begins to rise again – perhaps growth and social and cultural development will be seen.[4] If we do see a higher level of consciousness and a return to some of the wisdoms we have lost, we could be at a transition point from one world age to another. Is the Age of Artificial Intelligence and singularity upon us? Something extraordinary is happening but something right now is also missing from our thinking. We need a shift in thinking in order to be able to adapt and cooperate – if we are to transform, parts of our lives as we know them right now have to break down before they can be reborn and rise from the ashes.
As Braden says destruction or transformation – but perhaps we have to have destruction in order to achieve transformation. Right now the majority are conditioned by what modern science dictates, rather than the wisdom of the ancients, a wisdom which appears to be similar in many of the old civilisations. But modern science has actually only been in existence for about 300 years and is always being updated as we discover something new. We are conditioned by the principles of Darwin that life is about the survival of the fittest – but what if it isn’t and it is more about the survival of those who learn to cooperate and help each other? As we run out of fossil fuels to satisfy our desire for energy, energy costs rise and so do food costs because of the cost of the energy required to provide them. So as the world gets greedier and the population grows, the wealth moves into the hands of the elite whilst the poorer sections of society find life even tougher than before.
Both Aristotle and Plato in Ancient Greece believed in an ether field – a substance we can’t see but which nevertheless surrounds us all and connects us. Now whether you call this an ether field, quantum field, dark matter – there is something that connects us all energetically and mentally. So our thoughts and beliefs have the power to spill over and influence others. We’ve all been in a room after an argument and can feel the angry energy – so it’s just the same. That is why it is important, particularly at a time of rapidly changing world power dynamics such as now, that we ensure that we raise our game both spiritually and by questioning knowledge, so that we are our own people in terms of both thoughts and actions. Thoughts and beliefs direct both actions and the surrounding energy fields. But the mind is not just the brain – it is also what we hold in our hearts; the heart is an intelligent organ holding the power to affect our brain and thought patterns emotionally, as well as the energy field of others.
Whilst this lunation doesn’t aspect any other planets, it does aspect the asteroids Chiron, and Pallas Athena. The aspect to Chiron can allow areas of our life that are broken to be acknowledged, whilst Pallas Athena knew a lot about the civilizing of societies. She was a master ‘web weaver’, able to draw different strands together to allow a pattern of communal living to be created. And that’s what we need so much right now.
Because we are now, I feel, on the threshold of a changing world, this will be the first in a series of linked lunation articles with a common theme. The upcoming Gemini Full Moon will be a perfect time to look for connections and the joining of the dots. Jupiter will then have just moved into Capricorn bringing realism to knowledge. For sure we are entering the dawn of new cycles, but what if it’s bigger than we can imagine? What if it will be a time of real technological singularity when being human will become very different? If that is the case then we must become adaptable enough to become a part of the ‘new normal’. And we must also expand our knowledge, our awareness and our high consciousness to give ourselves the best chance as we enter these times of ‘new normal’..
[1] Gaia.com, Missing Links, Gregg Braden
[2] https://williamstickevers.blog/2012/12/04/the-meaning-of-the-mayan-calendar-end-date-within-the-context-of-modern-astrology/
[3] https://williamstickevers.blog/2012/12/04/the-meaning-of-the-mayan-calendar-end-date-within-the-context-of-modern-astrology/
[4] Andre Barbault, Planetary Cycles Mundane Astrology, The Astrological Association, 2016 and www.williamstickevers.com. Graph courtesy of www.williamstickevers.com