The last day…the age of Sagittarius

Composite view of the Milky Way galaxy, including the Galactic Core -- the bulge at the center of the thing.
Composite view of the Milky Way galaxy, including the Galactic Core -- the bulge at the center.

Greetings,

As I write, Pluto is at 29 degrees and 59 minutes Sagittarius. For those unfamiliar with the rules of astrology hockey, that’s as high as it gets. There is no 29 degrees and 60 minutes and there is no 30 degrees even; the next stop is Pluto in Capricorn.

Scanning back over so much of the astrology during my entire career writing about the stuff (which began the last year of Pluto in Scorpio, 1994) it seems that every story comes back to Pluto in Sagittarius. This is the sign that contains two massive galactic points — the Galactic Core and the Great Attractor. These may help us account for the profoundly spiritual influence of Sagg, and the extent to which this sign is associated with grandiosity (for example, that Bush administration official a few years back accusing everyone of being in a delusional “reality-based” existence in the Sunday Times Magazine, remember that?)

Pluto changing signs changes the backdrop to society. The backdrop changes the quality of the energy in the room, the way things look and feel and ultimately how people conduct themselves. On the interior, Pluto guides our growth process. It can take us through the most satisfying and challenging “lessons” and opportunities of our lives; it is the real work, the deeper purpose, the experience of identifying with soul rather than with this elusive, verging-on-nonexistent thing we call ego.

These are special days of our lives. They are the time of transition. They are a beginning and an ending, and in truth we stand before a vast field of the unknown; so much that we felt was so certain is changing, and that includes things that we felt were intractable, impossible to resolve, unable to deal with. Check in and you’ll see that the reason you have the strength today that you may have lacked yesterday involves your inner connection. Yes, a lot of assholes thought it brilliant to convert church meeting rooms into Republican clubhouses. A bunch of bankers who I am sure can’t change a lightbulb dumped hundreds of billions of dollars gambling on financial instruments that nobody actually understands, not noticing there was a problem because the smell of steak was so tantalizing. And this, they called “growth” and they deemed themselves “too big to fail.”

But at the same time, everyone else was being pushed, pulled, dragged, thrown or was voluntarily walking on the hot bed of coals that we know as Sagittarius; home of the Galactic Core (the heart of Goddess/God) and the Great Attractor (the matrix at the center of time).

The history of these years is incredible; it was, as we were living it. We don’t know for sure what is next; and if we feel the fear that the banks or the economy are not going to be able to sustain us, let that have a touch of cosmic wisdom to it.

We are living on a planet in the deeps of space, waaaaaay out on the edge of a galaxy. We have no idea how we got here, or what we are doing here. We fill that lack of purpose with all kinds of bullshit: religion, excuses not to have fun, greed that is really a hedge against death, denying ourselves simple pleasures so we can be “good,” and a general refusal to embrace existence for the fleeting, brilliant thing that it is. But here we are, on a very small, very beautiful planet, way out on the edge of a spiral galaxy, waiting for what happens next. You can wait, or you can pick something and make it happen.

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis

PS, here is the December monthly horoscope, which looks at the transition from Sagg to Cap. There wil be much more in Next World Stories, the 2009 annual edition. Look for ordering information here during the next few days.

9 thoughts on “The last day…the age of Sagittarius”

  1. Thank you, Eric, for this paragraph:

    “We are living on a planet in the deeps of space, waaaaaay out on the edge of a galaxy. We have no idea how we got here, or what we are doing here. We fill that lack of purpose with all kinds of bullshit: religion, excuses not to have fun, greed that is really a hedge against death, denying ourselves simple pleasures so we can be “good,” and a general refusal to embrace existence for the fleeting, brilliant thing that it is. But here we are, on a very small, very beautiful planet, way out on the edge of a spiral galaxy, waiting for what happens next. You can wait, or you can pick something and make it happen.”

    Simply brilliant. 🙂

  2. It was considered pagan, as most Christmas traditions are – hence the outlaw. Plum pudding is the old English term for fruit cake.
    Depending who/what you read, there were no plums in plum pudding, but there was a soup that may have been the plum pudding because it had prunes in it. But the real sin had to do with the pagan roots. There is a ton of info to look at on the web but I don’t know what’s accurate.

    Curiously, public Christmas celebrations are still very controversial.

    Go here for an old recipe: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Cake/plumpuddingTips.htm

    Charles Dickens called fruit cake a geological cake. I don’t know anyone who actually likes fruit cake – it is barely edible.

  3. And I am happy for the plum pudding lovers of the world. I’ve never had it, have you. Please forward recipe.

    Why would anyone outlaw a fruit? Since it was the puritans, it must be luciously sinful in some way? Add those babies to the grocery list. I think I’ll plant a plum tree in the spring.

  4. Yeah, and Cromwell also outlawed Christmas. The man was a brilliant revolutionary, but a massive killjoy, too.

    Probably an instructive example of what happens when you demand that faith be a little too literal.

    I say, bring on the yule log!!

  5. Sorry to keep going on this but need to correct my big mistake. Pluto was in Gemini at the time of Cromwell, and two years after he died his body was dug up and his head hung on a post for 20 years. Might not have been too well liked, but he’s still listed as one of the top 10 leaders of all time in Great Britain. I must have been looking in the wrong column of the ephemeris when I looked at 1712. egads.

    And I still love all earth sign people.

  6. Oops – scratch that plum pudding remark. It was cromwell that outlawed Christmas, and it was restored around 1658 after Cromwell and the Puritans were ousted. The research on Plum Pudding is all over the place, but one source I read said 1712, which would have been Pluto in taurus.

  7. Thank God for earth signs. They keep the rest of us steady and secure.

    I almost cried when I read the interview between Obama and Barbara Walters. It occurred to me that most of the executives in this country were probably boy scouts and brownies once, and what Obama is doing is reminding everyone of their natural proclivity to honesty and trustworthiness, and away from the slippery slope of avarice and greed. It fits right into your themes here the last two days. You PW writers are amazing.

    I did some research on plum pudding this week, for a newsletter. It seems that plum pudding was outlawed in Britain during the Puritan years. About the time of the change of Pluto to Taurus, the Brits were allowed to have their plum pudding again, thanks to the sensible Cromwell.

    Hurray for earth signs!

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