Dear Friend and Reader:
And what was that, that we all just experienced? In the past week, we had a lunar eclipse followed by the Sun making conjunctions to Nessus, Chiron and Neptune. Neptune was the last of the series. What we bounced through – this patch of rattling celestial movement – was the Earth and Sun aligning with these planets. There was plenty more – Uranus and Saturn of course still in a tight opposition, which is like bouncing reality on a trampoline.
Next, Mars is moving through Aquarius at somewhat under one degree per day, close to the same pace as the Sun. It, too, will make conjunctions to Jupiter, Juno, the North Node, Nessus, Chiron and Neptune before entering Pisces on March 14. While that’s going on, Mercury will be back in Aquarius, making conjunctions to the same series of planets.
As I started writing this, I saw an email go by about whether the Age of Aquarius would begin this weekend, when”Jupiter aligns with Mars.” A journalist contacted me last night with the same question, quoting the song by James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot, and performed by the Fifth Dimension. It’s the one which begins, “When the Mooooooooooon is in the 7th house…”, which it is for about two hours every day. And Jupiter aligns with Mars once every four months, for about a week. By that reckoning, the Age of Aqarius has begun 447 times since 2000.
I think we can admire this song for its bass line and cute hippies more than for the astrological wisdom of its authors. The song, which came out in 1969, is called “Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In.”
Have you ever seen the website Engrish.com? It’s the illuminated result of people in Asia who can’t speak English, trying to make signs that people who do speak English can read. Therefore you end up with a fire extinguisher with some Chinese lettering and a sign over it that says “Hand Grenade.” That’s what the Fifth Dimension did to astrology. (The website has hundreds of these, from all over Asia; you will laugh for hours.)