This year Jupiter, which traverses a sign each year, will transit Aquarius. Neptune is already in Aquarius and has been for a few years and Chiron is there too. You could argue that the Age of Aquarius starts this year, or at least you get a bit of a taster.
What is happening this year? Social networking sites are exploding. Facebook are having problems with their terms and conditions, they tried to change them giving them rights in perpetuity over any material (text, messages, notes, photos, videos) you may have posted up. Twitter is all over the press…a global text conversation.
Social networking via the Internet, communication without intimacy, without commitment, is about as Aquarian as it gets. “I love you all just don’t get too close!”
Dating via the Internet is no longer a source of shame and embarrassment. I’ve done it loads this year. It doesn’t seem to work. I have the ability to fall in love with a pixel, but the reality is crushing. My experiences with internet dating are worthy of a whole blog in itself.
Neil Spencer, the Observer astrologer, who is helping me develop an astro-menu for the 28th of March, gave a talk at the Company of Astrologers last week.
Most astrological gatherings do tend to be populated by “women of a certain age, wearing purple”. Neil is a rare breed, a male astrologer. (Of course, like chefs, they tend to be more visible professionally but the vast majority of astrologers are women, just like most cooking is done by women).
The Company of Astrologers is no different; row upon row of hawk-eyed witches stroking their hairy moles whilst peering into the future. Forget girl power. Hag power!
Neil is a stand-up comic of astrology…he does accents, jokes and impersonations in his talks. Here are my notes on his talk:
In the Age of Aquarius, everything will be great, we will all be hippies, it will be a new age of enlightenment. Well it won’t be. It will have it’s murky side too.
- Nazi Germany is Aquarian, the chart of the third reich is 30/1/33 at 11.15 am. The shadow side of Neptune conjunct Jupiter is catastrophe and death. Saturn in the 10th of this chart…meaningless orders…from Adolf Hitler.
- The French Revolution 10/8/1792 Pluto in Aquarius at 22 degrees in the 7th house. The dark side of equality.
The world wide web has an affinity with Aquarius. Every corporation in the world is saying ‘how did we not spot this coming and control it all?’.
The world wide web has revolutionised our world. (Look how many billions were lost last week when googlemail went down. We are totally dependant.)
Neil presented a list of famous Aquarians…lots of scientists (Galileo, Copernicus), politicians, writers (Lewis Carroll, Dickens, Joyce, Miler, Greer, Woolf, Chekhov, Verne) playwrights, but few popstars(and of course the genre is punk… John Lydon/Rotten and Malcolm Maclaren ) or poets (Byron).
Aquarius is also the sign of psychology…dispassionate analysis, voyeurism.
This is Darwin’s year, another Aquarian. But Darwinism is a tremendously cynical doctrine which has led, arguably, to eugenics.
The United States has an Aquarian moon. More of it’s presidents are Aquarian than any other sign…Reagan, Lincoln, Roosevelt. Nixon and JFK had Aquarian moons.
Oprah Winfrey is an über Aquarian as is Sarah Palin.
In fact the U.S. constitution is Aquarian in itself…the whole idea of human rights had never before existed prior to the discovery of Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius in 1781, the same year as the final American victory over Britain.
Neil goes into an aside about the links between Sagittarius, Science Fiction and space travel.
Mars is also transiting Aquarius. 19.32 Aquarius is the degree of Flight. Has anybody noticed how many plane and helicopter crashes there are at the moment?
The Conservatives have their Jupiter return this year (perhaps why they are feeling so expansive and community minded? see post below)
The discovery of Neptune heralded the arrival of photography, the telephone, the phonograph, the age of sewers.
Interesting note: the moon was in Scorpio at the discovery of all three outer planets.
This year will be about Obama, public service and corporate criminals.
The ‘Madoff’ scandal is very Pluto in Capricorn and he will not be the last to be exposed.
Questions:
Is Obama a tyrant?
Neil: No I dont think so. I think he is actually that rare thing ‘a good man’. An extraordinary politician.
Neil continues: There are only six signs. The first six. The rest are versions of the first six. For instance a Libran is just an Arian with better manners.
While Leo are me, me, me….Aquarius is us, us, us. But within every Aquarian there is a Leo trying to get out. Neil also remarked that Aquarians often have big wavy hair.
The Pluto/Neptune conjunction in the 1890s through to World War I. produced artists such as T.S.Eliot, Tolkein, Nash and Spencer, who were all in the trenches. The Germans on the other side, took that same experience and made a hell of it.
Another thing to watch out for this year is inflation with the Jupiter/Neptune conjunction.
Atheist buses…very Aquarian. Obama is a believer. You cannot have an American president that doesn’t believe in God.
I remark that Obama included non-believers in his inauguration address. Somebody else in the audience remarked that in contrast Blair had to hide his faith from the British public.
“It’s not the done thing to believe in anything here” she said.
The astrologer Adam Smith notes that “Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day of the same year. Both have Saturn conjunct Neptune in Sagittarius. Time twins.”
Neil: There is also Chiron in Aquarius this year. There is always pain with Chiron.
My advice to Aquarians is that ethics count this year. Behave and you will prosper. Put your ideals on your sleeve.
I can’t remember how it happened but somebody noticed that I was sending messages on my iPhone.
“Yes I am twittering this talk.” I admit.
Crone heads swivel towards me looking inquisitive and curious. I explain what I’m doing.
“You are pirating my talk” Neil says with an amused glint in his eye, for he used to be the editor of the New Musical Express.
“No I’m publicising your talk. Sharing it, globally”.
This roomful, constellation of astrologers looks pleased. Despite their age, they are intensely interested in the future.
“I’m so glad you brought Aquarius into the room” remarks one older lady to this particular Aquarian “very appropriate”.
Vickie North
March 4, 2009 at 3:51 pmFantastic write up, really interesting stuff. Read your Twitter feed from the night with interest (am Aquarius!) and fascinating to hear the detail of what Neil said. Thanks a mill. Vixens
Canal Explorer
March 4, 2009 at 4:50 pmExcellent, hahaha! You MUST start up your internet dating blog, hilarious!
The Aquarius thing fascinates me. It is initially attractive but fundamentally unfulfilling, like several Aquarian men I've been out with. Not naming any names…
Canal Explorer
March 4, 2009 at 4:51 pmP.S. Love the comment about Librans being Arians but with better manners, but unfortunately we are lazier and less decisive too. Arian men I like, I haven't been out with enough of those…
Jacob
March 4, 2009 at 9:00 pmIt's amazing how many different ways people are using Twitter. I just read in this blog, that some escorts are actually using it to promote their business. Interesting stuff:
Twittering Escorts
MsMarmitelover
March 4, 2009 at 9:05 pmThanks for the link Jacob. The comments are really funny especially the escort girl who thanked them for the article.
Mister Trippy
March 5, 2009 at 8:13 pmNeil Spencer isn't as tough as you'd expect an NME editor to be. I think Birchill and Paarsons stomped all over him when they were there with him…. But he's a nice guy. Last time I ran into him was in a toilet at the BBC after we'd been on some Radio 5 show about politics and pop, with Billy Bragg, some guy from Gene and various others… so you can tell it was a long time ago….
MsMarmitelover
March 5, 2009 at 8:24 pmNeil Spencer is a Libran, therefore is very fair.
He recognises talent, as in Burchill (not mad about Parsons frankly. Don't like his Fathers for Justice side and his nastiness about the Portuguese during the McCanns affair).
Neil was one of the few to support me, as a teenage photographer at the NME.
Rog T
March 6, 2009 at 12:38 amMs Marms,
There are times I love being dyslexic. The first two times I read your last post, I thought "I never knew Neil Spencer was a librarian".
I thought "all that time in the library with Julie Burchill books". I used to work with a guy called Terry Brady, who had been Tony Parsons boss when Parsons had been a Computer Operator working for TSB Bank. That part of his career doesn't come up much.
Sometimes I'm glad my brain doesn't work properly, it makes life so much more fun.
By the way I'm a Leo born in the year of the Tiger (1962) – does that make me a pussycat or a monster?
Mister Trippy
March 6, 2009 at 3:08 amI don't know Neil Spencer well, you do, but I did get that feeling of fairness and decency from him, not what you expect to find in pop music circles but it's great he supported you as a teenage photographer. I'm sure he's much happier on the broadsheets than at the NME.
And for those that couldn't tell, I'm sure Canal Explorer can, I'm an Aries, with plenty of youthful vigour, fire and passion – or to put it into the words of an old reggae song with a rocking tune and a singer whose name eludes me right now: "Like a Lion of Judah I'll strike my enemies down!"
Ben Fairhall
March 7, 2009 at 4:55 amWhere is the info on your 'Battle of the Beanfield' book?
Yes, Gran Tourino a very good film, in my opinion; surprised an alleged 'anarchist' like yourself would think so, however. (You'd have to be blind not to notice the Catholicism.)
You can check out BTB now, if you like. (Until I have another funny turn, of course, which probably won't be for another week at least.)
My e-mail: bc.fairhall@gmail.com.
Interesting developments in MM land, I notice… and MM Jr.
Hope you're well.
Ben
rockmother
March 8, 2009 at 10:23 amHello – and thanks for popping by over at mine. I am an Aquarian and I have to say I do feel very focussed this year – more so than usual which is a miracle because usually my focus is being flung around everywhere like cake being thrown in a food fight!
MsMarmitelover
March 8, 2009 at 7:06 pmWelcome Rockmother,
your blog made me laugh!
Hi Ben,
I'm glad you've opened up your blog again. I have sent you an email re that book.It's got a picture of me in it so I'm trying to find where it got to.
Scarlett the Heavenly Healer
March 9, 2009 at 10:03 amThanks for contacting me. I am trying to figure out who you are though(lots of people took photos of me in the 80s!). I'm interested in your food project, and I'm also in Kilburn, so this all seems very timely to me.
I'll send you email…..
Ben Emlyn-Jones
March 9, 2009 at 12:40 pmI'd like to find that book too, ML. I first heard about Bean Field in Jonathan Downes' satire "The Blackdown Mystery". I read it and realized that the battle was one of the defining moments of Western society, the ones in which the powers-that-be, when pushed into a corner, fly their true colours.