Evolution by crises:
Good or Bad?
With the dramatic events of 2020 at the forefront of all our
minds, it is a good time to reflect on what critical changes like this mean,
both in the astrological sense and in practical ways.
I’ve talked before about other astrologers who are more
positive and optimistic than I am. Indeed I heard a few of them speak at a
conference in Baltimore only a year ago. While all agreed that 2020 would be a
dramatic year, many of them saw opportunity and, in some cases, hearts and
flowers. You can imagine what I thought
of that!
Often in these situations the more spiritual among
astrologers see change as a potential for the raising of consciousness, for
overcoming societal conflict and resolving the long standing problems of the
human race. It is a beautiful vision but
it rarely manifests so simply. Indeed,
if it did, humanity would have, long ago, ascended to another plane as 21st
century western thought does not have a monopoly on transformative awareness
But I am far too cynical and my negative assessments are no
more a valid response than is an expectation of imminent world peace.
We definitely have in 2020 a potential crisis point
astrologically ( the Pluto Saturn Jupiter conjunction) and the outcome of crises may indeed be
positive in some cases so why is everything not coming up roses as some
suggested it might?
Well, first, the
optimists are not wrong; they are merely underestimating the length of the
journey which groups or nations must
travel as before they can start to overcome the darkness as well as the fact
that we are all, whether nation, person or planet , at a different point in our
travels.
There isn’t just one cycle operating. There are multitudes
of interconnecting ones. Each nation, each economic sector taps into a
different one. Indeed that is the very premise of astrology as each individual
or nation or organisation has its cycles encapsulated in their birth-chart.
At the beginning of the pandemic, here in the UK, the news was full of all the sacrifices being
made by people for each other, all the little kindnesses and the devotion to
duty. But soon it became apparent that for every individual who was selfless
there was one who was completely and entirely selfish: breaking the rules,
littering ( and worse) all over the place, abusing those trying to do their
jobs and defrauding both individuals and the taxpayer. Worse has been the situation in countries
where the response to the virus has been overly politicised.
Clearly though there are many who are indeed on a path
towards enlightenment there are at least as many for whom 2020 is the year that
their worst traits are magnified.
Secondly, despite the fact that all the news is full of the
negatives, there are also beneficiaries
– both in the short and long terms-and in both the spiritual and the practical
realms. Things are bad but some people are
reaping dividends. We just hear less of the stories that confirm the optimists’
perspective and more of the ones that reinforce my cynicism.
Finally, there is the reality is that for individuals the universe
is not a closed system . While the astrological cycles continue unchecked, for each of us a cycle’s key point is also the
deciding crisis from which some will not recover The camel doesn’t survive the last straw- his
back is irretrievably broken, Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together
again. We don’t get back to the point we
started. In economic development we don’t unlearn the control of fire or
benefits of the wheel and we don’t return to the use of horse and cart after
discovering the combustion engine.
Some sadly have died from coronavirus, some businesses will
never recover. For these individuals there are no happy endings even though, as
a whole, the world may indeed become more enlightened.
Economic trends and the
coronavirus
While some economic and political cycles will indeed reach a
critical point in 2020 or in 2021, many have still a long way to go and some
are in their infancy. Covid, representing the 2020 conjunction, has accentuated some of these.
Governments don’t have any skin in the long term trend game –
as long as they can keep things sufficiently in check through a few years of
their power to enable them to be returned to office they don’t care what
troubles are being stored up for the future. So nothing changes until an external event
creates the necessary crisis.
For three decades now ( since the Uranus/Neptune/Saturn conjunction
of the early 1990s) technology has been changing the face of or society. At first
it was just how we communicated but since the advent of Amazon and its ilk we
have seen radical changes to the way we purchase retail products. There has been a gradual shift
away from the high street and the malls. Obviously the technology companies
have revelled in this while local and national governments have worried about
the impact on jobs, taxes and property markets. Policy changes have been
minimal tinkering.
But anyone who thought that 2020 might lead to a switch back
to high street stores has been in for a disappointment. Covid has brought about
the opposite. In the UK at least, high streets have been emptied, retail and
hospitality chains have gone into liquidation and a whole new bunch of
customers have discovered the benefits of on-line grocery shopping. While some
of the changes will turn out to be temporary, many are permanent. The impact of this has not yet fully flowed
through the economy and the impact on often highly indebted commercial property
owners has hardly began. This will in turn have a knock-on effect on Local
authorities relying on business rates to provide its services.
Similarly, due to falling hardware prices, telecommunications
advances and internet connectivity it has been possible for many years to conduct
large chunks of most office jobs from almost anywhere with a good signal. But
companies have resisted such changes to their control over their wage slaves
In this case Covid has not so much accelerated a trend but
created a whole new way of living for many.
And once again we must ask what will be the long term impact on
urban/office areas, property markets and local government budgets.
On the other hand, so called “Technology” companies, already
on upward trajectories for the last few decades, have generally benefitted from
the 2020 crisis, but while I don’t see this trend reversing at a grass roots
level, at a stock market level some of the valuations have become ludicrous.
That cycle currently diverging from the others will meet its nemesis at some
point too. And once more I don’t see any
attempt to mitigate the obvious downsides that will occur.
There is no going back to the way things were. New solutions
must be found. Unfortunately governments will remain resistant to offering
creative solutions to longer term economic change. In this case 2020 is merely
sewing seeds for a future economic
crisis.
Furthermore ,the impact of the Coronavirus on economies
across the world is well documented. Governments have had to reach up into
their magic money trees to help businesses and individuals survive what are
“unprecedented” times. This has accentuated the already questionably high debt
position of many of those nations . There have been few countries that have
been plunged into debt crises this year but it can only be a matter of time and
the appropriate future points in global and national astrological cycles when
the whole edifice collapses.
National pressures
As examples here we can consider Lebanon and Belarus
In Lebanon a single event ( the docklands explosion) had the
potential to tip an already simmering situation into a new scenario. The
government resigned and there was potential for a new administration and an
international bailout, negotiated by the French, if certain conditions could be
met. However the various factions in the country have not been able to come to
agreement and the country continues its seeming inexorable decline. There is a
chance to take the country down a new and possibly better path now but that isn’t
happening- what is for sure is that
whatever the outcome it has already shifted to a very different trajectory.
Belarus is another
country where there is significant dissatisfaction with the leadership. However
in this case the result so far has been the consolidation of power by the
leadership with crackdowns on the protests.
It may be that the opposition will garner enough strength to overcome
the government peacefully but it is more likely that life will get more difficult
before it gets better – we may have to wait to the next crisis point in a cycle
for things to change there.
USA
Another country where the 2020 crisis conjunction is causing
things to escalate but without any sign of resolution is the USA. We were
already in a cycle of increasing polarisation of the right and left that dates
back almost 3 decades and has led to increasing difficulty for administrations
to pass even the most sensible of legislation.
But we are also dealing with much longer cycles -The Black Lives Matter protests
are the culmination of the events and prejudices of centuries rather than decades.
These protests, initiated for genuine reasons, have brought
all sorts of other unrelated groups out of the woodwork. On the one hand
extreme, in some cases white supremacist,
Right Wing groups, and on the other some so called supporters of the
Antifa movement who seem closer again to anarchy ( extreme libertarianism) than
the left wing socialism the name suggests.
Whether you agree with some of the more extreme examples or not, they
are a product of previous cycles and formed in response to previous smaller
crises. They are a product of the incremental
development and governance of the nation that is the USA.
So in the US we have
a moderate amount of disparate civil
unrest at the moment. Civil unrest may be a way of the people making their
voices heard but it can also be a whisker away from civil war.
Astrologically, though with certain provisos[i],
I think we are close to a tipping point in the USA that will manifest in the
next few years as Pluto returns to its position at the time of Independence.
This will inevitably have an economic and market impact as well and because of
the vulnerability created by high debt levels perhaps then undermine the
historic financial strength of the dollar. We will look at this in more depth
in a future post.
Climate change,
resource usage and environmental threats
A much bigger crisis lies in the wings and has taken a bit
of a back seat in 2020. There was even a brief point during the coronavirus
shutdowns where satellite images showed reduced pollution. However that has been more than offset by
increased plastic use as part of virus protection.
We’ve seen also the impact on oil prices and briefly some
commodities.
On the other hand there is little attention paid to the rare
elements that are being used up in some sectors.
Overall we have not really even begun to address the complex economic and political questions
of this area
But I don’t believe that 2020 is the year of crisis for this
area. Yet it is clear from the attitudes of both leadership and people that
crises will inevitably follow at some time in the future. I am not sure we can
avoid them but I will still spend time, at some point, considering the
astrology of when exactly those crises might occur.
And the last word
goes to Covid
Something to think about here. The Jupiter /Saturn/Pluto conjunction
has brought something we think is our
worst nightmare. But in fact, although it is very contagious, it is rather mild
for many people.
Look around you now at this crisis point and see how
everyone is behaving. Are they taking it seriously, or are they blasé? For this may be the only such test that the
universe will throw us, on the other hand it may just be a trial run for a
greater test in the next decade or so. It is already possible to see who would resist
any impositions in a future pandemic and thus who may or may not survive.
The crises will keep coming and we must adapt to survive- we
must never just accept that we will be fine if we do the same as we did last
time.
A crisis may be final but as the optimists home, it may just
be a time when we realise the error of our ways and at least start to amend our
behaviour so that at the next point in the cycle we may be better fit to deal
with whatever is thrown our way.
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