Part 1 of 3. With 6 planets in the sky in Aquarius this week, let me begin with a quote from James Hillman capturing the essence of Aquarius:
“Basic to collective consciousness today is global awareness, multi-culturalism, planetary thinking, multi-nationalism—the sense that all things private and personal and local are always being impinged upon by what others are doing everywhere.”
When six planets gather together in a sign, that particular dynamic of life is in focus under a huge magnifying glass. Or it might be said that it’s so in-our-faces that we don’t need a magnifying glass at all. With Aquarius, the notion of “collective consciousness” is what we’re looking at these days. Not that we haven’t been looking at it for a while now, as the Internet has wired its way in and out of our lives, back and forth across the globe, weaving the invisible threads of its world wide web up and down from the satellites orbiting our planet to the pipelines underground, connecting us all together with a greater awareness of what goes on all across our tiny home called Earth and forming a virtual cocoon as we all wonder what kinds of transformations lie in wait, what kind of fate is in store. It’s happening whether we like it or not, and it’s happening in ways that confound us every day. When I was a teenager, the world new nothing of ADD, HD, ADHD, Inboxes, iPhones, apps, tweets, Angry Birds, Black Swans, Blu-rays, social networks, etc.
Somewhere in all of this “consciousness” reside billions of individuals, animals, trees, plants, insects, etc. With Aquarius I always need an “etc.” because I can’t truly comprehend how huge the list really is. It’s overwhelming. How to live individual lives within a consciousness of collectivity is something none of us knows how to do. None of us. In a sense, this is the footing of Aquarius that brings us all together equally. Our “collective consciousness” at this stage is, in fact, a collective ignorance.
Part 2 will take a closer look at the sign Aquarius by differentiating between Pisces and Aquarius.