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There is
mounting evidence that we're in the first phase of a change in civilization
that is going to totally rearrange national boundaries.
National
borders arose with the Neptune-Pluto conjunction of 1399, when European
kingdoms and fiefdoms formed into nations, and cartographers got busy
drawing these tidy lines on maps. After the conjunction, explorers sailed
forth and brought their mapmakers with them. By the 1890s, the world
atlas was a patchwork of distinct nation-states following the model
of Europe. Now, following the most recent Neptune-Pluto conjunction
of 1893, national borders are transforming once more.
Neptune
is the planet of dissolving and transcending boundaries, and Pluto is
the planet of transformation. Together, they herald the transformation
of borders and whatever else separates us from each other.
Prologues
to the Future
Robert
D. Kaplan, a consultant to the U.S. Army's Special Forces Regiment,
describes the breakdown of nation-state borders all around the planet:
"Most people believe that the political Earth since 1989 has undergone
immense change. The breaking apart and remaking of the atlas is only
now beginning. The crack-up of the Soviet empire and the coming end
of the Arab-Israeli military confrontation are merely prologues to the
really big changes that lie ahead."
Kaplan
and others make a case that the world has been moving (since the Neptune-Pluto
conjunction of 1893) from nation-state conflicts to ideological conflicts,
and this is leading to a future of cultural conflicts. "I would
add," writes Kaplan, "that as refugee flows increase and as
peasants continue to migrate... national borders will mean less and
less."
Drumbeats
of Civilization
Twice a
millennium, once every 493 years, Neptune and Pluto become conjunct,
and civilizations transform. Some of these changes happen at or shortly
after each conjunction; others need a gestation time of a hundred years
or more to become obvious. E. Alan Meece explores this in Horoscope
for the New Millennium:
"Although
the first effects of the Neptune-Pluto conjunction are felt immediately,
the new tone echoes across the landscape for decades afterwards. A troubled
'time of transition' begins that continues for 100 years or more. But
then the magic moment arrives. It has never failed to happen—about
a hundred years or more after the conjunction, the pieces fall into
place and all humanity celebrates a magnificent sunrise. Creative energy
bursts forth...the phoenix has risen from the ashes.” 2
The
Phases of Neptune-Pluto
The Neptune-Pluto
conjunction, like the conjunction of Sun and Moon (New Moon), has distinct
phases. The phases of the Neptune-Pluto conjunction are not as obvious
as those of the Moon and Sun, though, because no single human being
lives long enough to experience even one phase. We learn from history.
Since Neptune
averages 164-5 years to circle the zodiac, three phases are suggested:
three times 164 equals the time between conjunctions of Neptune and
Pluto.
Within
50 years of the last conjunction, the horse and buggy had been replaced
by the automobile and electricity lit up cities at night. Radios and
telephones, photography and movies sprung into being, to name only a
few technological changes.
Economically
and politically, the changes were even more dramatic. Two world wars
and dozens of other major global conflicts were fought. Capitalism and
communism contended for world domination. The Populist Movement in the
U.S. began in 1892 and led to universal suffrage. Russia started on
the road to a revolution that would break out in 1917. German, Austrian,
Russian and Turkish empires collapsed.
Mapping
the Heavens
The previous
Neptune-Pluto conjunction of 1399 coincided with the black plague, the
Reformation, and in Mexico, the rise of the Aztecs, who were in turn
conquered by Spanish invaders following Columbus' famous voyage about
a hundred years after that conjunction.
Going farther
back in time, dramatic things happened with the Neptune-Pluto conjunction
of 411. That is the date historians recognize as "the fall of Rome."
Visigoths conquered the "eternal city,” bringing to an end the
Age of Antiquity and ushering in the Dark Ages. Christianity arose.
In China, the Tsin Dynasty collapsed. A great new empire arose in Ghana.
The Mayan people built cities in the jungles of Guatemala.
Digitized
Dollars
It is said
of Pluto that he must destroy before he can create. It is out of the
ashes that Pluto's symbol, the phoenix bird, flies. CDs are being "burned"
in college dorms, destroying the music industry; new books are bypassing
conventional publishers; video equipment is revolutionizing the movie
industry; online outlets may threaten conventional shopping malls and
money is being transformed by trillions of dollars traded daily in the
form of telecommunicated digits.
Cities
of the twentieth century were composed of neighborhoods based on ethnicity,
with each participating in a larger, city-wide economy. That appears
to be the future global trend, as corporations transcend old national
borders, and new boundaries contain people of similar cultures within
nations.
From
Patagonia to Paris
In the
U.S., Texans of Mexican descent have more in common with Mexicans than
with Anglos in states bordering Canada. West Coast people are oriented
to the Pacific Rim, while East Coast people are tied to Europe. Yet
people from Patagonia to Paris buy more and more products from transnational
corporations.
Such changes
may seem scary, especially to conservatives defending the status quo.
But astrology has been called "God's newsletter to humanity,"
and the purpose is always the same, to create harmony and balance. The
changes seeded by Neptune-Pluto conjunctions turn out for the best.
1. Kaplan,
Robert D. The Coming Anarchy. New York: Random House, 2000.
2. E. Alan
Meece. Horoscope for a New Millennium. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn
Publications, 1997.
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