Aquarius is Rising | Paris, Feb. 11, 2005

Opening up my first chart of the day sent a little shock through my system. I had awakened from a dream that came with the message: you have to be who you are. Then typing 'any key' and waiting a moment for my friend Planet iMac to wake up, I had a look at the astrology. Aquarius rising, followed by a stream of planets in Aquarius and Pisces stuffed into the 1st house. Part of Fortune conjunct Uranus. North Node in the 2nd house.

Be myself, indeed.

Put on your sunglasses and take a look at the chart. You don't need to be an astrologer to get it. The rising bit is all the stuff on the left, just below the horizon or horizontal line. See above, or:

http://planetwaves.net/astrology/aquariusrising.html

This is Aquarius turned up to the level of the Jet Stream. The exact degree of the forthcoming Chiron-Nessus conjunction (in effect from Feb. 21 or so clear through the next couple of seasons) is in the ascendant, three and a half Aquarius (Sabian Symbol: A Hindu yogi demonstrates his healing powers). This is a conjunction, long in the development as Chiron approached Nessus in Capricorn, that looks to me like it's going to shake a little reality loose from the cosmic tree, and fortunately up in the north, it happens when the weather is getting warm and people are getting restless and curious.

In the current chart, Chiron (little green key) is floating above the horizon, currently in the last arc minutes of Capricorn, about to burst into the next dimension. The Moon in the late degrees of Pisces is making a sextile to Chiron -- balancing the emotions with the transforming force of awareness, but balancing on the very edge -- a position that will be in effect part of the day. Then in a little while, the Moon blazes into Aries for much of Friday and the weekend, running all that emotional energy through FIRE instead of water. Now that should be interesting.

Aquarius involves a great many commitments and social patterns, but ultimately the message of this sign is distinguish yourself from the great mass of humanity as the individual you were born to be. Distinguish yourself from your peers. This is not hippy talk. This is not groovy therapy talk. This is what I understand as the evolutionary imperative of Aquarius, as ordained by the cosmic architects. Right now, every single natal horoscope on the planet, no matter when or where you were born, is getting its Aquarius angle pushed past the speed of sound.

How are you feeling? In what particular way are you feeling restless? In what particular way are you seeking contact with a group that allows you to be your actual real self? This is the message of the Aquarius Jet Stream.

There what seems to be a necessary process with Aquarius: some kind of pattern or system must break before the new one can take over. Imagine this happening most distinctly on the level of personality.

Individuation: if Aquarius on the most spiritual or esoteric level has a tradition that must be honored, this is it. Yet this tradition requires us to take a series of deeply personal steps and leave behind who and what we were before. Growing this way can be challenging, especially if you see your only choices as being McDonald's and Burger King. If there is a trick, it's usually some form of giving yourself additional options. This is easily done, if you want. Usually the choices are right there, you just have to see them. If they're not there, you need to get creative; remember, you are creative.

I've noticed from long observation that the group in which it's often most difficult to be an individual is the group of two. In these groups of two, we can live with all kinds of spoken and unspoken expectations and arrangements that seem to trap us into being someone other than who we are now. Often the deals we live with were made back when we were different people, in truth bearing little resemblance to who we are now. I see this every day, I feel it every day, and I feel the strength that it takes to assert myself as the person I am that particular hour of my life. It takes strength just to remember! And to remember that the biggest barrier is my own fear.

Slowly I'm learning not to feel bad for pushing everyone around me so diligently to accept me for who I am today. Gradually, I'm even learning to feel good about it. The more of us who do that, the more the world will start to make sense. If the past is what we must let go of, can you think of a more efficient way? If you can, I would love to hear about it. I have noticed that when I make authentic decisions that reflect who I am now, the cosmos responds. I have learned to trust my motives. I've learned that I love people without trying.

Then there's the office. What would it feel like to stop making compromises there? Who, me? I would probably write a lot more science fiction stories in this space, or somewhere nearby. Essays would be a heck of a lot sexier, and more veils would fall away. I would stop worrying about what you think, with perfect faith; please, fill up my reader comment folder. I would take a chance and explore some wild possibilities we've both never heard of, and some extremely sensible ones. I don't know about you, but I need some of that in my life.

And, truth be told, I would stop giving a rats ass about the latest bunch of morons who think they're going to take over the planet, and find a lot more fun things to write about.

Some of my readers [rereading this, I saw the word 'teachers'!] have been extraordinarily articulate in explaining to me that if I'm going to cover the news, I must focus on what's going right in the world. It's true -- the problems are finally getting a lot of attention now. When I've paused to look back, I've always considered myself a fairly bold writer. But I think the calling today is to be bold in an entirely different way: with what is possible. The world needs new possibilities, I need new possibilities, and I feel them inside me, and I feel them inside everyone I know. That sounds like a hot story.

So, brothers, sisters, cousins, colleagues, lovers, friends and Papa, Aquarius is rising. Let's get ourselves someplace new, and let's take ourselves along.