The Longest Arm

Now is when 2012 really begins. Not in terms of the Gregorian calendar, but in terms of the biggest transit of our lifetimes. Three days after the Summer Solstice, the Uranus-Pluto square — the longest arm of the Cardinal Cross — kicks off its four-year-long riff of seven exact hits. June 24th marks the opening of a time-window during which our urge to grow will be far stronger than our need for stasis. This extraordinary potential is the subject of my new book, At the Crossroads.

Earth will be vibrating on a new level of intensity between now and 2016. What’s all this energy for? What does it mean? These questions are more useful than the What’s-going-to-happen kind. Whatever happens is going to depend on what kind of energy we bring to bear. And that depends upon how much perspective we have.

Perspective

To get perspective, we can start by giving a thought to how many oracular traditions make special mention of this time. Of these probably the best known is the Mayan baktun cycle, said to end on December 21^st 2012. Also stunningly vast is the yuga system of ancient India, in which our own beleaguered era is called the Kali Yuga, Sanskrit for “the Dark Time”. (If the Kali Yuga began in 3100 BCE, as some scholars claim, this puts its beginning around the same time as that of the Mayan calendar.) There is even a theory  that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built to call attention to the planetary line-up in December of 2012.

The esoteric channel Alice Bailey identified 2025, the year Neptune leaves Pisces, as being the point at which the Fourth Ray will come into manifestation, bringing intellectual and emotional integration to the human race. Dane Rudhyar, granddaddy of modern astrology, sees the Age of Aquarius as officially beginning in 2060. These are the kinds of correspondences that make us sit up and take notice.

Prophecies

The rumor mill is churning. Theories abound about 2012 and the decades that follow it. In At the Crossroads, I discuss some of these, and how we might most productively approach them.  Whatever else is signified by all this conjecture, it is certainly evidence that an understanding exists in the collective intelligence about this juncture point in human evolution – an understanding that may not be altogether conscious, but is clearly attuned to something real.

As to particular prophecies, it’s important to be discerning about what we let in. There is a lot of fear buzzing around; and when newsmen or religious leaders, or astrologers or Hollywood filmmakers, start talking about earthquakes and tsunamis and alien invasions, people get even more frightened. In this state, we are hard pressed to respond in the highest possible way to the actual crises that exist. If we’re shut down with survival anxiety, we’ll find it hard to respond through our charts, i.e. from our essential beings. Fear pushes us down into lowest-common-denominator thinking. We cease to be individuals and lapse into mob-mind.

The healthiest way to approach this epoch is to open our eyes to its major themes, and keep track of them as they struggle to resolve themselves. These themes are unmistakable; only denial keeps us from seeing them. One of them is the democratization of information via technology; another is the conflict between democracy and plutocracy. Another is the petering out of the industrial revolution and the end of the age of oil, the subject of my latest lecture.

Me and We

A key paradox of our era has to do with the dual nature of our identity. We are individuals, on one hand, and members of a vast collective, on the other. These two levels of our being each have a reality; it’s not an either/or. It is true that we are independent souls, and it is equally true that we are part of the human family.

As to the latter, we need to realize that the status quo is in trouble. And to the extent that we identify with conventional narratives, we will be in trouble. The years between now and 2023 (when Pluto leaves Capricorn) are an invitation to take a fine-toothed comb and go through the tangled knot of assumptions we hold about collective life, separating out the inauthentic perceptions from the authentic ones. The collective belief systems that encourage falsehood are crumbling now. The sooner we detach from them, the better.

There are so many raucous dramas that could compel our attention right now, worldwide, as well as within our individual psyches. It’s as if we’re watching a three-ring circus — except there are far more than just three rings. And we aren’t just watching. If we’re truly living through our charts, we’re participating.

Life Purpose

In light of the building Uranus-Pluto square, it was not surprising to see Occupy Wall Street in the headlines again, just before the Solar Eclipse of late May 2012. Occupiers joined thousands of anti-war demonstrators in the streets of Chicago to protest the NATO summit. People are getting bit by the Uranus-Pluto bug in all kinds of ways. Some are taking the Landmark Forum; some are committing to radical health improvement. Some are organizing around sustainable agriculture or micro-loans in India or endangered species.

We have a multitude of leaders and resources available to us at this moment in history. We have righteous hackers fighting to keep the internet free; we have the environmental movement and fair trade warriors, we have visionaries leading the way in the arenas of clean energy and local food. The time is ripe for consciousness-seekers to step into our purpose.

How will we know what this is? Easy: we will be instructed from within and without. Neither our instincts nor our circumstances will leave us alone until we honor these promptings. All we have to do is be still and listen.