Dr. King, Progress, & the New Moon in Aquarius
Today marks the moment in this month where the positions of the Moon and Sun are aligned~ correlating with our emotional selves and essential-ego selves coming together. These two luminaries move today into the sign of Aquarius– the revolutionary, the social justice dreamer, the lover of and fighter for the oppressed and the underdogs, the intellectual, the HUMANITARIAN. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had the planet Mercury in the sign of Aquarius at the time of his birth, reflecting that he chose to use his mind, senses, voice, and radical communication skills to preach for all oppressed people throughout the world. Lately we’ve seen so many examples of people not being humanitarian. Much of the media chooses to highlight these upsetting people and scenes rather than to show us, with some attempt at displaying balance and hopefulness, that there are amazing activists and persecuted citizens everywhere demanding justice and in doing so, carrying on the critical work of Dr. King and his fellow organizers.
Our birth charts show us our potentiality, rather than our precise path. There are high road and low road potentials of every possible chart configuration, and there is no such thing as a ‘good’ chart or a ‘bad’ one. As my main mentor Steven Forrest has often noted, Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler share several similar configurations in their natal charts, as they were born just a few days apart from one another, in nearby regions of the world. One chose to take a higher road path, and one chose to take a lower road, to say the least. But Hitler did not at all act alone. Countless others watched atrocities happen before their very eyes and silently stood by, doing nothing to alter the course of that crushing period. And as King reminded us in his 1963 letter from a Birmingham jail, “Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” That is worth stating again: everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. My mind immediately jumps to the current ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws in effect throughout much of the United States.
While MLK Jr. had many other planetary placements that correlated with him leading the civil rights movement, he could’ve chosen a lower road path with it all. But he did not. And we are all far better off because of his leadership in doing the right thing. However, there remains MUCH work to be done, particularly for the descendants of the people who were forced to give their unpaid LABOR and LIVES to build our great nation. Unarmed people of color are being regularly gunned down- in parks, inside of stores like Walmart, when trying to get help after a car accident, on front stoops, or while walking home from a candy store.
The beauty of studying our charts from an evolutionary perspective is that it encourages us to keep growing to become better people~ and shows us specific ways to do so as the unique beings that we are. We are now being called, just as Dr. King called on fellow citizens a mere five decades ago, to join in movements throughout the world demanding an end to terrorism, murder, and genocide, including right here in our ‘land of the free’ United States of America. As a privileged and relatively safe-feeling white person, when I was growing up I learned that white supremacists were members of the KKK. In fact, I only heard the term white supremacist when also hearing about the KKK. I have since learned that white supremacy is the basis of our nation- and has been since its inception [or rather, since this land was claimjumped by Europeans from indigenous American people]. It may (or may not) be much more subtly-presenting forms of white supremacy today, but the system is alive, thriving, and ardently defended nonetheless. This year, as the last of the seven exact Uranus-Pluto squares (individual revolution vs. crumbling, outdated structures, spanning from 2012-2015) fast approaches, white people have the chance to be on the right and loving side of history, standing with and for people of color in POC-led movements such as #BlackLivesMatter and truly listening to the voices and experiences of black and brown folks~ while taking it all to heart.
Mercury and Venus continue to be close together this week in the sign of Aquarius, along with the Sun and Moon as mentioned above. How can we match our words with our hearts that know the truth, and stand for all people whose lives continue to be undervalued and tyrannized?
New Moon periods are excellent times for intention-setting~ reflecting on and writing down how we would like to use this month’s Aquarian energy in the air to fuel our inner fires in the weeks to come. Each day we make a choice to care about others in addition to ourselves, or not to care. May we keep Dr. King’s eloquent Aquarian words carried inside our hearts and through our acts of service each and every day forward…
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores … A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.”