Boy In The Bubble
Climate change. Like a repetitive drum-roll, we’ve heard the apocalyptic refrain before. As ancient glaciers disappear, polar bears drown, rivers run dry and dust bowls fill deforested wastelands, impotent politicians sit around conference tables in expensive hotels, unwilling or unable to do what needs to be done.
Not everyone agrees that global warming, extreme weather, mass extinctions, or a shrinking ice caps are “bad” things. Seas filled with plastic and burning forests are commercial opportunities for big businesses.
The planetary archetypes reflect the imbalance and discord in our world. At the time of the 2004 Tsunami off the west coast of Sumatra, the devastating Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, and the Wenchuan Great Earthquake in May 2008, Eris and Jupiter were in tense aspects. Now, Eris is conjunct Uranus and in opposition to Jupiter. Hurricane Irma hurtles up the west coast of Florida and bears down on the city of Tampa. These tense planetary aspects are magnified in global events. Some would suggest the retaliatory reaction of Nature as she destroys human settlements are reflected in the extreme weather of climate change. In our personal lives, there might be a sense of imbalance, discord, or an awareness of the extreme injustice in the world order as we resonate with these powerful energies.
This month (September 28th, 2017) is the last of the three Uranus-Jupiter oppositions (26th December 2016 and 2nd March 2017) and Eris protests angrily.
The archetypal symbolism of the outer planets carry a potent message for humanity if we take the time required to bring these energies into consciousness. The Uranian archetype relates to the rebel who overturns the status quo, it’s associated with creative intuition and innovation that ruptures the barrier of what is known, it’s a shock wave of Promethean energy that propels us towards freedom from those things that limit or restrict this need for change and liberation. So, when Uranus is in conversation with Jupiter, the planet of expansion and grandiosity, expect a restless, highly charged energy. We may experience those clichéd “eureka” moments that break us open, alter our direction, or a paralysed neurosis, an immobilising overwhelm if we resist the call.
As “the wrath of nature” pounds America’s coastline, the alignment of planets in Virgo and Neptune and Chiron in compassionate Pisces, suggest there will be a healing in this ferocious release of energy—generosity of spirit, heartfelt outpouring of love and empathy, and practical measures to bring relief to the people and animals swept up in this catastrophe.
What can we do in the face of the hubris of big business and governments? Like the Little Match Girl, we strike our flimsy matches: We add our protest to an Avaaz.org petition. We plant a tree, walk to work, sell the car, buy a bike, install solar panels and eat organic. We do what we can as concerned citizens, walking through the ethically “correct” minefield littered with plastic bags versus jute.
Perhaps we must question our motives. Be wary of a fear-based resonance that vibrates in the belief that the world is sick and dying, or a need to feel pure, worthy or good. Polarised thinking is tinder for the bonfires of war. By staying stuck in the Pain Body, we are part of the problem. By projecting our disowned parts, our shadow onto governments, industrialists, or the dying polar bears, we cling to fear-based thinking.
Writes spiritual teacher Gill Edwards “if your vibrations hover around self-righteousness you are in fear-mode, so you tend to push against the negative, instead of reaching towards what is positive.” Perhaps this is just another great evolutionary mass extinction? Just part of the great cycle of death and re-birth? “Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made,” writes author Cormac McCarthy.
If we use the potent archetypes of Eris, Uranus and Jupiter to expand our awareness; to do our mindful bit for each other and the planet, perhaps only then we will know that we are all part of the Whole. We’re all in this together. The birds, the bees, the great leviathans, the polar bears—and us, wearing our clumsy, hob-nailed boots, searching for Hope as she flies from Pandora’s gaping box.
“These are the days of miracle and wonder and don’t cry baby, don’t cry, don’t cry…”
Paul Simon’s Boy In The Bubble.
Songwriters: SIMON, PAUL / MOTLHOHELOA, FORERE