Out Of Thin Air: Elemental Epoch Shift: Designing The Present

In the conclusion of the 2nd season of Twin Peaks Cooper and company figure out that the Black Lodge opens temporarily on the apparent conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The conjunction of these planets indeed have been regarded through out history as very important chronological markers which open gateways for historical change. The Sun makes it around the zodiac every 12 months, the Moon every 29.5 days. Jupiter makes it around the zodiac every 12 years and Saturn every 29.5 years. There is a 12—30 ratio that is mirrored between the two smallest hands on the planetary clock and the two largest. Saturn and Jupiter come together in the same element for about 10 conjunctions in a row which takes about 200 years. When they switch elements there are major, wide sweeping shifts in society, culture and paradigm.

This year we pass fully from Earth to Air. This happens roughly every 800 years as Jupiter-Saturn cycle through each element in turn. From Fire to Earth to Air to Water.

FIRE: plasmic state, active, performative, dynamic, fast, requires fuel, spectacular, energetic, volatile, bright, the spirit

EARTH: solid state, material, slow, stable, doesn’t move- must be moved, changeable with considerable effort and labor, visible, the body

AIR: gaseous state, immaterial, active, moves and goes everywhere, constantly moving, swirling, shifting, changing, invisible, the intellect

WATER: liquid state, moving and changing in search of settling into stillness, flows, receptive and passive, takes whatever shape, visible yet both translucent and reflective, the emotions

Here are some of the mean or average years which spanned each elemental era so we can compare events with what we know about the elements:

WATER: flowing from shape to shape to settle on a lasting form. Religious movements and consolidations of theological forms.

185—14 bce: Roman Republic forms from Hellenism, classical roman civilization, christianity begins to take shape

610—800 ce Scandinavian water campaigns connect Northern Europe to Byzantium, Christianity flows into Scandinavia. Islam takes shape: Mohammad’s Quran spreads through Caliphate

1405—1603 ce age of exploration and discovery, Papal Schism, Protestantism takes shape

FIRE: active, volatile, bright, exciting peak periods of culture and society, lifting to heights and uprising to pinnacle points. Idealistic and spirited.

14bce—213 ce early Roman Empire, Pax Romana, relative peace, trade and wealth

809—1007 ce Charlemagne, Carolingian Renaissance, linguistic and moral regeneration of society

1603—1802 ce Enlightenment, Isaac Newton, reason, colonialism, “adventurers” expansion

EARTH: The post peak enthusiasm drive toward resource acquisition, territory control and empire stabilization. Hierarchy constructs. Heavily materialistic and rational.

213—412 ce late Roman Empire

1007—1206 ce high middle ages: rapid European population growth, rural exodus, urbanization

1802—2000 ce Napoleon, British Empire, Industrial America, Soviet Union, global capitalism

AIR: The decentralization of power, authority and organization, consistent shifting and shuffling, dispersal, exchange, interaction, communication, innovation. Prefers networking and the interrelation and exchange between many smaller collectives. Mobility and travel.

383—185 bce Rise and fall of Alexander’s empire, breaking empire into many city states all speaking Greek and the inception of the Hellenistic world

412—610 ce the fall of the Roman empire under the pressure of climate change and barbarian hoards resulting in the annexation of the classical world

1206—1405 ce the Black Plague reduced the nobility's hold over the lower classes and breaks up noble and monastic feudal land lock transitioning scholasticism to humanism and growing interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts leads to inception of Italian Renaissance,

2000—2219 ce personal computing, internet, social media, and covid-19 decentralizes capitol and promotes global collectivism, local networking, and replaces ownership with access

Most of us have been living in a blend of Earth and Air as the mathematical mean or average conjunctions versus the visible apparent conjunctions have been overlapping in either earth or air signs since 1980, although with this conjunction in Aquarius in 2020 there is only going to be air sign conjunctions for the rest of our lifetime. We will see as they did in the fall of Alexander’s empire as well as the fall of the Roman empire the rapid decentralization and dispersal of structures in favor of localized collective networks. This in 410 with Alaric involved the ceasing of goods moving in and out of the walls of Rome, as importation from China now is halted and border closures have seized us, and in the late middle ages when the plague upended feudal hierarchy today covid-19 results in mass rent and mortgage strikes.

What we call history is mostly a scan of various military documentation going back in time. It’s a journal of war. But this is not what humans exclusively experienced. Looking back it may seem grim, but whole lives were lived out in various states and various contexts geographically over the centuries. What is important now is to try and understand what forms of thought or poise of paradigm or framing of projects to take to jive with the acutely articulating Air period which is obviously already doing its thing to rapidly disperse and disrupt all of our foundational systems and cast us into an altogether altered reality.

Everything we want to create or propose or act out, if we want it to be formated correctly for manifestation to support it rather than offer resistance we must ask ourselves “how is this an effective network?” From here we branch out in possibilities along these lines. Remember:

INCREASED MOBILITY

DECENTRALIZATION

COLLECTIVISM

FREE EXCHANGE

RAPID TRANSLATION

LANGUAGE EQUALIZATION

LOCAL NETWORKING

HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE

LATERAL ORGANIZATION

INFORMATION SHARING

OPEN SOURCE

UNIVERSAL ACCESS

MULTIPOLAR

WIDE DISPERSAL

MULTIPLICITOUS

MASS DISSEMINATION

I’m not making a political statement by listing these concepts. This is not to support one political agenda or another. In fact it is more to promote none. These are simply, from an astrological perspective the elements that will be favored by the wider era we are entering and what will be emerging ongoingly from here on out. Efforts to pursue dynamics averse to these modalities will meet resistance and will be more likely to not take hold with any stability or permanence. Systems already in place, such as empire, global capitalist economy, hierarchical government structures, national borders and so on will be quickly broken up. This is not to say we are headed into an absolute socialist utopia. There is a persistent neutrality, air periods are not better or worse than earth periods, they just have considerably different qualities. The purpose of framing what dynamics and modalities are now most likely to take hold is to give us some advantage in designing what we want to see occur and to be able to support ourselves and our lives and projects and agendas RIGHT NOW rather than be simply left in the lurch of the massive unraveling of the systems we’ve always been forced to rely on.

As the Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter pile up on Pluto in very hierarchical, mechanistic, border focused and managerial Capricorn we are currently experiencing an excess of these qualities in a time where we transition rapidly to these more decentralized air elemental dynamics. Lockdown is a temporary condition which will in the coming times be absolutely swept off the table. In the current moment as the only parts of the system that remain functional are the mechanistic components, and all bars, restaurants, theaters, auditoriums, festivals, congregation spaces, prostitution, galleries and schools have been shut down we are experiencing Culture and Society absolutely cleaved apart.

Both Mercury and Venus are at play in money, and money has been what animates our economy. Mercury is the exchange and abstraction and counting, where as Venus is the value, desire, and experience of enjoying what goods and services and entertainments you afford. It’s as if all of us who are suddenly out of work are the Venus throngs of the world. We have already been cast into consolidation and left to rely on each other’s ingenuity rather than the foundational machine. But society needs culture. They will come crawling to us. We must invoke the archetypes of the Venusian, as Aphrodite or Inanna, and all of Venus’ other possible incarnations are at the heart and loins of human experience, and wield lust and mania and romance and beauty and compulsion of all kinds, and with these Deities behind us we must rush into the channels of manifestation through these conduits of Airy modality and dynamically transform the world.

Do what is needed in the moment but do not get trapped trying to resuscitate an empire who’s days are at this very moment absolutely numbered, but be diligent instead to imagine systems that can quickly be authored and implemented to fill the blank canvas we are now presented with fortunate fates for yourselves and those you love.