When everything is fluid and nothing can be known with any certainty, hold your own. …When all there is, is knowing what you’re feeling, hold your own. … When storms are coming – hold. … This whole thing thrives on us feeling always incomplete. (Kate Tempest)
Times of retrograde activity present an opportunity to change, to lift our lives out of the tracks of habit, resistance or indifference and chart a new course; “to shoulder the future from the rut of the present into some better pathway” (as Robin Hobb has written in another context). Over the summer we are seeing an increasing number of planets in retrograde. By early September we shall have seven planets retrograde simultaneously (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and the Centaur, Chiron). This is not unprecedented (the outer planets are retrograde for months at a time), but is a bit unusual.
Planets are said to be in “retrograde” motion when, due to the relative motion of the Earth, and from a geocentric point of view, they appear to be travelling backwards. Astrology is founded upon a geocentric perspective; appropriate enough since this dear Earth is not just where we live but the source of all sustenance. Retrograde activity means that planets seem to travel back through degrees of the zodiac they have already transited in direct motion, and which they will transit once more after the period of retrograde motion. So certain degrees of the zodiac will be visited by a planet at least three times, intensifying our experience and giving us time to work with what is unfolding, to review our reactions and, vitally, to recalibrate our responses.
We have had our eye on 2020 as a big year for challenge and change due to the beginning of three major new planetary cycles, after an eleven-year hiatus: Jupiter/Saturn; Jupiter/Pluto; and Saturn/Pluto. Two of these three cycles begin in the Virgo-ruled last decanate of Capricorn, suggesting an impact on work, health and service. Indeed, all the “frontline heroes” we’ve rightly heard so much about exemplify Virgo, the willing worker. Beneath the surface, though, this planetary activity represents the creaking and cracking apart of an obsolete system whose structures of authority and models of power no longer serve.
Now, as we head into a season of retrogrades, a time of particular significance opens up in this strange and perilous year. Peak retrograde (in August and September) gives us a chance to reflect upon and recalibrate our lives, and the choices, resources and values they reflect. The arm of the law is long and intrusive at this time of pandemic, as many rules are applied to how we conduct our lives. Rules don’t allow for nuance, and the public, it seems, cannot be relied upon to use common sense. So this is the way it has to be: a little bit arbitrary, a little bit nonsensical. But we follow the rules because, well, hell, the global economy’s been shut down by this thing so we ought to be afraid and we ought to do everything we can and we might be close to someone who feels really vulnerable. BoJo called this virus is an “invisible mugger” and no one wants to get mugged. A compassionate response is a beautiful thing. Our concern for the susceptibility of the immune responses of known and unknown others is touching – if that is what is going on here. Fear and danger are not one and the same thing; there is a distinction to be intuited. Much anxiety and fear are encouraged by the public discourse around Covid 19 and we all need to hold our own in check. Power demands compliance; we can at least be questioning about what is being required, how situations are being narrated, and why, and not simply yield to commands in the name of compassion.
While we shield, mask and socially distance we are also changing the emotional temperature of our social interactions, getting a little more disconnected. This asks us to reach out to each other, to confirm our connections, in the face of the current interruptions. Our social culture has been shown to be very malleable. Things we’ve done forever – like hang out huggermugger in groups sharing dips’n’chips (shocking!), drinks, kisses and all sorts – suddenly feel alien. Even going into a shop might feel like something you’d rather not do. An atmosphere of suspicion hangs like a mist around public space. I step into the street to let you pass in case you feel threatened by my germ-ridden presence. I don’t feel vulnerable, but I’m bothered that you might be, so I’ll give you the swerve. Out of compassion. Or is it an impulse more slippery, obedient or anxious than that? This impulse can be manipulated. The compliance culture is not a new thing, but it is reaching more deeply into our private spaces and behaviours.
This is not an evidence-based statement and the science is probably not behind me when I say, “As you believe it, so it is.” We can, however, observe how we scrabble around to furnish our points of view with the veneer of rationality. Any position you care to take you’ll be able to find authorities who speak both for and against it. The points of view that tend to prevail as rational, realistic and sensible are those that sit plausibly within the narratives of our knowledge culture; these become authoritative, persuasive. Views diverting from the cultural consensus readily seem ridiculous, even preposterous or dangerous.
Consensual reality is a matter governed by Capricorn (authority, governance, the System). Our highly various experiences of, and responses to, the pandemic show that we all exist within differing realities. The assumption that there is an overarching Actual Reality that can be described as indisputable, though an incredibly powerful one, is being blown apart in the common mind. Of course, it was ever thus: we inhabit our own realities founded on subjective experiences, perceptions and interpretations; however authoritative we may claim our personal views to be – they remain just that, personal. There may well be an actual reality out there that we are all experiencing and interpreting, but this is a matter of conjecture no matter how tight our scientific method. Even experts disagree.
The ground-breaking planetary activity of 2020 in the sign of Capricorn is fracturing our realities, showing them to be striated with beliefs, longings, fears and assumptions of all kinds. This is really challenging because as Nietzsche pointed out 144 years ago, “The will to truth … [may] finally prefer a handful of ‘certainty’ to a whole cartful of beautiful possibilities.”[i] Michael Tanner elaborates, “[Nietzsche] says there can be no facts, only interpretations. In other words, we should realise the extent to which our drives and desires colour all our dealings with what we like to think of as a reality existing entirely independently of us, which we can neutrally investigate.”[ii]
As Pluto’s journey through Capricorn purges systems of power and control, breaking down our fundamental notions of authority and consensus, “reality” is being revealed to be a product of perception, belief and other predispositions. The ground shifts beneath our feet and a new freedom arises: to interpret our lives freshly, to re-imagine and dream into new futures, to respond to a more authentic source of authority. Hold on to the possibility of that freedom. As you believe it, so it is.
[i] Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Penguin, 1990: 40
[ii] Introduction to Beyond Good and Evil, 19
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