Saturday 18 July 2009

Swine flu and the Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron conjunction - Saturn why hast thou forsaken us?

So, separateness is an illusion, after all. We may have suspected it, we may have believed in it, but it takes things like the swine flu epidemic for us to truly grasp the reality of our interconnectedness. Saturn has opened the door and invited in one of his signs his two arch enemies, Jupiter and Neptune. Their combined energies have managed to deal him a heavy blow. Despite our differences and our self-imposed boundaries, it turns out that we are all one. Neptune has won the battle.
Astrologers usually talk about Aquarius being the most humane of signs, a progressive and democratic one. Which is true, in this case at least. Viruses are extremely democratic and liberal and they make no distinctions. They don't care if you are a Palestinian or a Jew, a king or a slave, black or white. It's just what the 16-year-old boy said in the final film of The Matrix trilogy "The machines don't care how old I am. They are going to kill me just the same." Naturally, there is no need to panic with this flu, since most cases so far have been mild and there is no essential difference with the common flu. Still, it makes you think. What if it were a deadlier virus in its' place that could spread out with similar ease? Which means that life in the saturnian sense of the word is ultimately futile. No matter how hard you try to build your structures or how long it takes you to reach a certain level, it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye. Neptune calls us to detach ourselves from whatever we think defines us and focus on those things that can't be destroyed by a flu epidemic or a natural disaster. If we live our lives following Saturn's way, there is only one conclusion we can safely reach: That life is inherently unfair.
Which brings us to Chiron. Liz Greene says that the difference between Chiron and Saturn is that there is no apparent explanation for the chironic wound. Life wounds us in some way and we cannot blame anyone for it. You may have been orphaned, for example, at a very young age, but you can't blame your father for getting killed in the war. It's just how life is. This epidemic has all the characteristics of a chironic wound as you can't blame nature for the existence of viruses. So where does that lead us? To acceptance. To the realization that there are things in life completely beyond our control and we must learn to co-exist with them.
Jupiter, finally, brings a religious tone to all this. We must have faith that things will turn out exactly as they are supposed to. That evil is an essential part of life and perhaps equally divine. Because we must go on living no matter what and only Jupiter is capable of providing us with such strength. And who knows? One day we may find out what's really going on and if life has a purpose or not.

1 comment:

  1. There have so far been two peaks in the number of reported cases of swine flu. They match up pretty well with the first two Jupiter Neptune conjunctions. There is a link to the graph in my article here: http://funkastrology.co.uk/index.php?p=1_11_Swine-Flu-Astrology

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