Learn From the Past to Understand the Grail

Princess Mononoke was the first international release from Studio Ghibli in 1997. Among other things it is a fable about our relationship with nature.

A few weeks ago, on a visit to a blissfully cool, wet Glasgow, my friend Anne Whitaker shared a particular piece of her research that came about because she’d been looking at “Barbault’s Basket” and thought to herself, well, that’s strangely familiar.

Anne was remembering the pattern in the sky at the moment of the conjunction of Uranus and Jupiter back in 1997, because she’d written a book about these conjunctions.

It was the same shape exactly as the grail that we are in now, but even more astonishing, those planets in question were at 5°  of fire and air signs, just one degree from this year’s pattern — in fire and air signs.

The patterns are the same, within one degree. The pattern has moved from Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Aries to Aquarius, Aries, Gemini, Leo. But whereas the one in 1997 lasted but a few days; the one this summer is lasting weeks. In 1997, Neptune was in an out-of-sign conjunction but the other outer planets were again exactly in synch.

I waited until Anne published her findings on astro.com, which you can read here, before sharing some thoughts of my own about the connections between this year and 1997. Please read Anne’s article, because she makes striking observations about scientific breakthroughs (and their perils) at that time and again now and how these connect to the industrial revolution 200 years ago.

1997
1997 was an extraordinary and pivotal year.

The UK
In this country it was a dramatic year for public events. Labour finally won the General Election after 18 years of Conservative rule. Their arrival in Downing Street transformed the mood of the country from gloom to euphoria over night. Much of the good work of that Labour government was done quickly in that first year — including Scottish devolution and the untethering of the Bank of England. Then beautiful, glamorous, sparkling Hong Kong was handed back to China, bringing to an absolute end Britain’s global economic pretensions. And then beautiful, glamorous, sparkling Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris, and the nation was flung into a kind of hysteria of both mourning and self-reproach.

Liberation Technology
For me 1997 was a year of personal liberation through new technology (among other things). The conjunction of Uranus and Jupiter was on my Aquarian Venus.

I  bought my first mobile phone, a little green Nokia, which, as a freelance was an absolute game changer. And I remember my first encounter with the internet some time in 1997. The search engine was not particularly useful, the interface was ugly, but it was intriguing and exciting.

Something new was being born. Uranus, the planet of electricity and genius, binary codes and breakthroughs, was  in its own sign for the first time in 82 years. Jupiter, the planet of expansion and knowledge was in Aquarius for a year, expanding our electronic horizons.

Aquarius is an air sign, a sign of connections, science, thought, and here were the two planets of liberation coming together.  The internet was about to go global over the next seven years of Uranus residence in Aquarius. The following year, as Jupiter left Aquarius, Neptune arrived, ready to spend the next decade melting barriers and borders in the sign most closely associated with computer science.

By the time Neptune and Uranus had left Aquarius in the first decade of this century computers had become integral to most of our lives. Then Neptune dived into Pisces in 2010 and we found ourselves with the bright light of the smart phone shining in our pockets, and Uranus made his way through Pisces, Aries, Taurus, first expanding, then focusing on the individual, and finally  on turning a profit. Since 1997 we have been living in the age of world wide web, global connection. We have fully entered the computer age.

Climate Change
But something else important happened in 1997, which we are seeing the results of now. At the end of that year, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was signed by 192 parties. This was the first legally binding document that set countries’ emission targets to reduce greenhouse gases. Governments (in general) finally acknowledged that climate change was real.

Since then, there have been many attempts to get international agreements  — another area of Aquarian endeavour — on climate. And  the fossil fuel lobby has also continued to gaslight the world.

Here we are in the hottest summer on record. Climate change is roaring. Maybe that grail pattern is really a loudspeaker shouting at us to save our precious planet or else. It certainly feels like a major tipping point happened here.

During the last 30 years there have been two opposing narratives about climate change. On the one hand, the ravaging of the planet has actually become more frenzied; on the other, we have developed the technology and knowledge to slow or even reverse climate change. We know what to do, so it’s a question of making that decision.

Your own story
There is much more to ponder about that year, 1997, and I’d urge you to consider your own life and the life of your family and your nation at that time.

Pay special attention to themes of liberation and technical advance, sudden changes (political or social). What happened in the UK was especially pivotal because the nation’s chart has several planets and points in the early degrees of fire and air. But think about your own industry. Mine — publishing at the time — had wholly moved to desktop publishing by 1997, and was busy being eaten by the behemoth of Harper Collins.

2026
It’s nearly 30 years later — a Saturn cycle in fact — and here is another satellite dish of planets, opening out at a different angle, but anchored again partially by a major planet in Aquarius.  Pluto has reached the place of the Uranus-Jupiter conjunction of 1997. And the grail has tilted round.

Saturn in Aries tells us we are at the start of another chapter.

Many commentators have said that AI is the next industrial revolution, however, we have already been in that Aquarian Industrial Revolution for a whole Saturn cycle. AI may be part of that, but so far AI is a destructive force — polluting the planet, destroying jobs, flooding the internet with slop, telling lies. That’s Pluto at his worst — maybe he’s burning the internet before remaking it?

Pluto is a planet of mining, wealth, debt, power. And we know that Aquarius is a sign of computers but also of the common people — who may be both empowered and destroyed by this force. Yanis Varoufakis has coined the term techno-feudalism. That also is precisely Pluto in Aquarius, a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. We all become serfs on the vast techno-estates of the global billionaires.

But this may have reached its peak, the basket may tip over, and spill out its contents. Multiple changes are under way — viz Andy Burnham the soon-to-be British prime minister, the rapid power grabs of the tech bros and the pushback against them, attempts at wealth redistribution are coming down the pipeline. All these changes are necessary, but from where I sit, sweltering, there is one central issue: the burning planet.

That’s the potential future, of course, a green, sustainable future that is simultaneously closer — thanks to the work of Uranus in practical earth-loving Taurus over the last seven years — and further away — thanks to the insane plundering of the earth’s resources by Pluto in Capricorn.

Pluto in Aquarius wants a revolution. Will the other planets join in?