Southwestern College An Educational Impulse for the Aquarian Age 1

Transcription

1 Southwestern College An Educational Impulse for the Aquarian Age 1 Transforming Consciousness Through Education: what does it mean? Taking an astrological view, it means facilitating the great shift, or the transition in the ages, that is currently underway. The founders of the College clearly enjoined that the College was to bring into reality the balanced expression of the emerging Aquarian Age. The Astrological Ages The Astrological Ages are a means of tracking the evolution of consciousness across time. They are connected to the procession of the equinoxes, and describe radical shifts in perspective when the sign located at the equinox changes. They last approximately 2100 years each, and they describe, planet-wide, how collective consciousness becomes entranced yet also how it may become enlightened. Most recently these Ages include: Age Dates Trance State Enlightened State Taurus (Bull) 4200 BC 2100 BC Indulgence and Materialism / Hedonistic Orientation Conscious Beauty/ Manifestation Aries (Ram) 2100 BC 0 Seeking Power Over Others / Patriarchal Orientation Conscious Empowerment Pisces (Fish) AC Seeking External Acceptance / Outside Religious Authority Conscious Acceptance and Compassion Aquarius (Human) 2100 AC 4200 AC Alienation and Separation / Mindless Tribalism Conscious Unity 1 As this is written, Southwestern College currently undergoes a profound shift as the Saturn force requires that we map ourselves into the world (the ongoing accreditation-related self study), yet the Uranus force demands that we open ourselves to all possibilities of what this institution may be and may become (self inquiries such as this reading). We are asked by the current astrological melee to more deeply and fully own and connect to our roots, to discover and awaken more deeply to the mission we have come through the College to fulfill. We are also asked to bring this self-understanding to the world and to trust that the world is ready, even hungry, for us as we truly are. Page 1 of 15

2 Aquarius, the Age into which we are transitioning, in its highest expression represents growth through relatedness, and the experience of conscious unity. The College was created with an explicit intention of supporting the actualization of the enlightened expression of this new age, which integrates the group action and consciousness of Aquarius with the individual action and consciousness of Leo. The College is dedicated to supporting an evolution in consciousness such that the polarized traps of egoic separation and of unconscious submersion into the group are transcended, and the experience of Self as individual and as group, as part and as whole, can be known simultaneously. Page 2 of 15

3 The Solar and Galactic Transmissions Southwestern s birthchart, taken from the time of the dedication of the College on September 23, 1976, at 1:35pm, describes clearly how the College is situated as a vehicle of consciousness transformation in the context of the Astrological Ages. We can begin with the most striking aspect of this chart: an exact New Moon, to the minute, taking place in alignment with the highest point in the sky. At New Moon, the Solar Logos irradiates the Lunar Personality with the next Soul Task that the Moon will then carry forth through a developmental cycle described through the lunar phases. The New Moon is thus a Moon full of energy, charged up, total potentiality. It has a kind of urgency, it is flooded with the transmission and about to set out on its journey. With an exact New Moon as a birth feature, the College has a profound and urgent sense of mission. It is a powerful stirring in consciousness, an energetic impulse. In the 9 th house of the chart, it is an educational impulse; and in the first degree of Libra, it is an educational impulse for partnership. New Moon Galactic Center Page 3 of 15

4 As the soli-lunar transmission occurred vertically, horizontally a galactic transmission took place. At the moment of the College s birth, a point known as the Galactic Center arose in the eastern horizon. The Galactic Center is literally the center of the galaxy. It is a powerful reboot point in terms of consciousness; for example, when slow-moving planets such as Pluto cross this point (as it did three years ago) we begin to see the twilight of empires which are then transformed. This is because the Galactic Center, a location of powerful dark matter, is the most powerful attractor force visible through the zodiac. Of all the attractor patterns in nature, this strange attractor pulls most powerfully; literally it has shaped an entire galaxy. This rare and unique signature of the chart, which situates the school at the powerful convergence of these two transmissions, solar and galactic, vertical and horizontal, vests the College with powerful energies and potentialities in the resolution of its karma, or the patterns in consciousness which it has come to resolve; and in the accomplishment of its dharma, or destiny which it has come to fulfill. Karma: The Painful End of the Age of Taurus We begin to see why this profound level of energy and impulse is required as we examine the karmic sky-story elaborated in the chart. The South Node, descriptor of the karmic patterns a Soul or Oversoul enters to resolve, conjuncts the Black Moon Lilith and the comet/centaur Chiron in the Sign of Taurus. The story of Lilith is this: She was the first wife of Adam; she sought equal partnership; and for this she was banished from the Garden of Eden. She is the Exiled Feminine, disowned and rejected for desiring equality. The story of Chiron is this: He was a Centaur; he was wounded severely in his thigh; it was a painful wound that never, ever stopped hurting; he searched far and wide and tried many thousands of plants and cures; none worked, though in the process of attempting to heal his own wound, he discovered all of medicine. He is the Wounded Healer, transmuting personal pain to medicine. Page 4 of 15

5 Chiron, Lilith, and the South Node These two together, at the earliest degrees of Taurus, describe to us the painful end of the Taurean Age, approximately 4200 BC 2100 BC. The goddessbased partnership cultures around the world were conquered or otherwise changed to the sky-god-based cultures that have predominated since. Lilith s story illustrates well the predicament of those who sought to continue in the ways of partnership even as the patriarchal cultures of the Arian Age overtook and banished them. Chiron s presence tells us how incredibly painful this was and how much suffering resulted. This is the karma the College came in to resolve and transform. The requirement of the potent New Moon and the alignment to the Galactic Center becomes apparent. Dharma: The Entry to the Aquarian Age The North Node, descriptor of the Soul s or Oversoul s destiny and dharmic path, conjuncts Uranus in the sign of Scorpio. Uranus rules the Aquarian Age and as such this chart signature shows directly the role of the Page 5 of 15

6 College in actualizing the potential of the age. In Scorpio, this is accomplished in a transforming, evolving, and depth-oriented way. Uranus and the North Node It must be emphasized that the Aquarian Age, like all Ages before it, has both light and shadow potentials. 2 In the Piscean Age with its fantasies of redemption and salvation from the outside, the Aquarian Age is often seen as the latest Redeemer which will somehow sweep us into a higher frequency of consciousness. Magical thinking and millenarian promises of an inherent improvement in the new age is a classic embodiment of imbalance in the Piscean Age, neglecting the Virgo polarity that reminds us that for this gift of the new age to be received we must build the vessel to receive it. The North Node in Scorpio means that the College helps humankind build the consciousness vessel for the New Age through its transformational 2 Indeed, the Aries Age became primarily a time of patriarchy and dominator models of relationship, yet it did not have to be so. Conscious participation in the Age would have involved empowerment from within rather than power over, and a deep exploration of the authentic self, being true to self and yet related to others. The Piscean Age became primarily a time of God on the Outside, and life narrated through suffering, the victim-perpetrator-rescuer trance, yet it did not have to be so. Conscious participation would have been deep trust in life and Spirit, leading to compassion and acceptance. Page 6 of 15

7 orientation. With Uranus there also in Scorpio, the College is here to pull up what is left of the earlier trances, confront them, and transform them, to interrupt and evolve whatever holds back the coming of a balanced expression of the Aquarian Age. The signature curriculum of the College, its two-course sequence in Consciousness, provides in microcosm a distilled portrait of this work. While it was not designed consciously with the framework of the Astrological Ages in mind, it is remarkable how it embodies this understanding of the College s mission. As briefly mentioned above, a balanced expression of the Aquarian Age involves both the Aquarius and Leo polarities the group and the individual. In the Consciousness Curriculum, there are two classes. In Psychology of Consciousness I, students work together in tribes of 3. The purpose of the experience is to understand group action and dynamics in a personal and meaningful way, ultimately to work with the experience of conscious unity, one dimension of the Aquarian Age. In Psychology of Consciousness II, students work with light figures a transformative agent from any period in history to understand individual leadership, personal creativity, and internal authority, the Leo dimension of the Aquarian Age. As well, in the first quarter, students specifically examine the trance of patriarchy and one-up/one-down dominator models of relationship, in the process breaking the primary trance of the Aries Age. This is accomplished microcosmically through examination of the need to be right and have power over others in one s own life, and macrocosmically through reading and personally engaging The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler, an examination of the time when the partnership cultures were forcibly mutated into dominator cultures around the globe. In the second quarter, the curriculum specifically examines the trance of external authority and religious wounding, in the process breaking the primary trance of the Piscean Age. This is accomplished microcosmically through examining the predominance of victim-perpetratorrescuer role-taking and transference and projection in one s own life, and macrocosmically through reading and engaging The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels, an examination of the time immediately following the Christ event when Page 7 of 15

8 an external authority model took hold as the defining model of spirituality in collective consciousness. Aquarian Age Cohorts: The College and America An essential additional aspect of the College s karma and dharma is its intimate and special relationship to the United States, seen in the charts of both. The country was also an Aquarian Impulse, created just after Uranus was "discovered. The United States was meant to be a gateway for the emergence of the Aquarian Age (democracy, breaking through, connection, a "New World") but lost its way and fell into the Uranus shadow (arrogance, "sky-god" hubris and disregard of the 'feminine' Gaia and the peoples who respected her, an overemphasis on the prosthesis of technology over the development of the person). The College New Moon conjunct the country's Midheaven suggests it is here to reawaken the country to its purpose. The College's Pluto conjunct the USA Saturn involves the School in working through the collective Shadow that tends to be denied. One key role in this action is the resolution of karmic patterns relating to the first use of atomic weapons. Dr. Hunter, founder of the College who channeled the original dedication, spoke of receiving her first dream the night after Hiroshima was bombed. The College New Moon is exactly conjunct the signature of that day -- a triple conjunction of Jupiter, Neptune, and Chiron so the impulse responds directly to this signature! And the College Saturn is exactly conjunct the Sun of that day -- a revisitation of karma, literally the processing of a karmic debt. Each time the College works out its own dynamics and works responsibly to heal them, it is actively processing unresolved issues from the moment in time when the bombing took place. The College very directly works with this part of the fractal of collective consciousness. The Vehicle: A College for Experiential Education The College s karma is resolved and its dharmic path accomplished through a transformational, experiential, and partnership-based educational organization. The educational signatures include a predominance of planets in the 9 th house of Higher Education; a Sagittarius Ascendant; and the chart ruler Page 8 of 15

9 Jupiter in the sign of Gemini. Yet critically, this educational endeavor represents a break from traditional modes of learning and teaching. Both Mercury, the archetype of the student, and Jupiter, the archetype of the teacher, are retrograde in this chart. This indicates a reconsideration and reworking of the educational model, a departure from what has become conventional and an overhaul of that approach. Libra Stellium Mercury Retrograde in 9 th House Jupiter Retrograde in 5 th House The Sagittarius Ascendant means Jupiter is the ruler of this chart, so it can most fundamentally describe the institutional approach. Jupiter s location in the 5 th house is particularly important. This is the planet of teaching, located in the house of self-expression, empowerment, and the heart. As the chart ruler, Jupiter here means experiential, whole-self engagement in the learning process. Jupiter s trine to the New Moon and Pluto shows that this experiential grounding works hand-in-glove with the transformational urge expressed in the chart. Jupiter in the 5 th overall represents the return (retrograde) to the root meaning of educare, to bring forth that which is within. Additionally, Jupiter is in Gemini. This shows an eclecticism and ecumenicism that embraces multiple schools and approaches, but always in the context of empowerment and self-expression. Many tools and approaches can Page 9 of 15

10 be shared, but the key is that they are shared experientially and learned through direct experience, not merely conceptually. The Mercury retrograde in Virgo in the 9 th house also means that tools and methods are themselves continuously being reworked and reconsidered through the College in light of their role in the evolution of consciousness. Finally, the indicator of the partnership orientation of this vehicle are the five planets in Libra, the sign of balance and partnership. This alone is an uncommon occurrence. The planets involved include a pairing of the personal masculine and feminine (Mars and Venus) and another pairing of the Divine masculine and feminine (Sun and Moon). At the midpoint of all these is the planet of transformation and evolution (Pluto): a transformation in relatedness, a synthesis of the masculine and the feminine, a return to partnership, but in a way that is conscious of the group, the dyad, and the individual. The College Across Time: The Soli-Lunar Cycle The College s evolution in consciousness can be tracked in multiple ways. One of the most interesting and relevant due to the perfect New Moon is the Soli-Lunar cycle. Using a practice known as progression, astrology applies the principles of fractals and offers 1 day as a fractal for 1 year. Thus a lunation cycle of an entity takes 29.5 years as a lunation cycle among the planets takes 29.5 days. Each 29.5 year lunation cycle can be understood as a chapter in the unfolding of the College s Soul Task. As discussed, the College s lifelong Soul Task is the transformation of consciousness through education, returning to partnership in the Aquarian Age. The first chapter of this Task opens in the first degree of Libra. The strongest symbolism for this degree is taken from Martin Goldsmith s The Zodiac by Degrees: A white butterfly being chased by a child with a butterfly net is suddenly transfixed by a beam of light. The descriptive phrases associated with this degree are: Spreading one s wings; unfolding a more mature and expansive view of oneself vs. getting trapped in one s own or someone else s idealized view of oneself. In this first lunation cycle the College worked with and through this Page 10 of 15

11 theme repeatedly, as the College established itself and had multiple rounds of reenvisioning itself and especially presenting itself and being misunderstood and understood by consensus reality. Most notably, these themes emerge in the actions of developing a curriculum and establishing a home; accreditation, the presentation of the College to the world; and the evolution of the presidency. Phase Characteristics Start End History Date Date New New Seeds Begin to Germinate (A Time of New Directions) Sep 23, 1976 Dec 17, 1979 Many new ventures; new classes; at the end, first class graduates; 1 st President Crescent Sending Roots Down and Stems Up (A Time of Striving) Dec 17, 1979 May 15, 1983 Move to Santa Fe (roots) Early Days Seeking to Establish Presence (stems) First Quarter Breaks Through the Ground (A Time of May 15, 1983 Feb 4, 1987 Current building and land are purchased. Taking Form) Gibbous Pruning, Perfecting Form (A Time of Readying, Setbacks Feb 4, 1987 Feb 8, 1991 Attempt Accreditation Candidacy, Rejected; must rethink how to present to world if too Soon) Full Flowering (A Time of Being Seen) Feb 8, 1991 Apr 6, 1995 Achieve Candidacy; finally seen by the consensus Dissemi Pollen is Spread (A Apr 6, Apr 11, Accreditation; can make gifts nating Time of Teaching) available to the world; 2 nd president: part of lineage, yet bridges to the world Third Flower Withers, Apr 11, Nov 14, College develops and grows Quarter Fruit Forms (A Time programs (fruits) which attract of Reflection) students; however, time for reflection is limited Balsamic Fruit Decays, Nov 14, Feb 11, 2 nd President resigns; presidentless; New Seeds Spread Attempts to find new leadership and (A Time of bring in an outside president fail; Dissolution) leadership crisis; at the same time, many future leaders of the institution (new seeds) are present, crisis potentiates next soul task Page 11 of 15

12 The College Across Time: The Saturn Return As the College s first lunar cycle wound down, it also entered its Saturn Return, the time when Saturn returns to the same location in the sky that it was when the College was founded. The Saturn Return tends to act as a revisitation of karmic dynamics in the case of the College, the Lilith/Chiron story was reconstellated in order to rework its outcome. This was a time of considerable turmoil and strife. Towards the end of the Balsamic Lunar Phase, a Presidential search was conducted. For the first time, a person outside the founders line would occupy the Presidency. The search process resulted in the choice of a Uranian figure who had written multiple books with classical Uranian themes but unfortunately also seemed to some to embody the sky-god orientation of Uranus vis a vis the desire to convert the College to his own program and name. Subsequent events unfolded very much like the karmic sky-story: a woman who would not submit and spoke of her assessment of this individual s agenda was forcibly removed (Lilith) by the Board of Trustees, and the Chirotic wound, the College s pain carrier full of the pain of multiple generations in the Age of Taurus, ripped open, leaving the institution and its people painfully aroused and dysregulated. Because Saturn Returns pull up powerful karmic patterns, there is a strong pull towards repeating the cycle all the way through. Yet the evolutionary opportunity is about responsibility literally the capacity to respond, rather than react, to life situations. While the pull towards power plays in reaction to power plays was strong and did occur in multiple ways, still a consciousness emerged in the collective that sought to remain in connection with the partnership orientation of the College. A first part of this response involved group action on the part of students resulting in the reinstatement of the exiled Lilith, a huge departure from the Age of Taurus pattern. Continuing in this new response, the College s deeply spiritual 12 th house Neptune came into play, a natural ally in the Saturn Return due to its natal trine to Saturn, A 3-day spiritual ceremony and prayers where all, regardless of position, were welcome and accepted (including members of the Board of Trustees, though only the student member chose to participate). After this Page 12 of 15

13 powerful Neptune healing medicine was applied, a means of expressing the North Node conjunction with Uranus emerged: a public group/collective action of students, faculty, staff, and community members sought to relate to the Board of Trustees and when the Board demonstrated their recalcitrance to relate, sought their resignation. New Moon Starts Second 29.5 Year Progressed Lunation Cycle Saturn Return The College Across Time: Transits and Progressions Following the Saturn Return, during the first months of the New Moon of , the Board resigned except for its student member, and an entirely new Board was constituted by the single remaining student member, and the first ever President from outside the founders line entered the College also a Uranian by temperament/chart, but one chosen following consultation with all constituencies, a Uranian democratic method. In the remaining years of the New Moon phase, multiple new initiatives and possibilities emerged, including new certificate programs and the Page 13 of 15

14 exploration of online learning. This second full lunation cycle (29.5 years; from ) started under a solar eclipse, part of an eclipse series described by Bernadette Brady in this way in her Predictive Astrology: There is a sense of joy through commitment it is a time of good news which entails responsibilities or commitments, but ones in which there is joy in the undertaking. This second Lunation Cycle, or 29.5 year chapter, opened in Libra 30, a degree described as Three mounds of knowledge on a philosopher s head in Dane Rudhyar s An Astrological Mandala. In describing this he writes, A true philosopher is a man who is able to understand, not merely to know, the processes of life as he experiences them directly. He is the man of wisdom... The symbol implies a fulfillment of philosophical understanding, which obviously has nothing to do with academic degrees or the writing of treatises on abstract concepts. In his summary, he states, What is at stake here is a holistic approach to knowledge, based on universals. Having established itself in the eyes of the world and weathered a deep layer of karmic healing, the College is now prepared to bring its unique approach to education and transformation more fully into the world. From , the College is in the Crescent Phase Lunation. Appropriate to this time, the College is working with a History project actively rooting the College to its origins and the underground reservoir that feeds it from New Thought, Steiner and Anthroposophy, Dewey, Emerson, and Quimby. Also appropriately, following the septile lunation, a marker that the Moon is 1/7 of the way through its course, associated with realignment with destiny, the College officially christened its mission Transforming Consciousness through Education and also began to focus more discretely on key initiatives. The rooting and the focusing are essential actions to provide nourishment and strength for the highly active First Quarter phase beginning in 2012 during which the new cycle takes clear form. Currently the College is also actively processing the Uranus and Saturn opposition this year in which Saturn conjuncts, and Uranus opposes the College s New Moon. On the one hand, the Saturn transit demands a disciplining and a relating in the world of form and consensus the College seeks reaccreditation in the world. On the other hand, the Uranus transit asks that we Page 14 of 15

15 drop what we believe we know about the College, and allow it to surprise and awaken us to new dimensions of itself the College seeks to know itself beyond the consensus reality, such as this astrological reading. Saturn Transiting College New Moon Pluto Transiting Ascendant Transiting Uranus Opposing College New Moon Finally, in the last three years the College has also undergone a systemic reworking of its relationship to the outside world. For some 30 years, the Progressed Ascendant was in Capricorn a time to be practical about the external appearance, to appear respectable, organized, in the black financially, in a sense a time to play by the rules. Beginning in late 2007, the Ascendant progressed into Aquarius signaling a time for the College to come out of the closet and reveal itself and its Aquarian nature more openly. This transformation has been doubly emphasized by an ongoing Pluto conjunction to the Ascendant, an aspect that evolves one s interface to the world. Hence the timing even of this reading and the public discussion of the chart on June 4, 2010, at 8pm. An action befitting an organization connecting with its Uranian and Aquarian destiny. Page 15 of 15