“Humanity requires hope to overcome dystopian realities; in the case of climate change ‘utopia is no longer a nice idea, but a survival necessity”
–Lynn Tower Sargent, In Defense of Utopia, Diogenes
Apocalypse once referred to a process of a disclosure of knowledge, it usually referred to the uncovering of something hidden, our culture has purported to mean two things neither of them savory. Apocalypse refers to an event of such massive scale destruction that its survivors never recover the existing framework that existed before the cataclysm, or it gas come to mean. Or it refers to an event of destruction of a catastrophic scale. It is the latter two meanings that have come to dominate our cultural discourse and quite frankly it is an archetype that is beginning to cripple many of us from acting on some of the most pressing issues of our time.
The problem of apocalypse is twofold, on one hand it assumes that crises of a massive scale have an air of inevitability and that there is little we can do to avoid catastrophe, when in fact a great deal of them are not in fact insoluble. The second dis-service it does is to reveal the limitations of our cultural imagination which robs us of the agency to imagine a completely different world. It allows a default into despair that hampers any action that can be taken, it denies the possibility of both mitigation (avoiding the worst possible outcomes through policy mechanisms and social change) and adaptation (something humans are meticulously adept at), themes which emerge in the context of Virgo, a dominating energy for many of this month’s transits. Virgo can trend towards cynicism and dystopian hopelessness so there must be something to defend against the slow creep into it, mainly it is a focus of pragmatism and recognizing that utopian concepts can turn into civilizational milestones and have many times before through the practical application of a new systematic function, a very Virgoan theme
The only question that ideally should obsess any one of us in facing this existential crisis is “What are we doing about this? It is the only question that matters in this great transition, despair and lack of imagination are simply inadequate responses to a crisis of such intensity and scale. There are still avenues to mitigation and adaptation that can be pursued to help us avoid the most catastrophic outcomes if some disaster is unavoidable, it is our responsibility as the neural network of the planet to do so.
The current phase of late Capitalism we are seeing is contributing to a massive transfer of wealth into the hands of a few financial elites at the expense of the majority of us, so much so it is beginning to impact our social systems and corrode them. Austerity measures have rendered services meant to serve the people impotent and ineffective, and have virtually crippled any chance that we can gain ground again. The debt crisis created has been engineered by these elites in the biggest wealth grab in history. Most of the public debts we are seeing are being driven more by short-sighted macroeconomic policy and ditto for all the ecological crisis that said policies are exacerbating.
Saturn in Scorpio can be symbolic of the economic reckoning we are seeing, in this case as the screws of the economy turn ever tighter, and the oligarchic ascendancy of powerful elites is challenged by the vast majority reacting to the repressive austerity campaigns since the last recession (largely engineered by the economic mishandling of said elites). Exacerbated now by impending environmental stressors, and the fact that our economic output is altering the basic planetary operating system and risking possible ecological collapse, it can seem like we move ever closer to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, not all is lost thought there are still actionable things that can be done, it may not be governments that do them but the masses of humanity most effected by inaction who do instead.
This is being high-lighted by the transits through Virgo which are giving us the impetus to design a new economic and social system that is resilient and capable of mitigating and adapting to changes in our planetary operating system and social systems as well. The mutability required to build a truly eco-technic civilization is what is being called for under these transits. Virgo is the one sign that transits will spend the most time in as it occupies 45 degrees of the ecliptic and takes the largest share of our sky. Further, the Virgo Supercluster is a sign-post found in the fifth line of our cosmic address, so the symbol is a potent one.
November Yod: 
The Revolutionary Ethos goes into hyper drive: Retrograde Uranus in Pisces: November 7th-12th, 2015
*(a Yod is formed when two or more planets form a sextile with each other and the same two bodies form an inconjunct or quincunx to another body at the apex of the triangle)
The most significant transit in November Yod with retrograde Uranus in Pisces at its focal point it will dwarf all of the other aspect patterns in the significance it will have for those of us opening to its implications. Uranus in Pisces deals with the emotional impulse for autonomy, and deals specifically with liberation and the social mechanisms that facilitate that. In the mutable sign of Pisces, Uranus becomes volatile and wildly unconventional, more so than just Uranus alone. For most of not occupying the ten percent, or those of us belonging to oppressed minorities the idea of freedom is not sufficient, it has to be as essential as water in order to reach a state where there is nothing to lose. Prior to the actual insurrection is the psychological awakening (what the apocalypse actually is), the massive permutations of this rare Yod is the rapid conversion in our mindsets which lead to rebellion.
This pattern relates to information and its uses, is it used to liberate or enslave (by encouraging blind conformity). The endowment that emerges from this yod is psychological, utilizing innovation, creativity, and critical thinking to construct a more efficient system. Virgo plays a supporting role in this yod, in that the focus will be evolution, progress and a novel way of being. Virgo is free of man-made restrictions and selects a unique path to advancement, reflecting its integrity unto itself. The Yod could become an offensive on the traditional nuclear family, marriage, and relationships, gender roles are up for grabs in the skirmish, and the upstart youth are having none of it. Free your mind and your life will follow.
Communication technology is spearheading the revolution in Virgo fashion (it is the symbol of the computer age). The internet is facilitating the exposure of deceits the world over, and how they can be revised. The world is warming and fossil fuel industries are embellishing on emissions standards. Financial institutions have been embroiled in inflating their indices to exaggerate and rig currencies. Inflation is on a runaway path, and is bleeding the people dry with austerity measures. Elites are spinning their stories to avoid inconvenient realities and keeping the masses in a frenzied stupor of consumption. The models of “reality” that once offered assurance are foundering. The model is careening us to apocalypse and it is time for a course correction. The computer does not lie.
The world we know is built on false data, and this Yod as it glides along the diurnal cycle for the next 5 sols, will be radiating out like a viral contagion at the refresh rate of the latest clickbait. It’s an unforeseen enlightenment, a rapid awakening that leaves no falsehoods in its wake, we can only shape our world by contending with its design specifications, and only within the domains of the planetary operating system. The Yod involves the signs Libra, Pisces and Virgo, two are mutable signs the other a cardinal sign which is to say they are all in a dynamic motion trying to approach equilibrium. There is nothing certain about this interplay in speaks to things being in flux and transition. The awakening will be sudden and spring up overnight Occupy Movement style.
What’s more is this Yod will be touched off by other aspects forming this month. Anything involving Mars, Venus, Mercury or the Sun over the course of the 4-5 days of the Yod aspect will lend its energy to the intensity of this rare formation. The cosmic echo of these transits will follow for a ten degree orb or approximately ten days out from the 12th of November, a cursory recipe of aspects follows below:
Sun: will traverse the justice oriented sign of Libra until the 22nd, then make a leap into Scorpio on the 23rd and hang tight until the 29th, and then ingress into Ophiuchus on the 30th of November.
Sun Trine Jupiter, November 10th: Occupy Reality: Empowers and brings movements for equality into the global spotlight. The issues of economic inequality, power, privilege and oppression will continue to be salient themes, all against a backdrop of a warming planet, and wrenching technological change.
Sun Square Neptune: November 29th: Transcending Profanity: the square lends itself to a longing to go beyond the limitations of imagination and the desire to create something seemingly from another dimension. Relative to the Yod, the world gestating beneath the surface of awareness begins to bubble up slowly into the light of day and the first pangs of birth are felt. Contours of the new world begin to form an outline of what is to come, it is as if a dream is collapsing into reality.
Mercury: Enters Libra on the 7th and stays there until the 20th when he will make ingress into Scorpio on the 21st, and makes a quick tour through the star of Antares before then transiting into Ophiuchus. The messenger will form aspect in the Yod pattern as well as playing conjunct the Sun. Mercury will conjunct the sun during the Yod (November 7th-12th) and will sextile a near stellium with Jupiter, Mars and Venus forming the second foundation of the Yod.
Mercury Sextile Pluto, November 10th: Transcendence: The mind is freed from the delusion of the current consensus reality and free to explore expansive new horizons that could lead to concepts when applied with far reaching implications. Great thinkers can emerge from this psychological crisis, with ideas that could radically transform the world.
Mercury Sextile Jupiter, November 13th: Tower of Babel: invigorates the ancient idea of humanity speaking a common language. Facilitates an ease of communication of ideas and concepts without getting lost in translation due to cultural barriers or language inconsistencies. A metaphor for the Internet, the great equalizer which can speak all languages and unite us all in the common struggle for a just world, free of engineered apocalypse.
Mercury Square Neptune, and Sextile Mars, November 24th: A Mirror Darkly: Lucid awareness of reality can become actively challenged under a more charged environment such as this. The occlusion of awareness happens on two fronts first internally, the mind is already active in this more active space, and then the darker imagination clouds and confuses our perception by injecting terrors of an imperceptible future. The second vector is more collective and involves the distraction created by a false consumerism amidst the very real crisis the world is in, abnegating any possibility of acting to avert it. Consider this a warning, don’t fall for it, whether it emerges from the ubiquitous advertising that envelopes us or the machinations of the catastrophic imagination.
Venus and Mars: Both will be transiting through Virgo for the month. This is the sign of Mars’ exaltation and he is most powerfully placed here as he has tasks to attend to. This marks the most feminist placement of Venus as it has her at her most self-possessed and like the virgin able to go her own way as she is not constrained by the concerns of patriarchy.
Venus Sextile Saturn, November 13th: Civil Society: a reminder that humans are capable of building humane societies, but only in the presence of lucid awareness, and not bludgeoned by the trinkets of a sophisticated barbarism, the illusion of comfort built on the blood of innocents. A clarion call to acknowledge the ravages of our current extractive system and a choice to make a course correction towards a partnership society.
Venus Opposition Uranus, November 23rd: Solidarity: Symbol of the coming together of disparate individuals in the flame of mutual passion. The sudden awakening of the Yod being touched off by this aspect dissolves the false divisions of class, sex, race, and circumstance and opens the doors of perception to acknowledge a common humanity.
Mars Sextile Saturn: November 23rd: The Road out of Hell: A potent symbol of endurance, drive and perseverance. Changing the world is the work of many generations and progress will not be made without a concerted and steady effort and willingness to evolve. We can dream all the visions but they won’t mean a thing until something is done about turning them into manifested reality. Here we are encouraged to the work of redesigning the social operating system to reflect ecological realities (Mars in Virgo), and a confrontation with the authorities who wish to keep things as they are, and keep us on track towards a nasty endgame (Saturn in Scorpio).
Saturn: spends the next 2.5 years approximately in the sign of the dark, and here he is able to see in the dark and root out poison and corruption and assist in its purification, all in the service of building a new social structure, the capacity that Saturn executes with precision and skill.
Mercury Conjunct Saturn, November 24th: The Problem of Censorship: The censoring of data has become a profound problem. Governments have been implicated in it (ala Canada), corporations have been embroiled in controversies surrounding their fudging of numbers (ala the Volkswagen emission standard debacle), and of course the Edward Snowden Data Cable leaks, the NSA controversies and the WikiLeaks scandals ala Julian Assange. The message is this, liberty requires vigilance and it means that authorities must be made to account when they use censorship as a form of deception to confuse the public and work against them in the name of security, profit, or hegemony, that is the definition of illegitimate power, and it can’t be permitted, it is under the auspices of this transit that we affirm this self-evident truth.
Saturn Square Neptune, November 26th: Apocalyptic Delusions: The often never talked about dark side of Aquarius is this it is the repository of all the visions of terror and apocalyptic destruction the world is capable of cooking up in its vast drivel machine; from the standard issue biblical Armageddon right up to the more secular visions of terror, from biological warfare, pandemics, and black swan economic crashes from which there is no recovery. Under the veneer of Aquarian rational optimism lurks the darker chimeras of what could go wrong when the world system crashes. All this said, because Saturn provides a barrier against confronting any of these trances and seeing them for what they are, crippling delusions. With Saturn traversing the sign of the dark dimension we must all collectively stare down at our collective fears of the Doomsday Clock and strive in our re-imaginings of the possible to move our species away the stroke of midnight, even if in the eleventh hour.
Sun conjunct Saturn, November 29th: Star maker: this is the builder aspect, as in the world maker. Here the makers are the collective of us that make up humanity, and with every decision we are deciding the world we are creating. It is a time to look at the choices being made and whether or not they reflect the world we would like the to live in versus the world we are heading towards. The most important thing to do in this process is remind those in power of who put them there and that collective will is greater than any individual will.
Jupiter: The bombastic one will remain in the sign of high-drama Leo, fueling an ongoing confrontation between power and privilege and how it can oppress and engage in an oligarchic hostile takeover. It will play a critical role in the Yod formation as it will be part of a near stellium with Mars, Venus and the Moon (November 7th-12th) touching off one of the foundations of the Yod. This will be Jupiter’s only major aspect pattern, which said it is one with massive implications, then again that’s the essence of Jupiter, and he is kind of a big deal.
The Eleventh Hour Species
Uranus is symbolic of abrupt change and will re-arrange mindsets and policy on a hairpin turn. Beneath the surface of the white-hot chaos of perception is another marvelous world that is in embryonic form, it is readying itself to be born into our conscious awareness. The numbers are churning, most of us aren’t paying attention yet. The desire for equality and the erosion of expected social roles and hierarchies are too irresistible, and there is an awakening into the authentic self, a process of discovery representative of liberation in spite of apocalyptic visions, political stagnation, social stratification, asphyxiating religions, and archaic institutions. The Uranus in Pisces trance is revealing how to live in concordance with our differences without losing our diverse identities in the process.
Witnessing the policymakers of our world make decisions that reflect conditions on the ground is a radical departure in itself, increasingly however this could become a trend as conditions are shaping up to ensure that humanity begins to contend with reality. A cogent historical example saw the Obama administration abandoning the Keystone Xl pipeline which had about as much of a positive legacy as a nuclear bomb blast. Ultimately the point of the Yod is how those in power respond to an incontrovertible truth. If we permit them to continue to constrict our contact with reality, occluding our minds with an aimless commercialism, they can maintain their illegitimate dominance, perhaps the Yod can clip their wings and they fall back to Earth like Icarus, and find they are compelled to alter the policies to better reflect the masses they are said to represent.
The transition to a new world can feel apocalyptic because it means that outmoded structures must fail and fall and go through a renewal to reflect new realities, and we have been through many of these crises before, it stands to reason that we will make it through this one as well, and hopefully still wearing the mantle of civilization. The one in question is slow moving and incredibly profound because it will be nothing short of a total re-modeling of how humans define themselves and live on this planet and whether or not we are here at all. It is in a word an extinction vs apotheosis crisis, and it is unfolding moment to moment, and we are all playing leading roles in this transformation.
The apocalypse at hand will be one that reflects the oldest meaning of the word, the revealing of knowledge and the profound transformation that follows. Suggestively each individual could experience the Uranus Yod in a personal way by facing a paradox. On one hand is the future, which requires a fearless leap, holding the vision of yearning for that imperceptible utopia? On the other hand is the descent back into the chrysalis of ersatz salvation through the trinkets of a plastic paradise, which ultimately cannot last. We have before us a profound choice, based on a complex knowledge, continue to flirt with extinction or choose instead to step fearlessly into a brave new world, which choice will you make?
References:
Gardner, C. (September 13th, 2015) The apocalypse is easy: limitations of our climate change imaginings, Demos Project, retrieved November 6th 2015, from: http://www.demosproject.net/the-apocalypse-is-easy-limitations-of-our-climate-change-imaginings/
Keucheyan, R (June 9th, 2014) The French are right: tear up public debt-most of it is illegitimate anyway, The Guardian, retrieved on November 6th, 2015, from: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/09/french-public-debt-audit-illegitimate-working-class-internationalim
Schiermeier, Q (September 24th, 2015) The science behind the Volkswagen emissions standards scandal-debacle has wide-ranging implications but many already knew that diesel emissions were problematic, retrieved on November 10th, 2015 from: http://www.nature.com/news/the-science-behind-the-volkswagen-emissions-scandal-1.18426
Seligson, E (November, 2015), Nov 7-14 the yod and the fall of Babylon, 13 Signs, Retrieved on November 7th, 2015, from: http://13sign.com/yod.html#crash2
Flying Punk Rock Unicorn Astrology 