Social movements are often thought of as progressive and that word implies movement. This fundamentally misses the nature of the step in the cycle that is occurring. At the heart of any progressive movement is fixed thoughts that are not moving at all. The zodiac sign Aquarius is fixed air. The stubborn thoughts become the center of the social movement and, over time, grow increasingly stale, crystalized and ossified. The failure to make adjustments alienates new supporters. It is at that point that Aquarius is the caterpillar in the chrysalis. The caterpillar is cut off, stationary and surviving from internal resources. They are in the cocoon. All of us have seen people who live inside a bubble and they always appear odd and out of touch. Their thoughts become completely fixed with no new idea resources. As the benefits of this new fixed idea are seen, it takes flight and has one great leap of advancement but very soon thereafter meets the outside world and reaches its natural conclusion. At that point, Aquarian energy will begin again with a new fresh idea. To complete the metaphor, the metamorphosis is complete and the butterfly emerges, mates, and then quickly dies. Aquarius, the essence of the myth of Uranus, is all about creative destruction.
The Aquarius zodiac sign is about individual maturation. The child becomes the adult. Aquarian ideas are not inherently right. They aren’t tried and true but fresh and untested. Aquarius reacts based on inward observation. Act, observe yourself, react. This contrasts with Leo, Aquarius’ natural partner, that is reacting to outward observation of others. Act, observe others reaction to you, react.
The Vatican was steeped in royal trimmings having come from the ancient and medieval period. The sedia gestatoria is one of the most potent images of papal ceremony. The Pope would be carried in a litter with great fans of white ostrich feathers. It dated back to Byzantium and was used for a thousand years. All of this is Leo and, at the dawn of the Virgo Pluto period, this was all too flamboyant for the tastes of the time. New ideas were taking hold, simpler, classic and preservative. While this was refreshing, this idea too will completely crystallize and ultimately relinquish its hold on the popular consiousness. In the midst of this period, Pope John XXIII, a retrograde Taurus Neptune had just been elected Pope. Retrograde Neptune are reformers. Dissolution is the action of Neptune and the reversal makes reform of existing material the action of the retrograde Neptune. A retrograde Neptune does not eliminate anything but instead reshapes the form. The Taurus zodiac sign is about the sensual and material. This retrograde Neptune does not seek to eliminate the church’s resources but instead to reform them.
Pope John XXIII would reform the sensual elements of the Vatican that had been set off when St. Peter’s Basilica had cleaved the church in two. In the St. Peter’s Basilica horoscope, the Pope is a 6° Taurus Sun lying very close to the deepest part of Pope John XXIII’s Imum Coeli and Saturn. There in the announcement horoscope, the Scorpio Neptune directly opposes the Basilica Sun. Pope John XXIII’s Midheaven, the pinnacle of his chart representing his public persona as Pope, is conjunct the Scorpio Neptune. The Pope had come to reform the sensual renaissance church and he wielded dissolution as the tool of choice to do so. He did this because he wanted something else. In the shocking surprise announcement to seventeen Cardinals, the Pope gave a speech calling a ecumenical council to address the “spiritual needs of the present hour.”
The Catholic Church is a fascinating subject as it is one of the few truly ancient institutions that persist down to this day and yet it is an idea made up of ideals. Out of the mists of time, a definite form materializes and subsequently is reformed periodically. This inherent organization at the heart of the church has produced an institution that chronicles the changing of the astrological seasons. The Pope’s Capricorn Moon was conjunct the announcement’s Mercury. His past had made him a messenger telling the church it was time for a new reformation. The time for the material accumulation of church wealth had passed. The royal Leo Moon, Vesta and Uranus represent the assembled princes of the church, the cardinals.
The cardinals were the present representatives of the church’s mastery of the material world shown in the St. Peter’s Basilica horoscope. The Leo zodiac sign is the visible demonstration of a complete abundance of resources. These are represented by the four fixed zodiac signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius). The time had come for the church to dissolve and eliminate some of its material weath (Announcement’s Scorpio Neptune opposing the Basilica’s Taurus Sun) subsisting on these resources while building a new Aquarian ideal (Announcement’s Aquarian Sun). At some point, the butterfly forming at the heart of the church will emerge. Until then, the church is crystallizing this new intellectual resource. A new ideal to add to its treasury. Only time will tell if it is worth the treasure the church is spending on it.