The age of Aquarius

Some “experts” in astrology believe we are already in the age of Aquarius. Many other astrological “experts” believe that we enter Aquarius today, January 1, 2012.

It is an age, a period, that will celebrate the human spirit. They tell us that this age means concentrating on love, on an elevated human consciousness, on the “acceptance” of one’s individual worth. I love the Age of Aquarius. It speaks to us in words that we ignore at our own peril.

It is an Age of man, not the material, an Age of human beings, of people, of the human spirit, not the machine and technology. As the song puts it: “Peace will guide the planets. Love will steer the stars.” Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust will abound and not more falsehoods or derisions, but revelations and the mind’s liberation. Certainly a noble vision and a challenge to our view of man and man’s place within the natural order of things and a warning to us, a lethal warning, that we must re-define progress if we are to survive.

Do you not agree that we have become trapped in the pattern of putting practically everything ahead of people, of persons, of human beings, of Homo sapiens, and to become aware of the trap is the first requirement for survival?

Laws and rules have replaced people. Technology has replaced people. Institutions have replaced people. Doctrines, Creeds, Theology and Ideology have replaced people. Beliefs, traditions and moralisms have become more important than people, and the needs of human beings. And lest we forget, for those who follow the nomadic Rabbi named Jesus, the church is being rejected today as never before as an institution where doctrine, structure and institutionalism have become far more important than serving the needs of the people.

What do the people become within institutions? The masses. The masses are but a term for a crowd of individual people, of individual and unique spirits. They are but “clay” for the agitators, the “sounding board” for dictators, the “full house” for actors, the “few good men” for military leaders, the “flock” for the presumptuous clergy and religious professionals. What more derogatory term, than a flock of sheep! Masses are the “statistics” for the sociologists, the “statistics” for the civil servants; the people are degraded to the masses for those who would coerce and manipulate and control. For how many have archaic rules and archaic laws and institutions replaced people?

For those who look to the Rabbi teacher of Nazareth to point the way toward truth, of course nothing so aroused his anger and fury as putting “tradition” and rules ahead of the needs of people. “The Sabbath was made for man, NOT man for the Sabbath.” It was against the law to feed a person, or heal a person, on the Sabbath. The law had become more important than the needs of people. The law had become a yoke around the necks of the people, a yoke imposed on the individual by orthodox authorities, orthodox teachers, pious parents and fixed tradition The Rabbi named Jesus said clearly that only people are sacred, and not laws, institutions, days, theology, policy, nation, bible, doctrines… nothing.

What a test for our lives and decisions as we sit on church boards, on city councils, city planning commissions, school boards or hospital boards or legal chambers and legislatures wherever they are. Have you ever noticed how little some men and women care for people as long as they get their point across? Even if people suffer, as long as they won the debate they are happy.

I have often wondered what it would be like if someday, sometime, somewhere, we meet our Great Spirit and Great Maker face to face and try to tell Him of all the “large programs” we exhausted ourselves with, and all the gigantic plans we labored for and all the grand public projects we gave ourselves for, only to hear the question asked of us, “But, the bodies, the bodies of all those around you. Where are they? All the lonely people who cried for a touch, a word, a helping hand, an arm around the shoulders, where are they? Were your grand plans and large projects worth all of those individual lives, those unique spirits?”

There is no one in this world who loves the out-of-doors and nature more than I. I thrill to it and find it glorious, and yet… yet it is not the final and ultimate joy that makes one’s heart sing.

No mountain has ever said to me, “Don’t cry… it’s all right.” No sunset has ever touched my hand, and said, “I love you.” No tree has ever said to me, “May I help you with your problem?” No flower has ever yet said, “Neither do I judge thee.” No moon has yet put an arm around my shoulder and said, “We will go through this thing together.”

“PEACE WILL GUIDE THE PLANETS. LOVE WILL STEER THE STARS.”

Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust will abound, no more falsehoods or derisions, but revelations and the mind’s liberation… the mind’s liberation. Do we really believe those words? Are we willing and prepared to live them in our daily lives?

The dawning of this Age of Aquarius represents an age of people, of living spirits, walking a sacred path toward harmony, understanding and love. Will we walk the path, this ”true path,” as the Lakota people phrase it in their tradition?

The lethal choice is ours:

Aquarius is possible. And so is Armageddon.