Edge Walker - Aquarius

 

We all have been, at one point, uncivilized, untamed, undifferentiated from our environment, unaware of ourselves and our individual identity. Think of the primal state of our being. A newborn baby, coming to the world, seemingly as “tabula rasa”, in its pure state, free from societal norms and expectations, just acting in accordance with its basic needs.
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A little prelude to today’s musing about the sign of Aquarius, archetype, that will be with us for quite some time as Pluto has recently embarked on a 20-year-long journey. 

Aquarius season represents the time of winter when light is increasing in 24 hours day but darkness is still holding its power.  Aquarius is an air sign, fixed in nature. It is Saturn’s diurnal home. As such, Aquarius often represents the polarization of ideas, thoughts and attitudes. It represents mental divergence away from the center towards ideological extremes. Its ruler Saturn is also located furthest from the center of our solar system. Saturn (periphery) is the antithesis of the Sun (center) as Aquarius stands in opposition to the sign of Leo, the Sun´s domicile.
 
The aspect of opposition is of Saturn’s nature further accentuates this power dynamics present within the Aquarian archetype. Opposition is about two sides that are contradictory to each other. Opposition is about contrast, about the natural antithesis of things that are contrary like the antithesis of nature - culture.

Imagine the prehistoric times when the distinction between the wild and the civilized was not a thing. There were no hard boundaries. Our ancestors existed within a mythological reality, trying to navigate the unpredictability of the environment and the forces within.
And then came the fire.
Imagine the moment our ancestors gained control over the element of fire. This was a true Promethean moment of stealing fire from the gods and a major initiation into the cultivation of the human species. Fire helped mark out the safe space where wild animals were no longer a constant threat. Fire allowed our ancestors to produce efficient weapons and tools. These developments enabled our ancestors to further differentiate themselves from their environment, from wild and untamed.   
Fire served as a critical instrument in human evolution. It became a source of power and an instrument of self-consciousness for the human race. People started to gather around the fire and prepare food together. The adaptation to new stone tools and diet ultimately helped in the growth of the prehistoric human brain. These technological advances led to further shifts away from the wild and towards the civilized, human-centric way of living.
 
With the cultivation of land and more permanent settlement, the idea of ownership and boundaries came to the forefront. People started to distinguish themselves from their environment even further. Imagine our ancestors marking their properties for the very first time to differentiate their property from their neighbor´s.
I imagine people started to see space in a different way. Space obtained a new quality. It ceased to be an all-embracing reality and started to become an objective entity. Space as a concept is Aquarian in nature. Aquarius stands out for the ability to be spaced out, to be mentally and emotionally distant. To be able to mentally grasp a certain idea, Aquarius needs to have an exact idea of where the boundaries lie. Aquarius inhabits the space marked out by sharp edges but steps over to see what’s past the marked boundary. 
 
In modern astrology, Aquarius is often tied to the planet Uranus. This association is missing some important dynamics present in the Aquarius archetype and that is its DUAL nature granted by its planetary ruler, Saturn. Aquarius represents both light and darkness. As we noted in the beginning, the Aquarius season is the time in the yearly solar cycle when dark is still dominant but the light is steadily increasing from within the darkness. And we can never forget that. Just think back to the extreme division of “covid times”.
If we’re drunk on ideals of the Aquarius age, we might be blind to the fact that Aquarius represents both the oppressor and the oppressed. As Paulo Freire puts it: “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.” Aquarius represents both the fixity of the status quo and attempts to break down the system, conformity and eccentricity.

In this sense, Aquarian boundaries can represent both a barrier but also a frontier. Imagine the extreme limit of settled land beyond which lies wilderness, the extreme limit of understanding or achievement in a particular area of human knowledge and potential space that the human mind can explore beyond already known space. 
Aquarius is holding the tension between those polarised energies and crossing over the thresholds that others might be afraid of. 

Aquarius is the edge walker. Edges are thin spaces and they are not for everyone. When you’re on the edge, you stand out, you’re different from the mass, you’re far away from the center. In nature, the edges between biosystems are called ecotones. An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities where they meet and integrate. Ecotones are areas where things are shifting. These thresholds usually contain the most biodiversity and therefore are the most resilient. 

In human society, edges play a very similar role. At the edges, you meet lots of diverse people characterized by very unique gifts. They diverted from the center, living on the periphery of the mainstream system. Edges are transition areas where new, often revolutionary ideas get born that, at first, seem too radical to be implemented within the system. 

During the Pluto Aquarius time, the edges we inhabit will start to redefine the center. 
 
We all have our own unique gifts, communities that we´re part of, and micro-regions that we inhabit. The more diverse our connections, the more resiliently we can maintain our individual edges and together we can engage in the process of redefining the center and reshaping our collective future. And remember that grey areas are where we meet and make compromises.

Personal note:
It has just been a month into this „Pluto in Aquarius“ adventure but what a powerful shift. I’ve noticed I’ve been craving more space and independence for myself. I feel like a mad scientist drunk on music and life. Though I’ve had a troublesome relationship with Aquarian energy since the extremities of covid times, I find Aquarian „empirical experimentation“ very doable and liberating when it comes to difficult emotional stuff that I’m exploring.

Like Bella Baxter in the exquisite movie Poor Things I feel I am a „strange feathered lady“ and „I am finding being alive fascinating“. I feel like I want to experience things, walk on edges and experience all the „space oddity“ there is.

How do you feel in a new era? 
Keep hope alive, keep dreaming.
Petra