The Equinox and 20 years of deep transformation

Written by Chris Ellis

The whole planet is standing in balance at the Equinoxes; having the same experience of light. This week initiates a 20-year phase of deep transformation of our planetary life.

Northern Hemisphere Spring Equinox 20 March 2023

The Equinoxes are moments in the year at which light and dark are of equal strength. They are also moments which unite everyone on the planet in the same lived experience, whereas the Solstices bring experiences that are literally polar opposites for people in different hemispheres. So in a sense you can visualise the whole planet standing in balance at the Equinoxes: having the same experience of light.

In terms of the creative wheel of the year, our Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere is akin to the first quarter of the moon in its monthly cycle: a first crisis point for the new growth that was born at the Winter Solstice. In her beautifully lucid essay on the 8-fold moon cycle, Maria Kay Simms describes the moment of the first quarter as one in which we 'break bindings in order to change'. A great phrase: the seeds of the previous cycle gathered and nurtured must now break, and cease to be themselves, if new growth is to happen.

And the Pisces-Aries cusp at the Equinox is also the ending-beginning point of the cycle of growth that is symbolised by the zodiac. As we move through Pisces there is naturally an experience of endings - and of loss - along with the connectedness to all things that is the underlying theme of Pisces. We are in the old and also in the new. If we continue to identify with the old, we will experience loss and endings. Insofar as we can migrate our consciousness into the new, we will feel the life force springing into new forms.

Breaking the bindings - the conscious effort to migrate one's identification from the old to the new - is a task for this moment. Is it only about conscious effort? Allowing that migration might also be a useful way of putting it; I think there's room (and maybe a need) for both.

This is the first of three initiations into a new 20-year phase of deep transformation of our planetary life as Pluto will shuttle across the cusp back into Capricorn a couple of times between now and 2024, when it transitions fully into Aquarius.

The last time Earth experienced this was in the 1770s; the outward transformations then were the establishment of America as an independent nation (so that makes this a significant birthday for Capitol Hill and the US constitution) and then the French revolution.

Those events give a flavour of the kind of Uranian, idealistic, revolutionary energies of this next part of the journey. I have been asking myself what will we make of it this time around? And the question has me thinking about how we came to be here where the next part of the journey starts; this has me thinking about Neptune in Pisces.

Neptune rules Pisces and has been in its home sign since February 2012. it will remain there until 2025. This alignment has been gently & steadily strengthening our consciousness of interconnectedness – or, it might be said, tirelessly eroding, as water does, the fixed forms of our old structures of individuation. There is an intimation here of the kind of transformations that are brought about by release, forgiveness, (grace might we call it ?) rather than by violent revolution.

Hannah Arendt wrote that forgiveness is the most radical change that is possible. Reaction and revenge are utterly predictable (and indeed are factored-in to the calculations of aggressors); only forgiveness has the quality of true action because it breaks the chain of human action/reaction.

So Neptune in Pisces gives us a possible clue as to how to navigate these revolutionary changes that Pluto is bringing about. There will be (and there already is) quite enough evidence of reactionary behaviour in the face of these inevitable transformations. Nevertheless, the waters of the deep Piscean streams of forgiveness, absolution and consequent renewal (Wilfred Owen's 'sweet wells that lie too deep for taint' ) are there for anyone to find.