Aroostook Skies: The Age of Aquarius
By Larry Berz
Why don’t we all just openly admit that winter needs to chill out?
By early March, my own macho muscles, at least, mutter along with a broken handled shovel and wobbly roof rake. And yet … here comes the unrelenting, unbridled forecast — winter wisdom electronically advises us to brace for 5-9 inches here and 6-10 inches there. (that’s 12.5 to 25 Canadian centimeters for those metrically minded) What’s more — my attitude and yours start to fray and sour as it becomes all too obvious that Old Man snowflake won’t take “no” for an answer. For me? He laughs in my frozen face, lashes my moustaches with windy wickedness and only says “March!”
Well for all your lower back groans, and my upper back moans, here’s some friendly astronomical counsel from the best of Broadway:
“When the Moon is in the Seventh House,
and Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars …
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!”
Attention, friends! I carry no astrological pretension, here. Nor am I a refugee from the 1960s smoky counterculture. However, I really must confess my disenchantment. The starry days and nights now slosh through Aroostook lives, leaving strained hearts and minds. Backyard barbecues are unforeseen months away. And the roots of this malaise? I think the enormity of our technological and commercial steps and insights since 1945 yesterdays, especially its destructive applications, inured and traumatized us from our better spontaneity to dance with the Universe today. Air pollution, water pollution, light pollution, environmental climate change and “future shock” now all brain drain into mind and soul chains and shackles.
At Walden Pond 155 years ago, Henry David Thoreau referred to this American condition of citizens chained to “quiet lives of desperation.” The excess of 1960s Hippiedom, for all its bizarre offence, represented just a great escape from some internal incarceration. The cultural quantities and quantities remain too shocking for ordinary intelligent folks to grasp and process.
Yet, today the Age of Aquarius, in a special way, really has arrived! The choice is ours to accept or reject its presence. It manifests in our ability to read the sky and stars for our own personal empowerment. And only each one of us can uniquely integrate such knowledge into our everyday route and routine. Yes, it takes work. Yes, it introduces initially some confusion and disorientation. Yet the rewards remain clear to our conscience. We do belong to the Universe and conversely the Universe belongs to us. With time and growing awareness, each of us becomes an agent of stability through our enlarged connection.
How can I, a humble set of middle-aged eyes, passionately persuade you? The celestial drama of the late winter sky remains unsurpassed? Let me courageously offer some suggestions to put you on the personal skyway. First, and hopefully most obviously, the Sun now enjoys some degree of pre-eminence, indwelling within the boundaries of the constellation of Aquarius. As a faint night sky constellation of Autumn nights, Aquarius is essentially overlooked (barring horoscopes) residing next to its more famous neighbor, Pegasus the Winged Horse. But during the daylight hours, the Sun’s tenancy within the Water Boy stars heralds important daily changes in our perceptions. Do you notice the orange action of early sunlight striking your breakfast table? Do you notice the daylight still available in late afternoon as you cart your groceries homeward bound? Do you feel any uplift driving to work with a bright amount of starshine in your windshield? It’s the “dawning” of your Age of Aquarius!
And the song continues:
“Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
I hope you, too, are beginning to see the light. Early March requires internal as well as external fortitude. My simple suggestions to exercise your outlook really work. Once engaged to the Universe through your awakened perceptions, your “harmony, understanding, sympathy and trust” wax wonders. And perhaps you too may find truth to set your mind free from the burden of technology’s dark side. Perhaps a dream or vision will crystallize from your new sky diet. Now go out there, team Aroostook! Trim your souls and set your sights. The Age of Aquarius awaits you and your sky song.
Lawrence “Larry” Berz is an Astronomy Educator of America at the Francis Malcolm Science Institute in Easton.
