The Era of Earth Part II

As the dawning of this astrological ‘era of earth’ begins to reveal some of its complexity and character (we’re about a year and a half in at this point), I thought that in the spirit of aligning with the earth element it might be helpful to get concrete and specific about some of the qualities we can expect to be emerging over the next two hundred years(!) Please review the previous article here to catch up.

A brief summary of the importance of this astrological moment: Saturn and Jupiter conjunctions measure 200 year cycles of time wherein they continue to meet in the same element (earth, fire, water or air) for the course of those two hundred years before cycling to the next element. These changes in elemental conjunctions have historically ushered in new cultural and historical eras. In 2020 their conjunction arrived in an earth sign after 200 years of fire-sign conjunctions. In a way, this marks the end of the industrial revolution, which brought us the birth of many of the technologies that have caused the unintended complications we will be forced to sort out in the coming era of earth.

The Vedic Sciences, particularly Ayurveda, have mapped out the qualities of the five elements beautifully. They are considered the building blocks of the material world, which live in our environment, bodies and minds, and whose balance is key to maintaining or regaining health in any sense of the word.

The qualities of fire, or Agni, are: hot, sharp, minute, light, dry, clear and rough. Any prolonged contact with this element will produce these qualities in mind and/or body. This can be contact with physical fire, or foods and activities which contain heat or hot qualities such as chili peppers or intense physical exercise.

The qualities of earth, on the other hand, are: heavy, hard, slow, stable, clear, dense and large.

The elements also have directions that they tend to move in and gunas—specific effects on the mind. Fire moves in the upward direction and is associated with rajas (one of the three gunas) which is very active and busy and concerned with accomplishment. Earth moves in the downward direction and is associated with tamas (another of the three gunas) which is equated with inertia, rest and regeneration.

This change of direction and guna related to the astrological shift in element may be key to understanding what is to come and how to navigate this period of transition as we edge our way into a historical-cultural-enviornmental context that will look much different than the one we’re leaving.

The last two hundred plus years has been all about ascent and progress, driven by the heat of the fire element which brought us many of the transformative fire-related technologies that changed the shape of the ‘civilized’ world. A shift in direction toward the ground can bring our collective focus to what is underneath and actually supporting us: away from where we want to go and to where we actually are, which is on a planet severely damaged by the effects of industrialization and human apathy towards nature.

And the change in guna from the high activity and almost frenetic productivity of rajas to the rest, recovery and destruction of tamas will eventually bring us toward lifestyles and patterns that are more sustainable. The question is whether we arrive at them willingly or are forced into simplicity by the natural consequences of our actions. Tamas , or inertia, is actually a necessary counterbalance to rajas—which might be something like momentum and inevitably burns itself out.

You might begin to notice these changes in yourself and your world in a subtle way. The pandemic certainly brought in many of the qualities of earth. Even in the way many people have been describing the last year + you will often hear earth-laden words such as ‘hard’ and ‘heavy.’ And many people will have experienced the way in which the sharp quality of fire was softened by quarantine and lack of social connection. Normality seemed to melt around us and the day-to-day might have felt dense.

The purpose of understanding the transition between these two elemental epochs is to get some context for the changes you might be seeing around you and experiencing internally, and to create some realistic expectations for what might be ahead as many people try to understand whether what we just came out of was something we can all forget about and move on from, or a sign of changes to come.

The astrology suggests that the difficulty we’re ‘coming out of’ is just the tip of the iceberg.

We will see and feel more qualities of earth coming in in the coming years. The issues we are facing are large, dense, heavy, stable (i.e. persistent). These issues exist not only on the level of environment, politics and economics and social justice but also mental and spiritual health. Collectively we are a bit like an addict that has not quite arrived at the ‘come to Jesus’ moment where some surrender might take place and the long, hard effort of recovery can begin. We are still driven by the memory of the fire we’ve been built around.

Everyone alive today was born into a world driven by fire and its ideals of success, intensity and evolution. The deep alchemical transition to earth will begin to work on and in each of us, so that we might experience and have already been experiencing our fire (drive, desire, intensity) coming up against earth (heavy, hard realities that probably mostly look like obstacles right now). This is okay and part of the threshold process of transitioning. The more you can recognize where you are in the dance between qualities of fire and those of earth, the more you might be able to develop that commendable quality of earth called patience.

If you’d like to know how this transition is effecting you specifically, according to your natal chart, check out my consultations.