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What Health Care Can (And Should!) Look Like In The Age Of Aquarius
Many of us learned about the Age of Aquarius from the popular hit song written in the late '60s. The song talks about a time when peace will guide the planet and humans will live in great harmony. Well, the cosmic clock is turning, and the Age of Aquarius is here. There's nothing like a pandemic to get the whole world reflecting on our values and lifestyles, so let's consider how the Age of Aquarius affects our well-being and health care system.
First, some background on the astrological ages.
Because of the Earth's wobble, a complete rotation around the zodiac takes about 25,870 years. This phenomenon is called "precession of the equinoxes." That means we move through one sign of the zodiac roughly every 2,160 years—and that sign designates the astrological age we are in. It is the sign that rises in the eastern sky on the spring equinox that characterizes the astrological age. It shapes the dominant paradigm of the time, influences culture, societal structures, and the predominant themes driving human beliefs and behavior.
This movement through the astrological ages is a backward motion, so it goes from Pisces to Aquarius. Nobody is certain when or if the official shift from Pisces to Aquarius occurred—and it's thought to be a lengthy transition—but many agree that it happened over the last few decades and we are, in fact, living in the Aquarian age.
As we move deeper into the Age of Aquarius, the values that humanity has organized around must change to reflect the current astrological age. Change of this magnitude can be very uncomfortable, and we're all feeling it right now. The old Piscean systems must collapse so we can restructure our world to reflect the values of the new age.
First let's talk about astrology, individuality, and culture.
There are 12 signs in the zodiac, and each one represents a different archetype. We all contain all of these archetypes within us, but every individual expresses them differently. For example, someone who is born with the Sun in Capricorn and the Moon in Cancer will express those archetypes differently than someone who is born with the Sun was in Cancer and the Moon in Capricorn. But there are also much larger celestial cycles occurring in the cosmos—cycles characterized by movements in the sky that take place over years, decades, centuries, millennia, and so forth. These cycles don't affect us individually; they affect us collectively. They affect generations of people and shape eras. The cycle of the ages is one of these great cycles of the macrocosm.
From the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.
Though Pisces and Aquarius are adjacent signs, they have little in common. Pisces is known for its fluid, sensitive nature. The Piscean journey is an inward one where self-sacrifice is normal and the power of belief drives spirituality. In the Age of Pisces, in order to be something, you have to believe in something (outside of yourself). We see this reflected throughout our society in politics, religion, and thought leadership across disciplines. We select leaders based on what we believe in and then put our faith in them. This shapes the dominant paradigm, and anything that threatens that is either heresy or pseudoscience. The Piscean Age is about vertical hierarchy, power, and religion, and many of us are starting to see the ways in which this is not serving us.
Aquarius is known for its progressive vision and socially conscious orientation. The Age of Aquarius is about collaboration, equality, idealism, freedom, and open access to information. The Aquarian journey is a collaborative effort for the betterment of all. In the Aquarian Age, there is nothing to believe in outside of oneself, and reality is based on knowing as opposed to believing. The new age is about looking within to find truth. Rather than selecting leaders to represent us all, raising them on pedestals and blindly following, leadership is about finding the wisdom within and acknowledging that we are all leaders.
How this affects health and well-being.
We have long looked to science, data, and evidence-based medicine to guide us toward health and well-being. In Western culture, this is what we believe in, and in the age of Pisces that's what matters. So the belief that double-blind placebo controlled studies, pharmacology, board-certified specialists, and epidemiological data contain the secrets to great health shapes the standard of care. This approach to health care has fueled great progress in medicine—but it is becoming inadequate. Chronic disease and mental illness is on the rise. Some evidence-based studies are biased. Community and societal support for those with invisible illnesses are nonexistent.
Collectively, we are not well. And we are conditioned to believe that the solutions to our dis-ease are outside ourselves: trained professionals, medications, research articles, books, blogs, etc. In the Piscean age, the path to well-being involves gaining access to highly protected, often expensive information that is not universally accessible. And as we move deeper into the Aquarian age, this orientation to health will no longer be relevant.
In the Age of Aquarius, well-being must be accessible to all. There are no secrets. It's about knowing that all the information to create great health is within you and you can heal yourself. Everyone is a healer. This doesn't mean we'll no longer need trained specialists or expert opinions—but it does mean that one's personal experience and inner knowing will be highly valued. Becoming a healer will be about looking within and learning to trust what you already know.
The Age of Aquarius invites us to stop looking outside of ourselves for answers and learn to listen to the wisdom within. Here are five practices that can help you get started:
Get into the habit of communicating with your body.
Take time each day to connect with your body. Ask yourself what is working well in your body, and honor it. Ask yourself what is not working well, and then sit in meditation and ask yourself what you need.
Try to feel into what your symptoms are telling you.
If you don't feel well, try not to go to Google right away. Start by deeply listening to what you are feeling! Where is there discomfort? What does it feel like? Is it getting louder or softer? Explore it completely. If you need help from a source outside yourself, consult a practitioner who empowers you to be a participant in your healing.
Avoid all sources of information that make one-size-fits-all claims.
Nothing about well-being is one-size-fits-all. Each of us is unique. So if a source that claims that their product or approach to wellness is right for everyone, proceed with caution. Turn your attention inward, and ask yourself if it's right for you.
Talk to others about your health.
Share your healing journey with the people in your life with pride. Share as the teacher, the healer, the leader that you are, and don't accept any unsolicited advice, judgments or opinions about your healing journey from others. Stay grounded in yourself!
Meditate.
Add "the Age of Aquarius" to your already lengthy list of reasons to meditate. Meditation is a great tool to learn to turn our attention inward—and this is the most important part of well-being in the new age.
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