The Icy Winds of Eternity

Pluto moved into Aquarius yesterday.

Or more precisely, the planet to whom Western civilization gave the name Pluto, upon its discovery in 1930, has moved along his slow, distant path around the Sun to the span that, prior to about 2,000 years ago, framed the backdrop of the constellation of Aquarius, as observed from Earth.

This cosmic moment was intensified, from an astrological perspective, by a celestial kiss, wherein Pluto and the Sun – the deep night and the blazing bright – made conjunction just before they walked over the border together from the span we still call Capricorn, into the span we still call Aquarius.

“The icy winds of eternity” – an evocative phrase I heard a few years ago – captures the astrological feeling-tones of Aquarius like no other. Appropriately enough, a deepening cold snap in the last few days, that brought the first real snow we’ve seen in these parts for several years, hardened late last night into single-digit wind chills under slowly clearing skies. I walked out after midnight into the still, liquid, icy air under the deep-winter sky, the garden sleeping under its blanket of snow, feeling almost like floating in the timeless silence of the early morning hours.

This morning the harbor was lightly frozen over – no whitecaps visible despite the wind – and the slow warming of the Sun began his steady work. By mid-afternoon the sound of melting roof water gurgling down the drain pipes could be heard from the houses, and then, as evening came on and the chill began to set in again, the Aquarian freeze was back on.

Those of you who know me well are aware that I have increasingly found contemporary and ancient astrology a helpful referent for my life, without subscribing entirely to its meaningfulness or validity. It gives me a sense of time and place that is more profound than any other I have been able to know, but it is especially that connection from heaven to earth that makes it meaningful to me. Pluto may last in Aquarius for some twenty years, but the Sun will pass on, through Pisces into Aries for the coming spring equinox. I will save up the memory of the precious, priceless cold, to keep me cool in the full-on blaze of summer. In the meantime, I leave you with these now-classic lines sung by Bette Midler in The Rose:

“Just remember in the Winter,

far beneath the bitter snows,

Lies the seed, that with the Sun’s love

in the Spring becomes the Rose.”