Lessons from America

Even if you are not a US citizen or live in the southern part of North America, the US midterm elections were significant. Being a super power and a trend setter, whatever happens in the USA tend to ripple throughout the global pond. It is not only true for culture, art, fashion, and cinema but also for social movements. 

What can we take from the results of midterm general elections? First, the rise of elected women and people of color. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, right on her Saturn Return, is the youngest women to be elected to congress and she is one of 113 women who were elected to office. Among these women are Sharice Davids, an LGBTQ Native American in Kansas and two Muslim women Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan OmarIn. In addition, Colorado’s Jared Polis became the first openly gay man to win a governor’s race.

What does that mean to all of us? Simply that younger people, women, and diversity won. The congress in the US will look like this: on one side angry older white males who owe their victories to Trump and on the other side, younger, people of color, and diverse representatives that were elected based on their message of a better future. The sign of the time. 

White nationalism, or any color or shape of nationalism is by default based on fear and weakness. Fear separates, murders, and destroys. Nationalism is a primitive form of collective ego, an imagined construct usually created by men and women who want to lure ignorant people to their personal agenda and interests. However, the world is changing, the desperate attachment to the “old and familiar” or the “pure race” does not make sense any more. The train of globalization and unity left a long time ago, its too late to go back. We are all Africans. We migrated out of Africa in many waves and caravans hundreds of thousands of years ago. No one is really white or black. If you check the DNA of these so called white nationalists, you will find their genetics is a mixture of many colors and races. The future human being will not be white or black or red or white but a blended: homo sapiens mixtio.

Don’t get me wrong, I think you can be proud of your country and history. I am proud of the contribution of Israelis and Jews to humanity. But that’s where my pride lies, in the contribution of “my people” to humanity and not to themselves. This also does not make me feel less at awe from the contribution Muslims have made to humanity or Native Americans. The same way I can be proud of my niece without having to go to the street and angrily chant under your window “your niece will not replace mine!”

This processes has been predicted by Astrology for thousands of years. Aquarius is considered to be the sign that governs humanity. The sign is symbolized by an angel in Kabbalah and is associated with altruism, democracy, friendship, and globalization. Aquarius is also the sign that represents technology and no wonder the epitome of Artificial Intelligence is the android, from Andr the Greek word for “man.”  The Age of Aquarius is upon us now. Some astrologer trace the initiation of the age to the early 60s with the convergence of planets in the sign, some push the date earlier to the end of the 18th century, when Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius was discovered. 

Astrologers predicated that during the Age of Aquarius, that lasts around 2000 years, the world will become a global village. The Age of Aquarius represents the egalitarian principles of freedom, education to all, the spread of information, tolerance, acceptance, and democracy. The opening of esoteric knowledge such as tantra, yoga, kabbalah, to name a few is part of the Aquarian revolution. Aquarius also represents aliens. In fact, the Tarot card of Aquarius is called the “Star.” in the Age of Aquarius we are not only suppose to let go of religious dogma, countries, and races but also go beyond species and therefore recognize all creatures on the planet are sentient. Aquarius also bids us to embrace migration that might come from…outer space. As the late Bowie told us:

There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile

Since Aquarius symbolizes equality and democracy, it is no wonder we had to wait for the 20th century to give women, people of color, minorities, LGBT, or any other disenfranchised group the right to vote and be elected. In Alchemy, Aquarius represent the process of convergence, assimilation and multiplication. Aquarius glyph is composed of two horizontal waves of water representing the process of combining opposing elements, think of mixing black coffee with white milk (or Almond milk) in your mug.

In the Age of Aquarius women recognize they have a masculine side and men reconnect to their feminine part. After all, men and women have both testosterone and estrogen in them. The assimilation and integration does not mean losing who you are, but rather accepting those who are different than you. The Age of Aquarius is the age of loving the alien, recognizing that all is one and the victory of someone is not your defeat. The elevation of one group does not mean a depression of yours. Nationalism is anti-Aquarian and has no place in our future. It will of course perish over time, along with climate-change skeptics and the religious fanatic. The Age of Aquarius is a cosmic force. It is like a celestial season. And yes, sometimes it snows in the beginning of spring, and for the last few years we have been experiencing this frozen snow storm as a surge of nationalism in China, Russia, India, the US, South America, Europe, and Israel to name a few, but this too will pass. And yet, it is up to us who believe in oneness, the fraternity of humanity, and love, to take out our snow shovels and clear the driveway so that our great grandchildren could enjoy the promise of the Age of Aquarius.

Ojala, amen, inshala, ache, oss…