When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
And peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
1
Like most of us in the late sixties, I was quite taken by the song “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.” I didn’t know much about astrology other than that I was a Gemini. I liked the idea of being clever, imaginative and witty, so I thought there might be something to this. (I conveniently ignored traits like impulsivity, restlessness and indecisiveness.) After hearing this song, I looked up the traits of Aquarians, and I found them “witty, clever and inventive.” I thought (in my 16-year-old mind) that if we really are entering the Age of Aquarius, I might fare very well indeed.
Astrology never gained much traction with me. I would occasionally read my horoscope for entertainment, but I never made or changed plans around what I found there. In my study of New Thought, I have always believed astrology to be a phenomenon that occurs on the relative plane, rather than Absolute Truth. So I was surprised to find an essay entitled The Zodiac and the Bible 2 in a collection of Emmet Fox’s writings. I consider Emmet Fox to be one of the premier New Thought writers, and this title, written in 1945, intrigued me.
What I read was not what I expected. My limited experience of astrology was all at the personal level. Fox was writing about the very long-term cycles of the earth. If we could look along the earth’s axis into space, the North Pole would always be pointing toward one of the constellations that make up the Zodiac. The full cycle around the Zodiac takes about 26,000 years to complete, with the earth’s axis pointing toward each sign for just over 2,150 years. Right now the North Pole points to Aquarius. This phenomenon is known as axial precession, called in Fox’s day, the Precession of the Equinoxes. So where was the North Pole pointing at the time of Jesus? What about in Moses’s time?
Let’s start with the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. We find numerous references to sheep and shepherds. Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and Amos were all shepherds and great spiritual leaders. Should it come as a surprise, then, that the earth was in the Age of Aries during their time? These leaders understood that our thinking creates our lives, and taught that we should keep our thoughts focused on Spirit and the things of Spirit. The first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3, KJV) exhorts us to contemplate only on the good, for what we give our attention to grows.
In the symbology of metaphor, mythology and metaphysics, sheep represent our thoughts. If our herd is scattered all over the place, we are not being a good shepherd. Likewise, if our thoughts are scattered, they lose their power to create good in our lives. The shepherd, then, symbolizes our intention to keep our thoughts in alignment with our belief, so that our life develops in the way we desire. The symbols of sheep and shepherds abound in the Hebrew Bible.
By the time of Jesus of Nazareth, the earth had completed its trek through the Arian Age, and was entering the Piscean Age. Pisces, or the fish, is the sign just before Aries on our calendar. Remember, it is a precession, not a procession: these 2,150-year ages move backwards through the Zodiac compared to the sun sign progression. Notice all the references in the New Testament to fish. Jesus did not tell his disciples to be shepherds, but said he would make them fishers of men. Even now, many people identify themselves as Christians with the sign of the fish on their business cards or bumper stickers. So, what is the symbolic significance of the fish?
Sheep, who live on the land or the surface of the earth, symbolize our conscious thoughts, or our surface thinking. Fish live in the seas, lakes and rivers, beneath the surface. Bodies of water are symbolic of our subconscious or subjective mind, and fish stand for our subconscious thought processes. As we know, most fish are pretty active down there. There is constant movement in our subjective consciousness, even though we may not be aware of it. This is where our deeper wisdom lives too, and that is another trait symbolized by the fish. Are we able to control, or at least influence our subconscious mind?
Yes we can. While Moses, Abraham and David encouraged us to get our surface thoughts in order, Jesus’s mission was to get us to work on our subjective patterns because they are what create our life experiences. Humankind had evolved to the point where this deeper work was now possible. Proverbs 23:7 reads, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” “In his heart” means not what we believe in our mind, but what we feel at the visceral, “gut” level, our deeply held beliefs about the way Life is. This is the picture that Creative Mind is always working to manifest for us.
That is what humanity has been working on for the last couple of millennia, and now we are ushering in the Age of Aquarius. What can this mean? Emmet Fox describes Aquarius as “the man with the water pot… and who is the man with the water pot? Why the gardener!” Spiritual Mind Treatment or Affirmative Prayer has been illustrated as the planting of the seed of thought in Creative Mind, which moves it from the invisible into the visible. Gardening is a near-perfect metaphor for affirmative prayer, because the process of growth takes place beneath the surface, where it is not seen. Although we expect it, we are always surprised and grateful when the shoot comes up!
So the Aquarian Age is marked by humankind’s ability to tend our own mental garden, producing the life we desire. There is no more need for great prophets to show us the way. There will always be teachers and guides along the spiritual path, but we have evolved to the point where it is now up to each of us to find our way “back to the Garden,” as Joni Mitchell put it. Emmet Fox sums it up nicely:
Man, having graduated as a Shepherd and as a Fisherman, now becomes a Gardener, and this title nicely expresses the kind of work he has to do in his new role. We have now reached the stage when the lesson of the need for thought control having been learned, and the Santa Sophia or Holy Wisdom having been contacted and appreciated, the two things must be united mentally in our everyday practice.
Spiritual practice must be consistent if it is to be effective. But that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult or tedious. Think of it as just puttering around in the garden. Plant the seeds you want and water them with your thoughts, then, as Eddie Watkins, Jr. sings, “Get outta the way and let God do his thing!” And remember – “Let the Sunshine In!”
Peace, Love & Blessings, 
End Notes
