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Happy Happy
by Guy Spiro

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It's almost hard to remember the New Year celebrations two years ago when all of the hoopla of the Y2K non-event so dominated the media and our attention. I look back on teasing a good friend over all the bottled water he had stashed in his pantry as we drank of it through February and March. I also remember the festivities, which passed from time zone to time zone as the new year rolled around the world, turning into a global party. It all seems so innocent now. We were blissfully unaware of the terrorist attacks that were foiled as we celebrated that New Year and the fact that our computers still worked. How the world has changed.

As this is written, rumor has it that Osama has shaved his beard and gone into hiding. Two years ago, most people barely knew who he was. As we approach this new year, we brace for whatever outrage he and his henchmen have in store for us, not only in America but in all of the developed countries. The world seems a colder and more dangerous place.

Last month I wrote a little about the astrological energy animating the conflict and how it also presents challenges in our personal lives. These are indeed transformative times—and we are called upon to transform ourselves or to be transformed. This current of change is heavier in the present moment than usual, but it is the nature of the larger time frame that we are in as well. We are in the midst of an Age change. As this new millennium gets rolling, we are halfway through the change from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.

To the consternation of some of the conservative factions in the developed world, the past is quickly fading away. Many of the traditional values remain pertinent because they are part of the perennial wisdom. But the concept of blind obedience to authority and doing as we've always done because we've always done it is gone. The Aquarian theme of personal responsibility now makes it necessary for each individual to cooperate as we see that it benefits ourselves. In the age of Pisces, conformity was imposed from above. In Aquarius we must come together voluntarily.

Osama believes that he represents Islam. He is wrong on two counts. One is that while mainstream Islam is suspicious of the West, it does not condone his terrorist methods or his attempt to impose his version of Islam. He is even more mistaken in that it is not Islam he represents, but the Age of Pisces. He and all of his kind--and don't kid yourself, there are his counterparts in the West who secretly or at least subconsciously envy the power that fundamentalist Islam has over its people--are doomed to failure. As the Age of Pisces swept aside the Age of Aries roughly two thousand years ago, Aquarius is supplanting Pisces. We are witness to the struggle. Individuals and cultures go through an Age change at their own rate of speed but all go through it. The Aquarian awakening of individual consciousness is occurring and there is no going back.

Happy New Year. Happy New Age.