In the last 50-60 years, through the growing integration of machinery, computers and electronic equipment into our workplaces (both business and domestically) we have seen an enormous improvement in our ability to raise our collective productivity and effectiveness in just about every area, and as such, at this quarter-juncture of this great Uranus/Pluto cycle, have created a burgeoning economic crisis in our obsessive pursuit into the realms of output productivity, over-efficiency of resources and labour. So much so that we have flushed away a great deal in order to ‘get the job done’. We have glorified the working culture, perfected the ‘working class’, learnt to measure national/cultural success via its GDP index, streamlined the time management of our entire lives, and in doing so we have all but cursed the more nebulous mysteries of life altogether, like dreaming, resting, healing and merging into one another’s lives without asking for distinct definition about what we want and how useful or how practical anything is.
In our hyperbolic mania to become super-efficient we have taken this whole ‘civilization’ deal to an outrageously unsustainable level by specialising every aspect of our functioning. Such increased specialisation means fewer people can see the big picture, and most of us are at the point now where we are all somewhat caught up like cogs in the excruciating minutia of the productivity machine, our practical value and performance being monitored more by computers than other humans. Our efforts are measured against the most competitive global value, and as the world becomes more desperate to compete in the labour market, our time, and level of craftsmanship have become gradually diminished in worth. Of course, as machines gradually take over our everyday processes, we slowly become redundant, and by today’s measurements many of us may feel practically useless if unable to fit back into the machine.
This is naturally not so good for the spirit.
Hence, whilst the overall output of product is increasing in volume, lack of human involvement results in a product which is diminishing in both quality and value. We are mechanically churning out disposable products at a consumer rate which has become economically unsustainable.
In short, we have become a species that is effectively mass producing its own disposable obsolescence, mostly because we have engineered the human service, craftsmanship and qualities of love and specialised care out of our own culture. How sad. . .
We have imbued awful limitations in our ability to create a genuinely sustainable quality of life into our world, because in the pursuit of trying to become efficient, we have over-produced everything – including ourselves. And now, the world is swarming with a sea of spare, human parts – looking for a machine to fit into. Yet, the machine seems to be increasingly running fine without you, thank you.
These limitations did not begin in the 1960’s. They trace back to the beginning of civilisation when man decided to give up his nomadic ways and become a farmer.
The advent of agriculture defined the beginning of our limitations as a species. Not only did we immediately narrow our dependence of survival upon just a handful of plant species, we began to concentrate our population’s impact all in one place. We built fortresses to prevent the starving outsiders from stealing any of our surplus food, amassed armies to kill those who were not directly involved in food production, began to farm (not hunt) animals for food and labour, created a class of wealthy and elite to rule over the ‘labourers’, and set an ever expansionist culture upon an invasive, aggressive sprawl to seize and conquer the surrounding lands. Finally, thanks to global capitalism, six of our ‘finest’ families have managed to own the entire world.
How long did that take?
About 10,000 years. Prior to agriculture humans were nomadic, and our understanding of nature and its phenomenal diversity of lands, cultures, species, peoples and choices spread far and wide.
So, are we at the end of civilisation?
Of course we are. We have exhausted it. Agriculture is about to fail us due to dramatic climate change (hole in ozone layer). Our global currency is shifting from the $dollar$ – used to trade in stock and commodities to oil, arms, and balance of political power. This ties in with massive infrastructure changes in all sections of government, corporations, clergy, financial systems whose emphasis has moved further away from tending to the people that support them to defending and maintaining the functional efficiency of their power structure. And our leaders? Where are our leaders?
Maddison_GDP_per_capita_1500-1950.svg
The effect of Industrialisation shown by rising income levels since 1500. The graph shows the gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per capita between 1500 and 1950 in 1990 International dollars for selected nations.
In the past 500 years we have progressed from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, to the Age of Enlightenment, to the Industrial Age and the now the rise of computer technology and robotics… within just a few centuries the human race has become ever so pathological in its climb to reach a level of ultimate efficiency that it has become inexorably ill – emotionally speaking. Socially our species has become diseased by our convergence into cities beyond millions; tens of millions of humans; all packed together, living on top of one another, scrambling to ‘get busy ‘ and ‘produce’ some ‘GDP’ within a single concentrated location.
Our industrial capacity to extract megatons of resources from under oceans, deserts, rainforests, sides of mountains, fracking rock layers and farming vast fields of genetically processed crops is phenomenal. So much indeed that our population has exactly doubled since 1965 from 3.6 billion to 7.1 billion. According to statistics, we’re all better off – wealthier and busier.
Everyone is busy. Too busy.
And yet, curiously… everyone is broke. Or broken . . .
. . . trying to fix something that was ironically perfect. And so we have amassed a peculiar debt that we will pay forward to our dear children. Most of the damage is incalculable, since at this point there is really no way to either see or measure the emotional suffering that is building on this planet, thanks to the industrial noise and the clamour created by our machine/robot/computer-dominated world.
That we are somehow managing to support so much life upon what appears now to be a dying planet – a planet which if it were a human body would appear to be kept alive by artificial respirators, nebulisers, intravenous drips and genetically modified nutrients, whilst grafting organs, blood transfusions and bone marrow from our own children’s future planet to support a failing heart-beat. Meanwhile, the statements by the media are telling us that ‘the prognosis is stable’ and to carry on calmly because “There’s nothing wrong with grandma at all. She’s fine. Just carry on being busy at work”.
It’s a good thing then that we have a bevy of narcotic distractions such as television, internet, prescribed pharmaceuticals and other wonderful drugs and alcohol to keep us dumbed and numbed, as well as those basic staples of society – work, sex, pop music, video games, homogenised consumer goods available online and of course porn on demand. Why would you bother to put yourself out when there is a constant supply of panacea to what Jung called the “Pleasure Principle”?
Are we ready to understand how we are paving the way towards a pathological state of mass global depression? Is everybody ready?
Well, . . . we think not.
Depression is a common mental/emotional disorder. According to statistics from the WHO (World Health Organisation) globally, more than 350 million people of all ages suffer from depression. This is reported cases only. Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and is a major contributor to the global burden of disease. One in five people is being treated with some form of depression at any one time, but then, many people – especially men – will go through depression all their lives and never be even diagnosed, let alone treated for the condition.
Some people may be very well familiar with all this, but I’m sure that the vast majority of people are completely oblivious to how much their world is becoming affected by the lack of opportunities to make constructive choices due to our socially limiting cultures. Not many can see the effect of long range cycles either. Not many can see how their quality of life has, over the years, become increasingly compromised by the great creeping deception that their basic needs are taken care of as long as they have some form of a “job”. All we seem to worry about is whether there is adequate employment – a source of income to keep up with the process of paying bills. At the rate of today’s progress, the redundancy of many jobs that were once created by the’ industrial culture’ is getting more and more imminent.
As the giants Uranus and Pluto square in on this Virgo Full Moon, we see globalization take its toll on our post-agricultural, post-industrial, post-consciousness shifted society. The emotional need to be oneself, no matter what the cost, and to make change happen is starting to dawn upon humankind. Our ‘jobs’ and our whole employment structure is barely sustainable with this planet’s economic resources. Many of us know that change and innovation are important, and we are finally ready to confront whatever has to be done to make change happen. Sudden, drastic turns of events that deeply affect and potentially change the way we pursue our goals, or even the goals themselves are about to occur as we each come to some level of understanding that we are missing so much from our lives due to our preoccupation with our ‘occupation’.
The opposition to the Virgo Moon from Ceres/Neptune in Pisces presents us with a deeper, more pressing need to reconnect to our nurturing, maternal sensitivities in the most nebulous manner of this great earth mother’s most elusive yet deeply spiritual heart. Through dreaming, art, prayer or meditation, we become aware just how lost we have become in our illusion, delusion, lost perception, or misconceptions of what constitutes a nurturing parental role, not only to our children but this entire planet. Some of us who are more sensitive are welcomed into an awakening – an emotional insight into the higher dimensional realms. We see most starkly that what we have sought after in all the toil and physical struggle to get this world perfect has in the end failed to bring us any spiritual satisfaction.
We make a decision now to let go of the futile struggle for ‘perfection’ and start the journey home, to re-embrace our custodial place in the great cosmic oneness. While others have become lost in the lower strands of this by hooking on to things like medication, booze, drugs, internet, perfunctory spirituality and other great forms of escape and glorified excuses (like work), becoming totally unavailable or confused en masse by the great machine of ‘civilization’, we come to rise above by purifying our intent and being more discerning about how we show our care.
[art: brooke golightly]
[art: brooke golightly]
Such are the challenges and rude awakenings we face at this very confronting Virgo Full Moon.So how do we fix this massive problem? How do we remedy the situation?
We must act locally. Starting with ourselves. The only thing we stand to salvage is our own spirit here. Refine our own intent. What more can one do to faithfully navigate their way out of all the disillusionment that we are facing?
Staying pure, healthy, clear-minded about what really matters is the message of this wonderful Virgo Full Moon.
Next fortnight’s PISCES SOLAR ECLIPSE (Mar 9),conjunct Chiron, is a powerful, universal call to officially introduce the shaman back into our world – hope you are all ready…
Blessings, and have an amazing Full Moon!
Our Experience With Simon Parkes as a contactee (split from "Our experience with Simon Parkes as a counselor" thread)
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