About every 2150 years the vernal equinox moves into a new sign. Astrologically this marks the beginning of a new great age, as explained in more detail on pages 90 to 92. We have been caught in such a great sea change since the mid-twentieth century: leaving the Age of Pisces where we have been since the birth of Jesus Christ, and entering the new Age of Aquarius. But this change is so immense, and we are so close to it, that it is hard to see it from within. This is why I have called it "Surfing the Tsunami on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius."

Consider the attributes of the sign Aquarius and see how they have been emerging in our civilization. First and foremost, Aquarius is the brotherhood of man and the breaking down of boundaries that divide humanity into separate groups. I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s at the end of the age of Pisces, just before the Age of Aquarius really kicked in. There were no black, Hispanic, Oriental, or non-Caucasian students in the six suburban schools I attended across the United States, nor did I see non-Caucasians anywhere except in New York City. And when I went to school in Alabama for a year, I thought the kids were kidding when they called me "a Northerner." I asked them if they were really referring to the Civil War, and quickly learned that they were dead serious.

In the 1950s and 60s all that began to change:

1954: Supreme Court rules racial segregation in US public schools unconstitutional (Brown-Bd. of Ed.);

1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested, Emmett Till, 14, lynched and brutally defaced in Money, Mississippi;

1956: Alabama and Florida buses desegregate, Dr. King’s home bombed, no one hurt;

1957: Civil Rights Act of 1957 (first civil rights act since 1875); unexploded bomb found on Dr. King’s porch;

1960: Civil Rights Act, Dr. King arrested and jailed for breaking Georgia’s trespassing law while picketing;

1961: An integrated group of CORE Freedom Riders tests newly established interstate desegregation laws; arriving by Greyhound in Alabama from Wash. DC, the bus is burned and the riders beaten;

1962: riots at U. of Miss. Oxford campus when James Meredith enrolls under court order; 12,000 federal marshals required to restore order

1963: Gov. George Wallace stands at U. of Alabama door refusing entrance to black students; Dr. King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech to an estimated 250,000; President Kennedy assassinated;

1964: Three civil rights workers killed in Mississippi; Dr. King receives Nobel Peace Prize;

1965: Malcolm X assassinated, Selma to Montgomery March, 1965 Voting Rights Act, Watts Riots;

1968: Dr. King and Robert Kennedy assassinated; "The whole world is watching," Mayor Daley, Chicago riots & Dem. National Convention

The alleged Chinese curse (its oldest attribution is actually to a 1950 Sci-Fi story by Eric Frank Russell) goes "May you live in interesting times." We certainly do. Many of the foregoing events are also characteristic of Aquarius in their sudden and unpredictable nature. But what else tells us that we’re now surfing a Tsunami so immense that the mere forming of this great wave is longer than our life span?

For the first time in history the whole world of man is coming together, whether we like it or not-- and many do not like it at all! At first we tuned into Aquarius’ waves through radio, then by TV, then via the Internet, and now by cell phone on world-spanning communications satellites. Everywhere each of us knows, or can know, more and more about every other one of us. Man is becoming connected, is becoming "cellular," and creating nightmarish conflict and heinous crimes as ancient tribal, religious and national boundaries and ideas are challenged.

Our very nature is now up for grabs. Not only our actual sexuality through trans-gender operations, but soon we will be able to create who we are physically and genetically, first through gene manipulation and cloning, and then by mental-emotional processes only dimly visible to us now. Uranus, ruling Aquarius breaks the forms of Saturn, so that the newer, larger spirit has room to grow. As we shed our old skins, we snakes are indeed living in interesting times.

astronomical explanation of the Ages of Pisces and Aquarius