We are now in a new era of astrology: the Pluto-Eris square. Maybe you’ve been following along. There was the Uranus-Pluto series of squares in the 2011-2012 era; there was the Uranus-Eris conjunction of 2016-2017; and now, the torch has been passed to Pluto square Eris — the rarest of all of these combinations.

And while this is happening, we are experiencing the Saturn-Pluto conjunction, the first 2020 aspect that will be exact on Jan. 12, 2020 — and which is working at close to full force right now. Note, I cover these events succinctly in the first half hour of tonight’s Planet Waves FM.

If society seems totally insane and unstable at the moment, and if every person seems to be affected, consider that this is the astrology behind it.

More than demonstrating a “cause” for world events, though, I would say that astrology is providing a guide. This guide is pointing us to the intersection of where your life meets the greater collective; where your personal changes intersect with those in society.

There’s just one thing on the line: integrity. Think of yourself as a bridge. Can you withstand the forces of nature? Can you bend and flex with the elements? That, I would say, is the goal.

First a bit of background. A lot of rare events are happening at once. By “at once” I mean between today and Dec. 21, 2020 (please see this letter for additional details).

Pluto takes 250 years to orbit the Sun; Eris takes 558 years (our understanding of Eris’ orbit is under continued revision, though it’s always stated as close to 550 years). Remember that it was the discovery of Eris that led to the supposed demotion of Pluto and the reorganization of solar system definitions and categories in 2005. It took Eris to do that!

Sun, Saturn, Pluto, Eris and the Nodes

Here is the configuration we are looking at this week: it includes Sun square Saturn, Sun square the lunar nodes, Sun square Pluto and Sun conjunct Eris. Did you follow all that? It’s part of one pattern. Take a look at the diagram below. Each of these on its own would be front-page news; we now have them going on all at the same time.

Basically, when you look at this, you’re looking right at whatever “2020” means. Place your fingers on the pulse of the world, and feel that thing throb. Notice where you’re coming from personally, and how you respond to everything that’s happening.

I suggest you resist any temptation to crawl into a hole, or isolate yourself to the news bubble of one point of view. Yes, take care of yourself, and your home, your people, your critters and your plants. That is not a retreat into a “safe” space. We all remain in the world, experiencing many things entirely distinct to our era of history.

We live in a challenging and at times painful era to be alive. The zombies who want no part of self-awareness roam the streets. Just pass them by.

One factor this whole aspect pattern points to is the many consequences of total immersion in the digital environment. I know I keep saying this. When I wrote my first essay on Eris in the winter of 2006-2007, I described Eris as being about the apparent fragmentation of self. I directly referenced the theories of Marshall McLuhan that I would not begin to understand coherently until a decade later.

At the essence is your relationship to your body. This translates to everyone’s relationship to their body. This relationship is underneath everything that we are experiencing today. The late Eric McLuhan put it this way (a quote I’ve published on our pages many times, and which cannot be contemplated too much):

“The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”

If you’re wondering why so little seems to make any sense, here is my proposal as to how and why that is. Humanity has never experienced anything like it is now, with people swimming around the digital environment night and day, awake and asleep and in every state in between. This has come to the point where people don’t know what to do with one another when they finally get a chance to make eye contact and have a conversation.

Part of the problem, as Eric’s father Marshall pointed out many times, is that we become like our tools faster than they become like us. We are becoming like the robots and artificial intelligence scripts we are using all the time. Here is a simple test: how many viewpoints can you access to describe the same situation?

The Digital Haze: Tune In and Cut Off

The second problem with the electronic environment involves how intense it is. New electronic tools are extensions of your personal central nervous system. When we first acquire them, it’s all very exciting and thrilling and you can send a message to your friend in China. Soon after, most people are overwhelmed. There is too much sensitivity; we are at the scene of every disaster, and dragged into every controversy.

This is when most people need to cut off because it’s all too much: the news and the alerts and the personal messages and the voicemails and the out-of-body experience connected to it all. That can take many forms: numbing out, going into a haze, dropping out, drugging out, retreating into a bubble, or constantly seeking a “safe” space. The key word here is: unconscious.

While this is happening, a second effect is in progress — extreme polarization. This is another form of retreat, of choosing sides, and of being right. This seems related to the zeros and ones that underlie everything we experience in the digital environment, nearly all the time.

Will humanity survive this?

“As I have said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink,” God explains to Neale Walsh in Conversations With God, which we first published on Planet Waves here.

“I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this.

“Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.”

Over the next week, we will get some clues as to the direction events are headed. Meanwhile, it’s always your prerogative to mind your personal integrity: to tell the truth, to live for your truth, to keep your commitments, to help when you can, and to see the world from the perspective of the other, difficult though that may be.

Here’s an old Lou Reed song that I think sums up our moment brilliantly.