The Two Boxes of Aquarius

THE TWO BOXES OF AQUARIUS

Each month I meditate on the different archetypal energies, bring them to the forefront of my awareness and hold them there as I move through my life.

Over the last two weeks or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about Aquarius and it’s connection to the Quantum Field. Mostly because I am in a year-long, “not your average”, manifestation course with my teacher. We have the Sun, and Pluto, who just brought our collective awareness to that area of the Chart, and of course, we kicked off the course just as the conjunction happened. Which is so often the case with her work.

Aquarius is associated with the cosmic, the weird, the eclectic, the future, freedom, rebellion, and liberation. Archetypal Astrologers connect Aquarius’ modern ruler Uranus, with the Mythic Character of Prometheus, which denotes a type of Promethean impulse is attached to Aquarian/Uranian energy. . For those who don’t know, Prometheus stole the fire of the Gods and gave it to the people. And thus, Aquarius has also become known as the sign of “the people”. Our liberation, freedom, and technological advancement.

As I’ve been meditating on Aquarius, I’ve come across two seemingly unrelated, stories about boxes. I call these types of “coincidences”, synchronicities, because they clearly speak to something powerful.

The First is from the “Mythic Tarot” by Liz Greene. It’s embedded in her interpretation of the Star Card in the Tarot. The Star Card Ruling Aquarius. She relates this story to Pandora’s Box. In classical Myth, the story of Pandora is often linked to the story of Eve. With both women suffering similar fates.

“Here we meet Pandora, who in myth opened the chest which Zeus had maliciously given to mankind, and released all the Spites.

After the Titan Prometheus had stolen the sacred fire of the gods to give to mankind, the king of the gods resolved to inflict severe punishments on the human race, which culminated in the great flood..

Before this flood, however, his anger was more subtle, although not yet satisfied. Zeus ordered Hephaistos the smith-god to fashion clay and water into a body, to give it vital force and human voice, and to make a virgin whose dazzling beauty would equal that of the immortal goddesses.

All the divinities heaped their special gifts on this new creature, who received the name of Pandora. Hermes, however, placed perfidy into Pandora's heart and lies into her mouth.

Then Zeus sent this woman to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus, along with a great chest. But Epimetheus, having been warned by his brother to accept no gifts from Zeus, respectfully excused himself. However, having seen the terrible vengeance which the king of the gods then inflicted upon Prometheus, Epimetheus (whose name means hindsight) hastened to marry Pandora.

Prometheus, before he was seized and imprisoned on his lonely mountain peak, managed to warn Epimetheus not to touch the chest, and Epimetheus conveyed this warning to Pandora with frightening threats. But Hephaistos had made Pandora as foolish, mischievous and idle as she was beautiful. Presently she opened the lid of the chest, and the terrible afflictions which Zeus had gathered - Old Age, Labor, Sickness, Insanity, Vice and Passion - escaped and spread over the earth, infecting the whole of mankind.

Hope alone, which had somehow got locked in the chest with the Spites, did not fly away.”

Although it is true, that Aquarius is linked to the “Great Hope of Humanity” through it’s properties of liberation, revolution, and technological advances, I have to admit this story felt quite flat. Not because Liz Green isn’t a great writer. But because I tend to feel quite flat relating to Eve. It’s as though the Patriarchy, (or dominator paradigm) has wrapped its fist around the story and choked what was really possible out of it. A beautiful woman and a box with everything? There are so many ways a story with these elements could have been told. Yet we end up with this tired narrative?

And isn’t that the point of Aquarius, to dare to play in the realms of the impossible? To explore new frontiers? To play entirely in the realm of “we don’t yet know what we don’t know. That’s how vast and wyrd the universe and what is possible is”?

Then I ran across the second box story. And it spoke to me about where we are today. We are beginning to break free of the old paradigm’s stories. Yet we can’t quite write a new one yet. Because we are still so attached to comfort and safety. To our well worn groves. We’ve lost the magic, the quantum.

This second story is the one I’d like to leave you with. Just like our generation is on the transition team, crossing the bridge between ages, Pisces and Aquarius, use this story as a bridge between now and where we are headed. It is retold for his book, Quantum Mindset, by Rick Thompson

Here's a story I like very much that expresses in a metaphor how our beliefs and attitudes and mindsets determine how our lives will unfold, and what we need to do to optimize the flow of good evens that might come naturally to us:

A grumpy old man dies feeling unfulfilled, unhappy, and miserable. When he arrives in heaven, he sees a big beautiful golden box wrapped up with his name on it. He asks, "What's in the box?

His guide hesitates, then says, "Well, normally we don't tell people what's in the golden box, but since you asked, it is your box, and you can open it."

The old man opens it up and inside he sees all the items, experiences, relationships, and opportunities he didn't accept and allow into his life. These are all things he wanted, all the gifts from God and the Universe that, because of his ingrained negative mindset, he rejected, avoided, destroyed, denied, or discarded.

At that moment (and too late), he realized in life he'd been offered everything he could possibly want or imagine, and the only reason he didn't receive and enjoy them was because he did not accept them. He was so closed-minded, defensive, and negative that not only could he not accept them, but he couldn't even acknowledge their availability.