The term ‘Aquarian Awakening’ represents the collective spiritual awakening associated with the activations of Aquarius and its ruler, Uranus. It is also a reference to the precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac into Aquarius. The precession of the equinoxes is a 26,000-year cycle of the northern spring equinox-point backwards through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. It is caused by the wobble of the Earth on its axis. The journey through each zodiac sign lasts around 2160 years and is referred to as an astrological age. Nobody knows the exact moment when the Age of Aquarius begins because there is no agreement on how to define it celestially. However, the fact remains, we are in the transition period between the astrological ages, and so the Aquarian Age is nevertheless slowly dawning.
The Age of Aquarius, and indeed the archetype of Aquarius itself, is associated with the themes of collective consciousness, humanitarianism, spiritual awakening, societal transformation, technological advancement, and freedom. When we realise that Aquarius rules such things as the Internet, computers, and AI, we can easily see how these themes are playing out now and how this can be one marker for the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
The 1960s Aquarian Awakening
Other interesting marker points for the Age of Aquarius were the astrological alignments and extraordinary countercultural events of the 1960s. This is when the term ‘Age of Aquarius’ gained popularity. On 5 February 1962, all seven visible planets gathered in Aquarius with a total solar eclipse in Aquarius, with Neptune, planet of spirituality, aspecting the eclipse from Scorpio. Along with this activation, and Pluto’s conjunction to Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius, a further key activation for spiritual awakening unfolded over the rest of the 1960s: the Uranus-Neptune sextile.
The Uranus-Neptune sextile occurs relatively rarely. It is a sixty-degree alignment involving Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius, and Neptune, the planet of spirituality. While in exact aspect, many momentous events happened that bear the signature of the Aquarian Age: the 1967 ‘Human Be-In’ at Golden Gate Park, involving 20,000-30,000 countercultural people standing for higher consciousness, and the first-ever global satellite broadcast, which featured the Beatles singing ‘All You Need is Love’ live in 1967. The countercultural movement unfolded for the duration of the Aquarian activations of the 1960s. Standout examples include the love and peace movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, transpersonal psychology, alternative therapies, meditation, spiritual communities, and a spiritual focus in popular music. The anti-war March on Washington in 1967, involving 50,000 people, even included a mass meditation in which participants visualised light surrounding the Pentagon.
The 1990s Aquarian Awakening
Following the 1960s, the next aspect between Uranus and Neptune was the Uranus-Neptune conjunction, which was in aspect between 1989 and 1997. This period marked another phase of spiritual awakening and collective social change. Sacred site activations and global meditation linkups unfolded on a large scale (including my own), key spiritual channellings were brought through, the Cold War was proclaimed over, and the Internet was established to connect us globally.
The 2020s Aquarian Awakening
Having experienced a lull since the end of the 1990s, we are now entering the next Aquarian activation phase. The two key astrological events activating the Aquarian energies for spiritual awakening are Pluto in Aquarius and the next Uranus-Neptune aspect since the 1990s: the Uranus-Neptune sextile. It is important to note that this Uranus-Neptune sextile is the same aspect that oversaw the transformation of collective consciousness in the 1960s, but is now in different signs. Having the spiritual perspective of the past two Aquarian activation phases of the 1960s and 1990s, we can be prepared for what is to come and make the most of this sacred opportunity. Our commitment is crucial, for Pluto in Aquarius highlights that the power of technology may be misused or abused if we don’t empower the positive timeline of collective spiritual awakening and freedom for the remainder of the 2020s.
The Lesson of Pluto in Aquarius
Pluto entered Aquarius on 21 January 2024. It will briefly retrograde into Capricorn on 1 September 2024 before returning to Aquarius on 19 November 2024, where it will remain until 2043. Pluto is the planet of power and deep transformation. In Aquarius, we will learn from it the lesson of collective power. On the one hand, Pluto in Aquarius represents the wielding of global technological power to transform society for better or worse. On the other hand, it represents the transformation of societies into spiritual communities of light to birth the Aquarian vision.
We can already see the lesson of collective power being set up. The UN’s Agenda 2030 has set out a list of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ that all governments of the world have agreed to deliver by 2030. Looking carefully, we can see that these goals are being used to justify a universal digital infrastructure (Goal 9), smart cities (Goal 11), smart meters (Goal 13), and digital identity for all (Goal 16). The goals do not incorporate any real safeguard against their abuse or talk about the potential harm that could be caused by plugging humanity and much of the rest of the world into a smart grid and digital matrix. In 2019, the World Economic Forum formed a Strategic Partnership Framework with the UN for digital cooperation to accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2030 and ‘meet the needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution while seeking to advance standards for digital governance and digital inclusiveness’. The ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is outlined in the book of the same name. It describes a world of implantable technologies, designer beings, the Internet of Things, smart cities, AI, and technological implants in the brain (achieved by Elon Musk’s Neuralink this year when Pluto entered Aquarius).
On a positive note, Pluto in Aquarius can represent the transformation of society through the embodiment of spiritual values. While digital transformation is not necessarily a bad thing if approached with wisdom, it does require our spiritual awakening to ensure that wisdom is applied and that we don’t trap ourselves in a digital control grid. As there is a risk that humanity may drift along into a global digital control grid, and given that some political leaders are engaging in wars and dangerous global confrontations, we can no longer put off holding the light for the world and grounding our spiritual values into our physical life structures. We are called to act. In the chart for Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius this year, Mars is in Capricorn and trining Jupiter and Uranus, representing the responsible and wise use of will to co-create the Aquarian Awakening in place of the control grid.
Pluto in Aquarius is big. It is all about the transformation of repressive societies into spiritual communities of light through the owning of our power. Interestingly, the societal transformation and the establishment of alternative communities in the 1960s occurred during the conjunction of Pluto and Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius. Today, we can harness the highest expression of Pluto in Aquarius and actively contribute to this transformation of collective consciousness by forming groups and networks committed to building spiritual communities founded on spiritual values such as love, compassion, peace, joy, wisdom, unity, and freedom; communities where we can recover from the repression of our consciousness and spirituality and reconnect with our true spiritual nature and the magic of life.
by forming groups and networks committed to building spiritual communities founded on spiritual values, such as love, peace, freedom, and compassion. To empower yourself for this task, meditate and cultivate a strong connection with your spiritual light on a daily basis and commit to grounding it into your every physical action. The more you stay present in your light, the more you will be able to embody your light and play your part in the Aquarian Awakening. In particular, you can focus on transforming how you use technology so that you use it wisely. We are likely to see the power of technology increase dramatically with Pluto in Aquarius. So it is crucial that we do not build a technological prison around us and compromise our spiritual awakening and ability to ground the higher Aquarian vision into our lives.
The Uranus-Neptune Sextile
The Uranus-Neptune sextile represents spiritual awakening. The sextile last occurred in the 1960s when spiritual awakening unfolded dramatically. It is now occurring again. It began to move into orb in late 2022 but won’t be exact until the years 2025-2027, when its influence will be clearly felt, particularly when Pluto forms activating sextiles and trines to it from Aquarius, confirming the next phase of Aquarian Awakening. The Uranus-Neptune sextile will occur five times between 2025-2027 (August 2025, November 2025, July 2026, January 2027, and June 2027) and remains in orb for the rest of the 2020s, meaning that it is perfectly timed to complete just before the Agenda 2030 deadline. Perhaps we can see that a lesson of spiritual awakening is set for humanity, involving grounding our light into our social structures. Incredibly, while Uranus and Neptune are in sextile with each other and being aspected by Pluto, Saturn will conjunct Neptune in February 2026, representing the grounding of awakened spirituality into our material lives and the dissolving of barriers to greater unity. When Saturn and Neptune last met in a conjunction in 1989, the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain both fell immediately.
Today, humanity faces challenges that it didn’t back in the 1960s, or, indeed, the 1990s. Despite the Aquarian potential for instant connection with each other through the Internet and our phones, we will be challenged for the following reasons:
- There is a saturation and over-stimulation of content on the Internet, making it hard to find the important and relevant content and people.
- Search engines and social media sites are owned by big business and have algorithms in place to restrict what search results are returned or what content displays.
- People are addicted to distracting trivia and sensationalised content, which is manipulated through the addictive design of social media and celebrity gossip websites.
- Due to their addiction to social media, many spiritually aware people still use it as their default means of online networking when what is needed is a sovereign and decentralised local network that is purpose-built for spiritual awakening.
- Misinformation, disinformation, and shallow and sensationalised online spiritual content can mislead us.
- Negative news stories bombard us through online news outlets, detuning our vibration and presenting negative stories and perceptions of human potential that can delude us.
- Radiation from microwave masts, mobile phones, and Wi-Fi routers proliferates our environment, disrupting our bodies and consciousness.
This is the old paradigm or lower octave of Aquarius that we are being called to move beyond. Over the next few years, Pluto in Aquarius and the Uranus-Neptune sextile are offering us the opportunity to transform how we use technology so that we don’t compromise our spiritual awakening and ability to ground the higher Aquarian vision into our collective physical lives. One of the best things we can do to facilitate the Aquarian Awakening is to unplug from social media, form local spiritual networks, meet up face-to-face, and use direct online networking via email or a trusted spiritual networking website or messaging service.
When we look at how the astrological aspects will form over the coming few years, they seem orchestrated for spiritual awakening, which is encouraging. Take a look in the chart at how the Uranus-Neptune sextile is activated by Pluto, Jupiter, and Mars in July 2026 when it is exact. They share many of the same degrees with perfect synchrony.
2024 – A Year of Spiritual Preparation
Before August 2024, the most sensitive of us may feel that something is changing energetically, but it won’t be until the second half of August that the energy of the Uranus-Neptune sextile will become more noticeable, particularly when the Aquarius Full Moon of August 19 (Aquarian Transfiguration Day) will exactly square Uranus. The precision of this square at the exact time of the Full Moon is extraordinary. Like the Aquarian activations that are coming in 2025 and 2026, there is a sense of divine orchestration.
Between September and October 2024, the Uranus-Neptune sextile will be in 1-2 degree orb and we should have a more palpable sense that spiritual awakening is on its way. However, Pluto’s retrograde out of Aquarius into Capricorn in September will tell us that we will have to wait for the full download because of our need to revisit how we structure our physical lives and societies to better bring them into alignment with our spiritual values and the Aquarian Vision. At this time, we will be called to go out on a limb and to trust as we start making proactive physical changes to our lives, networks, communities, and societies to better reflect our awakening spirituality and prepare for anchoring in the Aquarian energies that will intensify between 2025 and 2027 when the Uranus-Neptune sextile becomes exact and is activated by Pluto. Practical light-filled action is essential!
After October 2024, Uranus and Neptune will start to move out of sextile again, having primed us. It won’t be until July 2025 that the sextile will move back into a 1-2 degree orb, to be followed by the first exact perfection of the sextile in August 2025, maximising the potential for the collective consciousness to awaken spiritually. Therefore, we can see that spiritual attunement and preparation for spiritual awakening and the embodiment of our Aquarian values is the key message for 2024 and early 2025.
For preparation, practise daily meditation for spiritual attunement and inner guidance, and infuse higher vibratory light in meditation to clear your subtle energy body. Consider the role you might play during the Aquarian Activations and what you need to do to prepare for this. How can you anchor light into yourself and the physical structures of the world? What alternative systems can you create or co-create that honour the highest potential of the Aquarian vision? What groups and networks can you form? And how will you guide and assist others in preparing for the Aquarian activation?