Aquarius:  The Emperor, the Swindlers and the Child

I’m sure you remember the story.  A couple of swindlers hit town, claiming they can weave a cloth so fine, it can be seen by only the most intelligent and most capable.  The emperor is a sucker for new clothes and the fabric’s litmus test is rather attractive.  He orders an outfit.  Word sweeps through the town.  Every night for a week there's a light in the swindlers' quarters as they feverishly do their "work" until the wee hours of the morning. 

Periodically the emperor sends a minister to check on the progress of the weavers.  Each sees the weavers spinning air and panics.  Not wanting to get crossed off the town's "A" list, all report the emperor's new outfit is progressing fabulously well.  This “group-think” continues until even the emperor is pretending, finally dressing in his invisible robes to march through the town in a gala parade.  The crowd gasps in appreciation as the emperor marches by in his underwear, until a child speaks up:  "Daddy, the emperor has nothing on!"

The child demonstrates this season’s virtue:  the capacity to see beyond group trance and name the truth.   But the emperor and swindlers also show us Aquarius!  Each season, we may be tempted to do Aquarius as any of these three figures.  It’s time for a personal inventory:  which one are you this month?  The Aquarian dancer full of denial and pride, brilliant schemes, or naïve genius?  

The Emperor

The emperor is Aquarius’ shadow.  We don’t expect to find him on parade this month, for he’s hardly a rebel.  Aquarius as conformist?  Think of Aquarius-ruled teenagers; there is no more peer-sensitive group.  Aquarius isn’t always fearless and forward thinking.  Sometimes its detachment is just denial.  In the eighties, when our economy took another of its disastrous downward turns, it was our Aquarian emperor Reagan presiding over the collective trance of “Don’t worry, be happy.”  The emperor appears whenever Aquarius is overwhelmed by its opposite sign Leo:  “Do they like me?  What do they think of me?”  The swindlers’ cloth, made of invisible threads, mirrors the constructions of ego, that image-driven covering that holds individual selves together against the chaos and sometimes brutality of a group.  Ego is not all bad.  But in the Aquarian season, it can prevent us from doing our best work.  

The gift of the shadow is that it eventually provokes its exposure.  It gets publicly undressed.  The emperor is always headed for an embarrassing walk through town.  Why is this a gift?  Embarrassment brings the splash of cold water that can finally wake us up.  In its sting comes sensational new learning.  Treasure your embarrassments this month.  They are rich in information, revealing prior ignorance.  Rise above the stale air of your old, unquestioned beliefs.  Welcome new reality cues, no matter how unexpected.  Perhaps then you’ll shift from emperor to a swindler.  “A thief?!” you may protest.  Well that’s another name for honored Prometheus, the mythological version of the swindlers.  

The Swindlers

Aquarius’ inventive genius is more opportunistic than personally creative.  It steals from the field of possibilities and shifts the paradigm.  Its gift is daring – a thumb-of-the-nose to the powers that be.  Prometheus stole lightening-fire from the heavens and brought divine enlightenment to mankind.  In an intuitive flash the swindlers perceived the weakness in the emperor’s kingdom and turned the town on its head.  Aquarius always pulls its genius from the air.  Creative mind sees the familiar in a new way.  A sudden shock of perception brings what’s hidden newly into view.  In a flash of divine inspiration, someone “invents” what the group didn’t know it wanted next.  Or forsees the blockbuster in the innovative low-budget film a hundred other distributors rejected.

Swindlers don’t join groups, but they observe them carefully.  They succeed by honoring the fundamental creative intelligence of the universe.  They know whenever conditions are most chaotic, they’re also ripe for novel solutions and change.  The world is full of seeds.  But, like the emperor, swindlers always have an angle.  They want to get somewhere.  And here’s the downside to doing Aquarius as the clever swindler.  As soon as we’re committed to something, whether it’s an invention or a progressive new plan, we can enter the realm of schemes.  Our awareness can lessen as our self-importance grows.  This way we’ll lose the freedom we prize.  We might become like Prometheus chained to his rock--brilliant, but stuck.  If you find yourself imprisoned by too many Swindler plans this month, it’s time to cultivate your child.  

The Child

Of all three characters, the child has the clearest sight. The child has no angle at all.  The child sees only the truth.  It’s nice to romanticize this innocence.  The virtues of beginner’s mind, of seeing the world in a fresh way, are well-known.  But to be honest, adults rarely listen to children, as there’s much that children don’t know.  In the story, the child succeeds more from ignorance than brilliance.  It’s what the child doesn’t know that allows him to speak.  His ego is unformed and unpracticed.  “Out of the mouths of babes” is the recognition that children are naive to adult games and protections.  They’ve got less opinions clouding their view of the truth.

Clear sight is not for timid.  It takes courage and diligence to peel away the adult to find this “ignorant” child.  As a friend of mine recently said, “We each have three fields of awareness:  There’s what we know, what we don’t know, and what we don’t know we don’t know.”  This last field is the largest of the three and holds the greatest possibilities.  It’s the most important ground to keep under your feet during the Aquarius month.  Wonder about all those things you don’t even know about.  A naked emperor just might come into view, undressing what you thought was important.  Dedicate this month to fresh sight -- the rest of your year will be better for it.