Recently a friend sent me astrological evidence that changes are afoot in the world. It was something about the 80-year cycle of Uranus, which “represents sudden change, rebellion, innovation, and breaking free from limitations. It’s known as the ‘Great Awakener’ and is associated with technological and social revolutions.”
As if I needed astrological evidence. A quick glance at the events unfolding in the life of society, and even my own life, makes clear that the pace of change is accelerated. It has the feeling of entering a section of rapids in a canoe. Everything moves faster and seems more chaotic. Dangers appear suddenly and require a quick response and steady hand to navigate.
I think one of the difficulties in accepting the change in the pace of unfolding events is the belief, rooted in us through years of education, that everything automatically evolves and improves. This seems to be an extension of the image promoted by Darwin and the evolutionists. This is the notion that life evolved from a primordial chaos to the high state of order we have today and should only get better and better. When it doesn’t we are confused, feel betrayed, and believe that it should be otherwise.
An alternative model is represented in the cyclical nature of time, embodied in the teachings of myriad ancient traditions. In these cycles there are periods of improvement and periods of decline, periods in which the features of life remain unchanged for centuries, and faster ones in which everything seems utterly different from one generation to the next.
The Vedic tradition has a more technical description, using the system of yugas, or ages. The Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron ages refer to degrees of enlightenment or civilization determined by a background frequency. The yugas have a specific, unequal duration. Contrary to the popular view that humanity is at its apex of civilization and advancement, we are now, according to the Vedic model, in the most ignorant and uncivil stage of the cycle. The Kali Yuga, or Iron age, is characterized by an overemphasis on atomistic materiality. This is the age in which we live under the “reign of quantity” (to use the phrase of philosopher Rene Guenon).
Just as we take the movement of the Earth around the Sun to be a year, the ancient calendars, including the Vedic, the ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, and Mayan took the longer cycle which astronomers theorize is related to the wobble of the earth around its axis. This takes about 26 thousand years and includes a full cycle of yugas like the seasons of the long year.
Imperceptible to us, the celestial canopy shifts one degree in the course of an average human lifetime. For instance, our Pole Star, Polaris, which now indicates due north, will no longer be to the north in a few centuries or millennia. A precessional year encompasses the twelve zodiacal ages, each of which lasts 2,150 years, indicated by the sign in which the sun rises on the vernal equinox. For instance, we are now on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius.
The ancient Egyptian society remained intact, with a consistent religion and social structure for four thousand years. This lifespan for a society is almost unimaginable for us, who live in a country that seems close to passing into oblivion after only a couple hundred years. The Egyptians intentionally adapted to the longer inexorable cycles in order to maintain resilience. This can be seen in the emblems and statues of different periods. For instance, the Old Kingdom motifs featured bovine representations during the age of Taurus. The Middle and New Kingdom representations morphed into rams during the age of Aries (and then became fishes in the age of Pisces, though with a new religion called Christianity, arguably a reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian religion).
Having the long cycle of ages in view can be an antidote to reactions against current events. With a view of the ages comes a sense that there are times that change is accelerated, and it is clear to all that we are living through such a time. With this long view, I may be able to have more equanimity as the canoe courses through the rapids; I may be able to navigate more soberly and skillfully.
Even more, I may be able to make use of the accelerated change for my inner work. As a teacher of the last century, G. I. Gurdjieff, who navigated through a revolution, a genocide, and two world wars aphorized: “The worse the conditions of life, the more productive the work, always provided you remember the work.”
This article appears in June 2025.
