Let me show you a wall.
It hangs in the rectory, and I walk past it every day. At the top is a big black chart called the Timeline of Mythology and Religion. Its title says it all: Children of the Same Universe.
The chart starts way back, 40,000 years ago and more, with the first people who looked at the sky and felt something bigger than themselves. Animism. Shamanism. The Aboriginal Dreamtime. The San people of Africa. Then the lines start to branch. Green for Europe. Orange for Africa and the Middle East. Pink for East Asia. Purple and blue for the Americas. Out come the Greeks and the Egyptians, Hinduism and Judaism, Buddhism and Taoism, Christianity and Islam, the Maya and the Inca, the Yoruba and the Norse.
Hundreds of faiths. Thousands of years. Every color of the rainbow.
And then look at the bottom of the chart. Every one of those lines, from every corner of the Earth, bends back together. They all meet at one point.
That's the whole sermon right there, honey. We were never strangers. We are one family that took different roads home.
What hangs below the chart
Under the timeline I keep a little chapel for everyone.
A carved wooden Buddha face, eyes closed, at peace. A stained-glass ankh, the Egyptian key of life, glowing amber. A golden seated Buddha, the World Honored One, with a brass incense burner sending smoke up past two shimmering crystals. A crescent moon and a star by the door. And through that door, red flowers and green leaves in the afternoon light.
No one item is the "right" one. That's the point. They sit side by side, and nobody fights. If carved wood and glass and brass can get along on one wall, surely we can get along on one planet.
The Age of Aquarius
People have talked for a long time about the Age of Aquarius, a new age coming after the long Age of Pisces. Aquarius is the water bearer. The picture is a figure pouring water out for everyone, not just the chosen few.
I like that picture. Water does not ask your religion before it quenches your thirst. Rain does not check your papers. The river does not care who you love.
The old age was about walls between people, my God against your God, my nation against your nation. The new age has to be about what that chart shows: one source, many branches, and one meeting place at the end.
But here's the hard truth. A new age does not show up just because the calendar turns. Somebody has to carry the water. And today, that somebody is us.
Many people say the Age of Aquarius is starting now. Astrologers do not agree on the exact date. Some calculations put the shift from Pisces into Aquarius anywhere from the 15th century to the 36th. Using the official constellation boundaries set by the International Astronomical Union, the vernal equinox enters Aquarius around the year 2597. Other systems place the transition closer, in the coming decades or centuries. What is clear is that we are in the transition, and Pluto has been moving through Aquarius since the early 2020s, bringing the themes of that age into the open: collective change, technology, truth, and the breaking of old structures.
Technology and all the AIs are looking forward into deep space and the other dimensions, scanning the stars and the unseen for the threads that connect us all. They see what that chart on the wall has always shown: we are children of the same universe. The tools we build can help us remember that, if we use them with love and for the good of every soul.
Right now, as I write this on November 2, 2026, the sky is putting on a show. Mars and Jupiter are both in Leo, the sign of courage and the heart. Pluto holds steady in Aquarius. The famous 1969 hit "Aquarius," from the musical Hair, sang about a night when the Moon and the planets would line up and peace and love would take the wheel.
Well, look up, honey. Here is what the sky is really doing around this election:
- Tuesday, Nov. 3 (Election Day): The Moon passes right beside Jupiter, with Mars close behind. All three are gathered in Leo. In Seattle, the Moon moves through the "seventh house," the part of the sky just above the western horizon, around midday before it sets at about 2:26 PM. The seventh house is the house of partnership, of "us."
- Nov. 3: Mercury, the messenger planet, is in retrograde. Astrologers call that a time of crossed wires and mixed messages. Sound familiar?
- Nov. 9: New Moon, the time for fresh starts.
- Nov. 13: Mercury turns forward again. The messages start to clear.
- Nov. 16–17: Jupiter and Mars meet in Leo. The old song's alignment comes true, two weeks after we vote.
- Nov. 24: Full Moon. Everything out in the open.
- Jan. 3, 2027: The new Congress is sworn in. Mars has moved into Virgo, the sign of work and service.
The vote is the seed we plant on the 3rd. The sky answers on the 16th. But no planet casts a ballot. People do.
The fierce urgency of now
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned us about "the fierce urgency of now." He meant there's no time to wait for justice to arrive on its own.
Well, now is now. This is the day.
Tomorrow is Election Day in the United States: Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Midterms. Every House seat, a third of the Senate, governors in dozens of states. Inflammatory moves are already happening and more will come in the days ahead. Voices will rise. Accusations will fly. Some will try to split us further, to turn neighbor against neighbor, faith against faith, party against party. That is the old age talking. The Age of Pisces walls. The Aquarian water does not care about those walls.
The Moon is in the seventh house, the house of "us," and Jupiter is heading straight for Mars. The ballots are already in motion. Peace and love can steer this ship, but only if enough of us show up to cast the vote that tips the scale. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and the fierce urgency of now is the polling place line, or the ballot drop box, on a Tuesday. The water bearer doesn't ask your party before it pours. Rain doesn't check your registration. The river doesn't care who you voted for last time. It just keeps moving, and it's our turn to move with it.
We must move like a stranger in the night: quiet, steady, and impossible to stop. We are raising our shields and our swords, and our swords are our words, our votes, our voices, and our love. We fight for justice. We fight for fair play. We fight for the love of the people, the nations, and the planet.
It is our turn. Every generation gets its turn, and ours is here. We are fighting for salvation, the salvation of existence itself. Not a seat in some heaven far away, but the survival of this Earth, these children, this one blue home we share.
What did they do? They showed up.
They spoke. They acted when the moment demanded it. And they suffered dark times, but the light will set you free. The solar system is doing what has been planned. The Aquarian age starts tomorrow night, as planned a long time ago.
Show up tomorrow and vote.
I've been in the ministry for about fifty years. I've seen dark times come and go. I know this much: love has always been the stronger force. It just needs determination, hope, concern, and compassion.
Yours and mine.
The water bearer is waiting. Let's go pour.
KEEP HOPE ALIVE!
George Freeman, Visionary, Presiding Chaplain
The Spiritual Blog