The solar new year begins at 23:19 UT on February 3, 2006. This is the true beginning of Spring in the northern hemisphere on planet earth, the moment when the dormant life force begins to obviously emerge once again.

This year, a strange and ancient error is being brought to light, illuminated clearly for all to see.

The error has been going on for a long, long time, far longer than anyone can remember. It has mixed with man's nature so completely that man, being born, immediately assumes the error as his own identity, and then lives out his life under the error's command. This leads to his constantly recurring unhappiness, for which his various solutions are of no avail.

Man is supposed to be the friend of the divine, friend of the universe, friend of all sentient creatures. He is meant to govern lesser beings with good manners and good will, benevolently disposed to all. His way was meant to be through an ever-higher reasoning that took him up out of illusion into the realms where words are the instruments of truth, themselves pointing beyond all words into even higher truth.

He should have been this divine friend, forever enamored with the girl who is the expression of divine beauty, she the face of love. Their interaction was always meant to be a dance in the midst of unstoppable, changing life --- like fireflies at sunset, or like the slow entwining of amorous galaxies.

Man, however, somehow looked down, somehow identified with something far below. Man looked at the animal earth, and he decided that that was who he was. Man fell into body and the generation of bodies, then became the parent of all those bodies. He became a mother and a father, and he forgot that he, himself, was the child.

Since he now thought only of bodies, he thought in terms of time, and vulnerability, and danger, and lack. As a providing parent, he decided that he had a duty to protect his offspring against all the dangers out there. He sealed off the universe as something threatening, and he brought his focus down to the earth --- making a living, getting food, learning how to conform to the tribe in order to survive more surely. Like an average cow, he kept looking down at the ground, pretending to be content with the sheer nothingness of his unnecessary survival.

For there was now no point in his survival, since his real self (his creative, self-conscious intelligence) was already asleep, and his so-called life was merely a robot script written by earlier robots. Deep down, he knew this, and occasionally showed despair. Yet the apparent need to protect the children drove him on to keep the lie going.

Historically, this dichotomy was played out psychodramatically at the fall of Sparta. The Spartans, you recall, were extremely male, disciplined too much, living without any feminine comforts, devoted to self-abnegation and war. They prevailed for many centuries, since they obeyed a fairly wise Constitution. Yet they worshipped their mothers to a pathological degree, obedient to them unto death, honoring their mothers' most arbitary whims with their lives. This Oedipus complex was the cause of their sudden weakening and ultimate fall into utter oblivion.

Mankind, who never seems to learn much from history, has fully incorporated the neurosis that the Spartans demonstrated so dramatically. At present, this process goes on, all over the earth. But with a difference --- now, it will be gradually noticed and understood. The impossibility of this erroneous way will be made publicly known, even as the correct way will also appear. Men, and the male side of women, will have the opportunity to see the absurdity of the automatic, compulsory collective social nature with its coercive controls, and will have some glimpse of what it is like to be a free soul again --- remembering the speculative and modest nature of childhood before dogma assumed authority, and suddenly realizing that the true self is the child, after all.

Thus does the error come into view --- man has come to believe that he is a mother --- a male mother, so to speak, responsible first and foremost for children and survival. In his misled youth, he is taught that the immediately desirable object of life is sex, which then "accidentally" entraps within inevitable pregnancy and compulsory family. He is continually encouraged to entertain bestial thoughts of unnecessary appetites, and then to laugh and joke at these to make them excusable. In order to "pay" for his youthful ways, he deems it necessary to become a slave for life.

This easily-detectable, obviously-self-destructive error has remained hidden throughout the ages, simply because almost everyone was doing it, and no one was willing to listen when anyone pointed it out. But this year, the clear light of mind will shine upon the scene, allowing a true revelation.

For the revelation to be effective, it is necessary that the higher feminine come over to the male in his quandary, showing him the beauty and the grace that await his own awakening. This feminine friend should not tolerate the man's excuse-making about the family nature, but should continue to demonstrate a beauty far beyond.

For the man, if he is successful, it will be as if he were a cell dividing --- his old self divided into two. Of the two, one was beautiful, young and boyish, the divine friend, the intelligent one --- while the other one was unreal, decrepit, waste matter to be discarded. For the latter was only error, after all, made of fear and conformity, something that is bound to be ugly.

But not all male entities will successfully make the change. No, there always remains the earth earthy itself, along with its human representatives that forever repeat the old ways. In the outer world of public life, this residue will demonstrate itself clearly, as angry, hysterical people committed to war, intent on attacking all that is gentle and kind. They will threaten dire things, and they will always use strong words about their honor. The final result of all their stress will be humiliation, for humility is what they really need to make them happy. They are like utterly frustrated children who lock themselves in their room and then break all of their toys. They are there, on the stage of the world, because someone needs to show mankind the true face of his own self-embarrassing, earthbound ego.

But those who handle this challenge successfully will, by year's end, have stripped themselves of all the borrowed self-importance that they gained by playing society's games, realizing that there is absolutely no value in doing something that a social body prescribed as a prerequisite for joining its ranks. It will be seen that all social games are circular whirlpools that go ultimately nowhere, wasting the self's time and keeping the self from creating something original on its own. By year's end, the self will see itself as a brand new thing, and will be playing with creativity, as it ever ought to do.

The goal of all this is for everyone to be the child, everyone the friend, everyone the individual in love with the divine. If there be spouses or children, grandmothers or presidents, each one of these is also the respectable individual, each one in a lifetime of speculative philosophy, each one flying beyond society as we all should. For all these to live together happily, there is no need for the old scripts. But there is a very real need for the intelligence, courage, and love that are required to live truthfully without the dogmas.

Self-analysis is the key this year, along with a profound trust in the honest, feminine side of life. The girl should boldly go over to the man, helping him out of the social abyss, while the man should look upward and become the true friend. The relationship between them is a dynamic, intimate, intellectual friendship, and everything else --- emotions, sex, practical considerations --- will be secondary.

It is as if the starship is about to land on earth, ready to take the eager boys and girls to happier spheres, even while the cranky old folks might disagree. And while the starship might be symbolic, the happiness of flying starward is real.

Sincerely,

Robert Tkoch, astrologer since 1970