Today is Thursday, Jupiter Day, as it’s also known amongst the planetarily inclined, #TBT as it has now long been referred to by the social media savvy (aka most people in western “civilization”). Do you remember the first time you began noticing this #throwbackthursday phenomenon? At once a rule, telling you to relegate feelings of nostalgia to one day of the week, and a revolution in language, using a hashtag to communicate said rule, or example of adherence thereto. Astrologically speaking, a whole lot of Saturn (rules, structure, rhythm, routine), Jupiter (nostalgia), Uranus (innovation) and Mercury (language). Maybe a little Neptune too, since daydreaming about past time paradises is a predilection of Pisces, the sign which currently welcomes home the prodigal ruling planet Jupiter to join neophyte ruler Neptune in the mansion. These planets occupying this sign of deep, sentimental feelings, combined with the current Venus retrograde could have us all losing ourselves down memory lane, taking on a 24/7 #TBT, if that’s allowed (imagine a dystopia in which it wasn’t! You might be freely smoking your spliff on the avenue in NYC, exercising your rights to love whomever you please, but required to keep your train of thought stationed in the present or taking off into the future if it was Taco Tuesday – were it Wayback Wednesday or Flashback Friday, you might get a pass).
According to the wisdom of Wikipedia and the gospel of Google, the Throwback Thursday custom originated in 2006 on Nice Kicks, a sneakers blog, and was popularized by the Kardashians in 2012, exploding with the rising popularity of Instagram. This would suggest that #TBT is already the establishment and ripe for an overthrow, especially with the ongoing effects of the 2021’s Saturn Uranus Squares continuing to affect us through 2022, palpably perceptible as a clash of convention and reinvention. The theme of tearing down old paradigms and inventing newfangled shifts isn’t done with us yet.
My little theory about the rise of these popular kinds of rhythmic rules espoused by way of catchy, often alliterative hashtags revolves around Saturn. As the push for progress sees long standing status quos being torn down, breakthroughs taking place in so many realms, even those in which we still have a lot of work to do, a long way to go, we continue to crave structure. Saturn, lord of the skies during our current Capricorn season and the upcoming Aquarian times, reminds us to discipline ourselves, to practice regular routines, building for ourselves firmer foundations to support our future freedoms. I’m not sure how relegating fond memories to Thursdays helps us build such a foundation, but when people all over the world do the same thing at the same time, a rhythm is established, which of course mirrors the rhythms of the planets in the heavens. Maybe the harmony of the spheres becomes more harmonious when we all add layers of structure to our lives.
So as bewildering as I, a grammarian of a certain age, have found the new usages of language - hashtags, abbreviations, etc, etc, and instructions to feel or behave in certain ways on specific days of the week or the year - I can get with it. I even tried to invent some hashtags of my own, but without any Kardashians to help, #JupiterDayGiveaway, #ThirdHouseThursday and #MakeMeAnOfferMonday have only caught on in the tiniest way.
Meantime, I hereby declare every day for the time being to be #TBT, because even the most sci fi of us can surely get a little Jupiter & Neptune in Pisces misty at memories of times gone by and those we loved and hung out with in the past. Those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end …… but they did, and they do, and perhaps regularly taking time to honor them whilst cherishing the present moment and daring to dream of ideal future scenes is just as important a balancing act as any other we pull off on a regular basis.
Here’s a Zodiac Soundtrack for the current Venus Retrograde, impending Mercury Retrograde and Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces season.
