Barbault's Smiling Down on Us All

I’ve been preaching about the relative dullness of trines & sextiles practically since I first uttered the terms five and a half years ago. They’re certainly not the aspects that define someone’s chart. The tense aspects (conjunctions, squares, oppositions, the quincunx) provide a lot more dynamism and grounds for substantial action.

I remember getting an astrology reading in 2021 and the astrologer yawning at my grand water trine(s). Indeed, if I were to read my own chart, I’d spend 80 percent of the session unpacking my Mars-Mercury opposition which yearns to convince people to adopt a different line of thinking. Then I’d jump over to the Scorpio Stellium, one mega conjunction of celestial bodies all huddling around Pluto, a tiny but formidable planet dragging my Sun, Moon and Venus into its transformative underworld.

Anyways, this is all to say that I didn’t expect much from Barbault’s Basket. It’s built out of a bunch of twigs (i.e. trines & sextiles) with one magnetic opposition, to be fair—that of Jupiter and Pluto. Pluto in Aquarius is intensifying the pull toward rampant technological innovation, with Jupiter in Leo begging for individual, human expression. The alchemy between these planets often results in a complete shift in belief, faith or perspective. Perhaps this is us accepting the ceaseless march of technology but still finding space to breathe outside of it.

In the spirit of giving this basket some credit, one of the intriguing parts is the trine between Jupiter in Leo and Neptune in Aries. This trine is highlighting how far we’ve come since the April 2022 conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces. Back then, social media was at its absolute peak (at least in the US as determined by daily average time spend on Instagram and TikTok). During that time, you could build a whole business on social media, go viral instantly or get lost in the spectacle of it all. There was a sense that maybe we could immerse ourselves in some other world to escape the reality we always knew.

That bubble has since burst. I do think the Barbault Basket is helping us accelerate out of that time. It’s forcing us to reintegrate ourselves into our physical surroundings. To raise our faces from our phones, make eye contact and see through the window into the soul of a total stranger. At its best, the basket could spark more collaborative opportunities and change the energetic dynamics of our society. We could counteract the trend towards isolation and atomization and start rebuilding third spaces and gathering places.

But when we hold up the effects of the basket against Barbault’s predictions, it seems thus far that there was an overestimation of the opportunity. A new era for humanity doesn’t seem to be underway, although it’s totally possible that the seeds are just being planted now. But if you compare this basket with the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto in 2020 or even Saturn and Jupiter in late 2020, it’s clear that the hard aspects wield a more obvious influence.

Basket Schmasket?

I think this is a good opportunity for astrologers to re-evaluate how they conceive of trines and sextiles. I’m not going to sit here and say they’re meaningless aspects. They represent the third and sixth harmonics, respectively, and derive their positive meanings from the Thema Mundi, which established the nature of planetary rulership and the major aspects.

Nevertheless, in actual practice, trines and sextiles often translate to a kind of inertia along a path of least resistance. If things are already going well, these aspects can give you a boost in momentum. If things are more challenging, the trine or sextile won’t give you the kick in the rear to alter your course.

The squares, conjunctions, oppositions, and even qunincunxes act as inflection points and course changes that transform us until we achieve a new homeostasis. From there, the trines and sextiles merely support the state of homeostasis. If we apply the Pareto Principle here, 20% of the moments in our life determine the nature of the other 80%. 80% of our lives proceed in a repetitive, predictable fashion, but then something happens to change us forever. It could be a cross-country move, a marriage, divorce, promotion, health crisis, etc. It breaks us out of our rhythm and resets our baseline. And I can almost guarantee you those pivots for you were spearheaded by a tense aspect rather than a soft (harmonious) one.

The Barbault Basket specifically features “positive” aspects that harken back to alignments which planted seeds for either media or technologically-related breakthroughs. The Pluto-Neptune conjunction in the late 1800s coincided with the first commercial film screenings, the Uranus-Pluto conjunction aligned with the commercialization of computers, and Uranus-Neptune with the commercialization of the internet). I’m not going to rip all of those things as negative, but we can see how the current trines and sextiles tying back to these moments is bringing us the immersive digital experiences of today as well as AI.

Perhaps the most basket-esque thing I’ve seen in the past few days is Josh Kerr’s record-breaking mile in a recent track competition. The 3:42 run was remarkable and unimpeded in the way the basket’s been constructed. It seems symbolic of the acceleration of our automated world. All the pieces are in place for AI barrel forward until we reach “the Singularity.” The machines are Kerr. The rest of us are just marveling at the performance, or running far behind.

I won’t let my Capricorn Saturn and Scorpio Stellium completely talk this opportunity down, though! My Leo Jupiter wants to believe there are creative leaps people can take right now, especially with Jupiter in Leo forming supportive aspects with Uranus in Gemini and Neptune in Aries. This is honestly why I’m releasing my first single as “Evan Nathaniel Grim” this week. It marks my return to the music world following many years maniacally obsessing over astrology. After five years of getting sucked up into this techno-spiritual vortex, I can see there’s a need for balance. I too was caught up in the Neptune in Pisces era. But now I understand that there are innate talents, gifts, hobbies etc that we’ve always been in love with which need nurturing. My music career spans decades and it feels like self-betrayal to put it by the wayside. This isn’t in conflict with my spiritual journey, either. Music and astrology are rather intertwined.

A year ago I started writing music again, and now I’m finally able to let it out into the world. I’d like to think the lyrics of my first single reflect the themes of Pluto in Aquarius (or maybe even this basket!). But I’ll let you be the judge when the song releases this Friday at midnight.