I interviewed astrologer Sam Reynolds of Unlock Astrology for this Air Era series. It was an informative and interesting conversation.
Sam takes us back to the inception of the Air era in 1980 when Jupiter and Saturn met in Libra, on December 31st. He covers topics of community building, how we can’t have justice without love and how men today are not ok. He also shares some fascinating research about how Donald Trump and his use of the media has been plugged into this Jupiter - Saturn cycle since the 60’s.
As the Air element is associated with technology, we also spoke about how when we were kids there were only 3-4 channels on the TV, and after a certain time there was literally nothing on. That all changed around the time that this Air Era birthed and 24 hour TV hit our screens…and never left.
Sam shows how out of that time of cable news, music videos and MTV came Max Headroom, the first digitised TV host. Max was an early flicker of AI in some animators eyes in the 80’s; a glimpse of what was to come. I’ve attached some clips of him below.
All that 24 hour TV, hyper stimulation beamed into our homes and accelerated us into this endless consumer and scrolling culture we find ourselves in today. Sam did a great job of illustrating how we got from there to here.
He also pointed out that this Air era requires new ways of listening and meeting each other, and with technology not slowing down we’ll have to be mindful of the ways it changes us. While Sam and I have different lived experiences and therefore don’t agree on all of the topics we covered, I do appreciate how respectful our conversation was and how we were still able to hear each other out. I hope you’re inspired by this conversation like I was, and have your own thoughts to share because of it.
Episode One can be listened to here:
Air Era audio series
Collectively we have lived through a consciousness shift. Very recently the world changed so dramatically that it is impossible to go back.
Max Headroom
The clips below of Max Headroom highlight many contrasts. The differences between European and American cultures is an obvious one, but it also shows how far technology has come since the 80’s (notice the TV coming out of the car is still plugged in due to how primitive digital animation was).
While Max’s creators now claim he wasn’t fully digitised, at the time he was marketed as such. This kind of interview, between human and robot, was a first in the 80’s whereas now we have difficulty discerning AI from reality.
Support this project
There’s a couple of free clips from my interview with Sam above and below and over on YouTube and Instagram to give you a taster while the whole interview is, for now, behind a paywall. All interviews will eventually be free to listen to, but for now this project is a labour of love and it’s also an enormous undertaking. If you’re enjoying it thus far and are able to support its ongoing creation with a subscription for a month, or two, or a whole year, I genuinely appreciate it. All episodes are free to listen to, and Episode II is on its way.
