By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
There’s a bit of a war going on in me this week, has been for months: my heart and head are in a tussle for my full attention. The weekend tableau of a compelling, low-hung Scorpio Moon opposing the lush Taurian Sun fully describes it: there is so much going on behind the scenes, deep and dark, that remains unexposed except as viewed by reflection of moonlight, and yet my essential energy would rather bask in the opportunities and pleasures offered in sunshine, focused on all the bright possibilities that lift and buoy us.
I suppose I might just need a vacation, but even fully engaged in all that Spring offers, the hidden bits remain in the back of my thoughts, reminding me to get to them, to open the lid, to let in some light and air. There is nothing abstract about the Taurus signature, with its earthy manifestation and sensual possibilities. Nothing frivolous about the Scorpio intensity, agitating our emotions and asking us to dive more deeply into ourselves. This Scorpio/Taurus polarity is a potent reminder that opposites not only attract, but also complete one another. We must look at the whole picture if we are to find our balance.
There’s an impressive amount of temperament being displayed lately, and this Moon position brings to mind the kind of tantrum Taurus is capable of if pushed too far. No surprise, then, to find that Ted Nugent — aging rocker, extreme righty and hunting enthusiast whose disparaging remarks about the President at an NRA convention recently brought him to the attention of the Secret Service — has a natal moon in Taurus opposed to Venus in Scorpio. Ted’s internal stressors are close to the surface. Ted has made a name for himself with sportsmen for a couple of decades, hunting and eating every winged or four-legged thing he can put in his cross-hairs, and has lately earned the notice of the liberal community, which he references as “brain dead” (when he’s in a good mood.) Regarding the coming election, Ted has encouraged his ultra-conservative followers that, “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”
A Sagittarius with Merc conjunct the Sun, Ted is unquestioningly confident about his politics, as he is about his friendship with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, he of the cruel desert tents, demeaning pink underwear and Department of Justice scrutiny. Sheriff Joe is a Gemini with a Taurus Mars. He and Ted are both prone to blurting out their true feelings without hesitation. But no worries: on the right of the political spectrum, such “tough guy” controversy has long been interpreted as a sign of courage and leadership.
Describing his friendship with Arpaio, Ted said, “We believe with all our heart and soul that law and order, goodwill and decency as driven by the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Ten Commandments and Golden Rule provide the greatest quality of life on Earth, and we will never back down from these self-evident truths.” But with media swarming him, Ted hasn’t kept to that lucid level of rhetoric. This week he went after his CBS This Morning interviewers with (bleeped) threats after they questioned his insistence that he was a nice guy and political “moderate.” Bless his pointy head, Ted hasn’t had this level of media attention since Cat Scratch Fever hit the charts. Of course, emotional explosions of this sort can be instructive – a’ha moments of the first water — but only if we want to know that much about ourselves. I’m pretty sure Ted has no such a desire.
The other thing this magnificent Moon does, if you listen closely, is whisper of long-kept secrets hidden down the dark corridors of the past. The Scorpio talent for keeping things securely hidden is legendary. A lot of old unsettled issues came up this week, among them George W.’s National Guard record. Dan Rather released a new book in which he discusses the exposé that put his television career in a tailspin. Rather is still at war with the network that treated him so shabbily. He’s a likable sort, a bit of a hot dog and something of a grandstander, but he paid a heavy price for running up against the Bush boys. Even now, at 80, Dan don’t get no respect.
Those of us who watched at the time had no doubt that Dubby not only disappeared during his infamous drugs-and-women period, but also counted on his daddy to set everything right with well-placed favors and cover-ups. Yet during Rather’s televised demise it only took a whiff of suspicion to bury what was so obvious from public view, serving as our first hint of the Bush family’s power and the determination of the Neocon coup. If Rather was guilty of anything, it was naivety; the same naivety that it took many of us years to shake off. New information confirming our suppositions about those “lost years” of Dubby’s has been made available recently, coinciding with the release of Rather’s book, but don’t look for news of it in the mainstream. Evidently, we still don’t want to know.
Another old incident, full to brimming with secrets, had an anniversary this week. The National Guard killings at Kent State University occurred 42 years ago, and we still don’t know who took the first shot or why it was deemed necessary to cut down unarmed protesters. Four students died and nine were wounded, one in a wheelchair for life, after a volley of bullets were fired by over-eager guardsmen, some just teens themselves.
In the polarized 1960s, authorities were seldom doubted in the mainstream, with almost 60% of adults agreeing that the students deserved what they got — damn dirty draft-dodging, flag-burning hippies! — although many of the wounded, and two of the dead, were simply passers-by, on their way to class. There’s evidence that the national rhetoric had gotten out-of-hand just prior to the protest. As noted by Jesse Kornbluth in a recent piece for Huffington, “Three weeks before the shootings, Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, said of student protest, “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”” He got his wish.
Discovery of an audio recording of the incident in 2010 led two Ohio newspapers to request the Department of Justice have forensic experts use modern technology to evaluate a digital CD of the tape. Some say there is a direct “prepare to fire” order given by the military prior to the brief barrage of bullets, while some say a stray gunshot began the assault, but the Department of Justice results were inconclusive. Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich has requested — in one of his last acts at the behest of the American public — a full investigation be done while there’s still time to question witnesses. The administration seems reluctant to pursue this old, but gaping, wound. All administrations would be happier to put the past behind them, it seems. The majority was afraid of hearing the truth back then, and apparently some of us still don’t want to know.
Within days of the Kent State shootings, some four million students around the nation emptied their classrooms to protest the unwarranted violence. Within weeks another lesser-known assault on protesters — this one in Mississippi — occurred, killing two and injuring more. Reports of gunfire, similar to those at Kent State, started the violence, but no gunman was ever found or questioned. When protesters square off with armed military/paramilitary forces there is always that electric moment when everything might go wrong and often does. That is one, not the only, reason that the #occupy movement has been so scrupulous about keeping a peaceful face. Still, more than 7000 arrests have been logged since its inception, some of them disturbingly violent.
Growing a movement savvy enough to face off against the representatives of the corporate party as well as a post-9/11 police presence in the nation is a big job. It will take our dedication and attention, even if we’d rather look away. Back in the day, four million kids stood in solidarity with the Kent State victims. Four million! How many could we muster today, do you think? We’ve become used to violence on our streets, in our neighborhoods, in the news. Getting the young people of the nation to notice violence against a group of protesters today would be an uphill climb. Believe it or not, the shock of the Kent killings rattled every bone in the young body American. What would it take to do that today?
Still, we have so many tools at our disposal now that would have made all the difference during the last Pluto/Uranus transit. We can tweet, load and post, bringing reality into focus in an eye-blink. UC Davis Police Lt. John Pikes’ pepper spray assault would have gone unnoticed if it had not gone viral on YouTube, viewed more than two million times. The coming version of revolution will be passed around cyberspace like a hot potato, police brutality exposed and over-reaction noted. Culpability will not need to be pronounced for us, we will be able to see it with our own eyes. Thanks to technology, lawsuits will be filed and exploitation thwarted, if we’re fast on our feet.
We are still being led around by the aftertaste of 9/11, still dependent on a bloated, authoritarian Homeland Security to interpret a worrisome Patriot Act for our supposed safety. In defense of the greater good, can we any longer overlook the terrorizing of little kids by airport security and police officers? Ignore the tazing of children, pregnant women, old folks and the handicapped, some unto death? How about the supposed “mistake” of ignoring the screams of a handcuffed detainee for five solid days, landing him in the ICU? This is authoritarian overreach of the worst kind: mundane everyday acts of violent indifference and hostility to the public. These are things that deserve our outrage and protest before they become so ingrained in our consciousness that we forget they are a brutal and sadistic excess that can easily be turned on any of us.
The revolutions of yesteryear were fought hand-to-hand, workers’ rights won with blood and civil rights furthered by the tragic death of martyrs. The war in Vietnam killed much of a generation of young men, our iron-clad belief in government and our idealism, but it was a necessary loss if it can be counted as wisdom today. That will depend on what we want to know now, on what we’re willing to unearth in the moonlight, not to blame those who manipulated us with hate and fear, but to understand what motivates us to such mindless, irrational acts. We cannot begin to evolve past our national and global failings if we are unable to tell ourselves the truth.
My grandmother used to say, “What do you know,” pausing to add, “that you can tell?” We used to keep our little secrets, but that time is behind us. Think of all the energy trapped within those secret vaults of memory, dragged behind us like weights. On both a personal and a political level, we need to unflinchingly examine not only our past, but also our present. That’s the ground-zero in which we can decide what comes next. I suspect you won’t be surprised to know that what we learn about ourselves along the way is how we’ll arm ourselves against repeating such things in the future.
The truth, they say, will set us free, but according to Gloria Steinham, first it will piss us off. If you’re there, you’re ahead of the game, so thank your lucky stars — and maybe that full Moon this weekend, tapping you on the shoulder and whispering in your ear.
interesting to note that just prior to this weekend it came out that the ‘cleveland bomb plot’ was set up by the feds themselves, via an agent provacateur of the fbi (same setup they’ve been using on muslims recently, convince you to do something very illegal and then sell you the stuff to do it with then arrest you for planning it)
when you mentioned how occupy has kept themselves non-violent, well we now see the entrapment to make occupiers look like terrorists
another thing not making the radar – the student protests in quebec. despite the language barrier, this is the biggest NA uprising in recent memory (have had a couple protests in the hundreds of thousands, and have been keeping it going for 3 months now). its what we need to happen everywhere (and note, it does get violent, one person lost an eye early on to a tear gas canister in the face, and just recently one or two more did, including one who’s close to death, after fri night protests)
I was interested today in how concerned Greta van Susteren was in if … BIG if … John could get a fair trial based on the charges — as opposed to the shabby details of the affair. Everybody loved Elizabeth, left and right … and Friday’s dramatic details of their split sent their daughter out of the court in tears. Doesn’t play well with the public or the jury. Still — seems to me — the fact that he thought he could keep all those balls in the air and still have a shot at president (and later AG) is REAL delusion of the wackadoodle sort. That’s not just lies; that’s self-delusion closing in on psychopathy.
I was sort of thinking about John Edwards and the mess he has made of his life. It would have been so much easier to have come clean early on, even though it would have hurt everyone, and possibly ruined his career. That is an example of when advisors, staff, secretaries and experts MUST stand up and be persistant and strong in stating what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Sometimes you have to spell out the legal consequences, and that certainly should have happened in Edwards’ case. Most managers will pause and reconsider, but then again, we know politicians believe they are above the law. I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t end up in prison.
Supermoon made the news, lots of pictures out there. Funny how we spend so much time staring at screens or looking down at our shoes or whatever, but when we occasionally look into the sky we’re DAZZLED! We should do it more often!
The etch-a-sketch reference is spot on, Patty! We surely can shake it up and start over; we must. And that’s behavior we’d better get used to as the Shift pushes us into the currents of re-creation. You’re right about truth and honesty, it’s enormously valuable but not necessarily welcome. But I guess we won’t be Prom Queen, huh? Or Getcalm, either … and others of you who “get it” about coming clean with yourself and the world.
My experience of this Moon has been that people are really doing their best to do that, and most of them in a scratchy, graceless way — but you gotta start somewhere, I guess. There’s a lot of tantrum going on here in the Pea Patch, with people making their declarations about “why” they’re entitled to behave like toddlers … you can almost SEE them reaching for their highest Truth, and pretty well missing the mark … but damage done, they don’t know what to do next. While I think this is hurtful in some ways, it’s a bitch-slap that might wake them up a bit. So that big ol’ Moon has done a fine job of sticking out a leg to trip folks up in the Patch. Tomorrow, a lot of the neighborhood will be limping!
I’m you upside down, Burning River — Taurus on the 4th. With Chiron on that 4th cusp, it must have been a relief to learn there was “purpose” in your family experiences. I’m sure you know this is a powerful Chiron position, an enormous healing opportunity. Barbara Hand Clow sez that anyone who heals themselves heals the planet simultaneously — something for ALL of us to remember.
By gosh, if I’d known that quote was yours, mystes, I’d have attributed it to you! I understand your confusion — I see “my stuff” out there in the big world pretty frequently and wonder how that happened. Maybe the Divine downloads these lovely turns of phrase into the ethers and the talented “receivers” all get the message at once. (The first one to get a Google hit gets all the credit!)
Oh, be, I’ve got my wings crossed that we get all the juice we need from your reported Fingers of God x2, fated to push us along. I think of these like a parting of the clouds — an opportunity to “get it” without the Cosmo’s having to put a boot up our bum! I ALWAYS prefer the easy way. And I think you’re on to something about inspiration. The one who can come up with a Better Idea has the edge, and inspiration ignites imagination … which takes us where we need to go: to that terrific notion found outside the box. There is a lot of creative stuff going on under the radar now that will poke its head up above the dense layer, at some point. Necessity is the Mother of invention! Thanks, as always, for your wisdom and enthusiasm.
And biren, dear — Sun op Moon is the whole enchilada! Both Taurus and Scorp are powerful, fixed energies, and don’t forget they are also compatible (Earth and Water.) What the one doesn’t express, the other does and together they tell the whole story of that polarity. Learning to merge them is a matter of trial and error, of course. I have a similar set-up with a Capricorn ascendant and a big planet in Cancer on the 7th cusp. Remember, anything on an angle is a personal power-point, a focus for your life experience. These important oppositions cause tension between the energies but it’s that very friction that grinds away our rough edges. I think this probably sounds harder than it is.
Way back when I was learning traditional astrology, I remember thinking the BEST thing in life would be to have a Grand Trine, all that energy compatibly harnessed for success. And then I met someone who had a GT in Fire — talented, creative — who did absolutely nothing with it. I knew her for years and what I observed was that there was not enough tension in that placement to “move” her along toward any accomplishment worth noting. It’s the internal conflict that “grows” us, so celebrate yours. You’re learning how to deal with yourself, and at the same time, shining up your soul!
Glad to hear from you, Huffy, Len and Katy Scarlett. I’m in good company this weekend.
On topic, Danny Chong is going after the DEA for $20 million in damages:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/03/11516576-student-left-in-cell-for-4-days-files-20m-claim-against-dea
and we’ve got to get this videotaping-cops thing worked out!
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/04/mississippi-twins-arrested-for-videoing-police-from-their-balcony/
Blessed be, dearhearts — all week long!
Just tried that link to Jonathan Cainer but with no success. I’ll try again.
https://shop.bubble.com/account/files/Jonathan_Cainer-2012_Survival_Guide.pdf
Here is a thought from Jonathan Cainer’s 2012 Survival Guide, when he speaks of money as our only means of exchange for goods. “. . . . as it comes perilously close to collapse and we all start getting frightened – what desire for change will this awaken in the hearts and minds of millions? Will we all just be desperate for a return to employment and apparent prosperity, even if it comes at the expense of spiritual progress? Or will people start to forge alternative ways of interacting materially with one another? Will the masses rise up in protest against the narrow-thinking politicians whose woeful lack of imagination has led them into this trouble in the first place? Will things get so bad that people start thinking of radical options and embracing progressive ideas? Here again, the answer is probably not. The true driver of positive change is, was and always will be INSPIRATION and not terror. The progress that may yet come will be driven BY A MEMORY OF HOW BAD THINGS GOT, but they really don’t need to get much worse than they already are in order for that to start happening.”
I think Jonathan’s on to what Memoria conjunct the U.S. Sun means, and not just from a financial perspective. I believe that the “secret vaults of memory” hold more than just the past and present injustices of the financial system; they include what you have enumerated here and many other wrong doings. If we are to be inspired to make progress we must open that vault and unearth in the moonlight those memories of wrong doings.
The pain remembered through the perservering Chiron in Pisces and the relentless digging by Pluto in Capricorn will serve Mercury in Leo plenty of power to drive the message forward toward a reluctant people (Moon in Cap) joined to a natal Pluto in the country’s house of values to “unflinchingly examine not only our past but also our present”.
Once again, thank you Jude for supplying our weekly dose of the truth that pisses us off, but in the long run will inspire us toward positive change. Keep it up lassie.
be
https://shop.bubble.com/account/files/jonathan_cainer-2012_survival.guide.pdf
Stunning, rousing piece, Jude. Thank you.
“What do you know … that you can tell?”. The rule in the home I grew up in was “Don’t tell … not even to yourself”. The better part of the past two years has had me breaking this rule in big ways, most especially becoming willing to let myself kow what I know. The ability to self-delude is supported by so much of our society and I have used that tool myself.
Having lived in a household with active addiction for so long, my role as an enabler was to look away and not even admit to myself what was happening. In many ways, I was grateful for his lies, sometimes even breathing a sigh of relief as I swallowed the clearly improbable explanations, all so I could avoid doing what felt too hard… stand up, say NO MORE! and then back it up with action.
I have been actively shining that light into the recent and personal ancestral patterns that created that pattern and challenging myself to do the next right thing… sometimes scary, but the more I have practice it, the more capable I see myself to see the truth, to speak it aloud and to keep lighting the way for others to do the same. This giant special moon illuminated another piece for me and I have set my intention to carry with me this light and its willingness to look, speak and act.
thanks jude… the initial portion so reverberated in my body, but…
… i was asking… how do i (taurus sun, scorpio rising) find the unification in me that seems to be 2 diistinctly separate and opposite entities? –
any light?
“There is nothing abstract about the Taurus signature, with its earthy manifestation and sensual possibilities. Nothing frivolous about the Scorpio intensity, agitating our emotions and asking us to dive more deeply into ourselves. This Scorpio/Taurus polarity is a potent reminder that opposites not only attract, but also complete one another. We must look at the whole picture if we are to find our balance.”
Jude: Thank you for a compelling, if disturbing piece. What a lyrical interpretation of the astrology! What a great truth about the consequences of truth spoken and unspoken.
Patty, Burning River, mystes, be, Katie Scarlett: You are all beautiful in your substance and experience – thank you for what you shared.
I have Gloria Steinem’s autograph scribbled onto a program from the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center, gotten at an intermission at a Literature and the Memoir: Doris Lessing reading in 1997 in New York. In the program notes is this excerpt from (Persian-born) Lessing’s Walking in the Shade:
“I was full of confidence and optimism, though my assets were minimal: rather less than 150 [pounds sterling]; the manuscript of my first novel, The Grass is Singing, already bought by a Johannesburg publisher who had not concealed the fact he would take a long time publishing it, because it was so subversive; and a few short stories….
I had refused the pitiful sums of money my mother had offered, because she had so little herself, and besides, the whole sum and essence of this journey was that it was away from her, from the family, and from that dreadful provincial country Southern Rhodesia, where, if there was a serious conversation, then it was–always–about The Colour Bar and the inadequacies of the blacks. I was free. I could at last be wholly myself. I felt myself to be self-created, self-sufficient….”
Thanks for holding off on your vacation Jude, at least for a while. And thanks for the memories too, those moments of violence that were never explained completely, if at all. Plenty of talk and tweeting and yet the mysteries remain. The U.S. Solar Return chart of 2011 guaranteed that what with Mercury in Leo square Jupiter in Taurus. But it was the yod that Mercury was in with the sextile of Pluto and Chiron that probably fueled the angry talk of the likes of Ted Nugent and maybe even that book written by Scorpio Dan Rather. In two months the U.S. will celebrate another birthday and guess what? That new Solar Return chart has ANOTHER yod with Mercury at the release point of the combined energy of Pluto and Chiron. Both times Mercury conjuncts the U.S. north node.
My image of a yod takes on the appearance of a bow and arrow and a taut string. At each end of the string is one of the two planets in sextile while the 3rd planet is the arrow held against that string. Sometimes there is a 4th planet opposite a yod which serves as a target. The sextile provides extra oomph (a lot in this case) for the arrow and the target gives it purpose. This new birthday chart has a 2nd yod with Pluto as the arrow held against a taut string with sextiling Mercury and Venus (+ Jupiter + Ceres + north node). I believe these yods will provide even more balance as it fine tunes that whole picture you speak of.
Both these yods for 2012 have targets. One leans to the right and one leans to the left. I suppose that could be thought of as balance. Those targets are the Sun and the Moon and this chart is the day after a full Moon in Capricorn. The 1st yod’s arrow, Mercury (conjunct the U.S. NN) has to “aim” to the Right to get the Moon (the people) at 28+ Capricorn. However, the SR Moon is conjunct the natal U.S. Pluto (the Power) at 27+ Cap so that arrow really has two targets. The “talk” will need to find a way to penetrate both the U.S. citizens (leaning right) and the hidden powers of Finance.
The 2nd yod’s target is the Solar Return Sun (as well as the natal Sun) and the Pluto arrow will have to lean to the Left in order to penetrate. But here’s something in keeping with your article today. Transiting asteroid Memoria and the U.S. Sun (SR and natal) are both at 13 Cancer 19. The Pluto arrow will need to penetrate both the consciousness and the memories of this country in order to reach a balanced picture.
Here’s another way this chart provides balance. The energy behind the 1st arrow of Mercury is Universal energy represented by Pluto and Chiron. The energy behind the 2nd arrow of Pluto is personal represented by Mercury and Venus. The Targets are the Sun (masculine, yang, conscious) and the Moon (feminine, yin, instinctive). If I’m reading this right, you will be quite busy this year reminding us of the past “wounds” that still haven’t healed, much less been exposed to the air of truth.
Maybe you could take your recorder with you on vacation Jude, and get a head start!
be
Hey Judith, great article, but I am having a moment here… I said, in a letter to my friend Annie in 1983: “Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall piss ye off.” I was living in Mexico at the time, and recently pulled out the letter (I photocopied everything in those days) in remembrance of Annie. Puzzled to see my quote attributed to Gloria Steinem.
Thanks for the post and the link, Judith. I happily am pissed off, as most readers of my comments probably surmise. I really enjoyed the way you linked the ‘Taurus Sun-Scorpio Moon opposition to our realizations during this moon phase. Personally, Scorpio is on my 4th house–where all the hidden cover-ups abounded related to my family and ancestors. Digging them out (the secrets and the lies) and setting myself free of them has been my life’s work, it seems Chiron on that cusp). I was on the streets after the Kent State killings (Chicago). The energy is so different during this Uranus-Pluto transit. but your reviewing of our use of technology today gave me a glimmering into the power available and being used by us today.Thanks, as always.
Interesting post as we head into the Scorpio/taurus nodes. Those have always been difficult for me, perhaps for the amount of truth that is exposed. I was always one of the people who told the truth at work, demanded the truth and listed the facts to get down to the root causes of problems. My boss told me that no-one really liked hearing the truth (she may have used Goria’s phrase), but what I found at the end of my 40 year career was that everyone respected my work and honesty, my ability to admit a mistake, and they found me dependable. Helping everyone remain honest and open actually earned most of the higher management more awards and recognition, and promotions. Lies and coverups get you fired (or jailed). Working out mistakes helps you make course corrections, whether at work or in your personal life – it’s called integrity. Today feels like a day of reckoning. You can survive the truth, and you can forgive yourself for mistakes of all kinds – judgment, lies, theft, deceit, gossip. I declare it etch-a-sketch day, even for the DEA. It is never too late to make needed changes.