By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.
Bless The Beasts And The Children
— lyrics by Richard Carpenter
I’ve run across a number of articles on sharing lately. Talk about elemental education for personhood, best learned early on! If we utterly refuse to grasp the concepts of Sharing 101 in Kindergarten, we’ll grow up to be either a hermit hoarder or a bloodthirsty and wildly successful CEO.
Those are extremes, of course. Should we make a reluctant peace with not owning and controlling all of the world we see around us — as in, “All right, you can use all those others but the red crayon is MINE!” — we apparently end up in the middle of that spectrum, confused about what can/should be shared and what/who issues the final word in that regard: Mom, Dad, teacher, pastor/priest? And when we’re older, is the authority religion, government or business? Some would say all three, in the guise of the Corporate States of America.
Those of us familiar with these prototypes would agree that sharing belongs in the Libra cabinet, where most things experienced as “ours” are stored. Its opposite, Aries, is all about “mine,” so — given our current mix of astrological signals — it’s no surprise that the fight to retain the red crayon (and primary access to all the colors) continues to light the sky with Uranian fireworks.
This week the news reflected that essential push/pull with wars, all too often centered around the world’s children. In war, the innocent bystander is always the big loser, but lately even the protection of these, our most precious resource, seems expendable in the struggle for power and control.
There are wars that kill the body and wars that attempt to kill the soul. Neither reflect the concept of sharing nor the mutual respect necessary to sustain life on this planet. We too often see others as disposable, a frightful disconnect from the truth of our commonality, our entwined humanity. With the war against women’s sexuality highlighted just days ago, shifting to view the victimization of children can be considered the flip side of the coin. Much of female vulnerability has traditionally centered around protection and nurture of offspring, and self-sacrifice on its behalf.
Essentially the issues that divide us are about boundaries, defining the limits on our capacity to share either dialogue or resources in the pursuit of peace and common good. The price paid for dragging our feet in the accomplishment of this is written in human suffering, and is both personal and political. For instance, in this most elemental divide among us, gender, we are still licking wounds and counting coup. Are we even close to ready to have a true dialogue about boundaries? Can men and women share consciousness — political, cultural, sexual — equally? And if not, why the hell not? If we can’t do that within our own households, how can we expect to accomplish anything similar in the world?
That’s a bigger topic than I’d intended, since we seem pretty conflicted about that as well, so let’s look at the politics that continue to dog us in this revelatory, and increasingly revolutionary, period. Remember, our filter is sharing. When we break all this political mumbo-jumbo down to its nitty-gritty, Israel refuses to share with Palestine, who mistrusts Israel as illegal occupiers; the U.S.A. appears to be at war with — supposedly criminal and diseased [sic] — children from Central America who might as easily be called refugees seeking political asylum as illegals; and the newly established ISIS Caliphate of extreme Islam refuses to share the whole of the world with any but its own cookie-cutter followers. If this looks like, feels like and seems to be tribalism at its very worst, be assured: it is.
Like everything these days, it’s complicated. Take the egregious pounding of the Gaza Strip. Some say that this assault was provoked by the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teens (one with dual American citizenship). Yes, a terrible act of violence and hatred leaving three families and two nations heartbroken. It might have ended there, with a real attempt to find the perpetrators, but of course it didn’t. Instead, it provoked an 18-day search-and-rescue operation in Gaza by the Israeli military, disrupting thousands of Palestinian households and prolonging hope that the three might yet be alive, although it’s been revealed that the Israeli government knew the boys were dead from the very beginning.
And so, despite a successful cease fire between these two national actors, both sides readied their rockets as the hard-right of each agitated for war. Israeli extremists apparently retaliated by snatching a 16-year-old Palestinian boy and burning him alive. This brought the first missiles from Hamas, which were met with an aggressive response as the Netanyahu government moved to shell Gaza.
Is either side interested in sharing responsibility, accountability, open dialogue about this series of mis-steps and errors? Unlikely. Is either side ready to stand down? No. Will this get worse rather than better? I fear so. Is either side ready to live next door to the other in peace? Despite growing movements within both territories to find peaceful solutions, no one thinks this is possible in the near future, even as the state of Israel is being re-branded by Mid-eastern intellectuals as moderate in the face of growing right-wing jihadist rule.
Meanwhile — from a more humanistic point of view — those who consider the Palestinian territories an example of apartheid view this assault by Israel akin to shooting fish in a barrel, and there is no indication that Israel is through punishing Palestinians for their ongoing crime of despising and resisting the Jewish state. Abby Zimet, over at Common Dreams, has published the names of the dead, adding, “The children’s names are in bold. Because we can give them, at least, their names,” and that was when the death toll was just over 50. It has more than doubled — so many more, by the time you read this — with no expectation of a quick end in sight.
It appears that vengeance has won the popular vote thus far, with justice looking on from the wings. Although Obama has offered to broker peace talks, the U.S. is unlikely to raise its voice or use any of its power to stop this bloodletting. All you and I can share in this instance is a growing horror of war that ravages little children and loops on itself in never-ending, incestuous infighting that kills natural cousins, Arab and Jew; we can also share this video of thousands of protesters gathered in NYC, mid-week.
On the home front, what to do with thousands of children crossing the border from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador? The majority of the American public is not so hard-edged as the Tea Partiers who favor their immediate ouster, playing to the base by saying truly stupid things. Take Texan Representative Randy Neugebauer who told the world that the children held in make-shift camps repurposed for deportation, ” … belong back with their families. When you look at the lovely way they’re getting treated — they’re getting free health care, free housing, you know, they’re watching the World Cup on big screen TVs.” Randy must be one of the majority of Pubs, fine Christians all, who think the poor are better off than they deserve to be. Their answer is to turn their backs on immigration except to bitch about it, refusing Obama’s plea for emergency resources to handle this situation.
In more ways than one, this nation has to take responsibility not just for the immigration problem, but for much of the instability and violence in South America as well. Yeah, I know, we seldom hear that conversation, but we’d better share that basic information with anyone who will listen. With illegal immigrants representing over 5 percent of our labor force, our systemic reluctance to do without that cheap labor puts us at odds with those purists who think every undocumented worker needs to leave the nation. And our trillion-dollar war on drugs has been an exquisitely painful failure. No amount of jack-booted enforcement has stopped us from being the biggest consumer of illegal substances in the world, and the most incarcerated for it. That’s just for starters.
When you follow the money — over 100 billion spent on illegal drugs in this nation per year — it’s a no-brainer that the source of that industry would explode into rigidly organized narco-states run by illegal cartels, dealing out death to those who either accuse or refuse them. Add to the conversation the skewed trade agreements this nation has fostered in Central America, the booming border-industrial technology markets that encourage paranoia and spread rumors on both sides of the ‘fence,’ and the general poverty that these children live in. Then we can share actual reality about what that influx of children we’re warring against are facing when we spin them around for an about-face, and send them back into chaos. Last night Bill Maher mentioned that these kids face twice the danger children endured in the Iraq war, twice the chance of dying. Makes you wonder just how stony a heart must become to turn them away, doesn’t it?
Obama’s determination to bypass obstruction and address immigration problems by executive order is part of what lit the fire under Tea Party xenophobes (not that much was necessary, this being — besides taxation — one of their favorite topics). The growing number of unaccompanied children surfaced simultaneously, exploding into sight at the Murrieta check-point. The right is pointing fingers but the reality is, people traditionally migrate based on issues of opportunity, climate, repressive government and, of course, war. We look on in sympathy when countries in Africa grow refugee camps like mushrooms in spring, constantly mobile and in chronic need of international assistance as their own war-torn nations spin in blood and violence. We shake our piggy banks, eager to help out, or at least we do when a humanitarian event is traumatic enough to catch our attention: a Christmas tsunami or collapse of an entire internal culture, like Haiti. But here, on our borders? Just pesky diseased kids, entrusted to for-hire coyotajes navigating the border crossings, or making it across vast and deadly stretches of the Sonoran desert in summer, looking for a handout and a big screen TV.
Clearly, we have a humanitarian crisis on our hands, hundreds of kids sleeping like packs of puppies on hard floors, crowded and unwanted guests of the U.S. government. When these things get too close for comfort, we don’t share very well with those in need, do we? We don’t seem to have any reluctance to pass our hard-earned bucks up the pipeline to ‘people’ like Texaco and Standard Oil and the like, but feeding and housing immigrants? Horrors! And let’s test long-term memory. If you don’t think that (and even worse) is the “American way,” then read up on the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Sleeping under both a white flag and the Stars and Bars, Chief Black Kettle and his Cheyenne encampment were startled awake by the sound of cannon fire, then quickly set upon by a demented Colorado military commander, John M. Chivington, who told his makeshift army of Indian fighters to, “Kill them big and small, nits become lice.” And that’s exactly what they did. Now tell me, listening to those who want these kids out before Health and Human Services law steps up to protect them, that those voices don’t have that same hysterical ring!
And Iraq? Today, according to Amnesty International, thousands of families are attempting to flee Mosul, now that ISIS has taken control of the city. Who in their right mind would want to stick around when radical religious extremists assume not just local control, but appear able to push past the Iraqi armed forces and Shi’a militias attempting to stop them? And this new ground war is not just wrecking property and economy, it’s killing those who survived BushWar II and their children, as well. Collateral damage, no big whoop. Staggering, isn’t it, the price these people have paid in destabilization and devolvement since George Bush set out to “share democracy” with them? Whether they liked it or not?
This whole Caliphate notion sounds determined and unstoppable, given the feverish energies behind their desire to renew fundamentalism, but it’s too narrow to do more than create temporary chaos and killing fields. This will ultimately burn out because there is no creative principal within it. It’s a dead thing, this kind of oppression. Live things are bright with color and creativity and hope, they don’t reek of blood. Civil society will outlast them, and I hope the Iraqis that flee in the dark of night find a more hospitable country than our own to temporarily house them. Their children deserve better.
Bless the beasts and the children,
for in this world they have no voice,
They have no choice.
But we do, don’t we? And we are being called to use our voices in ways that awaken our countrymen and further the opening heart of humanity. This is our time to share what we feel, what we see, what we know. We must not be afraid to say out loud what we know to be right, because no matter what kind of response we receive, our souls are glowing all the brighter for being way-showers; might even be why we came. Many of our brothers and sisters are soul-sick from decades of rogue capitalism, fearful propaganda, and the dark and dwindling dregs of racism, confused about which way to turn. And until we point ourselves toward our own true north, relying on our inner knowing and the whispers of our better angels, we remain part of the problem, not the solution.
Healing is here, if we choose it, and it will take a bit of courage to leave group think behind, in the name of restored sanity and compassion. But it’s time to surrender the red crayon to our neighbor, time to make sure that the least among us get their turn at the table. That final bit of control, of security, of confidence we like to keep close isn’t so awfully difficult to surrender when we realize the cost of keeping it to ourselves. Isn’t it time to trust it to those who need it as much as we once did?
Years of struggle have shown us that our world is only safe if we decide it must be, if we trust ourselves to create it that way with every thought, word and action. Are we ready, yet, to let go of our talismans, share them with those who need them so badly? It’s our turn to create a world for the children where they can scribble away with the red crayon, with ALL the colors in the box, reclaim their mastery and put aside their misery, because — seriously, my dears — how can we create rainbows for one another until we do? Time to share, taking hands, just like we learned in Kindergarten.
Thank you. Jude and all.
It’s just the same old thing over and over again; fear. We are a country built by the unwanted from everywhere across the globe and though it has always been stressful – ours has been the land of hope – every culture the USA has allowed has then produced great leaders and innovators. We as a country and the world as a whole have benefited from our choice to accept the unwanted and to allow the opposition. So much of the world lives the result of killing the opposition where the brain trust is always exterminated as the shifting balance of power eventually kills all of the intellectual minds of both sides – and they become deaf, dumb and blind barbarians. We (this land) are the hope of humanity. It has been to our glory. If we pretend it has been our stupidity I think we cut our own throats. We have plenty to share and sharing is the only way of expansion. The USA has been a miserable failure at controlling the world – but when we just take care of our part of the world we have been a beautiful example to the entire world. I hope we collectively chose to be the brightest example of human excellence.
Welshwoman, you have provided me food for thought regarding a planetary signature I’ve been pondering for weeks; the long-transiting quincunx between Saturn and Uranus. Thank you so much for speaking up and out. The obligatory use of mind control by governments and other powerful entities is a well-documented practice, although usually in hindsight. I’m thinking first of Hitler’s tactics and – just as subversive – advertising, esp. on television.
When I first realized that the two astrological symbols for the rulership of the sign Aquarius – transiting Uranus and Saturn – were struggling to come to some accord, a search was on to pin down examples of this friction. In a word, quincunx aspects denote a need for adjustment, and between transiting planets (as opposed to natal planets) it would be a prelude to their later opposition or trine aspect. In this case, transiting Saturn will trine Uranus on Christmas day, 2016, in a configuration that also includes transiting Jupiter and Chiron and a number of other celestial bodies, one of them being Psyche.
The thing I observed is that while this struggle was taking place between these rulers of the sign Aquarius, there were no transiting planets in that sign. Well before this quincunx became pronounced last month, there WAS a New Moon in Aquarius on January 30, 2014, that sextiled Uranus (stimulate into awareness) in Aries, who is the MODERN ruler of Aquarius. It also featured the notable grouping of Mars-Vesta-Ceres transiting in Libra that continues to this day (in fact it is climaxing in conjunctions this week) and which will figure into the adjustments being made between Aquarius’ rulers.
Mars rules or co-rules both the signs where Uranus and Saturn are transiting, which are Aries and Scorpio. The primary manifestation of Martian energy, or the one we are most familiar with is anger. Many a rant can be heard or read as a result of Mars’ influence on Aquarian subject matter. It might just be that this period of difficulty between Uranus and Saturn is happening when the sign of Aquarius is void of any major transits purposely so as to keep the focus on the rulership itself.
Saturn is in the sign of transformation and Saturn can be a tough nut to crack when it comes to any kind of change. Witness the universe’s subtle influence of the grand water trine between Jupiter in Cancer, Chiron in Pisces and Saturn in Scorpio which peaked in May before transiting Mars in Libra trined Uranus and semi-sextiled Saturn in late June. I believe this was a ploy by the Universe to soften up a suspicious Saturn.
Earlier in June at the Sagittarius Full Moon, Venus at 17+ Taurus sextiled Chiron at 17+ Pisces to form a yod with Vesta at 17+ Libra who was conjunct Ceres at 18+ Libra. All the planets in this formation also made aspects to Uranus and Saturn, and with Vesta at the pivotal point of the yod, she too was being encouraged to adjust in some way. Vesta and Saturn have Determination and Hard Work in common.
Next month, after Uranus starts his retrograde and Saturn starts moving direct, there will be a Full Moon in Aquarius and she as well as the Sun will square Saturn. Mars, Vesta and Ceres will have left Libra and the north node, and by the time of the Virgo New Moon in August (25th), Mars and Vesta will be conjunct Saturn, while Venus in Leo will be square all three of them and also trine Uranus in Aries. Venus being Venus will take much of the harshness away from the Mars-Saturn-Vesta energy (absorbing it herself in some heroic – Leonian – way, possibly via Pres. Obama). Venus will also reduce much of the sting of the Uranian energy, possibly through a delay in it’s deliverance as Uranus is in retrograde motion.
Adding to the changes that will no doubt be taking place then (a Virgo new moon must include health care) will be an opposition between Chiron (heal) in Pisces (compassion) and Mercury (communicate) in the sign he still (barely some think) rules, Virgo (order), which will create trines and sextiles to Saturn, Mars and Vesta. All in all, it sounds like adjustments will be made to improve still-standing institutions and/or laws and/or governments (Saturn) that will cover new (Uranus) provisions to benefit humanity (Aquarius) and accomplish much of the transitional (Virgo New Moon) preparatory period before the 6th Uranus square Pluto next December gives us new fodder to chew. Hopefully, we all (especially those of us with natal Aquarian planets and points) will be feeling less agitated as the Saturn-Uranus quincunx fades away and Mars moves past Saturn in Scorpio, just in time to square the U.S. Sibly Moon-Pallas in Aquarius in September. Oh well.
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Huffy’s lead line this morning tells us that 77% of the dead in Gaza are civilians. Lebanon is exchanging rocket fire with Israel, who now has boots on the ground in the Strip. A Mosque was bombed (suspected of housing ammo) and a Center for the Disabled destroyed (just for ducks, I guess.) Four Israeli soldiers have been “lightly wounded,” while the UN reports over 150 dead in Palestine. And — seriously now! — if you have a functioning brain and a feeling heart, you’ve got to be asking yourself, “WTF’s wrong with this picture?”
On the immigration front, we’ll probably hear wrangling over immigration reform on the Sunday pundit shows this morning. The laws are intricate and archaic, reflecting our internal and external conflicts, me ‘thinks.
“Immigration courts in the United States have long been troubled. The courts, overseen by the Department of Justice, have more than 375,000 cases being handled by just 243 judges, according to the agency.
“It can take months or years to get hearings for immigrants who aren’t in detention facilities, let alone a resolution. Immigration lawyers said judges are already setting hearings for 2017.”
[Formal] welcome to Kate, rabbity and Welshwoman, deLighted to hear from you! And so pleased to know that Michener’s Source is still alive and well among you. I miss his voice. He made history come alive for us, even if those first couple hundred pages of Hawaii with the bird-shit and the volcanic rocks fused my mind into an exhausted lump! Ha! Would be interesting to know what his historians eye would make of this day and age. We’ll have to wait, I expect he’ll be back.
Thank you, Lizzy and Patty — always happy to have your thoughts.
A great rant, Welchwoman — a genuine outpouring of heart and intellect, appreciated here. We share your frustrations with entrenched systems and faltering public services, here, across the pond. But, ya know, I’ve been thinking about these seemingly ill-intentioned mind-control issues and — as with most things we consider ‘evil’ — they’re pretty mundane. Whomever is thinking up this kind of crap with the intention of victimizing the masses just has to lay out the latest bit of mayhem, smack the first domino and watch all the rest fall into line.
Humanity gets its foot stuck too easily. Once we pick up a thread, a train of thought, we follow it to its bitter end, never questioning that it might be flawed or obsolete or even harmful as it eventually begins to implode on itself. True of religion, true of warfare (which, I agree, cannot but deliver soul-wounding) and true of government agencies gone “privatized” which is another way of saying “profitized.” Any that have a profit factor … as do all of the above … has to be wrestled to the ground and stabbed repeatedly with knives to kill off.
What is required, when we become manic about following the thread, is a NEW one, a BETTER one. I think we’re beginning to see that with renewable energy, now that wind and solar are producing, and carbon caps are working in various places. Once a new thing gets established, switching threads just seems like the thing to do and it’s automatic.
I wonder if you might use your training “outside the box,” by establishing a group of your own, working on a love-offering basis or bartering for your skills. There must be those who seriously want help out there, those who are as frustrated as are you with what’s being offered (and now mandated.) If you’re being turned away as a volunteer, try becoming your own “employer.” Don’t know if that’s possible for you, but I do know that whatever positive energy you give out, you’ll get back plus some. That’s the way it works and, as me Mum used to say, earns you “stars in your crown!”
I knew the music wasn’t Richard Carpenter’s, but he’s credited with the lyrics. Very cool that you got to see them, back in the day and, yes, sad to this day about Karen. It’s even hard to look at her in this YouTube, but she did sing like an angel, didn’t she?
And it IS an emotional day, so let’s all remember that we’re the children, too, worthy of blessing, and that this request of the Universe (with a switch-up of pronouns) is our own:
Light our way when the darkness surrounds us
Give us love
Let it shine all around us
Thank you Jude, for another inspired, inspiring and oh-so-challenging piece. You have set the tone of my Sunday as you so often do.
“…wars that kill the body and wars that attempt to kill the soul”. From my own perspective, all wars are about killing souls. Bodies are just collateral damage to those who fabricate any and all justification for war, whose souls, in my opinion, have already been killed and/or sold.
Just to widen the subject of soul-killing: this morning here in the UK, against a background of relentless jingoism and war propaganda which was always going to be triggered by the centenary of the “outbreak” (as if it happened naturally, all by itself…) of WW1, the main story in the half-hourly BBC radio news bulletins which punctuate the Sunday morning “holy hour” music-and-chat is this: our government’s latest planned foray in the long-term war being waged upon those citizens who can’t find jobs (there are no jobs here – or, rather, few which a human being with soul still intact would choose to do) and are suffering from what the media calls “mental health problems”.
The latest bright idea is that these citizens are to be subjected to compulsory “talking therapy”. No details yet, but if the kind of “free” counselling currently offered by our resource-starved National Health Service is anything to go by (4-6 sessions of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and you’re cured; if you’re not, then tough luck), this sure as hell won’t be the kind of therapy promoted by Eric here on Planet Waves, which is intended to heal and nurture us towards the authentic expression of who we really are; the kind which in my 40s I took five years out to train in, and which hard-won skills now, back home in Wales, I can’t even give away as a volunteer counsellor, let alone find clients who can afford to pay me for. The voluntary agencies here turn me away, having been pressed, via their funding no doubt, into using only student counsellors studying for CBT diplomas.
Like all acts of war, this latest assault on our citizens will undoubtedly be about dumbing the mind, numbing the emotions and removing any vestiges of self-worth which might still be lurking in the psyches of those who have been unemployed for long periods, and so are almost inevitably suffering from the anxiety and depression engendered by the mixed messages they receive daily about what it means to be a worthwhile human being, as well as the sustained mind-controlling and soul-killing techniques already being used – whether reluctantly or not – by those who work within the benefits system.
Bad enough that we are having our jobs and small businesses stolen via the wholesale sellout of our (former) publicly-owned services to the corporate profiteers – healthcare, education, transportation, emergency services, real property management, information technology – you name it; we are then punished and stigmatised by the very system created by our forebears to provide the safety net we need to enable us to survive and provide for our dependants when our source of work dries up.
We have been bombarded for decades by propaganda carefully designed to brainwash us into the belief that “unemployed and claiming benefits” means “lazy scrounger” – perhaps you’d say “freeloader” in the US? SO reminiscent of the “white feather campaign” which was deliberately designed to shame our young men into volunteering to fight in WW1 before conscription was introduced in 1916.
And just as insult was added to injury by the almost total lack of acknowledgment of, let alone effective treatment for, the effects of the unbelievable trauma suffered by the comparative few who survived to return home from that war, so now are those victims of this latest war on our collective self-esteem to be patronised and, I have no doubt, further damaged, by this latest round of mass and individual mind control.
Sorry to rant, but I’m in a highly emotional state, in the combined wake of the feelings generated by your article and the above radio bulletin in the background, doubtless exacerbated by the culmination of yesterday’s full moon in my sign!
Also, having been a lifelong fan of The Carpenters (I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on February 4 1983 when I heard the news of Karen’s tragic – and needless – death), and prompted by your quotations from “Bless the Beasts and the Children”, I immediately listened to it via YouTube, which prompted even more helpless tears….
By the way Jude, and for the record: Richard Carpenter had no role in the writing of that song, either music or lyrics. It was written by Barry de Vorzon and Perry L Botkin as part of the soundtrack to the 1971 film of the same name. However, Richard’s sublime arrangement of it, in the version sung by Karen, did feature on the film’s soundtrack. It was released in a slightly revised form on their 1972 album “A Song For You”, which was performed, almost in its entirety, at a Carpenters concert I attended in November 1972 in Bristol’s Colston Hall. Ah, those days of innocence and nescience!
My mother, who never read very much as a child, just brought up The Source today as one of a few Michener books that said to her yes, she could be a reader. I had picked it up once and started but never finished.
for Jupiter in Cancer I began a class – History of Latin America I – since i had time and found it to be a blank spot in my studies. and guess what it really was. i had to withdraw for a number of reasons not the least of which was the overload of imagining these cultures. i had never taken a proper history class since the beginning of high school. nor do i cable tv so haven’t seen BBC and History Channel documentaries. one, about Aztecs, Blood and Flowers is a 1999 production. there’s a little section about educating children (and adults) in indigenous language and traditions. actually i like that part of it mostly for the visuals, and there are many subtle and not so subtle reasons to watch the whole thing
Kate: I hope the harmonic convergence does not take offense! (i did not construct the name consciously but the HC occurred on my very own twelfth bday so maybe it had it coming 😉 ) I believe I can wrap my mind around how a simple ‘kate’ would achieve similar goals- although the vowel e I’m a little unsure of, at times. deconstructing names just an idle habit, really. an ‘amy’ will do that to ya.
Jude, this is one of your finest articles ever. The Source is an old favorite too and it is time to re-read it.
My goodness, rabbity, I wonder how the government would treat all those little souls if they thought of them as potential political opponents (especially in a quickly browning nation)?! I’d like to think these Cappy Pluto’s would receive enough kindness at our hands not to hold a grudge, but I can’t get the statements from kids at the initial Murrieta protest out of my head, that they were afraid the picketers would beat them with their signs and kill them.
I’d suppose those on the Left would recognize the concept that we create enemies by our treatment of them. I’m pretty sure the Right wouldn’t get it; they’re still insisting Muslims hate us for our freedom, rather than for our geopolitical occupations and bullying. (And it’s the LEFTY’s that are supposedly too dumb to understand GMO labeling, don’cha know! Hmmmpf!)
Thanks for your comments today — and your Muppet reference (always slaps a grin on my face!)
See-sawing between the old and the new, as you’ve illustrated it, be, reminds me of the Old and New Testaments* (the tomes that have defined our sociology since we squatted in the sand, pondering burning bushes.) The Old remains imprinted with punishments and vengeance, an eye for an eye; the New is like FDR’s New Deal, a change of trajectory upwards into a different way of thinking about ourselves and our brother/sister, i.e., unconditional love.
And it can’t be denied that we’ve come quite a long way in self-assessment as a nation, these last years. Those rose colored glasses have come off, and we won’t come out of this tunnel the same as we went in, that’s for sure. Sadder but wiser, hopefully, and wise enough to know that this step up the evolutionary ladder cost us dearly; we need to make sure the lessons boiling in that cauldron are well-learned, which is perhaps why our healing crisis seems so difficult to nail down!
The Aquarian Age has such potential to free us from, as rabbity mentioned, class systems and create a finer social order. That we try to make this Leap without devastating the global population (as in prior Era changes) carries its own perils, obviously. But it’s ours to do, collectively, even those who seem to impede progress and create cliffs to fall over. We’re all in place, with our marching orders — as only our Soul knows. Thanks for always having the data at your fingertips to flesh it out. You’re a marvel.
* I think it’s time to dig out my copy of Michener’s “The Source” for a re-read. It’s one of those books that comes with layers and layers of wisdom to peel, starting way back when we worshipped the weather as the entity most likely to impact our survival. Sounds like a good summer project, like visiting an old and familiar friend with something new to share!
“Years of struggle have shown us that our world is only safe if we decide it must be, if we trust ourselves to create it that way with every thought, word and action.” Yes. Beautiful words, Jude. Have found the killiing of those adolescents unbearably painful – and was good to read your piece.
@rabbity divergence: apols for crashing the thread but felt compelled to say, reeaallllly like the moniker you’re using. mine feels very boring in comparison. moment of silliness over, back to discussion :^)
“Create rainbows”. . I LOVE that Jude. When we are/were kids it is/was the possibility of finding treasure either where the rainbow begins/began or ends/ended that spurs/spurred us on to happy dreams; giving us hope. It seems an apt symbol for all migrants who move on in a search for something better, rather than just giving up and dying in place. No wonder so many entities adopt this symbol, such as the Rainbow Coalition of the ’60’s, as representing what they stand for. Chiron too has been called the Rainbow Bridge.
If we truly are at the threshold of the Aquarian Age then astrology reflects the dissention between the “old” ways of the world and the “new” ways that promise a better life for all if we just open our hearts and minds. That requires courage. It is Fear that still rules the old ways and Saturn symbolizes the determination to put up a good fight against what we fear in order to maintain the old ways. Saturn isn’t a “bad” planet but he is extremely resistant to change.
Uranus, on the other hand has no qualms about changing and, in fact, symbolizes the energy force that removes any and all barriers to “new” ways of experiencing life. Saturn is the old ruler of Aquarius and Uranus is the new ruler of Aquarius. Transiting Saturn is quincunx transiting Uranus and that aspect calls for adjustment; adjustment comes when there is some “give”, something neither planet has been known to exhibit symbolically. Transiting Chiron has been aspecting both transiting Saturn and transiting Uranus. Chiron is a symbolical bridge – orbiting between Saturn and Uranus – while Pisces is a sign of giving; giving in, giving away and giving up boundaries. You see where I’m going with this don’t you? 🙂 🙂
If we are about to enter the Age of Aquarius, it means we are leaving behind the Age of Pisces which is thousands of years old. Chiron, by transiting in a trine with Saturn who is in the sign of transformation, Scorpio, is slowly (no other choice) whittling away at Saturn’s resistance.
So too is Mars, transiting in the sign of equal partnership – Libra – with Ceres and Vesta and the north node, and Mars co-rules the sign Saturn transits and Mars also rules Aries, the sign Uranus is in. Between the personal (easy to access for us human beings) planet Mars and Chiron (who isn’t personal but provides a bridge from what’s known to what’s unknown), humanity’s resistance to change is breaking down; dissolving (Pisces) if you will. It isn’t pretty to watch. What we see is mostly the energy of Mars, and what we feel is mostly the energy of Chiron.
I believe the Universe is providing opportunities, a north node kind of thing, for individuals as well as communities and nations to graduate from the old ways – at our own pace – to the new ways of living, understanding and acting. It is through Uranus’ gift of the internet, computers and smart phones that we are able to become aware of what’s beyond our backyard and to communicate with others even when they are on the other side of the planet from us.
I think too that transiting Jupiter in Cancer, so recently in opposition with Pluto in Capricorn has played a big role in the Clash of the Titans (well at least Saturn was a Titan!). By activating the Cardinal Cross (with Uranus-Pluto-Mars) as well as the Water Grand Trine (with Saturn-Chiron/Neptune) recently, he exposed (in a large Jupiterian way) ancient and often unconscious patriarchal (begun around 1300 BC), ancestral, tribal instincts in humanity – thanks to the sign of Cancer – that Pluto demanded be purged. Now we are left with the “clean up” and healing part of the cycle. Pluto and Jupiter have made us “understand” what is “hidden” beneath the surface of our consciousness, deep in our snake-brain survival tool kit.
Double, double toil and trouble seems to be our lot these days, but there is a purpose for what the cauldron is brewing that will make it all worthwhile. Thanks once again Jude for keeping us on the path and keeping hope alive.
be
Check out Martin O’Malley, Maryland Governor:
“We are not a country that should send children away and send them back to certain death. I believe that we should be guided by the greatest power we have as a people, and that is the power of our principles. Through all of our great world religions, we are told that hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/11/martin-omalley-child-deportations-immigration-_n_5579463.html
Wow. Just wow. This whole marvelous piece ends with rainbow connection that turns the muppets into cynics? Wow! (although. don’t forget the muppets who are boutique quality cynics who do this to themselves)
Just one thought about today’s small children. The first Pluto Capricorns are reaching age 6 and I wonder how many of them have developed and are developing into “political people” and how many are here to join the fight. If Pluto Libras are ineffective at war (gee who would think that? -erk) these kids might be putting strategy up their sleeves. Now if only we can manage to build a world or paint a picture of a world that can set these Disney heads (i mean that in the better sense of how Disney tends to strategically correct its own errors) to task without the master/servitude class systems I’m sure Pluto Aquarians will out-cartoon out of them.
Sorry, i couldn’t get out of the children’s entertainment riff. I am very sad that children in Central America, Gaza, and ISIS (yes let’s make all new states have acronyms for names, wouldn’t that be great?) have no safe place to go and grow. Thanks again Judith.