By Len Wallick
…unusually uncertain…”
Benjamin Bernanke, Chairman, Federal Reserve of the United States
No scat, Sherlock. And the chairman of the Federal Reserve gets paid how much to to dispense such profound wisdom? Fortunately he’s not going to get paid a dime for unwittingly describing the current astrology.
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Let’s start with the Full Moon.
If you live at zero degrees longitude (London, Le Harve, Valencia, Reggane, Gao or Dori) it will be exact shortly after 1:30 this morning. That’s another way of saying UTC (coordinated universal time). Anywhere to the west of there and we are talking sometime late yesterday. If it’s to the east of zero degrees longitude (also called the Greenwich Meridian) the Full Moon would be sometime after 1:30 am. Of course the twain does indeed meet 12 hours earlier or later (depending on which direction you go) at the international date line that weaves like a drunken sailor from the Arctic to the Antarctic in the Pacific Ocean.
So, if you look at your vampire movie calendar you might see that the Full Moon was yesterday. If you then look at your insurance company calendar that pegs it for today, that’s the unusually uncertain for you. Astrologically it will be one thing after another. Psychologically, things may seem to happen fast. Strategically the plan is to step back and not get too invested in outcome because it will even out. That’s where certainty will ultimately be found. Knowing that whipsaw oscillations will find stability and the long term big picture will prevail.
That’s the reason we’ll start our week with a review of the cardinal t-square. There’s a lot more going on. This blog could take the form of a laundry list of aspects and transits. But that would only add to the unusual uncertainty and who needs that besides some pathetic suit trying to cover his backside? The cardinal t-square. That’s our framework for a long term picture right now. Nuances come and go but the scaffold lasts for years. That way we’ll get a leg up on the befuddled chairman.
To help you visualize it, draw a circle. Now, draw a line through the circle to cut it in half. Draw another line perpendicular to cut the circle in half the other way. You now have a cross inside a circle. Think of the four sections as the seasons. The four lines in the cross are where each season begins. Call those lines cardinal points. The progression of the seasons is the counter-clockwise motion of the Sun from one cardinal point to another. It takes a year for the Sun to go around that circle. It takes about a month for the Moon. As for the planets, that depends how far away from the Sun they are.
Some planets seem to move slowly because they are very far away from the Sun. Right now all but one of the big, slow moving planets and some of the small slow-moving planets have something in common. They are gathered very near the lines that form the cross inside the circle. Actually, three of those lines. That’s where the “T” in t-square comes from. This has been going on for over two years. It will continue for years to come, partly because these planets move slowly and because they have been going back and forth over these lines as if reluctant to venture far away.
Now, even if you don’t give a pigeon poop about astrology, you gotta admit that’s pretty strange. After all, the planets are just big balls of rock or gas that go around the Sun in the same way every day, year after year for billions of years. It’s not like a murder of crows gathered around a road kill. It’s not like a herd of cows all facing the same way. It’s not like a school of fish or a flock of birds all turning at the same time. Planets don’t have a purpose or intent. Their motions are not elective. So when their positions relative to one another form a pattern it means something. Not because the planets in their patterns are causing something. Not because something is causing the patterns. Not at all. Rather it’s because they are indicating something. Indicating the progress and status of other cycles and patterns. Don’t believe it? That’s ok. Belief is not required, simply observation. The more you watch cycles and patterns of all kinds, the more you will see that they are synchronized. Try it. You’ll be gall-darned.
A bunch of slow-moving planets gathered at three points on a cardinal cross is an infrequent and unlikely pattern. Make those points the places where the seasons change and you connect the infrequent and unlikely with the regular and timely.
That’s the big picture of the t-square. It is an indicator that the regular, daily rhythms of our common experience have meshed and synchronized with a gradual change to a new pattern. A change we could no more avoid than a fish could avoid water.
Years from now, after the cardinal t-square has passed, there will be a new pattern to our common experience. That pattern will last a long time. Right now we are in the midst of transition from one long-lasting set of commonly experienced patterns to another. Just as with the seasons we are each having an individual experience of that transition even as we are going through it together.
That’s the best perspective from which you can see the cycles in the picture actually taking place in the real world. What’s going on with the ocean and what’s going on with your body? What is the state of your budget and what is the state of the economy? What’s the situation in your household or workplace and what’s the situation with the human race? Do you think that’s an accident? Are you gall-darned yet?
That’s the framework, the scaffold. Hold on to that and you will have more certainty than the hoity-toity chairman of the Federal Reserve. Be mindful of that and things will be a lot less unusual to you than they are to his scruffy face. Unfortunately, that will not result in receiving a salary anywhere commensurate with his. Sorry, there’s only so much an astrologer can do.
Now, lets work up to today and put a few things on that framework.
On this day last month there was a lunar eclipse. That’s a Full Moon with the Earth in between, casting a shadow on the Moon. On our big circle, the line between the Sun and Moon was pretty much the same as one of the lines that make up our cardinal cross inside the circle. The lunar eclipse was superimposed over the cross. It drew you a picture for Pete’s sake. How often does that happen? The picture says, here, the lunar eclipse (and the total solar eclipse two weeks later) have something in common with the cardinal t-square. They have a relationship.
That picture of relationship created a new pattern. That picture changed the t-square into a cardinal cross. It did not last for very long. It was as if to show us a potential. This picture can become that picture, a more complete picture. One that includes the complete cycle of the seasons rather than a part of it. That relationship is the final piece to complete the basic picture.
And what is this thing called relationship? What does it mean besides one picture superimposed over another? That takes us back to today”s Full Moon. It depends on where you are and being aware of it. Is it happening late for you or is it happening early?
That’s where it begins, knowing where you are. If you don’t do anything else with today, figure that out. Have some gall-darned faith that the events of your personal experience are connected with bigger things. Let those events make you aware. Keep track, take a few notes. How was your energy after this experience? What were your feelings after that one? Would you like every day for the rest of your life to be like this? What are you willing to do about that?
If you can ask those questions, and answer just one or two of them, it will be a beginning. Start with finding and drawing your own picture so that you can see it on the inside. If you can do that you will have something of your own to superimpose over the pattern on the outside. Bring a change to that pattern, be a part of it, help to complete the cycle and turn the wheel.
The Full Moon of the lunar eclipse was to show us the potential. This Full Moon is for us to show something in turn. To do so may unfortunately be unusual, but be assured, it will not be uncertain.
Offered In Service
Len,
I appreciate you.
You’re like Father Time on this wonderful blog: a huge, quiet ocean liner whose soft, sensible chime permeates the vastness. And sometimes smoke shoots out your chimney in voluminous huffs.
And you say things like pigeon poop. I remember your first post.
Reading your entry today, I thought: what the heck is going on with his mercury? Feel free to share as/if you are compelled. I felt Capricorn vibes, Taurus? some ancient patience, deeply reserved. Or Sag for your gift. I truly understood the T-square today forthefirsttime. You scripted the picture, letter by seemingly effortless letter.
Wishing you peace, glowing embers, thanks Len.
aword: Thanks for clearing that up.
Len: I don’t care what else was posted after, I LOVE your reply to tatonnement. Excellent writing as always.
::::rant font on:::::
The thing I always keep listening for and that the left and Democrats never mention enough is this: when some folks keep saying we have to “end the pig trough of unemployment benefits and other entitlement programs” blah-blah-blah why isn’t ANYONE with a mouth loud enough asking why we don’t end the pig trough of corporate welfare instead?
Corporate welfare (called subsidies) doesn’t create jobs. The small businesses in this country were (and still are) the biggest employers yet they get taxed at higher rates than Big Corporations and they get no welfare (subsidies). If we gave the corporate welfare that Big Oil and Big Pharma and other Big Companies get to the small businesses and lower the taxes on small businesses, they would go back to hiring and unemployment would be a lot lower.
Oh wait, Big Corporations have lobbyists and pay for campaigns. Well we have to wake up and remind the folks in congress that despite the Big Corporate money and lobbyists, a lot of their congressional buddies got voted out of their jobs in 2006 and 2008 because the little folks do the voting. We ALL have to wake up and remember THAT and remind THEM of that daily.
Not to mention that if the pro-Big Business folks can play hardball, the pro-working people folks need to use the same “language”. I know, that means taking a lower road but it has been my experience that not enough people are aware enough (yet) to understand the “language” of high road so you MUST give the message in a “language” they will understand. After they get aware (and stop being apathetic) THEN you can change and use a better language.
Just my two cents worth on the subject. Sorry about the digression.
:::::rant font off::::
we are in uncharted territory when it comes to monetary policy and the fed’s balance sheet. from what i understand off the economics blogs, the main argument for why the fed needs to think really hard about adding more stimulus is we really don’t know what it will do in the long run. inflation. HYPERINFLATION. are real possibilities. so great if we get everyone back to work and then a loaf of bread costs $1million. i just don’t think it is an easy question.
aword – thank you for your cool head and your clear mind. Guess i should go home and think about how to be more like you and less like a Joad. Still, it keeps coming back to me what Woody Guthrie wrote on the front of his guitar.
” the chairman of the fed gets paid $199k. that’s peanuts compared to what he could make in the private sector. we’re lucky there are some people in the world who aren’t all about making money.”
Dr. Bernanke has behind him quite a career in the acedemic world. I suspect he has quite a bit of auxiliary income beyond his $199K (for publishing, speaking engagements, retirement investments, retirement plans/tenure from the universities where he teachs etc etc.) No doubt the annual income from his textbooks alone would make me ‘weathy’.
I suggest a quick read of Dr. Bermanke’s bio….he makes PLENTY of money (aside from the pittance $!99K) and can well afford to not officially work in the ‘private sector.’ Oh wait, Princeton and Harvard ARE the private sector.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/board/bernanke.htm
“Ben S. Bernanke began a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 1, 2010. Dr. Bernanke also serves as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the System’s principal monetary policymaking body. He originally took office as Chairman on February 1, 2006, when he also began a 14-year term as a member of the Board. His second term as Chairman ends January 31, 2014, and his term as a Board member ends January 31, 2020.
Before his appointment as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke was Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006.
Dr. Bernanke has already served the Federal Reserve System in several roles. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2002 to 2005; a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia (1987-89), Boston (1989-90), and New York (1990-91, 1994-96); and a member of the Academic Advisory Panel at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1990-2002).
From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Bernanke was the Class of 1926 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Chair of the Economics Department at the university from 1996 to 2002. Dr. Bernanke had been a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton since 1985.
Before arriving at Princeton, Dr. Bernanke was an Associate Professor of Economics (1983-85) and an Assistant Professor of Economics (1979-83) at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. His teaching career also included serving as a Visiting Professor of Economics at New York University (1993) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1989-90).
Dr. Bernanke has published many articles on a wide variety of economic issues, including monetary policy and macroeconomics, and he is the author of several scholarly books and two textbooks. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sloan Fellowship, and he is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Bernanke served as the Director of the Monetary Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and as a member of the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee. In July 2001, he was appointed Editor of the American Economic Review. Dr. Bernanke’s work with civic and professional groups includes having served two terms as a member of the Montgomery Township (N.J.) Board of Education.
Dr. Bernanke was born in December 1953 in Augusta, Georgia, and grew up in Dillon, South Carolina. He received a B.A. in economics in 1975 from Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in economics in 1979 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Bernanke is married and has two children.
Recent Speeches
July 12, 2010
June 16, 2010
June 9, 2010
Recent Testimony
July 21, 2010
June 9, 2010
April 20, 2010
Last update: July 22, 2010”
tatonnement – Thank you, of course you are entitled to an honest answer. Let’s start by asking the millions of honest United States citizens who have dropped off the unemployment rolls and no longer exist in an economic sense. Let’s ask them about the fine service rendered by the fellow scraping by on $199,000. a year. Go ahead, ask my two brothers who who have never commited a crime of any kind, overt or covert and would like nothing better than to get up in the morning and go to work. Shall i forward their honest answers to you?
len, i was asking an honest question but i see you’ll have none of it so don’t worry about it.
If it was covert, how would i know? Listen, i’m with you, tatonnement, put me down for five bucks so the poor guy can afford to buy a razor. Where in Manhattan should i send it?
Len, I’m curious about what covert crimes you have in mind.
I’m so full of LOL! and still only up to getting “a leg up on the befuddled chairman”.
Now holding fast to the scaffolding and ready for the rest of your today’s ride, Len!
‘-)
i heart your words, i heart that you are back. you make me smile.
I dont really understand as much as I would like to, and sometimes I wonder if i am naive and soft to go for all the astrology stuff. I so much want to believe that these patterns exist and that we are connected to something.
anyway, this resonates, your words resonate.
I am going to draw that picture now.
its good to be reminded of how we can be active.
zk
p.s. I didnt like how i felt last night here in california so I am going to make tonight my last night and then us that as my “there”. I hope that’s not cheating!
Thank you Len for grounding me once again, or at least letting me know the ground is still there as I soar like a kite, diving and circling but still tethered. It reassures me, that the scaffold is still standing. Reassured, my fixety fixed, I can, like HazelF suggests, be in a better flow, fluidly mutable in these certainly uncertain times.
As for the cardinal provided by the opposing Uranus and Saturn, a temporary holding pattern is an okay thing. Uranus is retro but will return with gusto later. Good. Saturn, not likely to jump into the fray unless his pants are on fire, will be grinding out a slow and steady cardinal energy until he squares Pluto next month. Probably another gall-darned opportunity. Gives me just enough time to get my act together. I’ve seen the potential (eclipse) and intend to show my something (Aquarius FM) then. Reel me in Captain, I’ve got work to do.
be
Mr. Bernanke is hardly ” befuddled”.
This is by design…all according to plan.
The Federal Reserve is a metaphorically ” Vampiric” private banking cabal.
Morning Planet Waveskies:
The other night, I caught a midnight IMAX screening of “Inception”, which, forgiven its pop culture manufacture, is one of the best movies on the uncertain nature of reality that I’ve seen.
I highly recommend the movie, and I haven’t felt that way about a summer blockbuster, or any film for that matter, for a long time.
Hazel F – I love your comment!
Perhaps the Planet Waves community should pass the hat to help the good Chairman make up the difference he has lost by not persuing a career of overt crime.
“What’s going on with the ocean and what’s going on with your body? What is the state of your budget and what is the state of the economy? What’s the situation in your household or workplace and what’s the situation with the human race? Do you think that’s an accident? Are you gall-darned yet?”
By heck, I’m gall-darned!
Thanks, Len 🙂
V good Len, as ever.
It strikes me that the search for certainty is often the undoing of everything – perhaps these times might encourage a greater tolerance for living with and accepting uncertainty. That way, we may be in a better flow and synergy with our universe, rather than pushing against it.
i know it was a rhetorical question but, the chairman of the fed gets paid $199k. that’s peanuts compared to what he could make in the private sector. we’re lucky there are some people in the world who aren’t all about making money. what did the guys who bundled all the junky subprime mortgages make? and AIG? millions upon millions. now that’s outrageous.