Individual and collective growth, here and now

Revised. Non-collige virgo rosas.

Good Morning,

The Moon is in Cancer now, making a sextile to the Taurus Sun today. This water-to-earth combination should provide a little relief over yesterday’s scattered mental energy of the Gemini Moon with so many Aquarius planets in the scene; i.e.,. for a couple of days we had an Airy Overload.

Venus in Aries, just done being retrograde, is currently leaning into her third square to Pluto: I’ll come back to that in a second.

Mercury is doing something pretty interesting: he/she/it is in the last degree of Taurus, moving slower than one degree a day. This is a shift in consciousness, as Mercury slows to a station, which will occur in about one week in Gemini. The ingress to Gemini is Thursday afternoon/evening in USA time zones.

The forthcoming Mercury retrograde involves a series of transitions of Mercury between Gemini and Taurus, which will provide a useful and interesting contrast between airy Mercury and earthy Mercury.

Mercury in Gemini can be pretty gosh darned slippery and tricksterish, and now we’re going to have him/her/it slow to a station there, making a quincunx to Pluto and a trine to the North Node. Given the surge of vital force (i.e., sex energy) that is spouting at this time, and the way we are trained to convert that to fear, we may be in for an interesting ride on the back of a pig. Note, this is not the normal time of year to be talking about death. It is springtime here in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s time to be frolicking in the fields and forests, flirting your head off and sniffing the pretty people as they walk by.

Then again it was T.S. Eliot who said that April is the cruelest month, breeding memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. What he was saying is that if you’re feeling dead inside and springtime calls you to life, that will be painful.

With Venus moving into this square to Pluto, we have a perfect symbol of carpe diem. This could be seen as a sign of the imminent transience of all things, particularly those we love; and our own awareness of them. Venus in Aries square Pluto can be loosely translated as: do we love ourselves enough to really live? To take the opportunities we have?

Or are we going to obsess over loss, death and the struggle of specialness? Is love about having someone to grow old and die with, or is it about celebrating your existence while the flowers of your life are on the vine?

This morning Dr. Joseph Mercola, a guy I’m convinced loves life and loves being a doc, spoke up about why a swine flu pandemic is highly unlikely. I am not sure where I picked up on Mercola, but I really like him and his approach. He’s an osteopath, not a conventionally trained allopathic doctor. He’s a bit nerdy and his slightly boring approach to video conceals that he’s actually quite a subversive who understands radical dangerous subjects like nutrition and politics. His article today gives interesting statistics and analysis comparing several flu pandemics and debunks the 1918-1919 pandemic as not being about flu but rather being about strep.

There is a good bit of skepticism going around about this current flu “news.” True enough, plenty of people will gladly herd themselves into boxcars to get some kind of flu shot, so this is an excellent exercise in why it’s a good idea to think for yourself.

However, something else is going on, which is we are getting a sense of how frail the world can seem, and how intense the lurking threat of death is just below the veil of normal waking awareness. Combine that with someone’s agenda to make a killing off of a new vaccine and you can get a dangerous combination, but it’s only dangerous when we don’t think for ourselves.

It’s fair to call this whole episode an emergence of the shadow of death. Most of us don’t want to consider death consciously, so then when something happens that threatens us (terrorism, a sneezing pig) the result can be pandemic panic. Oh Pan, oh Pan, wherefore art thou?

We have to have this conversation; we need to give death a voice, but not some haircut on CNN freaking us out about the flu.

The alignment of Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune is saying that it’s time to change our mind collectively. In other words, there is collective momentum that we can tap into if we want to, to do growth work that we would normally have to do individually. The individual progress we make contributes to the whole; the whole contributes back to us; that is my nutshell interpretation of this stunning event taking shape in late Aquarius.

Thanks for your many exciting, insightful comments. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying reading what you have to say.

Yours & truly, quite early on a spring morning (I don’t even see Aunt Pat down at Dominick’s making coffee).

Eric Francis

Cam Hassard will be up next with a flu news roundup.

16 thoughts on “Individual and collective growth, here and now”

  1. ce, you are pregnant, how exciting, it is spring. I am tantalized by your patience in the wait of the child’s arrival.

  2. From the dharma talk on “Being With Dying – Grief (the unallowed emotion)” and the land of Carpe MaГ±ana, may “gather, girl, the roses” poetic phrase above lead us all back to our youth, as they say, before it is too late [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe_diem].

    PS I have not seen a single POSITIVE test result for swine flu in 3 days in Nuevo Mexico. And, I’ve handled a LOT of paper, I have the paper cuts today to prove it!

  3. If you like Dr. Mercola, you must check out all the writings and sites of Dr. Ingrid Naiman (ingridnaiman.com). One of her sites (astroheal.com) covers medical astrology.

  4. It is spring, and a painful time indeed for those (roots) buried so deep in depression and death (most of us) that it is difficult to see beyond the proverbial boxcar aka the easy “out” aka SOP of ‘take no responsibility for oneself or anyone else’ just do as told.

    It is time to awaken to a different day – this is the day to find Clarity. to find Direction. to find Joy. to find Freedom. and to find Each Other.

    Fear breeds alienation. Even enlighted professionals are suggesting ISOLATION as the “best preventative” measure for ‘this horrifying flu’.

    I say – get together! Bring your community out into the light, hold hands and sing (or have sex, or read your favorite novel or write code for a video game or just Twitter).

    Now is the time for us to come out and sing in unison even if – or perhaps especially if – everyone sings in a different key.

    Perhaps our global resource the Internet will help us with this – a “safe” place to Sing Out.

    xo

  5. I go to wikipedia and cruise, too deep, fertility and spring, that’s enough.

    Don’t want no ick added to the pan.

  6. Eric wrote that there is a missing part of the swine flu story, the void of course moon. I have a theory, that this dreaded swine flu epidemic, which seems to only kill Mexicans is a wag the dog story. Interesting that this began after the president visited Mexico. (After 8 years of steadily building up my skepticism where the government is concerned, I wouldn’t be surprised that somewhere someone is making money on this.) Or, another part of my theory that is kinda out there, but one never knows…airplanes, cruise ships, tourist activities are being detained, stopped, cancelled because of the media hysteria. Is this the Obama government saying, look if you don’t get in control of your drug lords and immigration problem, this is how easy we can isolate your country, and kill your tourist based economy.
    The conjunction of Neptune, Chiron, and Jupiter has me feeling stretched tight like a rubber band wanting to break/snap. Most people I have contact with on a daily basis, (I work with the public), feel the same way, skeptical-fearful-stressed out to the max, viewing the new catastraphobia with a jaded eye.

    -and to anonymous talking about the art students. I as an artist, am waiting for the veil to be lifted a little more, I know what I need to-want to create, but haven’t quite found the right tools or means of expression. I am the bride wanting to lift my veil to see my bridegroom and experience the erotic nature of our coming together and creating a visionary child of spirit.

  7. Patty, paletiger. . .I too grieve for the piggys, as I mourned for the poor birds (geese?) that sacrificed their lives when the miracle on the hudson was the reigning topic. Perhaps the spotlight on the pigs plight will lead to a better life for their offspring with more nutritional food for them, and eventually to the humans that eat them. Do pigs have to have consumptive value to humans in order to continue their species? Lets hope not.

    Thanks for the link to your article Eric. I enjoyed reading it again and had forgotten the Damocles connection to Obama’s Sun (prefer YOUR spelling!). It is awesome how these “minor planets” can focus our attention on the purpose of an individual so accurately. I still marvel at his yod of Saturn (government, structure), Pallas (strategic planning) and Uranus (instant, unexpected, original, brilliant & without emotion) have played out so far. Maybe even the Republican defecter in the Senate was a result of this aspect!

  8. eric, death may not have a voice, but I saw it’s face. There was a pig scare from the past, a tower scare from the past, and rover and his dick from the past. Some kind of triangle.

    The triangle will sprout wings and fly away, but somewhere in my attic the squirrel still runs. I’m puttin my squirrel called Sherlock in a compartment with my old spy ring, and magnifying glass. And there was that jiffy peanut butter thing. I want to say periscope, but that could be wrong. It was a rectangular tube with mirrors that supposedly would allow me to look around corners without being seen.

    I’m off to find what I can on the flute playing goat. Or was he a man horse? Details, details.

  9. anonymous, ooo art out of the fog. Keep them tools moving. I find this movement exciting. I wonder what history will call it. No matter, you’re making it. Let er rip!

  10. Yeah I feel sorry for the little pigglies too. What are they afraid of? How about the abattoir and being eaten. Time to get them some homeopathy. It’s been done very successfully before with animals from pets to farm stock, and I do believe it’s been tried on pigs too. An excellent way to do blind trials – can animals tell the difference between placebo and the genuine article? Harrumph.

    There was a great article in the New Scientist a few years back (which I am trying to track) about homeopathy. The author wrote at length arguing (as only the NS can) from the ‘how can something that is basically a memory – not even as large as teardrop in an ocean – have any impact at all?’…approach. However, this author looked at many other angles, appeared a little more open than most and concluded that it ‘may be witchdoctery, but it was damn fine witchdoctery.’

    It works for me.

  11. Bkoehler, I’ve enjoyed your readings too. This has been interesting to say the least.

    Actually I’ve enjoyed everyone’s comments and suggestions for reading and medicines.

    Still feeling sorry for the lowly hogs too! I bet those hogs in Egypt know what time it is now!

  12. I live in mpls, and was wide awake at three this morning, I relate to your very early morning coffee. Im in grad school getting my masters in Fine Arts. All the students have been saying the same thing over the last two days about their mind in connection to their creative process, ” I dont know what Im doing “. Very foggy thought processes combined with some real desire to reach out. No one is giving up but it is so apparent that there is change brewing and we are tuning in earnestly. A few days before that I woke up with the most erotic anal sex dreams and opened your page to the Tristan article and image, I had to smile. The day after that was dreams about tears and rips which I thought were about a piece Im trying to make called, ” Skin graft for Innocence “, but the first article I read today was on the NASA web page about the tear in the earths magnetic field. Im pondering the Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune in light of these events along with your comments about healing ourselves within the collective. Reading your thoughts has helped me greatly and I always appreciate your super oceanic intuitive fish mind and how you share it.

  13. For what it’s worth, Bob & Julie Butler have a newsletter that began during the bird flu scare, which does give reliable info and updates. It also makes things like masks and antiseptic hand wash available for sale. Today’s newsletter reported that victims of this flu mentioned being too sick to brush teeth, etc., and that it lasted for 4 days,. . not unlike bouts of flu I’ve experienced. Certainly beats dying though. (www dot survivetheflu dot com).

    To Eric’s point of “most of us don’t want to consider death consciously, so then when something happens that threatens us. . .”, Damocles, in the eclipse chart (for Washington DC) that I wrote about in yesterday’s post, is in exact semi-square to Pluto and in the 1st house. According to “broca’s area” (www dot broca dot org/phrases), the Sword of Damocles is a popular metaphor for any great and “threatening” evil that may befall one at any time. A note of interest . . to me anyway!

    Note from Eric: I cover Damocles in this article about O’Bamma
    http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1568600106.html

  14. A fabulous example for how journalism screws with the mind. This is not just from AP, but from the Associated Press medical division:

    “Officials say 14 New Zealanders have swine flu, though 11 of those cases are based on the assumption that positive tests on three students means the others in the group have it.” Get it? They are telling the public since days there are 14 cases in NZ, and now reveal for 11 “cases” there are no test results !! It’s pure speculation (everything screams Neptune on this one).
    The next sentence is: “All had only mild flu symptoms and are responding well to treatment by Tamiflu.” (One 15 year old had a bad case of sniffles).

    In another “AP Medical” article this morning, this sentence appears: “”It’s very important that people take their concern and channel it into action,” Besser said, adding that “it is crucial that people understand what they need to do if symptoms appear.”
    ——- Would it not be nice to follow up with just a hint about “what to do if symptoms appear?” But no. I am not watching TV these days, and maybe there are some “insctructions” there, but reading countless media articles, I have read NONE.

    I have found, though, that this flu stays infectious for 7 days after symptoms start for adults, and longer (up to 14 days) for kids. Had to google this, though.

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