Dear Friend and Reader: Sometimes I wonder if humanity is not a puppet, subject only to the influences coming from outside. I say this because as we approach the first exact square of Saturn and Pluto, events of recent days are so characteristic of this aspect that it leads me to wonder how, exactly, these things are scripted.
The Saturn-Pluto cycle, which had its last peak in the summer of 2001, is described in Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas as a cycle of crisis and contraction — a time when reactionary movements thrive on fear and narrowness. Fueled by our anxiety about change and our obsession with clinging to the supposedly little we have, those with an agenda we refuse to look at eat human energy like the cannibal scavengers they are; bless their tortured souls.
We also tend to let the same energy consume us from inside. This of course produces change, but not necessarily of the kind we say we want — progress toward a more pleasant and egalitarian world. Sunday is the first of three exact squares in this cluster, and this autumn has come with the feeling of a squeeze or the attempt to push things to a head. The confluence of events included the massacre at Fort Hood last week, where a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist opened fire on his peers, killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 others. The massacre is being used to foster a bunch of new anger and hatred directed toward Muslims, and more justification for why we are in Iraq and Afghanistan at all: there is a jihad movement and it’s out to get us. This, as President Obama considers proposals for exactly what to do with Afghanistan — such as whether and how to increase troop levels. Here is something to consider: he won’t be able to pull the troops out without a wide public consensus that we don’t belong there at all; and that these wars are doing nothing but damaging the world and our own society.
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Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure
The comings and goings of 24-hour cable news celebs and their constant ratings wars and personality clashes don’t generally pass muster for a Planet Waves story.
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CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/AP.
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But then you run across information like this from The New York Times: “Mr. Dobbs quit CNN once before, in 1999. […] He became the chief executive of Space.com, an astronomy news source, but returned to the network two years later.” That would be Lou Dobbs, Mr. Independent himself, CNN’s [now former] quirky, outspoken, so xenophobic it’s kind of funny news anchor, who quit the network this week. He had recently clashed with management over some of his remarks — such as giving credence to those who questioned President Obama’s citizenship, for example. [Actually, it was John McCain who was born in Panama, outside the Canal Zone in the city of Colon, and who is not, in fact, a natural born citizen.] But Space.com? I mean, there might be foreigners out there. Really, really weird ones who want our jobs and who don’t have to worry about any kind of fence keeping them out.
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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, November 13, 2009, #792 – BY ERIC FRANCIS |
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Cancer (June 21- July 22) I’ve been in a long email correspondence with one of the world’s leading radical feminists; or at least she was when feminism was something that had a voice in society. What I’ve discovered is that she wandered off into the desert of denying pleasure; and worse, of denying that sexual reality is an influence in every other aspect of reality. At the moment you are poised for a sexual awakening that feels like thunder and lightning on a hot summer night — the kind of night when you want to leave the windows open despite the pouring rain. Or, more likely, run naked in a field, even if that means taking the risk of getting hit by lightning. That’s the spirit.
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Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22) All of the interesting astrology this weekend involves your sign and your planets, Mars and Pluto. Some of it is so enormous it’s spinning the world on its finger. Some of it is so personal that you feel like you’re in a burning building, or more accurately, like there’s a fire burning in your belly. Like most civilized people, you wonder if civilization would not come crashing down if you acted on your deepest needs and urges. The question is, how intellectual do you want to make this conversation? You can do your usual thing of analyzing till the passion ceases to exist (or at least until it’s safely contained); or you can take a ride on the Scorpio New Moon and be exactly the person that you are.
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Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20) In your personal mythology of relationship there is the partner you want, and the partner you want to be. Both are undergoing a revolution. It’s possible that someone currently active in your life is going along with this wave of progress, and it’s possible you’re figuring out that you need to move on. Either way, there remains the fact that your notion of what a relationship is and what it is for are evolving rapidly. This is so fundamental to your identity and sense of belonging on the planet that I suggest you honor it with every cell in your being. The trajectory of your life does not follow any fairy tale you were read as a child, or the disaster that your parents’ life may have been.
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Just want to say that “Beyond the Reactionary Floorshow” is a very fine piece of writing.
Thanks Eric for answering my question on the Part of Fortune! And will keep spreading the word! 🙂
The ascendant of any chart and thus the Part of Fortune (calculated using the ascendant) is strictly a local matter; but the Part of Fortune for the New Moon anywhere will always be the ascendant. In the New Moon chart for Kingston, the Aries Point is the degree rising and the Part of Fortune is there. Maybe this means that a lot of people are about to hear of Planet Waves and the great work we are doing.
Meanwhile, please spread the word – every bit helps and you never know who is going to pick up the signal you’re sending out.
on suicides at fort hood:
note: it seems 75 is a number being attributed either to a) suicides this year, or b) suicides since the invasion of Iraq
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(from http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23087)
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Fort Hood, located in central Texas, is one of the largest U.S. military bases in the world. It contains up to 50,000 soldiers, and is one of the most heavily deployed to both occupations.
Tragically, Fort Hood has also born much of the brunt from its heavy involvement in both occupations. Fort Hood soldiers have accounted for more suicides than any other Army post since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In this year alone, the base is averaging over 10 suicides each month – at least 75 have been recorded through July of this year alone.
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(from http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_212266295.shtml )
… Base personnel have accounted for more suicides than any other Army post since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, with 75 tallied through July of this year. Nine of those occurred in 2009, counting two in overseas war zones. …
Yes, the vision of Rushdoony is alive in some circles. I can imagine why politics appeals to those who buy this ideology: if you’re convinced your version of Jesus will be in charge when rapture comes, you want to be well placed to give him a hand.
However, “Loony Rushdoony” is moniker he’s well earned by both non-Christians and Christians alike. What Rushdoony and his family espouses is NOT Christian doctrine, but an idiosyncratic pseudo-propheteering that has appeals to people who live in fear.
I’m with Len for the most part: Rushdoony’s appeal will wane with the passing of Pluto’s influence on Saggitarian themes. However, his sort of theology will endure where ever reactionary fear and loathing substitutes for self-reflectiveness, curiosity, and open discussion. Forms of this theology have filtered into mainstream churches in watery versions of the original, but most Christians would not see themselves aligned with LR.
As Richard Tarnas points out, no matter how ugly we find these beliefs or how uncomfortable they make us feel, this hunger for religion –especially in it’s extreme forms– are a symptom of a larger problem: we have created a worldview that elevated the human “from a universe gradually voided of intrinsic meaning.” We live, according to Tarnas, in a “disenchanted” world.
Religion gives us rules to live with our fear and lostness in this disenchanted world…
Thank you, Eric for bringing clarity and acute awareness as well as a concrete proposal for action during a time when even the best of us are frequently bewildered and exhausted. Please, if i may offer a bit of grout to go between the tiles of your elegant terrazzo. While i agree with the characterization you cite from Richard Tarnas, as you yourself have so often pointed out, it’s not just the planets it’s the signs and (by implication) the houses involved. Given the lower octave, if you will, of Pluto in Capricorn, this particular part of the Saturn-Pluto cycle puts the established order behind the eight-ball. Therefore, in the long run, it is the degree to which an individual identifies with or is invested in the established order that will determine the degree of risk.
As for the Dominionists (or the, alternatively, the theonomy) my reading of Pluto moving out of Sag into Cap is that their salad days are behind them. Unless they can somehow adapt to enhance the flow of commerce as a first priority (assuming the mantle of biblical law only as a form of sheep’s clothing), they are on the way out.
The beseiged established order, in its desperation, is going to favor what’s good for business instead of any particular ideology.
As regards to what’s “next up” astrologically, tomorrow (Saturday, November 14th) Sun will trine Uranus, don’t underestimate this as a flow-in to The Square (first installment of the trilogy) and the Scorp New Moon. Also, BEFORE Mars goes retrograde, the first twenty days of December will see all the major planets and Chiron OUT of retrograde for the first time in several years. This will be a period worth examining before during and after.
Finally, please indulge a bit of synchronous ASTRONOMY: (1) On Sunday morning (November 15th) just before sunrise, the Moon and Venus will make their last appearance in the Eastern sky until late 2010. Venus, you see, is about to make a transit behind the Sun. Say good bye to the Morning Star, soon to be Arwen Evening Star once again. (2) In the dark, moonless pre-dawn hours of November 17th (next Tuesday), weather permitting, those of us in Western Europe and North America will once again be gifted with the annual Leonoid meteor shower. (3) A week ago a rock about 23 feet wide passed within 9,000. miles of earth, did you remember to wave?
Offered in service
Really interesting articles today Eric! Had no idea that the guy who’s behind the health care bill is part of some crazy society that wants to reconstruct the government into one run by the Christians and based on Christian doctrine. Pretty scary, but not surprising at all. Hasn’t this kind of government been done before….oh wait, it’s called a Theocracy! And thanks for the reminder that women have a constitutionally protected right to CHOOSE if an abortion is right for them – a lot of people seem to forget this (more like conveniently forget this).
Astrology question – looking at the Nov. 16 chart for the Scorpio New Moon, the Part of Fortune is on the Aries Point (which is also involved in the Saturn Square Pluto astrology). Does this have any significance/importance?
I found this today and thought it was a good concise explanation of the move by conservative Democrats and Republicans to forward their anti-abortion agenda (aka the Stupak Amendment):
An Amendment that Punishes Women
El Diario/La Prensa, Editorial, Staff, Posted: Nov 13, 2009
After trading off the rights and health of women, some Democrats are aiming to make changes to an anti abortion amendment during negotiations with the Senate. We urge the House and Senate to act as if women matter more than the narrow, conservative agenda trying to control personal health decisions.
Last weekend, the House voted through a bill to propel health care reform. While this represents a step forward in some respects, what it outrageous is how Republicans, along with conservative-leaning Democrats, are making health reform a hostage of the debate on abortion, as well as on immigration.
Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, the co-chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus, warned that the amendment included in the bill goes beyond a current ban of the use of federal funding for abortions.
“This amendment says that a woman cannot purchase coverage that includes abortion services using her own dollars… Her only option is to buy a separate insurance policy that covers only abortion -– a ridiculous and unworkable approach since no woman anticipates needing an abortion.”
For women who are poor, this measure is even more crushing. As is, one in four women living in poverty who want to choose abortion can’t because politicians prevent federal tax dollars from covering the procedure, according to the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
Democrats are focused on a political victory and indeed Republicans are aiming to use any divisive tactic to sabotage health care reform. But an amendment that undermines access to abortion, that disproportionately and adversely affects the health decisions of women is no victory.
We urge the House and the Senate to come to their senses. The idea here is reform, not stepping back into the dark and dangerous age of wire hangers and backroom abortions.
fluidity:
Following the progressive blogs, myself, there has been a steady drumbeat against Lou Dobbs by Presente.org, with its campaign of “Basta Dobbs”.
Heavyweight groups like MALDEF have been coming after Dobbs for years, but it feels as though momentum really shifted late summer and fall.
We knew axes were going after that big tree, we just didn’t know how long it was going to take to fall. Now we do.
I am reading his chart without the bias of “who he is.” He is working for HIS kind of social justice, which I say is exaggerated and delusional. I also say something I feel is more significant, which is that in my reading he is functioning independently rather than as an arm of a political party. That is different than Fox News.
Notably, he quit — he is subject to public pressure. That tells us something.
As for Fort Hood, the suicides are noteworthy – thanks for mentioning them. If you would be willing to provide us with additional information on that you may do so here.
a couple things you might have mentioned in your coverage of fort hood and also lou dobbs:
– i read there have been 10 suicides at fort hood, almost the same level of fatalities as the shootings … makes you think that perhaps the whole situation should be looked at, instead of just one guy
– lou dobbs had been targetted in a campaign from latinos to get him to resign, yet only in progressive reporting is this aspect to his resignation brought up at all …. i noticed right at the end you mentioned the onion saying he was deported to mexico, which alludes to his continued biased and untrue reporting on (hispanic) immigration, but it would be good to actually tell a bit of the story if you are going to report on this issue … also you say he was working for social justice – is that some kind of sick joke? just cause that’s what the stars/planets might lead you to believe doesn’t mean it’s actually true