The Woodstock Festival happened in the summer of 1969, under a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Libra, opposite the Aries Point. Though the festival is drowned in mythology and hype, there is a simple fact of what happened: half a million people hung out for three days, without a lot of food or water or modern conveniences, in an on-and-off rainstorm all weekend, and had a lot of fun. The experience came off without incident, the vibes were friendly and the music was amazing. It does seem quaint that people could get along under those conditions together, sharing what they had.
Maybe it’s the time of year, yes and maybe it’s the time of man.
And I’m not sure who I am but life is for learning.
JM
Carrie,
I generally agree with what you say and would add the following thoughts:
Money is an extraodinarily useful tool for creating change.
I have participated in conversations with “kids today” including my own wherein there is expressed desire to organize change by way of different – maybe safer – methods (vis-a-vis utilizing those electronic tools like the internet.)
It is my generic impression that many of the kids in high school and college today are “past” the “meme”generation – that is, ‘that’s old news’ and they are on to creating a new world while some of us parents are being left behind in the dust (nothing new about that).
There is much lethargy as well — and overall I encounter (in younger people) two sides of a spectrum, those with new ideas for change and those with no ideas for anything.
But is that different than ever? There are leaders – and then there are supporters of leaders. And then there are those that will complain about anything.
;=)
xo
Patty, you said, “Eric I don’t have the answers. I have wondered for some time why the young do not protest.”
I have thought about this for some time and I think it comes to several things.
1. the young these days don’t have to worry about being drafted into a war they don’t agree with
2. the parents of these “young people” grew up as witnesses that the front-man/outspoken group members always get/s killed: JFK, Robert Kennedy, MLK, Kent State, and so on. They became the over-protective so-called “helicopter parents” constantly hovering over their kids.
3. the past few decades have seen a huge rise in social thinking that is “me, me, me” and “every man for himself.”
4. kids today are bombarded with dumbed-down programming, electronic diversions and commercialism on a huge scale; they grew up being told that “he who dies with the most toys, wins,” and “I am spending my children’s inheritance.” Hyper-competitiveness, voting people off, ranking people in competitions have risen right along with the drugging of children for better attitude, performance and behavior (Ritalin etc).
A study was done that showed the difference between young people in the 60’s and young people now. When asked which was more important, money or making a difference in the world, more kids in the 60’s chose the latter and more kids now chose the former. The goals of life have changed from being a person who does good to being a person who has wealth.
The stage and backstage were secure. That went well. (Those are the clear, grassy areas you see — note the bridge over the walking path that connects two backstage areas.)
The perimeter fence was nonexistent; they never managed to build it, so it was a free concert. That went well, too. They knew they were going to make their money on legacy — films, records and so forth. The same thing happened for Woodstock 1994, in which I got to participate as a journalist. That was in Sauguries, close to Woodstock (Bethel is not – it’s about 75 miles away in the next county over.)
Half,
I’ve enjoyed your observations and comments today (and many times before). Thank you for putting so many of your wonderful insights here for the rest of us to share.
Seems to me that Woodstock represents those who have held a flame and a space in our culture for these “new” differently structured “tree houses” to grow and flourish.
While I suspect there is a certain amount of folklore mixed with fact on Wiki re: Woodstock, I like that in the blurb there mentions a fence that was cut down — another positive choice of the many along the way that no doubt helped to make the event what it was – and symbolically potent.
“Free concert
The late change in venue did not give the festival organizers enough time to prepare. At a meeting three days before the event organizers felt they had two choices. One option was to improve the fencing and security which might have resulted in violence, the other involved putting all their resources into completing the stage which would cause Woodstock Ventures to take a financial hit. The crowd which was arriving in greater numbers and earlier than anticipated made the decision for them. The fence was cut the night before the concert.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock_Festival
As I muse at the picture Eric posted, I wonder if that green area fenced in around the stage area is the one that was cut down. Yes or no, the photo has wonderful impact.
Del Witos, you have a capacity for language, for ideas and you have an imagination…you would be a natural at astrology. You will DIG the circular format of the language.
Regarding organic, that’s partly why Planet Waves is fortified in equal measures with art, nature, naked, pleasure, music, politics, words, pictures, tarot, planets, science, lust — holos
Eric, thanks for the expansion. What you say resonates with my own observations thus far and also with my experience, vision and recent exertions in my work setting.
This Plutonian thwack is of great interest to me. My feeling has been growing steadily around the brittle nature of our Western cultural edifice and the ripeness of the times for replacing this with something much more organic. I suppose the vision would be (as a metaphor) replacing a bricks and mortar house with a tree house. Currently, dead structures, machinations of control freaks, increasingly constrain our life force. The pulse, barely traceable, must wax strong again in a living, thriving global ecosystem. People must rediscover their essential connectivity, beyond USB cabling.
I like the Chiron retrograde into Aquarius observation and its healing aspect to the Neptunian influences. I must say that my brief excursion into astrology is already whetting my appetite for more. There is some interesting stuff afoot! Frontier here we come.
😉
I’ll drink to that…..and I appreciate the diversity of ideas on these pages. Eric, You ARE a rock concert!
Eric, I am referring to these links heading each blog post:
Published by Eric Francis at 10:00 pm under Daily Astrology |
== that is a CATEGORY listing. I think that all posts have that, which pretty much makes it useless. We can reconsider that, I think….
Patty,
My colleagues and I are brewing up spirit all the time, and posting it to blogs and astrological products. We make these available to a wide and diverse audience at affordable prices; and many things are offered free of charge for those who don’t have cash or who are just getting acquainted. All of us stay available (listed phone numbers, rapid replies to emails and messages, live help) because we want you to know that it’s only disguised as a product — that we and it are real.
We are not strictly purveyors of “information” at Planet Waves. We are providing ideas, an environment, imagery, a community and — following the play- rather planets — a steady rhythm that progress can follow.
e
Half – That change of Chiron to Pisces did something to everyone – like they wanted to burn down every BP station in the land. I suspect we will see more movement in 2011.
Half – haha. sanitized society maybe. If you met my spouse you’d laugh at the idea of he being repulsed by mud. He actually enjoyed Viet Nam, for the crawling in mud. As my mom always said, there’s no accounting for taste.
I was merely thinking that Charles was having a moment of angst, much like my husband has been having these last few years, regretting the people he killed. I don’t think we are sanitized at all, are we? Therein lies the problem pehaps? If only we could sanitize more wholly (holy).
Eric I don’t have the answers. I have wondered for some time why the young do not protest. I don’t disagree with anything that you or Half said, but clearly we have a long way to go.
Eat Pray Spend was on the news tonight. If we could only go to the grocery and purchase spirit in a bottle that isn’t a beverage.
Heff Du Wit — YES this is all about re-evaluation. Jupiter and Uranus in Aries have been a glimpse at the future, an experiment, a test run. The next two conjunctions take place in late Pisces, a fertile, creative laboratory / art studio / imagination salon. You will see clues about this woven into my horoscopes for many months. So yes we are in a creative review and revisioning phase now. This holds true for Chiron retrograding back into Aquarius, making a very close conjunction to Neptune — more Pisces symbolism by the way.
This happens as Saturn squares Pluto, revealing some fracture in the known order — something that makes it obvious we have to try something new; giving us a reason to be creative and inventive and visionary.
(When the collective are confused/deceived innovation struggles to find its locus there and we are at the mercy of individualism.) — this is a complex thought but from what I gather, I can say that the Pisces/Aries line is THE very fertile territory of the Aries Point. Not its, um, replicas over in Libra, etc. but the thing itself — the meeting of the true energy of collectivism (Pisces) with the true expression of individuality (Aries).
Fill in the planetary players involved — Jup/Uran and Chi/Nep and you can start to play with the story in different ways, and try different potential outcomes and ideas that might lead us/you there.
I feel moved to ask the question about whether innovation begins in the heart/mind/body primarily of the individual or within the connected collective. When the collective are confused/deceived innovation struggles to find its locus there and we are at the mercy of individualism.
Has Uranus not just retrograded into Pisces a while? Maybe this very green astrological novice may be mistaken in spotting the potential for this retrograde to provide precisely the space needed to re-evaluate and gird the collective loins, ready for action on terra firma once Uranus does its next volte face??
One Half De Witte, with knees knocking at his first public astrological interpretation, asking for mercy in advance!!
I believe it was in the book Hyperion that the capitalist powers of the Earth become a galactic hegemony. As part of their plan to dominate existence, they crash a mini black hole into the Earth and destroy the original planet, creating instead a variety of replica worlds. You get taken to some of these — imagine yourself roaming through an identical copy of New York City or Paris devoid of people, of activity, of living culture – just a place, and one (geographically) nowhere near the original.
I feel this way in a lot of cities I visit. They are facades. The downtown areas are dead; they same 20 chains have stores along the same wide avenue. You could open your eyes and be anywhere. After a while European cities started to feel like this, the tourist part of town — they had this way of creating a cliche of “European culture” in nearly every city.
We have come to the point where Coca Cola recently did a special thing — “Made with REAL sugar — limited time only.”
There seems to be a problem with the “daily astrology” link– it omits this post ? , which is — btw, very good..
=== it’s not a link, just bold text…ef
Patty, I think it’s fair to suggest that we live in a grossly sanitized society – whether it is menstrual blood or sweaty bodies or faeces that we feel it’s a sin to come into contact with. Levitical purity laws are alive and well in our collective psyche in 2010. Meanwhile, our ‘civilized’ society bathes in ignorance.
If folk could touch the roots their ancestors understood to be truly visceral, we might find more compassion supplies. Airbrushing is a modern phenomenon – it just isn’t true to what we ‘are’ – unless we finally succeed in counterfeiting every natural thing in existence with a soulless clone.
Well, Patty, what would that look like?
I’ve said a lot about Burning Man, which is subjected to parody and misunderstanding and lots of people who ‘want to go’ — that is the modern cultural equivalent…
In other words, we have talked Woodstock to death. Time for a new life changing event.
Hey Charles, I think it’s saturn.
My spouse was at Woodstock and spoke ne’er a negative word until about a week ago, and said everyone was filthy and drugs were everywhere. he clearly disdained it. All I could think was how I felt like a captive audience to watching re-runs every freaking year. I mean we watched everything to do with Woodstock, bought all the albums, etc.
Saturn in Libra – means take off the rose colored glasses, and don’t leave home without hair and lipstick. Libra is realistic, yet always the gracious host, and rarely offensive. She would never allow guests to sleep in the mud.
Len Eric Half,
I raise my lit-Bic in solidarity and communion.
xo
Eric and Half-
Thank you both for hitting upon a very important point.
Where or when ever two or more people gather with common intent (“In his name” or otherwise) powerful things happen. To witness the phenomenon is to witness a miracle. To discourage this from happening is one of the ways the established order is digging in its heels in a vain attempt to put off or exert control over the course of events concurrent with Pluto in Capricorn. Revising or twisting the history of events such as Woodstock is one of the methods being used by the stablished order in an absurd attempt to stop the rising tide.
It would be simply absurd if not for the damage being done.
In fact Woodstock changed things. It exemplified what is possible and it was indeed a public meeting. As Michael Lang, the organizer of the event, said in a Planet Waves interview earlier this year, everyone had the Vietnam war on their minds. So yes, the mass gathering is inherently seditious, as is any form of speech that reaches people. It’s so intuitive that it’s environmental, verging on invisible, like air. Yet until there is a gathering — a meeting, a march, a protest, anything — collective energy doesn’t gather. We have a problem today in that most of those who are attempting to work for social justice are working at their desks, many refusing to show their faces or give their names, and meet one another face to face, much less confront their adversaries. There is little or no personal risk involved. I think the results, as we’re seeing, are commensurate.
It is interesting that all fascist regimes suppress public meetings – from the oligarchy’s perspective they represent the quintessence of sedition. From the people’s vantage point they constitute the means by which alternatives become possible, lies that divide get busted, people get the basic human contact and solidarity that keeps things real.
When people meet on such a scale it is what they have in common rather than what differentiates that becomes prominent. When we bring this energy of the people into the light it frightens some people. When people get together around a shared experience they usually start talking; things might change – how scary is that?
No one incident or two incidents within a universe makes an event what it is and memory is always selective. In 1999, a thing called Woodstock degraded into public rape, looting and riots — intentional acts of harm that snowballed into a mob mentality.
So much happened in 1969 that no one event can really characterize it. We had the Moon landing and we had Manson doing his thing. There was Woodstock and later that summer at Altamont, where someone was stabbed in the midst of what was a violent, dark, bad vibes scene. The vibes were so bad before the concert that the Grateful Dead’s drummers refused to play the show, and as a result the band didn’t take part.
So, Woodstock. In any crowd of 500,000 you expect there to be something that goes wrong for some people. So, as I think most people understand, by describing Woodstock 1969 as without incident I mean on the scale of the event. On an individual scale, sure, some people took the brown acid. Somebody’s boyfriend fucked someone else and someone was devastated. There were a few arrests. Three people died and a bunch of kids were born. I was at Woodstock 1994 and they had a court on premises to have hearings and trials where the Saugerties, NY judges presided. But even 1994 was basically a calm non-event — it rained and kept everyone cool.
I think the fact that you would look back at Woodstock 1969 and associate it with the few people who died tells us something about the times that we are in: a hyper-focus on the negative (except for how fabulously well Afghanistan is going), take the thing that does not exemplify history and enlarge it to the point of nullifying history (the New York Times editors wanted that, and the writer refused to comply), and then forget what actually happened, which is that in a scene where you have 500,000 raised to the second power number of relationships between individuals — and no food left by Saturday morning or so and no Starbucks and no cell phones or iPhones or showers and very little water and everyone exhausted from travel — people hang out and take care of one another.
Kids were born and people set themselves free and many, many things happened: but the holos, the total experience on a planetary scale — well, it was what it was, and it wasn’t Kent State (1970).
In any era we have the question of what events exemplify that time in history. I would say that when something different happens, that’s something to consider as an example. Woodstock was different. The Moon landing was different. Manson was a plagiarist.
Charles, I don’t see how anyone can look back at any event without rose tinted spectacles. The fact that folk extract salient themes, in general terms, to raise provocative thoughts does not seem to misrepresent “what happened”. Lots happened, and we don’t see, record or relay all of it. Sometimes the broad brush strokes are more interesting than the aggregate of minute details.
Given that any description of any event is intrinsically reductionist, tell us some bad stuff about Altamont, or tell us some stuff about an equivalent 60s milestone event outside the USA.
We are all selective. All emphasis distorts, but it doesn’t necessarily falsify!
I don’t know of anyone who got run over by a tractor while sleeping in a field in the middle of any city of half a million people.
It is not so simple as you suggest. I get tired of hearing these Polyanna stories of the idyllic Woodstock moment in history. I guess it is convenient to forget the bad scenes. And there were many, even if you refuse to admit it. Personally, I find Altamont to be the defining moment of the sixties hippie generation.
Well, Charles, I haven’t talked to them recently, so I don’t know how they feel about having died. Maybe it was the most amazing place to leave the planet. In any city of half a million, a few people will die over any weekend.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJWxPE8G2c
Apparently you have an unusual definition of “without incident.” Your definition would probably not be shared by the 3 people who died at Woodstock.