Where Outsiders Belong

by Dale O’Brien

Dear Kindred Spirits,

Dear Prudence, greet the brand-new day!
The Sun is up, the sky is blue,
It’s beautiful, and so are you!
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?
…The birds will sing that you are part of everything…
Look around, ‘round … (Lennon/McCartney)

Do you, like me, ever feel like you don’t belong in this ever-increasingly insane, intolerant, wickedly cruel and violently destructive society? We all need to belong to something bigger than ourselves, but we can’t belong to any group unless that group accepts each of us as who we are.

The voice that astrology calls Saturn is the ‘bouncer’ at the door who won’t let anyone in who isn’t acceptable according to his rules. That bouncer Saturn also throws out anyone inside who doesn’t accept and obey Saturn’s rules. So where does that leave someone like you or me? Saturn’s rejection leaves us outside, but that’s not a bad place to be.

Everything orbiting beyond Saturn is invisible to the naked eye. In astrology these objects are called ‘outer planets’, and each corresponds in different ways to the ‘outsider’ part of each of us. The first object out from Saturn is Chiron, whose multifaceted mythic story tells us where unseen and unacceptable outsiders belong.

As astrology’s and Greco-Roman mythology’s first Divine/animal hybrid, Chiron, unwanted bastard son of Saturn, does not fit neatly into any ‘either/or’ judgment. Unlike most of astrology’s mythological high-and-mighty Olympian V.I.P.s, Chiron was said to live simply and humbly outside in Nature in the last Greek stronghold region of shamanism — ‘wild’ even into the twentieth century.

Cultural anthropologist Robinette Kennedy, during one of her Trance Postures experiential workshops, said that various peoples around the world lived in tribal and shamanistic communities for at least 25,000 years, if not perhaps ten times that long. Even the most conservative time estimate of the length of the shamanistic era is far longer than ‘civilization’s’ recorded history. In tribal/shamanic/indigenous cultures, ‘Ch-ironically’, everyone and everything in Nature was seen as related to everyone and everything else. Everyone and everything had a unique role to play. Clearly, holism and ecology are nothing new!

The wise purveyor of such truths was the shaman (male or female) who lived just outside the community, even closer to Nature than other members of the tribe. Of course the shaman healer-and-more played an essential role in such a culture. Similarly, at the other end of the modern spectrum of experience, any apparent ‘victim’ of illness or wounding was considered to be playing out a role for the tribe. However, in original holistic communities, each member of the tribe and all species nearby were also involved in the wounding and healing process.

A shaman was often chosen for the role by virtue of being remarkably different — an outsider. For instance, such a person might be physically lame, blind, what would now be called epileptic, etc. What modern people now see as disabilities would then have been seen as indicators of shamanic abilities. The shaman-in-training then apprenticed with an elder shaman, significantly apart from their ordinary peers. Shamans were extreme outsiders, and yet (Ch)ironically absolutely and essentially belonged to the community.

In our current era, most of what passes for Western astrology is the astrology of empires — Greek, Roman, British and American — since the astrology of vanquished indigenous peoples is all but eradicated, thrown out. Not only do the victors write ‘we’re the good guys’ history, similarly their Saturnine astrologers tend to, albeit unintentionally, leave a lot out — like the true shamanic perspective.

When Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he said, “It would be a good idea.” Similarly, in his best-selling book, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess (The Conflict Between Word and Image), author Leonard Shlain reveals that historically modern literate cultures are far more violent and intolerant than those Nature-based cultures before them.

When a male Inuit shaman went inside into imaginative shamanic initiation, a fierce force tore his body apart; but then the same creature, now a Spirit helper, put him back together. Dismemberment — devastating, messy, extremely painful and ‘un-together’ — is followed by re-membering. The shaman returned to Nature outside even more fully aware and present.

Now more than ever, society could benefit from its outsiders, but we outsiders need to ‘re-member’ who we are, to get ourselves together and to know where our souls belong — outdoors! Those outdoors are waiting for us to interact with them, and them with us. Centaur Chiron was/is part humanoid god, but half horse. This tells us that, ideally, we outsiders need to spend half our lives in our animal bodies outdoors. Hardly any of us do that right now, but that’s where we outsiders belong as close to half the time as possible.

Imagine a horse in a windowless cubicle, hooves clicking little bits of unnatural man-made stuff. Most of what passes for modern life and work are truly unnatural acts.

Now imagine you work for minimum wage in a windowless Amazon warehouse for some billionaire who doesn’t know or care who you are. You feel like you need to piss like a racehorse, but Bouncer Saturn says that you can’t take a bathroom break anytime your body wants to. Don’t even think about pissing on the floor. He’d throw you out in a heartbeat for that. The bouncer serves a heartless, soulless, body-less corporate person.

There are other shut-ins elsewhere who are waiting hours or even days inside their boxes for Amazon boxes to arrive. Other workers are waiting to get into this country and into a warehouse. Can’t you see that modern America is the ‘in’ place to be?

An apartment is the place where you live ‘apart’, and you do your part, obeying Saturn’s ‘thou shalt and thou shalt not’, rules. Not only are your ‘belong-ings’ locked up in your ‘apart-ment’, but you may also find that your longing to be is locked inside as well.

You Can Go Where You Can Use Your Outside Voice

The Outsider’s power is strongest outdoors. Outside, Nature has us surrounded. If you surrender to Her, everyone wins. Besides, we human animals don’t thrive or breed well in captivity. Right now is always an opportunity to come out in any way that you choose. For instance, you can come out of the closet and be where you belong. Join the Gay Pride parade outdoors. The most powerful shamans were gay or at least contra-sexual.

Gay or nay, please come out and protest fracking and other atrocities against Nature. Hooves-clicking email petitions just ain’t enough. Occupy outside Wall Street while greedy insider trading goes on inside. Meanwhile, outsider trading is exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen, a ‘win-win’ equation.

If you can, shop at an outdoor farmers’ market. Remember, the best vegetables and fruit are outsiders. You are what you eat. How free can you really be if your pork, beef and chicken never lived free range outside? Did you know that studies show that more ‘strangers’ have far more conversations with each other at outdoor farmers’ markets than indoor supermarkets?

Are you disgusted and let down by ‘humans’? Get an equally rejected dog and go walking together outside, every day. Maybe you’ll go to a dog park and make friends as your dog does, too. Free your blessed-be body from the tortured gerbil treadmill and walk or run outside, no matter what the weather. Nature charges no monetary fees.

Eat lunch outside. Twitter less and listen to real, three-dimensional birds actually twitter instead. If you have a willing lover, hold hands, kiss, and maybe make love outdoors.

When you wait for public transportation, you can observe nature around. That dog’s wagging tail or squirrel’s swishing tail is just one way that Gaia-Pachamama-Mother Earth ‘planet waves’ at you. You’ll never notice or really appreciate this while you text or ‘serf’ the net, ears plugged with cyber-Borg ‘blue tooth’ biting your head. Maybe you can ride a skateboard, bike, or ‘iron horse’ or drop the ragtop on that old convertible. If you must drive a cage, can you dare to drive with your car windows open?

When you must be inside, you can at least look out your window onto Nature. Open windows if you can. You might try to get another job and/or another place to live if you don’t even have a window to look out into Nature.

If your skin is brown like the color of fertile Earth and you are locked up in a windowless cell for having a little bit of a natural herb in your possession, may the Angel of Dreams bring you oh-so-real dreams of Nature.

Even with window views of Nature, I’ve spent enough time inside writing this, so now I’m headed outside where I belong.

Chironically,

Dale

Since 1991, Dale O’Brien has been a full-time Nature-based mythic astrologer and Certified Astro*Carto*Graphy Interpreter. Dale is available for consultation by phone or in person from his sky-lit, windowed yurt office in ‘green’ Eugene, Oregon.
Phone:541-485-9772
chironguy@pacinfo.com
www.chironsouljourneytruth.com/