Note, McNamara’s noon chart is below. Bonus points if anyone comes up with the time of birth –В I have not looked, though someone must have dug out his data in the Sixties when he was somebody special. I’ve added some comments in the comments area below the chart. -efc
Dear Friend and Reader:
The interesting times continue. We can be sure that there was an eclipse Tuesday because that was the day of Michael Jackson’s funeral. Eclipses are events involving the lunar nodes and this demonstrates their property of mass public contact.
The Aries Point has a similar feeling, and this eclipse — stretching across the middle of the cardinal signs Cancer and Capricorn — definitely counted. As I mentioned, this eclipse was across the ascendant/descendant (1st/7th houses) of the Thema Mundi — the chart of the world. For those looking for some clues about the effects of astrology in real life, this is the perfect demonstration. Do we really think that the Jackson family consulted an astrologer and held the memorial a couple of hours after the exact eclipse? As Jehovah’s Witnesses you can be sure they would not go near an astrologer or astrology. But that does not exempt them from participating in the cosmic order.
As we mentioned in an article by Judith Gayle yesterday, a man named Robert S. McNamara died Monday. He was the architect of the Vietnam War, a ‘good American’ responsible for the deaths of millions. His name is no longer a household word, but some of us remember. Here is a very long New York Times obiturary, written years before his death in the tradition of the Times, well worth investigating. I also highly suggest getting The Fog of War from Netflix. This won an academy award for best documentary and it’s little other than in interview with McNamara, about his decisions during the Vietnam-era and how he feels about them today.
I’ve posted his noon chart below, scroll down a bit. We don’t kow the exact Moon or ascendant because we don’t have a birth time, but noon charts work pretty good for very prominent people. The first thing that leaps out of this chart is his Ceres-Pluto conjunction (exact that entire day), which brings a planet associated with the grief of mothers into contact with Pluto, the lord of death.
Given his tendency toward obsessive bureaucracy I think that the Virgo Moon is likely, particularly opposite Eris, which under certain circumstances, such as war, comes with all kinds of strife and conflict. Even without the Moon present in the alignment, McNamara is old enough to have Eris in Pisces (nearly everyone alive today has Eris in Aries) and he has Chiron conjunct Eris. This is my first time looking at Chiron-Eris in Pisces, and I need to give it some time to have an opinion about it; except to say that in this case it belongs to Robert McNamara.
Note how much Cancer he has in his chart. He has a Gemini Sun and Mercury — followed by five points in Cancer. Also note how the July 21 total solar eclipse falls precisely on his lunar nodes — to the degree, the last degrees of Cancer/Capricorn (the eclipse is in the last degree of Cancer).
This is a truly important chart and one that we need to come back to. I say this not only because Vietnam was a futile war based on nothing but lies that took millions of lives, 58,000 of them being American men and women. I say it because in our own era, we refused to get the lesson, and allowed our leaders to do the same thing in Iraq that we did in Vietnam a generation earlier.
That karma belongs to the United States government and it belongs to us. We all knew better. To my readers in the mid-2000s who sent me the closest equivalent of hate mail that I get for opposing the invasion of Iraq: take a gander through the life story of Mr. McNamara, and the consequences of his actions, and ask yourself if you really can see through the fog of war. American society is built on the stuff. Very few people can see it for what it is. I wonder what it will take.
Eric Francis
PS, here is a short story: at the time of the Iraq invasion, I was taking so much heat for being opposed the war that I askd Judith Gayle to take over that part of my job. She might not agree that she has a thicker skin than I do, but there was no way I could be your astrologer and come under attack from my readers for opposing war (something that Yasmin Boland has told me happened to her as well.) So we made that a ‘different’ project, with about 10x the editorial output than I was capable of and a much sharper, clearer point of view. We who call ourselves spiritual need to invest this into politics and the affairs of government as well, or we’re fooling ourselves. Thank you Judith.
Nance avers: “Ten Senses image – great snakes! sexual healing comes up for me.”
Cool… I had forgotten about the snakeygirls. I used this image about 15 years ago to lead out my masters colloquium – a presentation called Subtle Body/Naked Mind: Remembering the Senses. At that point I knew that artmaking was a key to activating these other five. Now I have learned another set of tricks that I am intent on disseminating as fast, as broadly as possible.
Oh, an odd aside: we have a housesnake named Sophia – a five foot royal python. She has lately taken up some new habits. When the energy gets interesting around here, she does what I call her “Quetzalcoatl dance” – climbing as high as possible, and hurling herself onto the nearest soft thing (sometimes me). This has taken some getting used to, but it’s all quite loving. . .
M
Ten Senses image – great snakes! sexual healing comes up for me.
Patty writes:
>>It isn’t just the US karma, it is a worldwide people problem, so don’t make the mistake of blaming one group or another. <>Realizing we are all in it as an undivided �one’ is where the healing can begin. Slavery still exists today, bigger and better than ever!<<
As you reminded me this morning! interesting response to the Ten Senses image. I am pondering it. . .
>>Mystes – I slept all night with no pain. This is important because I am on the verge of needing a hip replacement. Will see what happens.<<
The image of the left-footed buddha includes what descends on her left, what ascends on the right side of her body. When I went to see our ancestor Lucy (with my kiddo) last year, when we saw that her left thighbone had a tiny, topaz-colored diamond growing out of the bottom of the bone, I wept.
So now the song goes: Lucy with the thigh in diamonds… (doodoodedootdoot) .
Smoochies a tous,
M
Patty writes:
>>It isn’t just the US karma, it is a worldwide people problem, so don’t make the mistake of blaming one group or another. <>Realizing we are all in it as an undivided �one’ is where the healing can begin. Slavery still exists today, bigger and better than ever!<<
As you reminded me this morning! interesting response to the href=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3660/3705657071_111ea62212_b.jpg”>Ten Senses image. I am pondering it. . .
>>Mystes – I slept all night with no pain. This is important because I am on the verge of needing a hip replacement. Will see what happens.<<
The image of the left-footed buddha includes what descends on her left, what ascends on the right side of her body. When I went to see our ancestor Lucy (with my kiddo) last year, when we saw that her left thighbone had a tiny, topaz-colored diamond growing out of the bottom of the bone, I wept.
So now the song goes: Lucy with the thigh in diamonds… (doodoodedootdoot) .
Smoochies a tous,
M
It isn’t just the US karma, it is a worldwide people problem, so don’t make the mistake of blaming one group or another. Realizing we are all in it as an undivided ‘one’ is where the healing can begin. Slavery still exists today, bigger and better than ever!
Mystes – I slept all night with no pain. This is important because I am on the verge of needing a hip replacement. Will see what happens.
From another woman with left hip pain/issues (which have become persistent over the past year)… this thread has been very interesting. Thanks for all the insights.
Ripples is a good word to express what I’ve felt, too. These deaths (& the various media coverage) have an other-worldly cast to me. It’s as if we’re seeing mirrors reflecting back to us various aspects of ourselves we’ve disowned. I know…not an especially original line of thought, but it seems so obvious to me it’s almost comical. Will we take the opportunities presented? If we don’t, how intense will the next ones be? I’ve never felt the sense of urgency I feel now.
Eric, I was around here during the Iraq invasion and had no idea how much flak you were taking. Amazing…this was one of the few places where I felt some sanity during a frighteningly insane time. I remember seeing the news coverage of Congress, especially, and I was blinking and shaking my head a lot — “why doesn’t anyone GET this?? what are they thinking?” does no one remember Vietnam? cui bono…the arms manufacturers (and their representatives), as usual” *sigh* Cheers to JG for stepping in. Thank you.
The U.S. has so much karma to burn through…from the time Europeans first landed. Vietnam/Iraq are just the more recent examples. We still haven’t even begun to address the massacre and cheating of the people who were living here prior to the Europeans. And then there’s slavery. And then…well, we all know there’s more. Layers of it. Lots of opportunity for learning and growth, if we take it.
thanks for sharing the posture of royal ease, Mystes.
and food for thought on past life sexual abuse, Patty. This life, not so much.
My Mom has had both hips and one knee replaced. My Dad had a hip replaced in his 40’s. Could be root chakra issues as well; consciousness of lack, victim consciousness, etc. I practice a lot of root chakra connection to the earth’s gravitational core. Without this grounding, I tend to revert into family patterns of anxiety/fear.
Patty… there are lots of buddhas in hundreds of postures. One of my faves is Green Tara’s ‘posture of royal ease. . . ‘
(This is Rebiya Kadeer, a buddha who is leading the Uighur independence movement. The Iranians aren’t the only ones throwing a Revolution this summer.)
My son says the Chinese have a disproportionate number of hip replacements, proof they work their asses off.
Other pelvic tilt problems are caused by the emotional reaction to sexual abuse or rape. The Buddha posture makes most sense!
Yes, tailbone reaching down does tilt the pelvis to what feels more ‘neutral’. Makes me engage my abs which will probably help my low back.
I got in a ‘stuck place’ during the pushing part of childbirth and someone told me to try tilting my pelvis more forward and it shifted the whole process.
As for abuse, can one be sensitive and not feel abused by this lifetime?
Patty writes:
…Mystes and Nance, The spiritual healer who treated me several years ago said that a tilted pelvis (usually what causes hip replacement in the end) is the result of abuse, either present life or past life….
Reminds me. It was suggested that I mention that another person might reach in and find the coccyx, tug it down toward the earth. I know this is getting a bit complicated, but where the coccyx goes, the pelvic girdle rotates from there. Tilting can often be coaxed back to a more flexible roundness in this way.
Thanks Mystes! Listening with my left hip, receiving with my left ovary.
After doing the pose standing, I feel energy moving in my sacrum.
Practice, breathe, practice…
Mystes, I just tried the standing position and it worked!
Have we been screaming for centuries, or what?! I like the vision of stepping on the corpse – and I think it is my own body, from a dead past.
Mystes and Nance, The spiritual healer who treated me several years ago said that a tilted pelvis (usually what causes hip replacement in the end) is the result of abuse, either present life or past life.
Nance, Patty and other hiphuggers,
Also the hip rocking rocks! I too have left hip pain (what’s with the left hip pattern here?) I love the gentle massage effect. Aaaah! I am adding it to my practice.
Many women do, especially of a particular inner lineage.
Three points: 1) The buddha stands on her left foot, toes tacking down the point at which fear transforms into inviolable, perfecting wisdom. Not perfect, *perfecting.* This is personified as a smiling corpse under her toes. The other foot is cocked up, heel pointing toward her sex, in pretty much the vertical version of the exercise I just gave. (Pull the heel higher, wrap both arms around it and rock gently. )
2) Her consort (elsewhere depicted) is shown as sitting in full lotus, holding a bell representing pure cognition at his left hip. He is in charge of the sense power of hearing, and what is he listening through? The left side of his pelvic girdle.
3) His color is white due to the fact that his skin is dusted with bone powder. This indicates the inside-out nature of the sound at his hipbone. You need to attend to the spot where hearing/speaking fold through one another. That spot, located in the physical body, is at the hip joint.
This is the short (very, very short) form of the Eastern Gate teaching in Tantra for Bobos. Don’t worry, Bobos, this doesn’t even feather the surface. Watch your voice as it rises from that spot. See if you can talk your lovers, or touch-monkey friends into dropping their voices into that offering cup. Pressure should ease pretty much immediately.
Shedding sound as I go…
M
Mystes!
Thanks for your perspective on the warped and unraveling matter matrix. No wonder!
Also the hip rocking rocks! I too have left hip pain (what’s with the left hip pattern here?) I love the gentle massage effect. Aaaah! I am adding it to my practice.
Also, I don’t think my Mom would mind if I shared this email – this is her response to Judith’s article on McNamara (She’s 79, Aquarian):
Dear Nan,
I think this author is much too hard on McNamara. Early on he was caught up in the thinking of the time, the domino theory, that if Viet Nam fell to the communists, everyone in the area would follow. I thought it was ludicrous then, as I do now. McNamara later acknowledged his errors in thinking, a thing that few ever do. Do you ever suppose we will hear W saying it was a mistake to attack Iraq? I doubt it. I was even more horrified when the Congress followed Mr. Bush blindly into this war, but once again everyone was caught up in the mentality that we must “get” the guys responsible for 911. They kept playing the fear card, and the instruments of mass destruction I was so sickened by it all, the war coming right after your Dad died. A nation has a right to defend itself, but a preemptory strike? At least the Vatican condemned it, and Obama was one of the few who voted against Bush’s war. We think we are so civilized, but it often looks to me that we have barely a toe nail out of the jungle. As a nation we have engaged in torture, holding individuals without a charge or opportunity to defend themselves, and we consider ourselves perhaps the greatest nation on the planet. Stop the world, I want to get off. Love ya, Ma
Mystes – I used to do Yoga and always felt good. I’ll see what I can do with what you’ve said here.
The energy here is crazy too. Lots of glowing commendations at work – crazy because I thought for sure they were ready to terminate my employment. What do they like? “Finally, we can be friendly to new employees and make them feel welcome.” I’m like, you need permission to be friendly?
fontanelle33… Let me think on this a bit.
First couple of hours out of retreat, and I’ve spent much of the day watching the rhythm of this planet. Things are unraveling – and I am not speaking personally or projecting. I am saying that the physical matrix that we are walking around in is in the process of letting go. We’ve warped this baby ’bout as tight as she’ll go, and I can feel that the underweaving has blown.
So (Nance…) you can’t be surprised when people around you start acting like the Three Stooges on crack. We are in the middle of a giant heat wave here in Texas, but it isn’t just heat. There is something more pervasive –and not at all malicious– about this energy.
Myself, I’m rather enjoying it.
Just watch.
Bye-bye Mr. Macnamara. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Patty!
…Mystes, can you heal my left hip please while you are at it? if you have an abracadabra move for me, I’d sure appreciate it….
Pretty funny, doll… As you know, I came out of a three day retreat this afternoon – and was *just* talking w/ my kid about the fact that I didn’t “use” anything to help my hips or knees. No EPAs, no flax seed, no hormones, no ibuprofen – nada. Since about 2004 I’ve had to use pretty serious supports to get through the practice cycles. Sitting in various asanas (yoga postures) for up to 3 hours a time can blow your joints.
The difference may be that I have stumbled across a series of ‘poses’ of one of the female buddhas, but set them into motion. A couple are extremely simple, but they seem to be reactivating the enzymatic production in and around the hip joint. Like yours, my left is particularly vulnerable. And there was also something in this last retreat about working core strength (tummy) in order to potentiate some hip healing.
Short form:: get a thick cushion on the floor, extending your right leg and lifting it a few inches from the floor, take your left heel in your hand and pull it as close to your opposite pelvic bone as you can while like balancing on your tushie. You’ll look kind of like a bow & arrow. Point your other toe and gently use that extended leg to rock back and forth, while putting gentle pressure on your heel to keep it up near your pelvis. Switch legs while still in that funny flattened-V shape (shoulders and legs are NOT on the floor).
Gently, Pat. I did this every 3 or 4 hours (and some other stretching stuff too). There were processes that simply would not move to the next level unless my body was *way* in there – flexible, happy, rested, charged, clear.
I was diagnosed with RA a few years ago, but have managed to stop the degeneration and reverse the loss of cartilage. Bodies are built to last a *lot* longer than we realize. But only if you live exactly one life at a time (not the 4 – 6 most of us are trying to live).
My last post was a little off subject, I neglected to make some connections –
Ripples are feeling more like shock waves. All these public deaths are impacting the collective in lots of ways – we’ll probably feel the full effect after the dust settles.
Seems like all of the deaths are bringing up the past and past issues we have as a collective. That baggage seems to be weighing on me personally, not sure if anyone else feels it.
And yes, Thank You Judith! There IS something positive that came out of the Iraq war.
Ripples indeed. So what’s the feel for others around this eclipse? So far, I’ve had
a busy Monday,
a fight with my husband leading to very little sleep that night,
a hectic non-stop Tuesday
I backed myself out of a corner I had painted myself into,
which released me from an obligation that wasn’t true to my inner nature,
but has implications around $,
many ponderings about justice,
a fight with my extended family over winter travel plans,
more ponderings about justice, rightousness, control freaks, and attachment,
and general intensity…
today was better, but still intense.
Feels like a pressure cooker, even with awareness.
Mystes, please talk more about the narrowing tunnel. Can you explain it in simple terms ten thousand ways? I love your talk.
Eric –
The word you are looking for might be “amoral” or just plain “immoral”. What folks in Great Britain must have thought when the guy (Wernher von Braun) who was responsible for the German V2 rocket was put in charge of making rockets for the United States. That fits your “see what happens” definition very well because it actually DID happen. Shoot some rockets at England and see what happens. Real smart fellow. No morals at all. Turned into a hero right here in the U. S. of A.
Mystes-
You have a good point. For several thousand years the institution of patriarchy has offended the Goddess and legitimized what amounts to theft, making the world a safe place for men like McNamara and von Braun. As for myself, i do my best to listen, and see and feel and incidentally, serve the cause of healing.
Working towards balance,
-Len Wallick
Mystes, can you heal my left hip please while you are at it? if you have an abracadabra move for me, I’d sure appreciate it.
Len, baby… it doesn’t take mathematical “skill” to do the calculus for destroying things – it just takes being planted in your body backwards and upside down. I get it: Anyone who finds their sensory experience leads to a narrowing tunnel is going to move heaven and earth to get “through.” The bigger the feeling of impasse (located in the unconscious, mind you), the bigger the BOOM.
Men (largely, men) have a passion for blasting through things because they do not have the first clue about letting things *through* them.
The body has every answer. It’s all built into the physiology if we can put down the pencil (pen, keyboard, keypad) long enough to listen.
M
I get you Len – but we need a word for the person who invents and builds a 747 and then flies it into a cliff full of passengers, just to see what will happen.
We need a word for the disconnect. That might help us know it when we see it.
Ok, Eric – what i mean by brilliance – Robert McNamara was no dummy. It’s entirely fair to say he was well above average. Before his stint at the Defense Department he was successful in private industry (notably the Ford Motor Corporation, as i recall). i for one am willing to admit i could not step in and turn a large corporation around. That does take some skill. Also, he could do the math that corporate and government management is based on. i for one am willing to admit that i hit a wall with calculus and my bank statement, well, requires attention. Finally, he was able to convince two presidents, lots of congressment and bureaucrats and the chiefs of staff (all entirely different kind of people) that he knew what he was doing and secure their cooperation – and that’s a pretty high level of skill too.
No, i never liked him. Yes, i think he did a lot of damage. Some respect is due, however. The military-congressional-industrial complex did work for some folks, producing huge profits and a lot of stuff that could fly, float and blow up real good. Coordinating all that was no small feat.
-Len Wallick
Len, somebody – please explain to me the brilliance. Maybe I’m wearing polarized sunglasses but I don’t see the light here.
From conversations with my late father: Members of Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” returned home from the generational trauma of World War II (immediately preceeded by the generational trauma of the Great Depression) and bought a bill of goods. Submit, go along with the plan of Empire and in return your children will not suffer the fate of children in most of the rest of the world. Us or them.
It worked in much the same way that drinking alcoholic beverages works. Temporarily, like a charm. In the long run, like a curse.
Robert McNamara was one of the (admittedly brilliant) masters who packaged and sold this bill of goods and (like Alan Greenspan) he was broken and befuddled when it blew up in his face. So, if it is possible to have compassion for someone who consciously wrought so much malice, please remember that he bought the package as well.
Two other notes:
(1)Yes, fontanelle33, i’m down for some fun and long overdue at that.
(2) Six fixed signs in my office. Five of them had their sleep inturrupted last night by either anxiety or unexpected events. Hmmmmm…
With Gratitude and Appreciation,
Len Wallick
Yes, American society is built on the stuff. Everywhere there is fear and as a Leo, I say we are not having enough fun! I can hardly find one other person who knows how to have fun! Certainly my biological family has forgotten. I say to you that when there is money involved no one is having fun. If it is an organization or a company then no one is having fun. In this sense, I understand the call to abstinence, if only to see how obsessed we all are with survival. Perhaps we should all take a fast from money for a week or a month or a year. I wonder how many people would pick up gardening. Here’s an idea: every time the government swings over to sexual abstinence rhetoric we yell back with money fasting rhetoric. Personally I’d rather be felt up than given a piece of paper, however neat the little drawing on it is.