There is an alternate take on the Leo Full Moon on the Cosmic Confidential Diary.
The Full Moon is rolling up on us, and it’s one of those perfect storms. One of the ways you can use astrology as a forecasting tool is by looking at what planets are making slow aspects, and then notice when a Full Moon or New Moon comes along and rings the bell. As we have read a few times, Mars is retrograde (that is rare), creeping toward the first degree of Leo as the Earth passes between it and the Sun. Mars is not going backward; we are moving forward quicker.
Forward, so to speak. Looking at the prevailing conditions on Earth, you would think that we’re on Mars watching a pretty, wet blue planet with no problems go by.
But no; we’re on that blue planet and Mars is up there and overnight Thursday to Friday, the Moon is at full phase in a less-than-one-degree conjunction to Mars. And what that does is kind of shake the sky and something falls out. I’ve been looking at this chart thinking: well, this should be interesting. I’m staying in, but what ever happens out there will make the newspapers. I’ll make sure to check CNN.
I did, this morning. As usual. Ever since Sept. 11, I’ve checked the cover of CNN every 20 minutes, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Today I learned that analysts think that the State of the Union Address is unlikely to ease our anxieties. (Analysts? Is CNN consulting a psychiatrist? Is he the kind with a couch, or the kind who prescribes meds?)
Yes, papa is going to take our great nation on his big ol’ knee and try to soothe us, and tell us the house isn’t going to fall down on our heads, and baby Leo Moon is still gonna cry. Baby is colicy; the wittle Weo Moon is conjunct cwanky old Maws wetwogwade. They waised my interest wates, again!
Banks continue to be seized by the FDIC on a regular basis, the most recent being the Charter Bank in Santa Fe, as well as banks in Washington State, Illinois, Minnesota and Utah (total assets $4 billion to $5 billion, by quick tally). Kids, these are not McDonald’s or Burger Kings (which are doing great; half the country is living on meat scraps, gluten, grease and sugar). They are enormous financial institutions each of which held the assets of thousands of local and regional businesses and many more individual depositors.
There’s the smart pretty babysitter (Venus in Aquarius), but she doesn’t make baby feel better, even though, well, even though she should. There’s the wise old aunt (Mercury in Capricorn) talking common sense, but she doesn’t make baby feel better, either. There is Saturn in Libra, Paul Volker, who has a clue — but nobody is listening. In fact, all the kids are screaming: the two biggest progressive political blogs, the kind that bank 100,000 visits a day (true, most of them last 11 seconds, but still), reveal that the voter base that elected Barack Obama a year ago: well, their toys are strewn all over the room and the kids are acting like it’s page 200 of The Lord of the Flies.
We are expecting Bam to show up as Jupiter in Pisces, with good news. It’s all over, kids! Haha that was just a duck and cover drill. Come out from under your desk! Time for milk and cookies.
I’m just wondering: when ‘they’ say ease our worries, who do they mean? My worries, about the article I have to write today, the notes for which I lost? Your worries, about where your life is going? Or the worries of people invested in the stock market, or who are waiting for banks to lend money to small business, or homeowners waiting for their the bank to lower their interest rate or what? The really, really worrying families of people caught in the Haiti earthquake, many of whom have no clue whether their relatives and friends are among the 111,000+ dead?
If you’re in the mood to worry, nothing is going to stop you with a big fat lunar event conjunct Mars retrograde. Instead of drum circles this Full Moon, I think we should have the Worry In. Let’s direct the energy consciously, with intention. Call in our power animals and focus.
I am now a shaman. Francis Skunk-Mouse. I am entering the dreamtime and having a vision. Wait…here it comes…
One thing we need to worry about is Ben Bernanke and why Obama doesn’t toss him out on his sorry, sold out, pseudo intellectual ass. (Clue: Bernanke rhymes with Banky.) We need to worry about the lack of any financial industry regulations put in place after the financial meltdown/bailout/ripoff cycle of 2008-2009. We need to worry about the mentality of not just Wall Street execs but also those of banks taking tens of millions of dollars in bonuses. This is the mentality of the industry leaders? Really? We trust them? As Jon Stewart pointed out, the only people who have had a financial recovery are the ones who caused the meltdown.
We really, really need to worry about why we tolerate this kind of conduct. If you want to invest some awesome productive freaking out, try that. If I may be so bold, we need to worry about why there’s a sucker born every nanosecond, who hands $10 over to a phone company allegedly for relief in Haiti — without questioning anything. The answer is: it makes you feel better.
I mean, how many people have to have everything or nearly everything taken away before they take the American flag and “support our troops” sticker off the pickup truck they cannot put gas in, and start asking some real questions?
At the rate we’re going we will see a President Brown or a President Palin in 2012 and that, cousins, will be the answer to your persistent questions about whether the world ends.
What I personally worry about is that a lot and I do mean a lot of people complain and yet, take three steps beyond Planet Waves, I see a world where there is next to no discussion of what we want: of what vision we have for the future. Of what we think is right, not just what we think is wrong.
One last thing…we have instituted a “Buy-Nothing”Birthday” way of handling birthday parties in which our kids demand that NO presents be bought and the party be done with re-usable resources (our own dishes, no decorations, homemade food etc). Amazingly, it is catching on slowly in this community. I also twitter and FB saying to not only stop spending on things we don’t need but to TELL companies we are doing that. TELL banks we are no longer using them or making loans, TELL businesses we are bartering instead. TELL congress we will impose term limits by voting OUT all incumbents. Tell congress corporate money won’t save their seats, we vote and we will vote them out no matter how much corporate America spends on advertising. This works best if we notify them in writing that we are doing these things. Tell your friends to spread the word. If enough people do these things…corporations, banks, and even congress will have to listen.
Change by attrition. It works.
Uh that was supposed to be “no 2000+ sq ft home…” not 200+. I was typing too fast.
I enjoyed the laugh, Francis Skunk-Mouse! As always, you insert excellent information into the perfect article.
I am feeling these days a sense of insecurity that I am unable to shake. My husband is doing his student teaching (unpaid, I might add….16 weeks of NO income and a family to support) and the school district here will not be hiring come fall unless a cosmic miracle happens. This means we will have to relocate. The problem is, relocation costs money and we have little of it because after the financial devastation of the last 6 years, we are living on student loans, our tax refund (thank god for our four children tax credits) and the sub teaching salary he was bringing in…until this 16 week student teaching requirement. We don’t have 401Ks or other savings or stocks because of the prolonged unemployment we have endured; we are on food stamps and medicaid and have been since 2004.
We have been living in a place that I finally feel at home in (Flagstaff)…the people here are extraordinarily friendly, open minded, a staunch Obama refuge in a red state (Arizona) and the beauty of the place and the free educational things for my homeschooled children are legendary. My kids have lived here the last 11 of the past 12.5 years; they have grow up here (except the little one who is only 7) and the teens have friends and connections. Now we face moving away. The last time we moved away for a job (2006) we ended up in such a negative, unfriendly place that all of us suffered mild to moderate depression.
In the midst of this uncertain future, we are still trying to see (and create) the changes we know are necessary. I write on twitter and facebook and encourage people to act in detailed positive ways. We are raising our kids to think for themselves and to be compassionate, caring, AWARE joy-givers. We keep emitting positivity and compassion in all contacts with others.
We are working on promoting barter, disconnecting from consumption and banks, internet activism and careful use of resources.
The instability, coupled with the fragility of our situation and the seemingly lack of ability to make direct, measurable changes is wearing on all of us.
The one thing we don’t have here in this living place is an emotional support; we have no real friends because Flagstaff is in a transient state so people here are reluctant to form friendships…unless you are religious. It is unfortunate that non-religious people don’t band together in numbers like religious folk do…that is our biggest weakness and their greatest strength.
We hope and strive to find a place to live (and for my husband to use his MEd. with cert in elementary ed) and work that will nurture all of us, where my kids can learn and have opportunities to learn, wheer we can afford to live frugally (no 200+ sq ft home for us, we rent a small house for the six of us) and most of all, where we feel safe around positive, caring people. My letters to congress, the papers, twitters, FB postings, and e-mailings will continue no matter where we end up.
Is all that enough to worry about right now? I hope so.
Whoa is right.
Dahlinks… I am not trying to be cryptic (like I have to *try*), but
a) that description probably won’t make much sense while sitting here in the ‘clean, well-lighted room’ of non-berserker space, and
b) I didn’t want to ‘explain’ something, I wanted to imprint it.
The doing of it was very distinctive. I made a decision, but it had nothing to do with sublimating my anguish, channeling perplexity or controlling my emotions. I actually *poked* it, but with the stick of discernment: Go. Do something internal (infernal?). Something I can’t name.
As I muddle along in the demi(Tantra)monde, it occurs to me that I am working with hatred in much the same way that other Tantrikas work with lust.
Which isn’t to say I run around hating things, but that I *get* it. I comprehend hatred, and hold it, like a boiling firehose, upon the molten suffering I see all around me.
Whoa.
Steve Bergstein is one of my oldest friends and a full time civil rights lawyer. He’s one of our writers but is so involved in his work that he doesn’t have that much time to write. I still hassle him as often as I can and get opinions and theories out of him — I asked him to comment on Zinn, knowing he was a fan. Turns out Zinn’s work pushed him in the direction he took as an attorney. When I met Steve he was delivering pizza. He has not taken an easy path but he’s one of the people who is going to make a very significant difference much later in life, and we can in part thank Zinn for that influence. efc
=
A People’s History of the United States was the first history book to really look at American history from the point of view of the rest of us, those who are not rich and did not fight and win the wars. Zinn was a different kind of historian: looking at history from the angles that other historians had ignored. The history of protest movements, uprisings and rebellions which shaped the history of this country and truly gave us our freedoms. Zinn would point out that all our freedoms were hard-fought after struggle. His books and speeches focused on that. He was also a great writer – very clear and lucid, not turgid and boring.
I saw him speak at Vassar College about 10 years ago. The place was packed to the gills. Hundreds of people, including students, came early to get a good seat. I was surprised that this genius and highly-regarded academic had such a Brooklyn accent. He sounded like our uncle Howard. But boy did he command the audience! Then after the speech, he walked to the student union building as people followed him and continued asking him questions across the concourse. When he got the student union building, probably several hundred of us waited in line for his autograph. I got him to sign his autobiography.
He was a role model in every way. He worked his way through college and stayed completely true to his values, speaking up when no one wanted to ask questions about the Vietnam War and civil rights and leading the pack as the 1950’s turned into the 1960’s and the 1970’s. He is one of the reasons why we live in a democratic society today. I will defend that statement to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Wow, bring The Zinn on, then! Everything he exposed and developed in awareness regarding the power of our minds and the synchronicity of our hearts and spirit he is now in his new ‘real time’ viewing in each of us even more progressively (and I might imagine even more lovingly!) I am lighting some candles and feeling the tradewinds tickle and caress. Thank you for making me aware that he has gone through the next transformation…
on precipitations, and Humans, Being…
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
Howard Zinn
Aug. 24, 1922 – Jan. 27, 2010
Dear Eric,
Aha! VISION! I was looking for ‘vision’ brought forth in this article….it finally came in your last paragraph….we can all maintain and survive, we’re doin that…and we all can conjure up hope: after all, we are the resilient and forward pushing Americans President Obama says we are. What can we BECOME, though? Future to manifest….I am chewing on that….I hope others are, too….Get your Dr. MLK on!
In every man’s life, there is that trip to Denny’s.
mystes —
i, too think i’ve been feeling the saturn/pluto energy and all the rest of it… and i had my own little internal tantrum last night. just wish i’d had the knowledge/experience you just outlined! like len, i’m not sure i get it all on first read. but it sounds like a very valuable tool, indeed. time for my wheels to find a little traction.
thank you!
— amanda
Makes me wonder if Obama will finally implement his scaled back plans after visiting a Dennys. I believe The Onion scooped this last year, but something…uhm…something shelved that plan.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_drastically_scales_back
HazelF – I’m awake in the UK too 🙂
This reminds me of college chemistry class, where we mixed up some milky combo of liquids, added one drop of some catalyst, and poof – clear liquid with a ‘precipitate’ falling out of it.
So we’ll be feeling the fallout, if we’re not already. I’ve got it happening big time in my life.
Fallout is money – why do I make the choices I do with money and how could those choices serve me better?
Fallout is anger – I love your anger protocol Mystes. I have been working with my anger much more consciously in the past few weeks, with the new awareness that stuffing it may cause cancer. I’ll try your tantric anger fire breath and see what falls out.
Mystes,
Thank you for the anger protocol. It’s a little cryptic for a clod-hopper like me so i’ll read it over and rote-grok it. If i can learn how to do what you did it will be the best addition to my tool box ever.
I tapped on Eileen’s name to see if there was a place to see her enterprise, or figure out how to help. It rolled back to PW. Hmm…
But otherwise I wanted to say a little something about this full-Moon energy, and its concurrent pressures from the Saturn/Pluto square. I seem to be especially sensitive to the activation of the latter, as yesterday and part of the day before I was in one of those lacrimose rages for which Cancerians are rightly critiqued. I kept a handle on it, mostly.
I had one very curious rush, very helpful. In my son’s dentist’s office, after having been hit with some weird financial procedure, I felt myself implode. And as the rage, helplessness, self-pity, frustration washed over me, I (tantrically) sort of revved it, like poking a stick into a tiger’s cage. “Go do something useful,” I ordered it. The energy rose up and wailed. “Really, go burn through something I can’t reach otherwise. Get to it.” I mandated this, and felt my solar plexus heat up to about 500 degrees. I felt the fire rush through my veins (subtle as well as physical), and something tore loose.
I can’t say it was a ‘pleasant’ experience (very little is these days), but it was very, very efficient. Anger/rage is powerful stuff, and should never be wasted on the tiny little real-estate of the ego. There’s so much territory in the unconscious that can benefit from the firebath.
How to do this? It’s kind of like turning around in yourself. As soon as the energy starts to express itself toward a situation, person, organization, tilt it toward the space to the left and behind you. Feel, with your mind’s fingertip, for the opening in the membrane between your mind and your instinct. Direct the rage into that os. Squeeze it down a bit – again with your mind – so that it slips into the channel, then give it permission to do what you cannot do with your will: clean up.
I’ve done this before, but never quite so consciously. The one thing we collectively have in abundance right now is anger. Love and peace are all well and good, but sometimes we just need to work with what we have on hand.
Under and in,
M
Thank you for this article today. It made me laugh so good!
you are in rare, rare form today, dear!
🙂
— amanda
“and the kids are acting like it’s page 200 of The Lord of the Flies.”
…great line, Eric.
Best to Eileen, may all be well.
May we all be well and may the best, most yummy things happen.
That’s my plan, inchin’ along, keeping on believing that even if there are critters like Geithner Bernanke, etc. the best things can still and will happen.
Dear Francis Skunk-Mouse
(You know that’s Reputation-Detail,
right?), Thanks so much for that
“Precipitation” article!
Too true. My Albanian friends
keep saying to me, with total awe,
“Everything’s getting worse.
They’re telling us it’s getting better.
Why is noone in the streets protesting?”
I tell them, “it’s unpatriotic to protest
against the American government,”
and they bust out laughing because
they know my history of bus rides
to Washington, speaking in front
of the NRC, living in Spain during
the Reagan years, . . . . but it’s
shamefully true about the brainwashing
of our people! We tap someone on the
shoulder and ask, timidly and red-faced,
whether what we know is happening is
really happening. They say NO, and we
apologize and go back to playing with
our toys. And even now that our toys
have been taken away, we go back to
reminiscing about our toys.
That drum circle is not a bad idea, actually.
Anyway, thanks, Eric.
I may be out of the loop for awhile.
I’m losing my apartment because there
are no bones left in the 401K cupboard,
and the business is SSLLOOOOOOOW.
Hugs,
Eileen
Aloha Eric
I think this article should be titled ” Prescription” this is the problem of America. I wondering how many of our elected official are on “legal” prescription drugs. I bet almost all of them. This is the root of the problem. They do not even let kids get out of diapers before they get them on something. Good little zombies that do what their told and if everything goes right and they mix the right ones they might do something to someone that nancy grace can talk about for the next 2 years. Prescription drugs is what bought the republican elections for many years now and especially the 2000 election of GWB with the invention of oxy. It also drives the television stations and aids in the ability of the newscasters to say the nonsense they are saying for the greed of money and power.
Also on Cnn’s website this morning was a story about a 26 year old white woman who was taking a walk to her local library yesterday afternoon around 2:30 in Toledo, Ohio. On route, she was raped by a black teenager in full view of anyone looking out the window or driving by. No one stopped to help her. The anger and rage is so wide spread (no pun intended) that events like this seem common place. One woman was interviewed and said that she had her children in the car and honked loud and long at them as she drove by. The attacker looked in her direction but continued with his assault. This was a residential neighborhood with sidewalks and neatly maintained houses.
Better link
http://live.gdgt.com/2010/01/27/live-apple-come-see-our-latest-creation-tablet-event-coverage/#09-43-03-am
Cause I know how much Eric loves the iPhone…
*8D
Big media day. I have a fondness for Wodin’sDay – which you can mashup as Woe-ends-day, or WeddingsDay – Obama’s about to tell us that we’d better strap in for the bumpy part of the flight (doh!); and Steve Jobs is launching a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy today, a/k/a not-the-Kindle, a/k/a iTablet. I still don’t know why they didn’t take my suggestion and name it eLucida.
In honor of Lucy (see Book of Blue), of course.
Anyhoo, here’s the link to some Live coverage: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/tablet-live-event-liveblog.ars
Well that pretty much brilliantly sums it up E. It’s a bloody mess. I am behind Obama (I voted for him though I live in the UK – I voted in my heart). I sat in my car in the car-park of a supermarket in the freezing cold while he gave his inaugural speech and remember the feeling of calm and relief. I never thought for one minute he was going to clean it all up in one year. The situation is chronic and with chronic anything, when it’s been going on for years, it’ll take years for it to alter. something has altered simply by him being where he is. There is a change chain reaction going on and while it feels like nothing is moving, something is. But what.
Here is not much better. There is the continuing inquiry re the war in Iraq with Blair due to give his tale on Friday. Friday. Hmnn. There is something so dark and blackl at the bottom of all that, a Bat couldn’t find it’s way around it. And then there’s all the shit with the banks and G Brown and an election looming. Only a very few seem to be waking up here – and that’s a guess as I’ve yet to meet one. Mandy H, I think you’re the only other person I know in the UK who is waking up or awake already!
I’m all for the worry-in – that had me hooting with laughter. If I worry much more my eye-balls are going to fall out. So I’m not going to do that and do something I like instead.
Oh – thanks so much for keeping it real here. X
Morning, Eric…
I agree that “we” should not just sit back and complain/rant on Planetwaves. Since you write so well and get to the heart of the grind on most of us, put it in a letter that we could all sign and forward to Obama et al. If there are any publications out there that aren’t being bought by the “high flyers” send it to them as well.
With appreciation for all you do,
Pam
I find it interesting we are having a kind of karmic awakening on the heels of the destruction of the first place “discovered” by Europe as the New World — the Americas. Its also interesting, our President is who he is at this moment in time.
Alot of people are hard hit, and some longer than others in this country, longer than when Bush 1 was president, and longer even than that — since Reagan.
The task this President seems to be addressing is a karmic one for the nation and the intent of it when it was born close to around the last time, when rebellion was afoot and monarchy was becoming more oppressive. Pluto in Cap is about the king’s sceptre on the will of the people. But this king nowadays, has a corporate logo.
Personally, I don’t think Obama is a corporatist as many of his detractors say out there. I think the system in Washington is corrupt, and that’s the toolbox Obama has to deal with, including Geithner, Emanuel, Bernanke and Summers. They’re all in and cozy with some high flyers.