Most readers of Planet Waves are familiar with the Sibly chart for the United States, but there is a second, equally fascinating and relevant chart for the US, called the Scorpionic America chart. This is the chart for the signing of the Articles of Confederation, the document in which the 13 colonies that had declared independence coalesced into a new nation. It is revealing, and shares some astonishing resonance with the themes in the Sibly chart. Both charts are being lit up by current transits, and both describe the current psychological chaos and dysfunction of the politics and populace of the US right now.
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Patty.
Issue taken is noted. If you read my post, I was referring to the Generations forum and how the generations that post there perceive the Silents and Boomers. I did not say I see all Silents that way. My own Silent parents were a bad example but I am not fool enough to make such blanket statements; however I did note that the posters on that board DO make such blanket statements. I wrote that as an addendum to Eric’s article above about that young man (who was only 19) and his anger.
What I noticed on that forum was just how much anger the younger (Gen Jones, en X and younger) feel toward the Silents and Boomers. There’s even a website called “Boomer Deathwatch.” I am not kidding.
Another phenomenal article with brilliant comments to add even more depth and sparkle (if that is even possible). As I read the article about the two charts what struck me is that each chart rather nicely describes the two different political parties we now seem saddled with here in this country. The Sibley chart seems to describe quite well the beliefs, values and actions of the Dems (with all their sideways scuttling, high ideals for the collective good, and grand visions that may not be well-rooted in practicality) and the Scorpionic chart seems to really describe the Pubs ( power-brokers and manipulators, business and rule fanatics- woah, check out that Scorpio Stellium with Saturn, Vertex, Mercury and Lilith!- with a 12th house moon making it really hard to access authentic emotions and empathy, as well as the rise of their two-headed Gemini personality now that the Baggers have shown up) – overly simplistic characterizations I realize but still, seeing these two charts side by side, shadows of each other, in a way, really helps to explain the deep polarization we now find ourselves in. And the deep dysfunction.
I wonder… since so much of our modern country is supposedly based on the Constitution (laws, oaths and high ideals are all bound up in this document) why is the signing of this document not used as the time/date/place to fix our nations natal chart? Perhaps it may reveal what the real purpose of this critical catharsis is that we now seem deeply mired in. Just a thought.
As always, the community of Planet Waves is absolutely essential for making sense of all this astonishing craziness going on in our collective. As the examples of the young man and your own father illustrates, Eric, yes, we all live in alternate realities. The point that is so hard to get is that for most of us, those alternate realities are often the ONLY reality. I don’t think any of us can truly grasp how complicated and vast this nation’s collective soul/mind really is… and this may be what ultimately becomes our undoing- our own inability to appreciate our complexity and our inability to find solutions that please/work for a majority of the collective since we are so fractured and splintered now. It may be that our salvation and survival will come when we revert back to smaller collectives that can be more easily fostered and managed… just like Heather has pointed out. I’ve often wondered what would happen to our government if a large tax revolt happened in which we ALL stopped sending our money to Washington. Not only would it wake up the politicians, but it would also wake up the privileged ones who think they can run their empires and have their comfortable lives without the support and infrastructure that we ALL built together. We may be moving in that direction sooner than we realize.
I hope you’ll have a look at the natal chart for the signing of the Constitution. Does anyone here have that time/date info?
awordedgewise, is it that artists when they act are specific in their acts towards ‘healing’, that this is a different focus. More from the centre outwards than targeting someone else’s centre.
Dear Eric and all:
On Friday when I first read Into the 8th Houses of the United States I was frustrated that I didn’t have time in that moment to post my own feelings about the subject matter, which I’m now grateful for because I’ve had the benefit of reading so many insightful responses posted since then.
The metaphor of a “buff 19-year-old guy” is a powerfully visual one in our culture. Looking back on my life, there has always been some version of the buff 19-year-old guy and what “he” (sometimes it is a buff 19-year-old girl) represents. In my own youth the captain of the football team (or some other sport) often represented this metaphor and they were usually, but not always, in opposition to those of us who were considered bohemian, counterculture hippies – artists, dancers, painters, writers, actors, poets, musicians – who were busy expressing, voicing, pointing out, calling attention to what we saw, experienced and witnessed around us. We spoke out against Viet Nam and the buff 19-year-old guy called us unpatriotic. We wept about Kent State and the buff 19-year-old guy said we hated our country, and policemen and order. We raised social concerns about civil rights, poverty and racial discrimination and the buff 19-year-old guy accused us of being Communists.
At 14 I remember having been attracted to this gorgeous and brilliant black student and being severely lectured to by a 14 year old boy about the inherent difficulties of interracial relationships! The “buff 19-year-old guy” has been taught his belief system and it begins at a very young age. My lecturer had obviously been the recipient of a long dinner table talk himself, where he learned what he turned around and spewed out at me in an instant when I had dared to tell him about my attraction. My feelings for this black student from Africa were positive and admiring and curious about him and his culture, and those feelings, which were completely innocent, were immediately struck down by a powerful force that I have never forgotten, all encased within the skinny body of a 14 year old.
Prejudice, insensitivity, lack of empathy, coldness toward others, lack of social conscious, fear – these things can creep into the minds of young people like invisible environmental toxins and take control of the cells of their very existence. I watched this happen to my own brother, who would leave our house to practice competitive and physically demanding sports, where he was told constantly to “suck it up,” and where he would learn who was a loser, who wasn’t, who had the killer instinct, who was a coward, who had what it took and who didn’t, and he would come home and repeat this stuff in our house (our father had died when we were very young) and I remember feeling completely powerless and helpless against it.
I was nearly four years younger than my brother and it was like a tsunami of rage, resentment, hostility, cruelty. It was a power trip, plain and simple. He was young, and he had no personal power whatsoever. He didn’t make his own living, he hadn’t accomplished anything in his own life about which he could be proud, he had no identity of which to speak, he had absolutely no idea who he was, as a man, as a person, as a brother, as a son. And he was (quite unconsciously) replacing the very difficult job of figuring all of that out with the easy solution of adopting the clothing, attitudes and opinions of the the “buff 19-year-old guy.”
So I was not surprised to read Eric’s description of his own confrontation with one of these young members of our society. One of the most important and difficult spiritual lessons to learn is empathy and compassion and sometimes I think one is either born with that capacity or born without it. It is hard to walk a mile in another’s man’s shoes. To spend time figuring out what life is like for them, while they feel the way the feel, think the way they think, act the way they act. But we must…otherwise we cannot challenge them on every point, as Eric did. I feel sorry for those born without empathy chips. Life cannot be easy carrying around that much hate and anger. There will be precious little love, creativity, poetry and soulfulness in this young man’s life. The frightening thing is that often people like this bully their way to the top and the destruction they are capable of wrecking is massive.
Thanks for a great article and wonderful response…and another reminder that we must all constantly be on guard. It’s so easy to just turn and walk away. But we can’t…
Yours,
Giselle
Hi Eric,
As usual, a great article.
Apart from Resentment, there is another factor at work here I think, maybe its Indifference.
That is a very scary scenario as I was reminded this morning with my daily meditations book, the theme for the day being Indifference, and how we have collectively placed a “collective” shield of indifference around ourselves and anything else that we encounter or touch.
Government’s and Societies are broken, and the majority has stood by idly whilst claiming their “entitlements” at the expense of us in their communities.
As succinctly described, “Indifference is inhumane to others, and that’s not the worst of it. It is devastating to ourselves”. We can find money for wars, weaponry, abuse of various forms, cancer causing habits, foods and all other manner of environmental degradation via chemicals, eradiate animals, biodiversity and species out of existence, except for finding the one reason to support and sustain life in a positive manner and show compassion and kindness. Kindness is my religion; its intent costs nothing, and something that needs to be supported with hard cash when circumstances arise.
The Corporate takeover, which you describe, is also well in situ here in Australia. Many Government contracts for Local Services i.e. Parking meters, Speeding Fines or anything that is meant to be undertaken by State & Local councils and which our ‘rates’ are levied to pay for, are undertaken by a series of ‘private’ enterprises i.e. http://tenix.com/ who previously held vast contracts for building submarines and other Defense maritime vessels.
Maybe I am out to lunch here, but the Astrology that you describe and the Archetypical energies that I am seeing emerge and have been emerging for some time resemble that of ‘Star Wars’ and Lord Of The Rings – both with themes of redemption wrought through ordinary people with strong beliefs that are underpinned with faith, hope trust and magic; that magic will only occur if we believe that it is so.
As we know, Belief is such a powerful thing whether that is expressed in a negative or positive way.
So far, the stinking thinking protagonists have had their way and day. The question now is will we allow it to remain that way? If the answer is no, then we all must make allowances to experience a direct impact, and to mitigate any more energy towards this enterprise of stealth that clearly has been conceived, planned and implemented for a few decades.
I read an article some time ago by a psychologist that states that Globalisation was an experiment that failed! The very Laws that have been allowed in creating Corporations to exist either must be radically modified or expunged, expungment preferable as the mess is apparent, and the rightful laws of the land applied in terms of Corporate Responsibility and Tax Revenue, no matter what country that Corporation happens to be incorporated in.
Clearly that is the case, however it has spawned quite a few bastard children along the way, and they are yelling very loudly; they exist and are undermining anything and everything for all its worth. Energetically speaking the sheriff of Nottingham never went away and Robin Hood is MIA.
Now is the time for a steady hand, for an entire change to Constitutional law from a national view, not the states self interests, the band aid laws that tend to be made as a result of ‘compromise’, which clearly always sees one party giving away more, and for all of the people to sign on for the journey of restoration, and take responsibility for actions to date, no exclusions for wealthy or the privileged should enter any dialogue.
The very fact that there is a privileged position, would suggest that it is an honor to be able to return to communities, that which has provided the means for this to emerge in the first instance. The best example that I can site here would be the original intent of Hippocrates, which was when a student became proficient in his profession, part of his duty was to teach and mentor another gratis; the medical field has failed abysmally in that regard.
That’s something that has to be applied globally, not just the USA.
Ah, don’t you just love family squabbles!
Yours in Light,
Heather Macauley
Carrie i have to take issue with your view of the silents.
My folks took in everyone and I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have extra people in the house. There were times when we would be butchering and we didn’t understand anything anyone said because the refugees from WW2 didn’t speak English. They went home with cars full of food. My mother still has jobless and homeless people in her house today, and Thanksgiving day there will be no place to sit down for all the extra visitors. My husband and I have taken in people from time to time, although not now – but we give a lot of money and things away. We’ve had people live with us too, but that is a difficult adjustment we don’t really want to go through again unless it is for family. It never occurred to me to expect my mother to write a check to me just because I was buying a house or something. We always worked for everything and didn’t expect. My cousin is 42 and complained to me that her mother in law wouldn’t pay off her credit card for her. Wha???
There are always going to be people who are jealous of those who are frugal and hard working. All I do is shrug my shoulders and say that I’ve been blessed. Truth is, I grow food, make soap, shop second hand, don’t drink or smoke, and so on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to give someone grocery money because they traded food stamps for money so they could go out bar-hopping. It isn’t easy to watch kids go without, and in the old days I didn’t have the nerve to call social services to turn them in (I’m not shy anymore). There are a lot of middle aged selfish brats out there, raised by boomers who wanted them to have good lives and not have to work as hard as we did. It was probably a mistake. The Mexican migrant worker kids probably have much better manners because they have to work hard and help keep the family together. Chinese kids are fat and spoiled rotten too, which makes it easy to see how the future will unfold in China.
I wish I could edit out the typos from my posts. Most other forums have an edit button for that. ::::frustrated::::
When I ask people what is keeping them from helping others, they always answer the same thing, especially if they have children: they fear allowing strangers too close because they fear their children could get harmed, molested, stolen. This is a real fear. I know that we have not had anyone we “know” from the internet stay in our house overnight; we would have to know someone VERY WELL before allowing that because access to our children subjects them to whatever the other person has in the way of baggage and some people’s baggage is harmful to children.
A friend of mine who has some acreage in another state recently told me that if things got bad, we could pack up and move onto her land. It would be in tents at first until everyone could build some shelters. That is the kind of thing more people will have to do but it is still risky. She knows us and has met us in real life so she feels comfortable doing that. We don’t own out home so doing the same for others would land us in hot water with the owner.
I mean, we talk here on PW about doing something but my Capricorn moon and Virgo rising want to think in terms of practical reality and actual DOING.
Know what I mean?
So how do we help one another while still maintaining our (and most importantly) our children’s safety?
Wandering,
You make a very valid point; just trying to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly is talking up enough core time that there is not much time or energy left to do the Great Work of facilitating this new way of being. And of course, that’s exactly the way “they” who control things want us to be; too busy just hanging on to incite anything.
We have also four young lives to house, feed, clothe, and educate besides ourselves so we also have little time to devote to the Great Work. Perhaps protecting and nurturing and growing them (our kids) is the only Great Work we can do for now. Plus my husband is a teacher so he works on teaching this love and light attitude to other kids as well.
What I see that needs to happen is for people to band together so that folks like Wandering don’t go hungry or homeless; when we see that sharing is not a bad thing and scarcity is a manufactured crisis (much like these others we have had) then we can share and help and love and band together in love and cooperation instead of in competition.
Ok that was a run-on sentence….sorry.
One thing I keep seeing (and reading and hearing) is that people are still doing a lot of self-work. While that is really good, I think we have been doing a lot of self work for several decades and it is very easy to get so caught up in that to the point that we do nothing for anyone else. So, while I do work on myself, I also spread joy everywhere and to everyone I meet and I am working toward spreading even more in my community if I can just figure out how to do it in my spare time (what spare time?).
“am curious to hear what your vision for taking part in this transition is, and what you’re doing about it now — anyone who wants to reply.”
I’ve been attempting to teach Tai Ji in my community, but I guess from a mixture of personal karma (Retrograde Venus and Saturn at birth…Venus is now stationary by progression and turns direct next year…Saturn, gotta wait until I’m 54) and Portland, Oregon’s tendency to attract thousands of slackers who do little but smoke cigarrettes and drink PBR I’ve yet to find anyone who returns for a second lesson. Maybe my Venus going direct will change things…I don’t know.
In the mean time I practice every day to get in tune with my interior and also in tune with the local non-human intelligence. I ride a bike and I walk for transportation and promote bike culture by participation in social bike events in my city.
My vision is to be part of a collective who provide instruction in Chinese and Hindu energy arts- Tai Ji, Bagua, Xing Yi, Qigong, Yoga- as well as life drawing where the models adopt stances from the martial arts so that students can learn to observe from the outside the ways to properly align the skeleton so muscles don’t have to work so hard, thereby allowing qi to flow freely. Also music instruction and practice and permaculture gardening. It’s a big vision. Maybe I need a new city with fewer slackers, maybe I need to hold the vision and wait until my Saturn is direct by progression in 16 years.
Right now I’m struggling just to come up with rent next month so I don’t get kicked out of the place I live. It’s incredibly difficult since I’ve been unemployed for more than a year. Employers are only hiring people who already have jobs or who were laid off in the last 6 months while tens of thousands of people move to Portland every year and often transfer from national corporations thus taking jobs away from locals who have been struggling to find work for years. I don’t really want to live anywhere else, but it might be that I just can’t afford to live here soon…unless I couch surf permanently or join the homeless masses and go on a permanent camping trip.
Dark Mary,
Welcome, and sorry about my liver qi bringing in cuss words. I was still emotionally disturbed by a podcast from Caroline Casey interviewing Derek Jensen who mentioned the health of the oceans. I’ve also seen a documentary calle Addicted To Plastic that has a segment about how plastic accumulating in the ocean breaks down into little nodules that are getting into the bodies of marine life and migrating up the food chain. It was a film I saw at a local free movie night and the organizers had a really hard time finding a copy. The dying of the oceans and forests is more important to life than anything related to human economic structures, but you have to dig really deep to find any information on it.
Yeah, my water comes from Bull Run Reservoir in the Cascade Mountains east of Portland and some of it comes from the Columbia Slough just north of where I live. As of now our water system is filtered in the mountains by the forest, but Nestle is trying to buy our waterworks and privatize it preferring to have sealed tanks rather than naturally filtered water which would seriously poison our water supply.
Linda, there is not just a conversation about how to do that going on here — it is what we are doing here, in total. This is one aspect of what it looks like. We run on very little money and a lot of love, focused intention and a sense of mission. I am working with a vision for a new kind of media outlet that is inclusive, aware and solution-oriented; a space where skills are taught and where everyone has the opportunity to learn and participate.
There are many ways to bring our work up a level, such as people who comment directing their talent into finished product that can be shared with others; people marginally involved can take a step and start to specialize in a topic; those with other resources can bring them into the equation.
One of the great problems we face in our society is a massive propaganda machine that is disguised as news and entertainment. Solution number one involves creating venues for good information, useful ideas and community awareness. Another great problem we face is a de-skilling process that is endemic in education and many jobs. So PW serves the dual purpose of a place where skills are learned and information is concentrated and made available on an ongoing basis.
Audrey, You gave me pause to ponder: why in fact do the dreamers and artists and those-who-create seem to meander aimlessly (poetically speaking) while those who would-destroy (per common perception of creation and destruction) are focused and organized? Aka – picture marching armies.
On the otherhand, there seems to be a growing of “love-ins” of one type of another. People at worst trying to cleanse themselves of destructive/negative habits and DNA – at best raising the level of love on our planet or more.
So, how does Love “organize” itself differently than destruction? I think there is conversation here at PW most days on How to be a part of that – this is a good space for Organizing Love and Creation,then. (“When Two or More of You are Gathered in His Name There is Love.” …?How to hold that idea/l in LoveSpace, not religiousdogmaSpace -?)
A key perhaps is in Saturn structure filling with Love; Love/Creation working within a flexible structure that allows growth – maybe we are closer than we think to something along the lines of what all our creation myths suggest?
Last night I looked through a powerful telescope for the first time. It was focused on the Moon. My! She is beautiful. I am in Awe.
Thanks for the time to muse “outloud”.
xo
So. Anyone up for a convoy to Wisconsin or…maybe someone can do the astrology to find the best USA destination the convoy would culminate at?
Simply put: if there’s a feeling that “WE” are all pulling together for a common good, helping to make the World a better place because it’s “OUR” World, and we can actually see signs of progress then any perceived resentments would disapppear but I recall my father’s anguish when World War Two was declared, only twenty one years after the Armistice. He had fought in the First. I was four years old, and I asked him what War was.
He said “War is Hell.”
So, we don’t pull together, and we kill each other: My endless pondering.
Whatever, all of us have a time-span: a thousand months if we are lucky enough to live to 83 years and 4 months. Today, I hear of 21 American soldiers and 7 Afghans being shot down; not enough being done to help the starving Somalians; floods, and the water not being saved for times of drought, in other places: of the wonderful Simon Bolivar Orchestra (formed out of musicians drawn from across the social spectrum, regardless of class or wealth) who are playing at The Promenade Concert tonight; of two American cops being convicted for shooting their own citizens, after Hurricane Katrina; of inept politicians and bankers. Just six snapshots out of Who Knows What is going on at this very moment!
The poet W. Auden once said: “I know we’re put on Earth to help Others but I’d like to know what the Others are doing.”
The tangled web of Astrology carries blueprints of some very “nasty,” “uncaring,” “greedy,” “lazy” folk (to name but a few) and I’m not casting my shadow. They exist!
You’ve met them. I have, also.
So, what do “WE” do to get a more productive Show on the Road, I ask my Self?
All The Best,
Audrey
Carrie, I like that metaphor…I think we all live through our Moon(past), Sun(present) and Rising(future) at different times, for different reasons, and which Horoscope resonates more with me at any time can sometimes give me info about that process…
but if one of them is dominant -ie lived thru more than others, I would expect it to be because that is the Soul’s desire for this life -which would be reflected in the chart -the chart is a statement of desire by the Soul
IMO & IME, the level of desire to actualize any particular planet (or point via its ruler -in case of ASC) can often be seen via the essential dignity of said planet and/or its relationship with the Nodes of the Moon
In terms of Sibly, Jupiter is exalted -giving a strong desire to live thru Asc -ie the future -Novus Ordo Seclorum = “New Order of the Ages” As Eric said, this chart is a Vision of the future….
Dear Eric
I read your exegese of the American Horoscopes and I really want to thank you for this wonderful text. It’s as always with astrology – I am no longer scared of what America might do – I understand you better and can live with your aggression a lot better.
Thank you again – and good luck!
Nicola
Eric, You are shining with this one, kiddo! I have to say, in my opinion of following your work for years, this one of your best articles. Lots of insight, but what I admire and respect most is your ability to stick with this young man. Many people, myself included, would be triggered in some way, losing an opportunity to learn more about this anger that seems to be rising in the culture. Your intelligent calmness is something I want to emulate.
I think I will hang onto this one and visit it a few more times. I hope to look at it from varying angles; so much to learn. Fear is an amazing energy.
Dark Mary,
Thanks for the sentiment but I am a Pisces sun, Virgo rising. For some reason, the Virgo horoscopes fit me way better. My astrology teacher also taught esoteric astrology and she said I am living in my ascendant. She told me some people “live their moon” which means they are still doing past life stuff, some people “live their sun” which means they are living their present lives, and some people “live their rising” which means they are getting ready for their next life. Even so, I seem to get along very well with Virgo sun folks.
“am curious to hear what your vision for taking part in this transition is, and what you’re doing about it now — anyone who wants to reply.”
Been contemplating that for a while. I’m working with military families effected by multiple deployments and that feels meaningful. Today I fantasized about what I could do – dreamed of organizing some kind of convoy (personal vehicles for some reason) to drive to Wisconsin as a statement of solidarity. Driving home from my job this eve, I actually thought of running for the Senate! Now that’s radical.
I am crying real tears over my country right now and, to be honest, it seems like a lot of people are mad and yelling but I feel alone in grieving. And I am grieving.
Long week, indeed. Rest well, Eric and everyone. You are all needed, each of you, at this time, in this place. Sweet dreams.
It’s hard to say how I come to any one interpretation in the horoscope in terms of the words I use. I am making the best translation I can from the imagery and themes in the charts to a concept to understandable English. No problem saying what I know or how I do it — but not now 🙂 it’s been a long week. And don’t worry Planet Waves is intended to be one giant enormous astrology lesson, and opportunity to participate in the world.
Eric, thanks for the info about what transits you were interpreting. I had never thought of Chiron as a “super-Mercury”, but I see what you are getting at. I really identify with Chiron and it is helpful to think about/explore the energy of these two aspects of Virgo (Mercury and Chiron) opposing each other. Of course, Neptune = mirages and illusions. He has been sitting on my natal Saturn (at 0 degree, 1 minute Pisces). There are many unexpected blessings to having your sense of time and structure and all things Saturnian dissolved, but clarity is not one of the blessings! I still can’t figure out how you could see that the illusion/mirage had to do with projecting a problem onto another person that really had to do with me (or any other Virgo) coming into my autonomy and this being a time of learning that “special relationships” cannot be the focus of my existence. Does it have something to do with the movement of Neptune from Pisces back to Aquarius and Aquarius being about collective humankind? But if that is the case I don’t see how any of the attributes of Pisces would be point to a “special relationship”.
Anyway, I’m not asking for a private astrology lesson here. I’m sure you are busy. But just wanted to puzzle aloud, so to speak. I’m such a novice and wonder if any others, who might be interested in these transits as they affect Virgos, can see how Eric made the interpretation he did from the transits he mentioned? It was a zinger! Thank you.
Carrie, hello to a sister Virgo sun!
wandering yeti, Thanks for your thoughts about the health of the planet; it is by far my greatest concern as well. “Do you know where your water comes from?” has been one of my mantras of late. Which made me dig out this quote by Thomas Merton:
“Let me say before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By ‘they’ I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and meaninglessness.”
– Thomas Merton, from his essay Rain and the Rhinoceros
What I think Merton missed is that rain, even prior to his death in 1968, is hardly meaningless or gratuitous. But he certainly pointed to the commoditization (is that a word?) of everything and the spiritual destitution that results from that sort of materialism. As Eric astutely pointed out, modern capitalism is completely cutting out government. Everything is being sold to the highest bidder (or maybe not even the highest bidder, but whoever has bought off the right government official.)
That is why it is so important now to grow our own food when and where we can and/or to buy from local farmers. (It’s expensive I know, but so many towns and cities have gardening/food co-ops now.) And if each one of us would just reduce our meat consumption we can reduce not only our carbon footprint but also minimize water usage. I was so overwhelmed for so long by the damage we are doing to the planet. I can’t clean up the oceans single-handedly but I can call my legislators, vote my conscience, and make daily choices that don’t contribute to the destruction.
It’s the biosphere…any and all human economic structures are secondary in importance to the biosphere. If that goes nothing else relative to human existence matters. Some reputable scientists are saying that if things don’t change fast there will be no fish in the oceans in 50 years. NO FISH? Killing the oceans of Gaia should be front page news, but all anyone cares about is the fucking economy. Social safety net? What good will that do anyone if there’s no clean water to drink and nothing to eat but each other?
Carrie, yes and I and the old guy are boomers. We squandered a lot of money, although we do some other things right. We thought our house and property would be worth something for the kids, but now even that is being devalued and who knows if people will still be allowed to own property in 20 years.
Trust funds are good, if managed well. My daughter’s husband has a well managed fund, and that seems to be a good way to go. My son buys silver and gold, and I’m sure he’s doing quite well. However, i suppose he’s on that other list too since he buys silver and gold.
Their real complaint with my generation is the nuclear situation and everything environmental, not just the money. Nothing in their future is very secure. I always felt very sure of everything, even my afterlife. I wish I could convey that sense of security to them, but i feel like I’m lying.
Here are the charts, large, with progressed charts next to them. I may continue on this theme next week — I only scratched the surface of these charts in today’s essay
http://planetwavesweekly.com/resources/chart153.html
Patty,
You may be on to something there. I frequent a generations forum where the generations talk about each other and the younger generations. Gen Jones, Gen X and younger blame the Silents (they were kids during WWII) and the Boomers (they were the kids of the adults who returned from WWII) for the mess we are in now. Gen Jones (The tail-end of the boom) are not Boomers so they didn’t get the wonderful lives the Silents and Boomers got. Gen Jones, Gen X and below feel like the self-centered Silents and Boomers squandered everything and they are the ones who want social programs for THEM but not for anyone younger than they are. Eric said it when he mentioned his father wanting HIS tax-payer funded health care (Medicare) but he didn’t care if Eric had it as well. These two generations, the Silents and the Boomers started the “Me-me-me” decades and it has made younger people really pissed off. My own kids (I am Gen Jones) are really angry that they are inheriting a world of mass unemployment, no jobs, no real future unless you are the lucky wealthy few and a plutocracy.
There is something to be said for their anger; I feel it too because my generation was the first one all the new cuts affected. Raise the SS age- that was on Gen Jones. Change retirement plans in companies, those were done to Gen Jones and younger. I grew up in the promising economic boom but it soured in the 70’s when I was a teen and the trickle-down “downsizing” of workers in the 80’s meant I never saw that promised “good life.” Gen X was the first generation raised in daycare and as latch key kids; lack of parental supervision (their Boomer parents were too anti-establishment and self absorbed) has made them angry, ill mannered and lacking the upward mobility their parents had. Is it any wonder they are mad as hell?
“acting together, they have been known to topple empires”
and obviously what remains in-obvious is how that will manifest. Will history discuss the toppling of the corporate empire? or-?
Overheard at the foodbank this afternoon two articulate ‘homeless’ men – one a vet, the other not – discussing oil. The vet insisting that we have not tapped into the yet-vast-reserves of oil on American soil because that is our insurance for remaining a global-power (when we initiate ww3) since our military depends on oil for it’s might/power.
well, just a tangent. what do the two charts say when justaposed? progressed?
sigh.
Thanks Eric. You’re the Best.
I think the resentment you discuss in this issue, regarding the young college man, has more to do with how much the young people are so angry at the way our generations squandered all the resources, the economy, the oil, the environment and the retirements. Your kid wasn’t too clued in about Monsanto, but give him time and illness and he’ll come around. My son is especially angry about all of these things, that we didn’t do enough to stop the wasting of money. My daughter went to school with a kid who was a foster kid most of his life. He is truly resentful that the foster parents didn’t think to save a little of the money back for his future. When he was grown, he was on his own with no family. A nephew posted a favorite song on facebook. He just recently graduated from college and is working, but the song had to do with not being able to go home because his room is gone and it is now a guest room or something like that. Anyway all his college friends commented about how the song brings tears to their eyes every time they hear it! I think that is how the young people feel abou the world too. That we let them down personally and destroyed everything in our paths. My husband and I spend too much money too, and didn’t save like we should have. My son is angry about that too. He paid his own way through college and his loans were paid off quickly. The young people are all big on managing their resources, and screw the rest of us because we don’t deserve it for the way we lived our lives. My perception.
An acupuncturist friend recently told me that eating dandelions, flowers and leaves, is good for the liver. I remember someone saying that a lot of plants we think of as weeds are the plant people giving us the medicine they perceive us as needing. I don’t know about New York, but over here dandelions are ubiquitous. Anger is the emotion of the liver. When it’s healthy it’s gentle and firm. On the emotional/qi level it would seem the plants are responding to our culture’s anger. Of course hardly anyone knows dandelions are edible and delicious if you care for the soil so they’re not eating a bunch of pollution.
…also there is additional mirroring implied by the two rulers of Virgo being at opposition — Chiron in Pisces, being opposed by Mercury in Virgo. It does not make an exact opposition in August, but it does in September, which is the culmination of the current Mercury retrograde. You can think of Chiron as a super-Mercury in one sense, associated with blending boundaries (human/animal, male/female), healing, awareness and the way we focus our consciousness. The exact opposition is on Sept. 10, right at the 10th anniversary of the Sept 11 incident.
Interesting that in the August monthly for Virgo, I took the Mercury retrograde metaphor as a layering process rather than mirroring, though both apply:
“Dark Mary
That horoscope for Virgo is an interpretation of Mercury retrograding opposite Neptune, while Neptune is changing signs from Pisces to Aquarius.”
Dark Mary is not alone, it fits me as well, thanks for the info.
Dark Mary
That horoscope for Virgo is an interpretation of Mercury retrograding opposite Neptune, while Neptune is changing signs from Pisces to Aquarius.
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Eric, I am completely stunned by the potency and accuracy of your sun sign horoscopes. It is not the first time I have read one of your short forecasts and felt like I was standing naked in front of a bright mirror. Bright, as in shining, pulsating truth, as in a kind friend finally stated aloud for me that which I had been trying to articulate for months. It is almost unnerving.
It *is* a mirage that this is about me and someone else and, for the first time in my life I am coming to understand, to know on a cellular level, that my “autonomous existence is the only place from which I can relate to others on equitable terms.” Checking for other illusions, now.
If it is not too much trouble, could you tell us what Virgo transits you were focusing on when you wrote this horoscope?
Looking forward to digging into the U.S. charts. With deep thanks.
It’s a dangerous passage, so I’m not making a judgement on it. Counseling a person going through Pluto transits is easier because you have something clear to work with — that person’s desires, their history, their inner process. Most of my clients do very well with their Pluto transits because I can get a dialog going with them and the process they’re in.
A society is different. It’s more complex and there are more variables; it’s not possible to predict how masses of people will respond to energetic influences and the crises they create. It does not exactly stoke my optimism that I’ve seen so many people let so many good opportunities go by. It’s not encouraging that I see so much ignorance and so much giving away of power.
That said, it doesn’t take a lot of people to effect change, but the more the better. This whole concept of progressive needs to set some goals for itself. My own role in this, as I see it, is to create an opening where inner process is an accessible idea, that is directly related to historical process. I do my little part to gather some resources and get people working together. I am curious to hear what your vision for taking part in this transition is, and what you’re doing about it now — anyone who wants to reply.
very interesting. i couldn’t quite tell whether you have a worried or hopeful view on the upcoming transits to the us chart. it certainly feels like we’re on the verge of something.
“It has a lot to do with how and where we direct our rage — we tend to project it onto others, or direct it inwardly as guilt. This combination of anger, resentment and guilt is taking over the emotional landscape on which politics is built. And it is having some extremely toxic effects. ”
I would add that too often, that rage and resentment hide an inherent feeling of guilt on the part of the person feeling that rage. The young guy you spoke of sounds like he is from a privileged class and filled with a sense of entitlement; his biggest fear is that he will lose HIS good life if he and others like him are required to “help the poor.” He also feels a hidden guilt about his position in life because deep inside he KNOWS he did not earn it. The talk these kinds of people have about “making the poor work for it” comes from that place of guilt over their own lack of work for what they have. They know they don’t “deserve” their position according to the very ideology they espouse; that of having to work hard to earn it. This kind of feeling of not deserving what you have and the guilt it brings is so toxic because it is too often turned outward to the very people who are less fortunate; as though THEY are at fault for making the privileged class feel that guilt. So these lucky people transfer their anger onto the people they feel guilty about and rage against them.
The trouble is, how to help these people get beyond their fear and guilt and rage to the place where instead of feeling threatened or guilty, they use their positions to help others WILLINGLY? That’s the place any loving, light-worker must begin. Trying to get them to see facts doesn’t work because they resist anything which may uncover their inner guilt. It is a difficult task and one which will take all the love and patience one can muster.
“Be careful about any observations you make that include another person. Part of the mirage is that this is about you and someone else, or you and your desire to be with someone else. Indeed, a central theme of this moment of your life is learning that ‘special relationships’ cannot be the focus of your existence. The time has arrived to orient on yourself. I don’t mean to be selfish or cut others off…”
Thank you for another brilliant issue. That last line is so apropos and already too late in one area of my life. Regrets are always difficult to deal with but I have them anyway. I really miss the intellectual conversation I walked away from and I don’t how to fix that. :::sigh::: I wish I had read that line a few weeks ago.
PW really is an amazing place to be and has so much to offer. I keep growing every day because of all of you here. Deepest thanks.