Today is Monday, Sept. 5, 2011. It’s Labor Day in the United States, a holiday to honor the working class, or what is left of it — strategically located far from May Day so that we’re not associated with the communists and socialists. The Moon is in Sagittarius today until it enters Capricorn at about 10:03 pm EDT. Along the way, the Moon will make a conjunction to the Galactic Core, which gives a flavor of mysticism, spiritual longing and may have the emotional tug toward ‘home’ that the Galactic Core represents.
The mid-Virgo Sun is aspecting all those small, slow, weird planets we mentioned in Friday’s subscriber edition — especially the ‘bonfire of the vanities’ aspect of Narcissus conjunct Phlous and the Great Attractor. There are many others involved, and the Sun will aspect them by conjunction, square or opposition.
All week we’ll be on a big adventure through the dusky side-streets of minor planet astrology, with the rare opportunity to witness what few astrologers have had a chance to observe. The thing about these minor planets is, they tend to reveal themselves when they’re taking aspects from the Sun. One of the ways we learn is to tune in and watch.
Today the Sun is opposite minor planet Borasisi in Pisces. Borasisi, a slow-mover taking about 292 years to orbit our Sun, was discovered in 1999. It was named by some imaginative astronomers after a concept in the fictional religion of the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat’s Cradle. The novel plays on the themes of world destruction, and what happens when the masters of technology lack any ethics. The Pisces New Moon back in early March was conjunct this little planet, and was the subject of a Friday subscriber issue called With Love from Borasisi. This foreshadowed the Fukushima disaster nearly six months ago. (This was a little weird. The story of Cat’s Cradle comes out of General Electric, and so did the designs for the reactors that melted down.)
Borasisi is a patron saint of our days, which many politicians are selling to us as the ‘last days’ or end times. This is a fantasy perpetrated by leaders of the far-right fundamentalist Christian faction of American religio-politics, and it’s pure Borasisi — carrying the theme, ‘If I believe it, it must be true’, or, in its flip incarnation, ‘If I don’t believe it, it isn’t true’. This planet is the poster child for blind belief, denial of science, and those who perpetrate their unquestioned beliefs on others — in other words, a symbol of our current moment — though arguably this is not news.
Opposite Borasisi is the Sun in Virgo, which can represent concrete knowledge, applied science, healing techniques and the work that it takes to create these things. But who really wants to do the work? Who wants to check their beliefs to validate whether they’re true? It’s easier to deny science than to investigate it, or to let it challenge your preconceived ideas.
An article published elsewhere a couple years ago on religious belief and understanding in America pointed out something illustrative. Although the U.S. professes separation of church and state, our separation is not so clear-cut. The notion of ‘the Creator’ is all over our political documentation, and In God We Trust is plastered in every courtroom. Our alleged superiority in this regard comes with knee-jerk fear and condemnation of countries (especially Islamic countries) governed by religious law. What we in fact have is a nation that is primarily Christian, of a certain kind: often ignorant of its own ideas. We lack thorough education about religion, its concepts and its theology, our own or those of others. What we have left is indoctrination. Actual religious education began declining in the 1800s as Christian sects argued about which Bible was the ‘right’ Bible to teach in schools. As a result, we have come to a point of being essentially a Christian-run country (on both sides of the party aisle), but we’re a nation of believers without understanding. Many people cannot even see this as it happens, even as the ideas of religion are conflated with democratic notions.
Unquestioned belief plays an enormous role in this, running at a fever pitch culturally (whether that is ‘belief in’ or ‘disbelief’), for the most part lacking understanding of what is believed. This is a reaction to the mysteries of existence, and the many pressures we’re under. We crave certainty; there is little to be had, so we fill in the void with belief. The rush to say ‘I know’ and ‘I believe’ is a REACTION to mystery. Those who cannot abide mystery — who cannot simply sit with, coexist with, a state of not knowing — have to make up a story and inflict it on everyone else out of fear, or to gain an advantage.
But fear of what? Fear of not being, fear of death, fear of existing on our little planet on the edge of the galaxy, with no certain knowledge of where we are or why we’re here. This translates to the fear of life; or rather, a fear of this existence: that it means nothing after all. That’s a pretty big fear, and to truly sit with it and allow the questions to sink in, with no obvious answer readily available or promised or necessarily even likely, is not easy. Most of us probably don’t really do so, even when we think we do.
Many of us have read the existentialist and absurdist plays that dive into this line of inquiry with post-modern glee. Some of us even like them. But exactly how much have we taken the mirror they present to heart? How many of us watch Vladimir and Estragon bumble through Waiting for Godot — desperate to be seen, recognized, remembered; desperate for time to make sense; desperate for the new and unknown and yet desperate for the familiar and comfortable — and allow the desperation its moment of recognition in our own hearts? And when we find it, how many of us are still able to laugh? In Godot, the characters struggle with questions like trying to figure out what happened on what day. As our days blur past, we might ask that one of ourselves.
Not everything can be proven; not everything can be left to faith. The Virgo Sun opposite Borasisi in Pisces describes our need to stretch across the seeming contradiction between mindless belief and grounded intellectual process. And that’s where we are right now.
–with Amanda Painter
‘How might our lives change if we supposed that just being fully alive in the moment is the only purpose or function of the Divine that animates us? Maybe we could begin to strip away the layers we’ve built up around our magnificence’. Think I’ll put this up on my bedroom wall dear Judith!’
This is culminating is an ultra-personal way for me. All kinds of emotional gunk coming to the surface. All the players mentioned: Narcissistic, believe what they want people deeply impacting my personal life. Will this transit be over soon? I hope so.
And thanks, Amanda, as well …
I had the Godot feeling when I read the clip about the bots, chatting, the other day — zen bots. Course in Miracles tells us that we assign the meaning to everything; when we get enough meaning gathered together, we tell ourselves stories … like kids under a blanket with a flashlight.
I AM THAT I AM has never been sufficient for the Western mind; only Gawd, that Enormous Someone outside of ourselves can simply exist because It does, the rest of us have to scramble to put ourselves in relationship to It and therefore, take on some purpose. We give our power away right there; the rest of the journey is about trying to take it back. How might our lives change if we supposed that just being fully alive in the moment is the only purpose or function of the Divine that animates us? Maybe we could begin to strip away the layers we’ve built up around our magnificence.
Gwind, I love Bones too — the juxtaposition of believer/disbeliever in the primary relationship speaks to the opposite ends of the spectrum without being repugnant. There are the occasional tender moments when Temperance will give on an issue just because it’s important to Seeley, efforting to understand from his heart space, and we get to see what empathy and compromise looks like — so timely in this culture. It’s a subliminal message to be sure, but important exposure.
Nice read, e — right on, as usual. And Jere, big hug for the reminder … I DO take enormous comfort in it!
Note, Amanda contributed significantly to this piece. I forgot her signature line at the end.
These people are goin’ down, believe me or don’t.
I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I know how it plays out. We win in the end, if that gives you any comfort.
..Until then, keep on truckin’ on!
Jere
It’s difficult in our American culture to truly separate church and state, law and religion. It’s also difficult for us to fathom the concept of a government based on religious law, yet that is what we really do have – a primarily WASP system of laws and government that is insidious because it claims to be non-religious. And as intentionally ignorant as we are about other belief traditions, we can’t and won’t see what is happening.
“Checking” one’s beliefs: checking them in a check room with your coat; checking the balance in your checking account; checking into a cheap motel or a grand hotel; checking and reviewing a check list; checking, as in a body block in hockey (with a penalty if the ref catches you).
Years ago, my eclectic spiritual advisor told me that when she was absolutely certain about something it was time to check the belief behind it, tracing it back if possible to its source. That certainty can be something thought to be true or untrue. When righteousness riles up like bile in my throat, it is time to do some checking on why that righteous certainty is felt, to determine if it is a conditioned reaction. I have learned to welcome, even create opportunity, to question the origins of “certainties.” Certainties are different than knowing something in one’s soul, one’s core; sensing the truth of something. I find a great sense of relief when I follow the threads back into my past to find that some belief had been niggling at the edge of my consciousness, waiting and wanting to be questioned. Disbelief at so much of what is flung at us does make me want to do the work to validate or refute beliefs, to find the origins if I can.
Besides, checking (in any of its forms) also serves to appease the eight hundred pound chattering grasshopper that lives on my right shoulder, persistently pestering me with either “That’s bullshit!” or (in a much weaker “voice”) “But what if it’s not bullshit?”
Thanks, Eric, for another thought provoking daily missive. JannKinz
(PS: Sorry, I originally posted this under the Oracle. Mea culpa.)
Brilliant and highly relevant writing, Eric! Very useful linkage into Borasisi. Astrology the holistic lens brought to bear once again..
Love the two paragraphs above about belief without understanding and reaction to mystery! How true! How true! Staring at a grain of sand, our culture puts such importance to describing, analyzing, labeling, scrutinizing, compartmentalizing, and concluding, that we forget to breathe and just enjoy the sand.
I enjoy watching “Bones” reruns at times, and when I hear Brennan say, “I don’t know what that means.” I crack up. This piece leaves me in a still moment asking, “Why do I always need to know?”
A good day to just look around.
Good morning!
Great piece…..Im certain that if I had been taught or exposed or given the
Opportunity to learn something other than “forgive me father,for I have sinned“
I would not be estranged from my vibrator right now…
Well I have the opportunity now to learn whatever it is I want,
I have denied my supposed creator….now I am creating my own life….
Quite smashing actually….ok…maybe I just need a new vibrator..this one was obviously
Designed by a man!
Peace and love
Patricia
Thank you for that x
Thank you. Simply wonderful. This is where it’s at – a tough place to be, like walking a tight rope, but isn’t life about learning to walk that tight rope? xxx