Dear Friend and Reader:
Because we are in a time of transition of power, there are a lot of secret meetings going on right now, but the secret meeting that shows up in the chart for the ground assault on Gaza is pretty stunning. Astrology is conveyed in images and symbols, and it’s difficult to put into words: the less so for expressing irony. When you look at yesterday’s chart, part of the story is told in by the planets ruling the ascendant and the descendant — “self” versus “other.” Since Israel was making the move this time, it gets “self” — the ruler of the ascendant. The Palestinians, whoever they actually are, get “other” — the ruler of the descendant. This works out to be Mercury and Jupiter.
These two planets are doing a dance right now, thanks to the upcoming Mercury retrograde. On the Dec. 31, hey made a conjunction way at the end of Capricorn. This not all that interesting in itself — but when you take those planets and you tell the story of a war, and you see an image of cooperation, it really makes me (for one) wonder what is going on. It starts to look like a faux war. But then, if you study the history of war, they all turn out to be faux. War is supposed to be about motives and reasons, and these never turn out to be ones we are told.
How people respond to news and rumor of war reveals a lot about human nature. We get caught up without asking too many questions. Forgive me if this sounds callous, but even within the drama of this particular war, I wonder just how it is that the Palestinians can be upset that they’re being bombed and invaded after sending 75 rockets a day over the border into a bigger, more powerful country. So far I haven’t seen one sign at one of those protests that says, “Sorry about all the rockets.” Are we to believe they have a divine right to commit terrorism? Does anyone expect us to believe this?
Then again, apparently, Israel has been assaulting Gaza through the “cease fire.”
It makes so little sense that it points to something larger. So, too, does the timing — just weeks before Cheney/Bush give up the magic telephone line to the world, The Button (you know, the nuclear one), and the direct ability to wreak chaos on the planet. The ground assault on Gaza reminds me a little too much of the ground assault on Iraq. That chart was really weird, too: for the opposite reason. Instead of the two sides looking like they had a perfectly cooperative relationship, that one looked like they had no relationship whatsoever. It looked like a war without an enemy.
Looking ahead at this conflict for a moment, remembering that it’s mixed up with a new president taking office, we see a couple of turning points. It looks like Israel may start to pull back by next weekend when Mercury stations retrograde, and like there will be seemingly serious talk of diplomacy by around the 18th, when Mercury and Jupiter make their second of three conjunctions (two days before the inauguration). That is a sham: Mercury is retrograde.
And an eclipse is coming, in Aquarius, a mere six days after Obama takes office. This is perfect cosmic weather for chaos, confusion and disinformation to settle in like influenza.
The stone could be a symbol from outer space. Isn’t there something in the hebrew christian thing about a staff and a rock and something flowing from it.
Black slit = oil. Hmm… I’m gonna see into that one. But I was earlier speaking of the Kaaba, the black stone –pre-Islamic– around which Mecca is arranged. It is yoni-form, and word is that it has a crack in it. Probably meteorite. Has a wild field apparently, comparable to certain olmec heads around Vera Cruz.
I know a couple of brothers who say they are fighting over land, but I have had the sneaking suspicion that it really ain’t the land. It’s something else. So thanks for the affirmation rabbi.
About the pump, who are the other big oil sources. What’s goin on Russia? I wonder what sarah sees across the water. Isn’t the majority of Europe’s oil coming from Russia (ie must get Georgia back to control pipeline) Should we be following the pipelines of the world. Where is hamas getting their weaponry from anyway?
We keep talking about george and the dick. George’s mommy is the local oil queen, and in thick with the saudis. The dick’s sponsored company is the only company in the world that handles these big pipeline projects. Should we follow the pipelines? Mystes suggestion of a black slit?
” Jane’s, honey… that’s YOU, not Buddhism. I’ve seen monks killin’ other monks. I’ve seen high lamas secretly condoning while publicly condemning violence. So no, you can’t park that dead mouse on B’s doorstep. S. Gautama was Kshatriya (warrior caste)… his teaching covertly continues that legacy. Claim that Peace, that *radical* Peace as your own. Don’t be scared, you’re enough to hold all of it. I’ll back you up.”
It isn’t me. My scrawl up there about Anger was from a book by HH14th Dalai Lama called Healing Anger. You might think the Dalai Lama is a fucking idiot but I’d at least assume he knows what Buddhism is. He says both things you took issue with — that Anger can be resisted and western thought glorifies emotion.
. The existence of killing doesn’t change the teaching of the Buddha or any other higher teaching for that matter.
Logically if enough violence leaves a situation, it will not be a situation. If enough soldiers leave a battlefield, there will be no one left to fight. Our only hope in this particular war is attrition. This is not really what I mean: our only hope in ending all war is attrition. Eric drew this awesome image rendering a triangle of hatred. There is no way to “win” in in that triangle. The only possibility is to resolve to use love and devotion, patient refusal, until the violence is gone. Fucking is not important and killing is not important and dead monks are not important. That I know the nature of the ways these enemies use their power to destroy each other is worthless if that knowledge is used to contribute to violence instead of to end it. Even the violence of getting all pissed off on an internet board.
When people talk about this conflict it seems to contain everything they have to say about their own pain. You keep hearing it: you have to see! Don’t you see what they are doing! They’re doing it, they’re doing the thing! So when I see the energy going there I have to stop fucking around. Said the Original Cardinal; somebody’s gonna put their eye out. Gotta… Stopitstopitstopit.
:). I keep hearing this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0bXGnOtXLc
I’m going to have to part ways here with you amiga on this idea that going deeper into fucking and killing is going to result in compassion. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that — especially regarding this topic — all violence leaves, and that includes my own. Our own. If we discuss the War with our violence intact, then we are combatants.
~j
“Don’t think for a minute that I’m attacking you, what I’m attacking is the ignorance and cowardice that’s been conditioned inside of all of us! That’s the only war I want to fight and that will take a lifetime.”
:). I understand you. Me too, amigo.
If what you read here is upsetting it’s not intentional. We all want the truth and nothing else. All of us.
~j
Hi JD,
We seem to be speaking a different language here. I’m not saying don’t walk away, what I’m saying is that today more than ever we have to be aware! Lies are repeated and repeated till they become “the truth” and where is clarity then? And clarity is your greatest friend. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be born and if you must pick a side, pick your side, if you need to choose an enemy, you choose one based on your understanding not because of a deluge of peer pressure.
The reason I posted is because I could see the lies repeated on PW, it’s a cancer that I have to speak up against. I too enjoy EFs analysis and I too like to read the comments, I’m not an astrologer as such, my knowledge is basic at best but I strive to understand, however when I encounter prejudice I think it my duty to point it out as I expect my friends to point it out in me.
Don’t think for a minute that I’m attacking you, what I’m attacking is the ignorance and cowardice that’s been conditioned inside of all of us! That’s the only war I want to fight and that will take a lifetime.
I wrote:
“Anger has important work to do;” It should have been Anger and Lust have important work to do.
and
“…pure repudiation purely craves. It’s between the push of one and the pull of the other that the flywheel of compassion appears. You won’t find it anywhere else on this miserable planet. If you think its under some brocaded, maroon robe, I would say, go Deeper.”
By Deeper I mean, go to your own fivefold field: The senses are just little buddhas, each awaiting the call from the anger/lust conjunction.
J’Defense generalizes: “We can also just lay it down chief and never pick it up again. Buddhists say this about Anger, ”
Jane’s, honey… that’s YOU, not Buddhism. I’ve seen monks killin’ other monks. I’ve seen high lamas secretly condoning while publicly condemning violence. So no, you can’t park that dead mouse on B’s doorstep. S. Gautama was Kshatriya (warrior caste)… his teaching covertly continues that legacy. Claim that Peace, that *radical* Peace as your own. Don’t be scared, you’re enough to hold all of it. I’ll back you up.
And then you said: “and that’s incongruent with western thinking, which insists that you should Feeeel all your feelings, get them all out, engage with them and feed them scraps from the table until they get brave enough to lunge at you and rip your heart out of your chest. I used to believe that too but I don’t anymore.”
Hmmm… Different West, eh? I grew up in the one that clings to silence, repression, consumerism and the occasional drunken hunting trip/titty bar to process what little bits of emotion are leftover after ‘productive’ capital-seeking/spending behaviors. Anger is here, oh yeah: professionalized into Armed Services, and sublimated into an economy that runs on guns and pharma. You think they Feel it? Not a chance. That would wreck the economy… [oh, wait…]
Anger has important work to do; pure repudiation purely craves. It’s between the push of one and the pull of the other that the flywheel of compassion appears. You won’t find it anywhere else on this miserable planet. If you think its under some brocaded, maroon robe, I would say, go Deeper.
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Yanno, ArnieH,
I posted back to you at work this morning, but Planet Waves hasn’t let me log out of comments for days, so the whole set of thrilling ideas that I intended to communicate to you at ten this morning from another computer was lost forever.
It’s a good thing too because this forced me to think all day about why I have to stay out of The War. It’s because I swore to myself I wasn’t going to fight no more. I want to tell you something, it turned out to be a *lot* harder than I ever thought it would be. I really suck at it. I’m not any better at it. But I still won’t quit. I believe in not fighting The War no more, more than anything else in this world.
Problem is I know so much about the War. It’s like cigarettes to me. I can’ t have any cigarettes. I’m *allowed* to have them, because I’m an adult, but they’re bad for me so I *choose* not to have any delicious, poisonous, private gaseous absinthe. I can’t change my brain but I don’t have to let my addictions run me, or anybody else’s either.
Brother you probably didn’t realize it at the time but the argument you presented up there suggested that the only way I can get out of my obligation to shoot back in one direction or another would be to either be dead, or to never have been born. I have to pick a side, right, one hill to shoot from or another one, facing the enemy I’ve chosen. That’s in fact absolutely true, but there’s another way. We can also just lay it down chief and never pick it up again.
Buddhists say this about Anger, and that’s incongruent with western thinking, which insists that you should Feeeel all your feelings, get them all out, engage with them and feed them scraps from the table until they get brave enough to lunge at you and rip your heart out of your chest. I used to believe that too but I don’t anymore.
Now I think we could both drop our guns in the dirt and just start walking. And then The War would lose both of us.
You almost got me though. I was about to tell you all kinds of stuff about The War. But I ain’t, because the War has lost me and I’m never going back.
On the other hand the only reason I am posting this right now is because I want to tell you all the shit that I can’t, so bad.
So I do suck at it. But I keep practicing.
~j
Notes from home: I lied. My south node is in Gemini. Will search for degree of that eclipse.
Matches on gemini betrayal in this lifetime as reported by fellow travellers on the home front of this site. Pictures of past life involvement while transporting secret communications for the cause. This lifetime while I ran in fear of death running for the cause, he had me snuggled away inside the walls of the court, his queen (how disappointing for him in this lifetime). A match: the queen in the court was the one on horseback pounding hooves through the backroads for the cause as the court became more the enemy than the friend. Energy to the leaks in the political court who get the message through.
We know it ain’t right, we just need the science, the linear to prove it.
I’m trying not to feel nervous about all this – especially about Obama’s deafening silence. He’s been outspoken re Mumbai and the economic crisis and yet now…nothing. He has just been shown on TV here (in response to the events in Gaza) saying that there can only be one President at a time. This was followed by previous footage in the run up to the election where he says that he will not see the the security of Israel threatened and that Hamas has to be isolated and dealt with. Encouraging eh? Well I don’t feel encouraged – I feel well and truly fucked over. But not as fucked over as the innocent civilians in Gaza. Happy New Year.
I’m flummoxed by the amount of misinformation circulating regarding the 60 year history of Israel’s war on Palestine, misinformation propagated by the mainstream media and reflected back everywhere, including in these posts. No one feels compelled to find out more about this history which includes at the very least an illegal occupation (according to the UN) of the West Bank and Gaza for 40 years. Palestinians are routinely being expelled from their own houses; centuries-old olive trees which provided food and sources of income, are being destroyed by Israeli bulldozers (hey, remember Rachel Corrie?). Israel’s blockade of Gaza has prevented medicine, food, and gasoline from reaching its population, despite the UN’s representatives protests that this constitutes a humanitarian crisis. According to medical experts, Palestinian children are malnourished, display failure to thrive, and are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The checkpoints and detours the population are required to pass through on a daily basis make any kind of commerce next to impossible. In the West Bank, many Palestinians draw their water from a sewage pond. Israel is the occupier. They have the responsibility to protect and care for these populations; instead they have been perpetrating genocidal policies.
Eric, why ask that the Palestinians apologize for their short-range bombs? How could rage not thrive in such an environment? It’s a miracle that every member of the Palestinian population hasn’t joined the uprising against Israel. An earlier Israeli condition for negotiation with Palestinian leaders included ending the suicide bombings; the bombings stopped, but Israel moved the goalposts. Do you really believe that it was Hamas’ bombs that precipitated this terror? Aren’t you pragmatic enough to give some credence to even Israeli reports that this event was timed in concert with the upcoming Israeli elections?
Someone has posted that the world opinion is against Israel. Hardly. Over the decades as Palestinians have starved and died for lack of medical supplies, paid outrageous prices for oil, and watched as their neighbors were ousted from their homes, the largest governments have been silent. And now even with this most overt display of homicidal rage, what is the US doing? Not a single protest. Not a peep of condemnation from our almost-annointed, already overly beloved Barak Obama. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once reminded us, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Eric – oops. Never mind I’ve just read your post (I had only seen Genevieve’s) and gotten my answer. Thanks. – jinspace
Well this is quite an interesting post, secret meetings and faux war.
Did anyone click on the link “assaulting Gaza through the ‘cease fire.’” ? you should. Reading that link to the Guardian made me realise this is also a propaganda war and it’s been in the making for months, remember the WMDs or the media bombardment after 9/11, or the 2000 election, or the financial crash, same thing!
You’re being spun! I’m being spun and I hate being spun.
I’m in Australia so I’m seeing this from a different perspective, Yes I know Gaza is not in the US but the US and Israel are so tightly connected it’s hard to see who is pulling who’s chain, especially after the last ten years.
What I’m getting at is that this is definitely “something larger” and should not be viewed in the context of just another altercation in the Middle East, this is not about Hamas firecrackers, that’s just the excuse, this ties in with whatever the Bush/Chaney agenda is going on. This could affect the Middle East the way that 9/11 affected America, except this isn’t self inflicted.
A couple of comments have said they don’t want to give this any more energy, well hello, you paid for those bombs and tanks and gunships! Not sold, given! And it’s all in your name.
JD do a little more “factual” research this is the time of spin and Fox news, personally I wouldn’t trust anything in the mainstream media but you could start with that link to the Guardian or you could just check the numbers (ie for every dollar going to Gaza the US gives Israel $1000 in military “Aid” ).
The only time I can remember a chance of peace in Palestine was with Yitzhak Rabin and it wasn’t the Palestinians that assassinated him.
johanna:
I wouldn’t blame ‘religion’ per se. I quite like my incense, rituals and liturgy thank-you-very-much, be they in a Hindu Temple, Mosque, Synagogue, etc. I feel a sense of peace in all places of worship (despite my disagreements with some of their outdated notions) and I haven’t killed anyone in the name of any God :-).
I think it’s more that religion is wielded as a weapon in Politics, used to create divisions and sell wars, or whatever agenda of the day they’re trying to promote, as a means to their ends.
Same thing with Nationalism as we saw in Germany back in the day….and countless other situations.
The most insidious form of ‘branding’ I guess one can say. :-/
After reading Eric’s articles about this situation, i’m beginning to appreciate astrology even more for going beneath all the simplistic superficiality, and delving into the intricacies behind all this stuff.
This feels like such a “Wag The Dog” moment…….
so….
if 400 Israelis were killed versus 4 Palestinians, we would be blaming the Israelis? they must want their people to be killed, that explains it all
(and I just posted about it has been reported, in Israeli newspapers, that Israel planned this assault 6 months ago, before the ceasefire had even started … but no, it is really because of the rocket attacks that they are doing this … how much bs are you ready to take in?)
world opinion was already against Israel, look at how many UN resolutions there have been (over decades and decades) against what they have been doing, and look at how little effect world opinion has on Israel’s actions
Israel are the chosen people, they are the persecuted people, they have the right to do whatever they want to do in their own defence, it’s not their fault that everyone else sees them as mass murders, they are the only true victims, look at what false religion does to those palestinians, they’re crazy, Israel is God’s chosen people
You ask –
<>
I think the answer has been well documented — it is a very small percentage of the population that is actually lobbing rockets into Israel and Hamas is extremely unpopular among most of the civilian population. I am an American and I want nothing to do with the death machine that has been destroying the Iraqi and Afghan people along with the terrorists.
I think the best insight into any and all of this madness can be found (at least in the most basic and easy to read sense) in Sam Harris’ book, “The End of Faith” which very pragmatically and rationally explains how religion is now and has always been a very destructive force (not to be confused with spirituality) — and that as long as there are murders committed under the righteousness of some imagined God, the result will be this kind of carnage. Whether it is Bush and his belief in being divinely ordained to invade Iraq or it is Palestine’s belief that Jews are an offense to God by habituating in the Middle East, we’re screwed. Maybe that is what is (the good news)? of Pluto into Capricorn. Capricorn (for better or worse) is often associated with institutions — and let’s hope that Pluto’s influence might be to break up those institutions so that they will not continue to operate in the oppressive and rigid ways of the past.
Its all a mess up there (national boundaries) but my contact lives just down from the Heights / Lebanese (in some ways still a Syrian client state) border- they get attacked quite often and she herself has been injured in a rocket attack in the past.
So its a hornets nest that is being stirred up there.
I’m trying to keep out of it too …
Mandy… and so you did! I was thinking of Syria qua Syria, then tacked on the Golan Heights bit (thinking ‘now there’s your patent no-woman’s-land). But yeah, Hezbollah – aren’t they Lebanese?
See, this is why I am a *Latin-Americanist.* I have to keep track of only 500 years or so of mud/bloodshed.
Hah. (‘Cept for the Huicholes and Tarahumara and Chichimec and Quiche and… )
Mystes,
As I said in my comment at the top – the Israelis up there are already getting ready …
You know, like JD, I pulled my energy from this sitch a long time ago; the only soft spot in my heart for that region is Syria. I have an anamnesis of a place in Damascus I need to see again before I shove the bucket. (Left something there.) So my intuition says: look at the Golan Heights.
Yeah, this is just one of those insupportable ‘maybes’ I put out from time to time. It be a hunch, no mas.
Right about now the Moon is joining forces with Eris. Wonder what those two have up their sleeves? They are sextiling Chiron too. Well that’s interesting. . .but wait! Could they be part of a yod? Yes indeed they are; that’s SATURN in a quincunx with all three of them! Well, somebody is stepping up to put a stop to all this. Wonder who? (and WHAT) Hmmmm, Chiron and the Moon are the only one’s in this game that aren’t retrograde. I’ll just have to wait and see I guess.
” Forgive me if this sounds callous, but even within the drama of this particular war, I wonder just how it is that the Palestinians can be upset that they’re being bombed and invaded after sending 75 rockets a day over the border into a bigger, more powerful country. So far I haven’t seen one sign at one of those protests that says, “Sorry about all the rockets.” Are we to believe they have a divine right to commit terrorism? Does anyone expect us to believe this?”
Yep. I’m with you, Eric.
I keep trying to find an article by Seymour Hersch that came out somewhere near 9-11. Around that time there was heavy examination of US military capability, especially in the event of “asymmetric” attack. What can a small fry do against a giant like the US military? How can the attacker use his enemy’s strength against him?
Flying airplanes into buildings is certainly one idea.
Provoking attack, and then launching a graphic propaganda offensive with evidence of “atrocity” is another. This works a myriad of ways. First it aims public opinion against the stronger power and this is a kryptonite influence; lowering morale, making life harder on the international level. It also makes all retaliation much more expensive in time and responsive capability; and also the ability of the stronger power to get military financial aid in the future from its allies.
:). I’m down here in the little box so I can say this: I do not feel sorry for the Palestinians as a national entity. Suicide bombing, bullet baiting and blood protests is *how they get funded* by the rest of the Arab world. It’s how they fight,the only way they can afford to fight without losing their position of victimhood.
It is quite sophisticated in my opinion. The reason I wanted to share the Hersch article is because he presents a breakdown of how the smaller to larger asymmetrical victimhood/propaganda attacks worked for Basque insurgents and almost broke Spain apart. The greater the response by the larger power, the more energy the lesser has to work with to turn public opinion against their “oppressor”.
You see how this only works with an audience. You see how we all are sucked into participation. I decided about….eh, five, six years ago that I would not give this conflict *any* of my own energy. Not giving it energy is the only way to make it go away. If this were a straightforward conflict I would not feel that way; but it isn’t.
Yes, yes, of course I feel awful for the little kids and the woman and of course I am sorry they Palestinians are poor. But they are doing all right, believe me. They have it set up so that every time they are attacked by Israel it is a golden opportunity.
Top from the bottom, baby. Those guys live in the eighth house of the Arab world.
~j
i read yesterday that it was reported in haa’retz (sp?) the israeli newspaper, that the planning for this assault was done before the ceasefire began 6 months ago. ie they’ve been planning it a long time, it was something that just got decided in the last couple days or weeks.
not sure what that means in terms of astrology
Remember the legacy factor. Remember the Bush dynasty. The presidency is a stipend job for georgie. His life will go on with his dear loyal friends and cohorts. The office of presidency is not important to him in the way it is important to us? It is just part of an agenda. Any good detective follows the money.
He was not the people’s choice, but we were told he was, even though we knew they were lying. All hail Al Franken. George came in on a lie and he will leave on a lie. What is between the lies is not the stuff history books are made of.
We should just sit back with george and smile as laura shows us all the nice old things in the white house. Weren’t they just lovely residents of that old mansion.
Well… I have a blogger friend who lives in Northern Israel who is expecting Hezbollah to get involved… Which kinda means involvement of other powers doesn’t it… ?
How much poking will it take Syria and Iran to get involved? And give the US an excuse to come to the aid of its ally in the Middle East?
Commentary here (UK) is picking up on the fact that Barack is ‘silent’ about this…