Today is Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011.Today the mid-Virgo Sun is square the centaur planets Hylonome and Pholus, and an intergalactic point called the Great Attractor. This translates to emotional volatility and the possibility of fast changes, potentially helpful, potentially difficult — but the key is to be able to navigate your own emotions through these fast changes. There is a time for ‘sitting with’ things and a time to move with some agility — and we are currently in one of the latter phases now.
Tuesday morning at 7 EDT sharp, the Capricorn Moon is conjunct Pluto, shortly after squaring Uranus. This is an aspect calling for precisely that kind of agility. It may have a solitary or lonely feeling, though the experience at the core may be something more akin to soulful.
Back to the solar aspects that are at center stage. Since late last week, we’ve been developing the story of the minor planet cluster in mid-Sagittarius, involving many planets that you may have never heard of until now. In case you want to go deeper, here are references to each: Pholus, Hylonome and the Great Attractor. These pages are not comprehensive, but they will get you started on sorting these points one by one.
The Sun emphasizes expression of whatever it contacts. Hylonome has the theme of wide-scale anguish and individual grief. It can range from the sadness inherent in mass poverty to individual loss — and how we approach these things in a coherent way. Pholus is like an activating agent or a catalyst. It’s an accelerant that can push any experience forward, and can be associated with processes that run out of control. Both Hylonome and Pholus have associations with healing, merely by dint of being from the centaur group of planets. What they represent can become a focal point, and then that awareness can be conveyed into a productive purpose.
The Great Attractor, for its part, is not a planet. It is a massive object way beyond our galaxy that is spewing radiation on every frequency except visible light. It attracts, magnifies and polarizes, in various combinations. It can be associated with things that are so large we don’t see them, and some things that are so large we will never see them. (Contrast this with the nearby Galactic Center, which can have the feeling of being ‘behind everything’ but sooner or later you might notice, based on enough observation.) With the Great Attractor, you might never know what you’re dealing with, and this is the case today for many people who have no idea that they are being sold pain, grief and suffering as a manufactured product. I mean this literally, as a fact of advertising and ‘news’.
This is the week we’re hearing a lot of discussions about the Sept. 11 incident. Now at the 10th anniversary, its various saints are being canonized and its physical objects are becoming relics; the anger and sadness that we’re supposed to feel at what those evil-doers did to us is precious, and we’re being asked to take it out of its special glass box and look at it, and show it to others. There is exceedingly little advocacy of a quest for understanding; the quest for truth seems even less relevant. Sept. 11 is all about what we believe, and what we’ve justified by our anger and sense of loss.
Here are a few examples from Monday’s headlines.
Earlier Monday, a CNN story on Texas wildfires got the sidebar title “Mom, baby killed; 300 homes burned” despite that not being the headline when you click on the page. This is obviously playing on the seductive ‘gotta look at misery’ effect of dead baby and mother. Actual title when you click on the article is: “Perry: Sweeping Texas wildfires have ‘devastating effects’.” The thing to remember about these pages is that they’re sponsored by advertisers; if they don’t get clicks, nobody will pay to have their banner there.
The New York Times carried a story about the ways different networks/media outlets are handling the amount and type of 9/11 coverage, including the decision not to run ads versus running ads as usual:
But in documenting the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, there is a fine line between commemoration and exploitation.
Mindful of this, television networks, magazines and others planning special coverage of the anniversary have weighed issues like how much American audiences can stomach, and how much such a solemn occasion should be viewed as a business opportunity.
There are no uniform answers, and media outlets are approaching it differently. Time magazine is running no ads at all. Newsweek and People have sold ads just as they would for any other issue. Cable channels, which are devoting big blocks of their schedules to Sept. 11-related programming, are also largely running commercials as usual. But there exceptions; CNN, for example, is to show a joint HBO-Time special commercial free. In its regular Sunday edition on Sept. 11, The New York Times is publishing a special section that will contain only commemorative ads.
“There’s no precedent for something like this,” said Lawrence C. Burstein, the publisher of New York magazine, who added that he initially did not expect to sell many ads in the 10th anniversary issue. But to his surprise, he found that advertiser demand was strong, with the magazine experiencing a 46 percent increase in the number of ad pages in the Sept. 5-12 double issue, compared with the Sept. 13 issue last year.
He and the New York sales and editorial team decided to forgo the typical promotional campaign employed for special issues and gave advertisers who had already bought space in the magazine the option of bowing out.
“It is something that touches people in all kinds of different personal ways,” Mr. Burstein said, “and I felt like it was a decision that the advertiser had to make.”
At least the discussion is happening, with the hint of ethical concern. That is encouraging. Let’s hope some people notice there really is an issue of exploiting grief for profit; that it didn’t go out with the demise of News of the World. It would not work without some deep psychological stuff going on for many people. What we think of as ‘public’ really amounts to adding up many, many private lives, which have enough in common to form a kind of environment that responds with its own properties.
Sun-Hylonome-Pholus, mixed up with the Great Attractor, can speak to a sense of deep inadequacy on the individual level — the kind that can alienate people. But there’s this element of not caring what other people think when we’re in pain, and how we relate to the whole issue of forgiveness — and whether we’re forgiven. This, we will look at more closely in tomorrow’s column.
Expressing the grief I experienced some 20 years ago is taking me everything I’ve got. Feels like a mamoth, the life this grief has taken on, and it is a relief to be able to let some of it go now. You are so right, I was shut down as I tried to share this pain, and thus I’ve let it live me, blocking all kinds of vitality and fun that came my way. How I go on from here, I’m not sure. But it is a new day and I thank you all.
m.
It dawned on me, the 9/11 special that I would watch…since all the leaders seem so willing to speak of their courage on that day….how about a special that asks those hero leaders “How in the hell did you guys let it happen? Let’s talk about your theory on the complicity that was going on. Were you taking the “alleged” threat seriously. Let’s rewind and look at the truth of what led into this event…false flag or not. I’d tune into that…
Otherwise, thank you PW…
gwind — glad i could bring you back in a way that is enjoyable! yes, there are some pretty special spots in maine, and i think any rural childhood tends to have a high quotient of magical, natural-world experiences and memories.
sitting on my favorite rock at one end of this pond, i love watching the schools of young sunfish feeding, with their blue and orange speckles glinting in the sun. it’s one of the most peaceful spots i know within an easy drive of my home.
Today is Mars square Eris — forgot to mention that. We covered this in Friday’s daily.
Amanda, I also wanted to mention how beautifully serene your photo is. The depth and vastness is inviting! Takes me back to being a kid, sitting quietly, waiting for a moose to walk upstream. Nothing like that quiet sound of a Maine river. No place like it. The river rocks, the pines… The bass! Oh, I loved swimming and watching the bass with my mask and sneakers on. Hated putting on those cold soggy sneaks back on my feet, though, the next day. Thanks for bringing Maine back to me. I am always delighted to see it through your eyes.
Many years ago, I remember seeing reports of mothers in Argentina wailing in grief and I was frozen, watching and witnessing their pain. I don’t think I had thought about it before; how we stifle our emotions, especially grief. My mother would not let others see her cry. She would go stand in the shower, but I knew.
Green Star, my heart is with you. The kindness of one stranger, can change the world for us. I don’t think we can prepare ourselves for what we will feel when someone passes. I don’t think we can fathom the immediate shift we experience when what we have come to know and trust, changes in an instant. Your description was beautiful; I hope we all can store it away somehow to pull it out of our “bags” when we need it the most.
Eric, you illuminate the current trend perfectly. Unplugging somehow, right now, seems to help. When I see Mr. Perry, it freaks me out as he appears to be Bush cloned. If only in appearance or that he is from Texas, I find myself in a visceral response. I unplugged entirely from the tv when Bush was in office for two terms and I will do it again if I need to.
The anniversary of 911 pushes me in the same direction. I find nothing of value in regurgitating the events, at least in the way the media is doing it. I am trying, and I am not so good at it in the moment, but I am trying to hold the thought of love, light, healing, for all, no matter the various points of view. I just have to disengage when I hear extremists blast away. My barometer is such, that I ask, if it brings me pain, why do I watch it?
I think there are many of us incarnate at this time that are “here” to help in ways we cannot understand. Some are activists, but many simply bring a vibration just by their presence. Because we do see the veils that others may not, we need to be aware of what sucks us in and what lifts us up. When we get sucked in and find a reaction, it is an opportunity to choose again. This, I believe, pokes holes in the sticky haze that leaves us all forgetting our true origin and purpose.
Great post, Eric…thank you.
so very true…
i am experiencing this tremendous pain and confusion since last 2 days…
thankfully, i have withdrawn completely into my inner life… interacting as little as possible with the outside world.
why do i say that?
because i can strongly feel the pain in me and actually see it taking the shape of a demon… raging to hurt people – just because they are not seeing ‘me’ (that part) for what ‘i’ am…
it wants to hurt and maim the world – to get away from the pain it is not able to withstand… blaming the world that the pain is a product of – not only ‘not being seen and appreciated for the actual who-i-am’, but more so for pressurising/manipulating ‘me’ to become ‘who-i-am-not’…
there is such an intense rage and loathing right now… i don’t trust myself.
i am like the terrified, conscientious were-wolf just now.
🙂
hope this ends soon… before i maim somebody.
i can so clearly resonate why and what and how terrorism gets birthed…
thanks eric… sharing this is a little relief i needed
Carrie – Happy Anniversary to you both!
…And Amanda too…! Just read the Onion report and great after comments – was prob sleeping my side of the world when you posted it. Happy anniversary, Carrie!
So true what you say about the Sept 11 anniversary, Eric. So good to read this at a time when once again we’re being bombarded with the stuff, from alll sides. And this surely can’t be good for those poor souls who lost loved ones that day – digging up all this stuff over and over. And once again it’s always about the perpetrators and the victims, ‘them’ and ‘us’, no desire to understand, as you say.
I love your piece on grief dear Stargazer. It’s so true what you say about people’s reactions to grief – they literally back away when they see it coming. But there are also many who are able to share with others’ grief, thank God! I wish you the very best for the days to come. xxx
Grief or no, today Dave and I celebrate 24 years of marriage. We got married under the trees at a lake:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1187007193395.29217.1174761166&l=a0069e6596&type=1
Twenty-four years, four kids, several pets, and the rest is history. I am so happy to have him in my life. We married at Goldwater Lake in Prescott, Arizona at about 3:20PM Sept. 6th 1987. We had been living together almost a year so the anniversary for that is in November; it will be 25 years since we moved in together and started this adventure.
No matter what else happens today, that day still shines in my heart.
It is my observation that our culture is even more confused and repressed about grief than it is about sex. Sex is everywhere but show up in public with red-rimmed eyes and a broken heart and everyone turns quickly away… saying they want to “leave you alone” but the truth is they have no idea what to do with someone in obvious grief.
I once flew back all the way from Europe to the US crying. I have no idea how I navigated Heathrow… I only remember a woman from Russia being kind to me. And concerned. She must have shepherded me along. That grief (and the eventual healing that resulted) was the. most. cathartic. experience. of my life, and with the exception of the woman from Russia, no one on either side of the Atlantic or across it, had a clue how to “be” with me. I do not say this selfishly, it is just an observation.
When my father died, in a hospital in Boston, a few years later and hundreds of miles from home, it was the biggest ocean of grief I had ever encountered and it has taken me years to get across (most of) it. My step-mom and my step-brother tried to get some food in an outdoor cafe much later in the same day of his passing. It was spring but it was grey. I sat and stared at my food for what seemed like eons. The grief came welling up and I just wailed. I could not help it and I could not stop it. Everyone stared. Some got up and moved away. There is no room in public for private grief, unless there is profit in it. (think tabloids) My step-mom, who had been trained NEVER to cry in public was simultaneously horrified and yet relieved (she’s a Libra- she can do both at the same time easily) at my outburst. There and then, the three of us coined the phrase we’d all use for years to come when the emotions would rise from deep below…”Just surfing the grief” we’d say…or “Just surfing…” if we had to excuse ourselves.
Now, with my home-state (Vermont) and my current home (upper NY Adirondacks) shredded and torn from the destruction of an overabundance of water, I am again “Just surfing..” So much loss. Such a feeling of helplessness and overwhelm. I know time will heal this. I know that the human spirit can be at its very best when great tragedy and loss visits us. I know without a doubt that Grief and Joy are twin sisters that rise up from the same great depths in the ocean of emotions. I am not afraid to show my grief in public. In fact, in some ways, it is no different for frequently one is generally quite alone in one’s grief here in this culture. But I know also that I am not ultimately alone, for there are hundreds of thousands of people on the planet right now who are experiencing great loss and are grieving. In fact, it seems to be one of the more common emotions this year. I hope it is all part of a great cleansing. There is much we need to farewell.
I once listened to a most amazing lecture by someone who has really lived with grief… unimaginable grief. His name is Martin Prechtel and he has a most wonderful CD of that lecture called “Grief and Praise”. I recommend it highly. In fact, with the rains falling yet again and no doubt re-flooding the mountain rivers both here and in Vermont, I suspect it might be a good time for me to get out my copy and hear his wisdom once more. You can find the CD here: http://www.floweringmountain.com/CATALOG.html
I eagerly await the next installment on this topic here at PW. Since we are in the process of letting go of the world as we once knew it, we all must learn to grieve its passing well, and then move on into the new world we are co-creating together. It seems we are getting ample opportunities to each do our own “surfing” these days.
Peace to you all