Today is Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012.. There are many ways we feed ourselves, and each other: from the choices we make around how and where we buy, grow, prepare and eat food; to things like spiritual practice, building community, giving and receiving love, and standing in our truth and acting on it. This week’s astrology brings the more literal food themes into focus with the ingress of Ceres into Aries – activating the ever-sensitive Aries Point – tomorrow. Your favorite astrology website – Planet Waves – is planning to feed the fires of activism and revolution by participating in the Internet blackout later today.
We’ll have details about our participation in the Internet direct action later in the morning; for now, let’s stick to the astrology. Sort of.
Minor planet Ceres, named after the goddess of the harvest, is set to arrive in the first degree of Aries, where personal and political unify with a bang, tomorrow at 1:35 pm EST. This puts Ceres into a conjunction with Uranus, where it enters the Uranus-Pluto square. Aries is a sign of innovation and Uranus-Pluto is shorthand for revolution. Add Ceres, and you have a call to stand up for your rights in the realms of agriculture, food safety, and the intersection of personal and cultural attitudes toward food commerce and consumption. Ceres on the Aries Point wants you to notice where your attitudes around eating and nourishing yourself and others intersect with (for better or worse) with those prevailing in your community, wider culture and even the world. After all, all food comes from the Earth – and we’re all on it.
With a synchronicity that might be considered bizarre were it not for the fact that astrology keeps proving itself over and over again, yesterday an article that was making the rounds on Facebook looked suspiciously familiar. It was a controversial piece Planet Waves had reposted last year when it broke on the Internet, accusing Whole Foods, Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farms of cutting a backroom deal on genetically modified alfalfa with Monsanto and the USDA.
The letter, written by Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of the Organic Consumers Association, was later parsed out in this article at fairfoodfight.com. I’ll let you read the breakdown there for yourself; the short version is that certain companies and growers had made a choice that might work for organic farmers trying to stay alive. Cummins saw anything short of a total rejection of what was on offer by the USDA as a complete sell-out. Things got ugly in the organic ranks.
Every once in a while an older article gets sudden new traction on Facebook and the Internet in general. What makes this instance notable is the timing. Ceres was in the last degree of Pisces yesterday – the ‘anaretic degree’, which yesterday’s Daily Astrology described as feeling urgent yet vacillating. And the story about GMO alfalfa was definitely posted yesterday with a sense of urgency – and then was redacted.
So what is in food news now? For one thing, Natural News is reporting that some of the U.S. diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveal that “many US diplomats are pushing GMO crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.”
That article continues,
… the U.S. focused their efforts toward advisers to the pope specifically, due to the fact that many Catholic figureheads have openly voiced their opposition to GM foods. With this kind of political influence, is it any wonder that many food staples are now predominantly GM? Nearly 93% of U.S. soybeans are heavily modified conservatively, with many other staple crops coming in at similar numbers.
U.S. diplomats have unique opportunities to spread honest and intellectual campaigns that can serve to better mankind and end suffering, however they are instead spreading the roots of Monsanto deeper and deeper into international territory. As a substitute for the betterment of mankind, these paid-off diplomats are now spreading environment desecration and health destruction.
If you’ve been walking around eating tofu and tempeh like a good soul trying to do no harm to other animals or yourself, you may want to check out where those soybeans come from, if you can. It’s easy to say, ‘Oh, how awful what those diplomats are doing in those other countries’. But did you catch the statistic at the end of that quote? Nearly 93% of U.S. soybeans are heavily modified – as are many other staple crops. Now, you may carefully buy organic and local. But what about the food you’re eating out at restaurants? And what is your child eating in collage, or your parents in their assisted living facility? And what about your fellow beings in these other countries, whose governments are faced with either feeding their people with U.S. aid or letting them starve?
If the politics of food and corporately-controlled science and government just came crashing onto your dinner plate, you may want to think about speaking up and making conscious choices to take even small actions. Or even do more than just think.
Maybe you could start by writing to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to urge them to update their pesticide use database, which they stopped updating in 2008. At that point, the top-ranked herbicide used in the United States was (and likely still is) glyphosate – “The chemical at the heart of the planet’s most widely used herbicide — Roundup weedkiller,” as described in an August 2011 article on The Huffington Post.
That article details an Argentine study, which found that “glyphosate causes malformations in frog and chicken embryos at doses far lower than those used in agricultural spraying. It also found that malformations caused in frog and chicken embryos by Roundup and its active ingredient glyphosate were similar to human birth defects found in genetically modified soy-producing regions.” Results that were in line with the high rates of birth defects and cancers being reported in the farming regions of Argentina that had been ‘saved’ by the introduction of Roundup-ready soybeans in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, last week jury selection began in the town of Nitro, West Virginia for their suit against Monsanto over alleged contamination of the town by the company’s former chemical-making operations there. You can bet that for the citizens of that town, the political is damn personal. Is it for you yet? And if so, are you ready to stand up for the health of your food, your holistic nourishment, and that of the very planet it all comes from?
Much thanks to Carol Van Strum for digging up more source articles than could be crammed into this piece.
Looking for insights on how this week’s astrology affects your personal Sun and rising signs? Try out Planet Waves Light, our streamlined horoscope service. For deeper cultural context and astrological investigation, the premium Planet Waves subscription includes the same horoscopes, plus extensively-researched articles on Fridays.
Individual diets vary enormously, I know, but I’d love to know what GM foods do you eat Carrie that are cheaper?
At the moment GM crops are confined to animal feed and additives for human consumption. Four GM crops are produced commercially: maize, soya, cotton and oilseed rape. Unless these four crops – one of which you can’t eat – form the basis of your diet GM is not making it cheaper for you to eat. These are not the foods grown by CSAs. Nor are they the foods that will feed the world.
I agree some CSA produce can be more expensive. And I am a single mother so I know about having to pinch pennies. But the overwhelming evidence is that local and/or organic is cheaper and fresher and better for you.
I would argue that if you can’t buy organic for whatever reason then try to buy local. It will still be a better product. There are other ways to buy too. You can get together with neighbours and buy as a collective, for instance. That works really well for dried goods and other bulk items. Some local movers and shakers in my neighbourhood got the local school to open up its playground to farmers on Sundays to sell their produce (grown within 100 miles in a big city or 50 in rural aeras) directly. The way we eat, and the way we shop to eat, has to change. We all know that but we really haven’t really acted upon it in any meaningful way.
Final thought then I promise I will shut up…;-) It is important to consider both the letter and the spirit of organic. Hirshberg/Stonyfield, Wholefoods and all the other big corporate organics produce organic food products (many of them are owned by even bigger corporations that don’t give a fig about organic – check the labels of your favourite organic brands!), but they do so within a business model that apes other big corporations.
It’s organic dog eat organic dog in their world and I can’t help but consider that they would happily see smaller businesses go under in order to increase their share of the market. Equally if smaller producers have directly or indirectly given these guys the power to negotiate on their behalf then they are getting what they deserve.
I still maintain that GM is polluting, expensive, unnecessary and potentially damaging to health. I qualify this latter statement because there has only been one human study of the effects of eating GM and the results were so frightening that the industry clamped down on doing any further study.
Now, as with dioxins and PCBs, we are all so exposed to GM that it would be hard to find a control group large enough that had not been exposed at all. This means by the way that when your grandchildren are born without limbs or reproductive abnormalities or whatever the biotech companies can argue that any link is unproven (as they are arguing in Nitro) because we have all been exposed to ‘normal’ background levels of GM.
BUT as awful as all these things are they aren’t even the real fight. The real fight over GM is a fight over who controls our future food supply. Every deal that is being done at the moment in back rooms and in politicians’ offices and on (GM planted) golf courses is being done with that future control of food (and water) in mind.
Also don’t forget that while everyone is focused on hating Monstanto – lots of other biotech companies are working under the PR radar…
that is the happiest kale I have ever seen! I want to sleep in a bed of such puffy greens!
I echo negative Monsanto vibe.
mm.
Bravo PlanetWaves, and thank you for digging into this topic for the astrological view. I ask you to forgive me please, as my natal Gemini nadir has again been activated by the Moon just crossing over trans. Juno in Scorpio who sextiles the Sun in Cap today, hence the prodding effect of the yod for me.
I noticed yesterday that Persophene in Leo was opposite Tantalus in Aquarius.
Tantalus: Teasing; temptation; times when what is wanted is just out of reach; EXCESIVE HUNGER OR THIRST; failures of gratitude; problems with giving THE RIGHT THING TO THE RIGHT PERSON; feeling as though one is “tested on whether they know” about (astrological) aspecting or axis factors. So says Martha Lang-Wescott at http://www.treehousemountain.com, the go-to authority on asteroids.
We know that Persephone was Ceres’ daughter ‘kidnapped’ by Pluto and who subsequently became queen of the underworld. Yesterday Persephone was at 7+ Leo, Pluto was at 7+ Capricorn, Tantalus was at 7+ Aquarius. Persephone is retro and today has moved back to 6+ Leo, while Tantalus has moved forward to 8+ Aquarius. Pluto was quincunx Persephone yesterday, a grating kind of energy looking for a solution. Pluto is in the business of digging up dirt, now especially in the form of corporations and governments.
In the birthday chart for the U.S., the solar-return chart for the year beginning July 2011 ending July 2012, there was a very powerful yod consisting of the sextile between Pluto and Chiron (conj. Neptune) and their dual quincunx to Mercury. That Mercury was exactly at 5 Leo 34 in the U.S. Sibly Solar Return Chart.
Transiting Persephone will be re-connecting with that same degree soon.
By all means, read, write, talk and think about this topic.
Just last Friday Mecury was conjunct Pluto and now moves toward his conjunction to the Sun. . and opposition to the Moon, on February 7th’s Full Moon. It’s the same day as Saturn turns retrograde in Libra, taking several months to mull over what has transpired during the time he transited the last 7 degrees of Libra. Write to the U.S. Dept of Agriculture, talk to friends and family, write about it in blogs or emails or facebook, sign petitions of protest.
Ceres invites us all to get involved. Thank you again PW for making us conscious of the situation, and for giving us a way to express how we feel and to share valuable information. It’s a family thing; for Ceres, for PW, and for all of the rest of us too.
be
“GM crops are not cheaper…”
I beg to differ. My family is still on foodstamps (not much per month but still) and we cannot afford the prices at the local CSA. The beef alone is over $6 a pound there so we just don’t eat beef. Chicken is horrendously expensive and CSA eggs are $4.00 a dozen. Veggies are not cheaper either.
Monsanto has made it that way because they CAN sell their crap for less due to the government welfare (called “subsidies”) they get that CSA farmers don’t get.
So poorer families cannot eat healthy because the prices to do so are too much for them to afford. We try to grow our own veggies in the summer but we haven’t enough yard to effectively feed 6 people.
I wish I could afford to feed my family from the CSA but we can only afford the occasional food from there; it is still a luxury for most families I know to buy healthier, locally grown food. Until it is actually cheaper to buy local (which it should be because of lack of transportation, storage, and modification costs) most people are stuck feeding their families the mass-grown crap.
ps the Nitro, West Virginia case is a great example of (potential) piddling ‘so what?’ compensation. Correct me if I’m wrong someone, but as I recall the notion of compensation for being exposed to years of dioxin pollution was forced off the table by Monsanto before the trial could go ahead – all these people are playing for is to be medically monitored to see if they develop any on a small agreed list of diseases. Should the residents win there’s no question of Monsanto paying their hospital bills if they are sick or cleaning up their community of these long lasting, persistent chemicals so that future generations don’t get sick.
I have to say I think the Fair Food Fight article you point to is a bit of dangerous nonsense wrapped up in a veneer of ‘hey folks let’s be reasonable’. Coexistence is not possible (see this video where US farmers tell a UK farmer about their GM experiences http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEX654gN3c4). The only reason organic farms as thus far ‘co-existed’ with conventional ones is because they are in the minority have not had a voice or the money to fight. Even if Cummins has gone on an emotional bender over this who can blame him? The fact is that the support for GM alfalfa in the US means that it will become increasingly hard to find meat and dairy from animals that haven’t been fed on either GM soya or alfalfa.
What is more, the removal of the buffer zones will mean a greater risk of cross-contamination with non-organic crops, as well threatening the survival of organic meat and dairy industry which relies on GM-free alfalfa.
Because of the cross-contamination between GM and non-GM plants biotech industry complete control over the fourth largest crop in the US. Here’s an overview and some more info: http://tiny.cc/x9p9r
So let’s say an organic farmer get ‘compensation’ – so what? And also then what? The compensation will be some piddling sum that biotech firms can well afford because the compensation is a short game and they are playing the long game. It won’t help them – not even the corporate wannabes like Stonyfields – survive. That long game will include suing organic farmers who accidentally grow their patented crops – accidentally because of cross contamination. Most won’t be able to pay and will be run out of business.
GM is a technology that has produced nothing of actual value in decades of trying. GM crops are not cheaper, they are not more profitable for the farmer, they increase pesticide use (great news for Monsanto and others), they encourage resistance to pesticides as well as the rise of superweeds and superbugs, they are not more nutritious nor have they ever been proven safe to consume.
Cummins is right organics has been sold-out.
What does the astrology say about why more people are not more outraged by and engaged in this issue?
Great post Zerosity !
I am on the side of everyone who stands against monsanto and their evil ilk. So much so, I made it a business to teach others how to save their unaltered heirloom seed from their own vegetable crops. There isn’t much money in doing so, but money isn’t a main motivator here.
I’ve long been suspicious of all of the soy and corn products added to foods in the form of corn syrup, soybean oil etc. And I have long suspected that inundating our bodies with too much of anything is not good, and with soy and corn in everything, it’s hard to avoid them. Add to that the GM aspect, and it is frightening.
If there is anyone at PW that hasn’t seen the documentary “Food Inc” I would be surprised. “Dirt, the Movie” is another good one about what we are doing to our planet and the food supply. Also frightening.
Are there any alternatives? My motto for almost seven years has been “Cultivate Local Farmers as Friends.” Not Facebook friending, but actually getting to know who grows your food. This year will be my seventh year as a member of a CSA farm, “Community Supported Agriculture.” I am blessed with a small local farmers’ market that limits products sold to those grown in Michigan and encourages sustainable and organic products. Every week from the beginning of May through the end of October, I am at this farmers’ market buying food for the week, making friends with the farmers and their workers, finding sources for food the rest of the year: grass fed beef, ground-scratching chickens and their eggs, sustainable pork and lamb, as well as vegetables and fruit. (Not only is it better for you, all of it tastes remarkably better and is more satisfying.)
But, even with local choices, the contamination of our local food supply by the likes of Monsanto and others is rampant. Most frightening about Monsanto and its ilk is the prosecution of farmers for keeping seeds, getting judgments against them, further limiting our chances of a food supply that hasn’t been adulterated and poisoned. All of this happens with the either the blessing, or the intentional inaction, of our government.
There are times when I despair that we, as humans, with not get beyond the almighty reign of corporations, of greed, of selfishness. Then I come here for my fix of sanity, and come away with hope that the astrology will actuall play out with evolutionary upheaval for a better way.
Sorry for the long rant. It’s early morning, and this is a subject that is more important than the health care boondoggle. That’s my other aggravation today: Michigan has a “new law” that levies a tax on health insurance paid claims to fund Medicaid. Of course, BCBS has added 1% to my $500 plus per month premium. A tax on health insurance premiums? WTF! Of course, if the food supply is making us sick, then we will need more “health care” which means we will have to pay more for not just the food but also the health care – do I sense an intentional connection for more profits for the 1% at our expense? As Len noted elsewhere here at PW, 1% will keep at it as long as they can get something from the 99%.
JannKinz