Mercury stations direct at 8:50 am EDT Tuesday, but we’re in the most interesting and/or challenging part of the retrograde — the last moments before the change of directions. Mercury is slow and powerful right now, with added emphasis. Note that this tricksterish planet is in Gemini, one of the signs that Mercury rules, and the one that most emphasizes the two-sided nature of consciousness. That’s a reminder not to be surprised by surprises, to pay attention for the other side of the story, and to search your own mind for options and possibilities that you may not have noticed before. This effect will become increasingly prominent as the station-direct approaches Tuesday morning EDT.
This might have the “truth revealed” effect that Mercury stations are so famous for (or at least that I have observed many times). This may be sly and it may be subtle; the effect may be 100% dependent on mindfulness. Many things are revealed that we tend not to notice. Plenty of highly relevant information bubbles out of the back of consciousness that never gets put to use. It would be wise to delay important decisions, actions, purchases and/or anything not easily reversed. Take your time — pay attention, look and listen for that forthcoming relevant information.
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, we are tracking a Supreme Court decision in something called the Hobby Lobby case. This is the one that seems to be about whether corporations can have religious freedom, and more to the point, whether people can use a religious excuse to discriminate against others. I believe that this ruling will cut a bigger slice of history than most people are expecting. The decision is expected Monday morning EDT, right in the mix of the Mercury station. The implication is that this decision will have some unexpected properties as well as unintended effects.
We will be back Monday morning at about 11 EDT with that news and analysis.
This guy wrote a song summing up Ginsburg’s dissent. He says, “I fear we’ve walked into a minefield of slut-shaming geezers.”
http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/07/guy-gets-it
“Note that this tricksterish planet is in Gemini, one of the signs that Mercury rules, and the one that most emphasizes the two-sided nature of consciousness. That’s a reminder not to be surprised by surprises, to pay attention for the other side of the story…”
Well, well, has anyone else seen this yet? Forbes has picked up on a report in Mother Jones today that Hobby Lobby’s 401(k) plan is heavily invested in “numerous abortion and contraception products.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/04/01/hobby-lobby-401k-discovered-to-be-investor-in-numerous-abortion-and-contraception-products-while-claiming-religious-objection/
This is just astonishing. Or, I guess, not.
Astrologer Nancy Sommers (Starlight News) writes about the Hobby Lobby decision:
“As a legal principle or as precedent, based on our Constitution, this ruling is incoherent.”
Webster dictionary: Incoherent – Not logically connected.
Irrational (as in Septile) – lacking the power to reason; senseless; unreasonable; absurd
The People (Moon), specifically the Women (Moon), are finding the thinking (Mercury retrograde) behind the Hobby Lobby decision not logically connected and/or lacking the power to reason (quintile).
In the chart for the announcement of the Hobby Lobby decision (10:16 AM) the Moon at 14+ Leo is in mutual reception with the Sun at 8+ Cancer, an aspect not unlike a conjunction (which in this case would be like a “new moon”). Venus at 8+ Gemini is conjunct the U.S. Sibly Uranus (rule breaker) and in this chart she rules the 10th house of outcomes (MC 27 Taurus) which she is occupying. Venus also squares Neptune in the 7th house of partners or open enemies. The Sun (11th house) trines Neptune. Mars in the 2nd house (values) opposes Uranus in the 8th house (shared resources). Saturn is quincunx (make adjustment) Uranus. Jupiter squares the nodes.
I doubt this ruling will stand. It will be challenged in due time and be altered (Saturn quincunx Uranus and they are both rulers of Aquarius; Saturn the old and Uranus the new).
By December, transiting Mercury will oppose it’s position in this chart about the time Jupiter turns retrograde at 22+ Leo (quincunx the U.S. Sibly Neptune [associated with health care] in Virgo) and just before Uranus retrograde squares Pluto for the 6th time in its series of 7.
Uranus retrograde will also be square the U.S. Sibly Sun and Pluto will oppose it. Uranus will trine the U.S Sibly ascendant too.
Saturn will then move from Scorpio to Sagittarius (legalities) as Uranus stations direct.
A full moon in December at 14+ Gemini will be one degree away from where Venus occulted the Sun in 2012, and at this full moon, Venus will conjunct the Galactic Center. Chiron (healer) will square the Full Moon but trine the U.S. Sibly Sun.
be
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/30/3453598/no-a-win-for-hobby-lobby-is-not-a-win-for-religion/
Well, would you looka here, the Moon was conjunct transiting Child (15+ Leo) and trine Karma and the GA in Sagittarius, making a grand trine with Uranus in Aries. Lots of ways to read this folks. Even without the Moon this grand fire trine also has implications with the fiasco on the Texas border over the child refugees from Central America.
be
Thank you very much Shelley. Going by Amy’s time and Virgo (can’t see the forest for the trees) rising does give us an interesting septile (51+ degrees when perfect) between Mercury the ruler at 24+ Gemini rx and the Moon at 14+ Leo, separated by 50+ degrees. Septiles are a division of the circle by 7, an irrational number because it can’t “be represented as a simple fraction”, says Mary Plumb at the Mt. Astrologer magazine website. It is associated with irrational behavior and conclusions and according to Robert Wilkinson (AquariusPapers) it signals a fork in the road of destiny.
If we associate the Moon with The People and look at her other aspects in this chart, she forms a square to Saturn (restricting) retrograde and a trine to Uranus (unrestricted), a quincunx (adjustment) to Pluto (entrenched) and even a sextile with Mars and his entourage of Ceres, Vesta and the north node. Up to bat are The People and, if we are to play by the Rules of Democracy, a hard line drive down left field will get us to at least first base, and the batters are already limbering up. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY 🙂 . . . 3 CHEERS FOR THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE!
be
The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that an Alabama Catholic TV network, a non-profit entity, does not have to file a form saying them object to the mandate.
The court writes, “The Network has asserted, without dispute, that it ‘is prohibited by its religion from signing, submitting, or facilitating the transfer of the government-required certification’ necessary to opt out of the mandate.” They continue, that the government, “has forced the Network ‘to forgo religious precepts’ and instead, contrary to Catholic teachings, materially cooperate in evil.”
Not only do they not have to cover birth control in their health insurance plan, they are protected from even acknowledging that it exists because that would be the highly technical legal word of “evil.”
bkoehler, If we are going by the time Amy said, “Here is Hobby Lobby”, at 10:16 am, then Virgo is rising.
. . . oops meant transiting Photo was at 10+ Leo not Libra./be
Thanks Jude and Eric for putting this whole thing in perspective. So what was rising then, Leo or Virgo; I was taking a nap so missed it all. I only ask because of something in the chart of the Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction (22+ Taurus) of 2000, which is where this cycle of social development started, and that was asteroid Photographica at 21+ Taurus.
Today’s sextile between Ceres (21+ Libra) and Pholus (21+ Sagittarius) would put the May 2000 chart’s Photographica (hence the whole Jupiter-Saturn-conjunction-square-Uranus-ball-of-wax) at the apex (release point) of a protracted yod, making today’s events a ‘character’ in the play that is and has been unfolding since then.
Today’s transiting Photo is at 10+ Libra and if it was on the ascendant at the time of today’s decision announcement, well that would be delicious. In any case, what I AM sensing (w/o benefit of specific astrological info) are the signatures of (1) Pholus and (2) Eris. In the U.S. natal Sibly chart, Pholus is conjunct the south node (habitual practices) at 6+ Aquarius. In 6 and 1/2 weeks transiting Jupiter will oppose the U.S. south node, conjunct the north (Leo) node and quincunx (adjustment) transiting Neptune in Pisces. Then there’s TRANSITING Pholus who opposes the U.S. natal Mars who is square the U.S. natal Neptune.
Transiting Eris now has a new M.O. since moving to her new degree, allowing for a more nuanced and flexible approach to her interference. She’s gotten closer to her square with U.S. natal Mercury in Cancer and is moving away from her quincunx (adjustment) to U.S. natal Neptune. But that won’t last and she will retro back. However, in 12 days the Full Moon in Capricorn will be within orb of squaring the transiting nodes, the south node (habitual practices) being the one which Eris calls home. Again, the nodes that transit are continuing to provide an opportunity to grow away from the past, so as transiting Jupiter moves on to his next assignment and hands the torch to others (this time the Sun and Moon) to face the decisions (divide) that we in the U.S. continue to grind out (a Taurus kind of work) in our clearing of a path forward. Meantime, U.S. natal (Sibly) Eris at 8+ Capricorn retrograde, along with natal Ceres at 8+ Pisces, continue to quincunx (needle into adjusting) and square (challenge) the U.S. natal Uranus at 8+ Gemini. Sausage making at its finest.
be
Bingo, girlie! My son and I watched Matrix I this weekend. The Oracle told Neo she was sorry to disappoint him, to eat the cookie and he’d feel “right as rain” by the time he was finished. I said, “See, even the Oracle lies to you.” Son said, “Whatever it takes to get you through the door, right?”
Whoever’s cooking up this mess thinks it can force-feed us cookies, one after another. But in the end, as Morpheus says, what Neo heard was appropriate for him to hear At That Moment and it served to empower him later. If God/dess is good, a glut of loathsome, hard-to-swallow cookies will take us to the place where aversion therapy begins to WORK!
I have two feelings about all of these qualifications, i.e. not for social security taxes, not for racial discrimination. Oh, and btw this only applies to “closely-held corporations.”
On the one hand this is an underhanded way to give so-called religious freedom and corporations full reign over everything and on the other it is a slap in the face to women and all of sexuality. The fact that they are even able to make a statement that these categories are different says something profound about our government.
And what will happen with those non-profits that don’t believe they should even have to declare that they don’t want to fund birth control in their plans because this is offensive to them?
Hobby Lobby said the government should pay for the birth control. Actually, maybe the government will provide free birth control to everyone. Maybe that will be an “unintended effect,” socialist access to birth control 🙂
Yep. Just the first bite. First corporations are given person status, now they have rights that override our (real people) civil rights by way of the corporation’s religious beliefs. Which could be anything. I wonder who gets up on the stand and takes the oath in a courtroom as the voice of the corporation/person? (rhetorical) Maybe we are in the Matrix.
It’s worth observing that in both these decisions the court has tried to limit the specifics to a narrow window — like the Bush v. Gore decision, “just this once, no precedent” nonsense. That follows along with Robert’s attempt to secure the reputation of the High Court, fearful that it’s being sullied by appearing too religious/corporate, etc. [Too late, Johnny!]
It’s being reported that the unanimous opinions this session reflect his whittling down the larger issue to one little piece of the pie everyone can agree upon … in these last two, no way to engage the liberals produced the expected split, of course. Limiting these decisions to just a slice of a larger issue, however, gives the conservative court a toe-hold for whatever comes next; like Citizens United was one nibble, followed by McCutcheon and who knows what bite comes next.
Death by 10,000 nibbles, as it were. And if we examine today’s laws — few of which favor the people — it would have been Much Better if we’d realized that was happening twenty years ago cuz, you know: it ain’t yer Daddy’s ‘Merika.
And VERY bad news for union organizing — workers rights, et al
“The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield…”
–Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting in Hobby Lobby
Yes. Anyone who has made it through one semester of Women’s Studies understands the relationship between control over one’s reproductive destiny, and personhood.
Only for birth control. In other words, only for women control.
So — Hobby Lobby won. Anoter 5-4 ruling, where one swing vote decides the fate of the nation. Majority opinion by Alito. Quoting Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog:
RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of closely held for-profit corporations like Conestoga, HL and Mardel.
The Court says that the government has failed to show that the mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in guaranteeing cost-free access to birth control.
The Court says that the government has failed to show that the mandate is the least restrictive means of advancing its interest in guaranteeing cost-free access to birth control.
Here is a further attempt at qualification: This decision concerns only the contraceptive mandate and should not be understood to mean that all insurance mandates, that is for blood transfusions or vaccinations, necessarily fail if they conflict with an employer’s religious beliefs.
Thanks, Eric.
So, agree totally on your stance re abortion. Now, let’s see what the SCOTUS comes up with.
In the personal, I noticed that as I write this, Mercury is square my natal Mars in Pisces. 24 ge 25’12” Rx vs 24 pi 24’52” Given that I am double Gemini, this would seem to have some special emphasis.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, on both the macro and micro levels.
I imagine this will be even more tricky to negotiate, as I have some difficult meetings on the schedule with my new boss, who has proven autocratic and clueless. One of these meetings is almost exactly as Mercury is stationing direct…… hmmmmmm…..
In a situation similar to Roe v Wade, the potential charts for this morning’s Hobby Lobby ruling is very close to Leo rising v Virgo rising. This comes down to a matter of under five minutes, depending on the official time the decision is released.
Personally I do not have a bad feeling about this. I think that the court is going to take the higher road, hold their nose and rule against the Dominionists (and pro-corporate-rights “activists”), so that they don’t open the door to countless claims of people and companies allegedly being able to violate federal statutes based on the claim of “personal” religious views.
We really have a division between two kinds of “conservatism” here, the bullshit kind based on specific points of bigoted ideology that we see so much of, and the one related to the actual meaning of the term, an ideology of preserving the power and integrity of government. Notably in our era, it is the left that tends to take the authentic conservative view and the right that often advocates for anarchy.
Let’s see how this shakes out. If the justices rule for Hobby Lobby, then we enter a new phase of history and of national insanity — and at least as one in the role of observer, I can say this is gonna be interesting.
I will help clarify the abortion issue. It must be legal, or every accidental miscarriage becomes a potential murder scene. It does not matter what one’s personal opinion is on abortion, in terms of setting national policy. Nobody “likes” abortion. But the far worse potential is to have women prosecuted for murder for experiencing an ordinary miscarriage — which happens very, very often. This does not even address the motives for why someone would want to do this to women, but I think that those motives are strongly implied.
There is at least one more issue, which is evident if one reads the Roe v Wade decision. Few people with an opinion on abortion, related to legalities or legal rights, have done so. Much of the text of Roe involves the government wanting to regulate a medical procedure that is going to happen whether they regulate it or not. There are other examples of this — the government makes something illegal, and then there is no way to keep a handle on what is actually happening.
If abortion is made illegal within a jurisdiction, then women will have the option of traveling to where it is legal (and not necessarily safe) or getting abortions out of the back of a van.
One last point. If the Dominionist movement wants less abortion, they might consider how their views on birth control are impacting that. I believe that this belies the point they think they are trying to make; if their policy on birth control is adopted, then that will create an abortion crisis. So what is really going on?
What is going on is that the emotionally-based views of religious fanatics have no place in the ordering of secular civil society.
I’m thinking maybe the backlash of feminists might swing the Supremes’ decision against the religious right in the Hobby Lobby case because transiting Venus and Juno are conjunct the U.S. Sibly Uranus at 8+ Gemini this morning. Also this morning transiting Ceres at 20+ Libra is conjunct the U.S. Sibly Juno who opposes the U.S Sibly Chiron at 20+ Aries. (U.S. Sibly Ceres at 8+ Pisces also squares U.S. Uranus and that’s the vicinity where retrograde Neptune is transiting.)
Something else to watch for today is transiting centaur Cyllarus’ conjunction to the U.S. Sibly Sun at 13+ Cancer (along with transiting asteroid Amor), while the asteroid Hylonome, Cyllarus’ wife in mythology, has just transited (in retrograde) over the GC. Today might give us more insight into how to interpret Cyllarus aspects.
Another factor is transiting retrograde asteroid Karma (15+ Sagittarius) just (re) approaching the Great Attractor is opposite the degree where Venus was occult the Sun in 2012 (15+ Gemini). Personally, I’m very torn about the whole abortion issue, but quite clear on the right to contraception. However, as to who should pay for that contraception, well, I’m very glad I don’t have to rule on that. Seems pretty obvious that love (and values) has a lot to do with today’s decision.
be
..s.c.o.t.u.s… The crazies straight up ‘own’ the asylum. hobby lobby’s just a scrape on the knee on the way downhill. Certain times call for creative realities..
..These realities come from individuals.. individuals can awaken through affirmative practices upon/within their own beings.. AND with affirmative practices of other individuals.. as through example or mirrored type self-realization..
(best I got right now..)
..as always,
Peace and Love,
Jere 🙂