{"id":5181,"date":"2008-11-03T08:33:55","date_gmt":"2008-11-03T13:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=5181"},"modified":"2008-11-03T08:33:55","modified_gmt":"2008-11-03T13:33:55","slug":"voting-in-the-season-of-scorpio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/voting-in-the-season-of-scorpio\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting in the Season of Scorpio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader,<\/p>\n

IN 1845 AMERICA, long before primaries, Super Tuesday, endless debates, in-your-face spin rooms and pundits; long before even the Republican and Democratic parties we know today were formed, founding fathers scheduled the Presidential election to happen on the first Tuesday of November.<\/p>\n

\"Ulster<\/a>
Ulster County, NY is an area known for agriculture. The elections were scheduled to accommodate farmers during the harvest season. Photo by Steve Bergstein.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When they decided what day Presidential elections would take place, America was an agricultural nation. Taking time away to vote before the season ended would have disrupted the harvest. November, the first month after the harvest and before winter came, was an appropriate time.<\/p>\n

Here is your text book answer to the question:<\/p>\n

Why in November?<\/strong>
\nMost Americans made their living from agriculture in 1845 and Congress felt that November was the most convenient month for farmers and citizens living in rural areas to get to the polls. Preparing fields and planting crops consumed lots of the public’s time in the spring and summer months. But by early November, the harvest was over in most areas, and the weather was still mild and dry enough to allow travel over the dirt and rock roads of the day.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why on Tuesday?<\/strong>
\nIn 1845, and for many years after that, only the county seats had a polling places. For many voters, this meant at least an overnight trip on horseback or buggy. If the election were held on Monday, people would have to leave on Sunday, which in 1845, was reserved for church.<\/p>\n

Why the first Tuesday after the first Monday?<\/strong>
\nCongress wanted to make sure the election never fell on the first of November. Nov. 1 is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church (All Saints Day). In addition, many businesses tallied their sales and expenses and did their books for the previous month on the first of each month. Congress feared that an unusually good or bad economic month might influence the vote if it were held on the 1st.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the mid-19th century there was plenty to do in terms of life and death survival for Americans across the continent. Managing the land, tending it so that it could produce food for the lean season, providing for your family — all a vital act of self-preservation before winter hit and scarcity came.<\/p>\n

Our agrarian past and its tie to American politics has lost some meaning in this day and age of virtual democracy, YouTube and Facebook, but not totally. American politicians still hold life and death in their hands each time they lift up their Blackberries to take a call from a lobbyist on K-Street, discuss energy policy with a diplomat overseas or a send word to a general in the fields of Afghanistan or Iraq. That we have come so far from being simple farmers to wielding power over the world, making life and death decisions for not only us but the planet has been simultaneously our privilege and sacrilege-in-progress.<\/p>\n

This coming Tuesday we once again tilt the globe and make the decision, looking a bit like Hamlet contemplating Horatio’s skull: “To be or not to be?”. This Tuesday, with the world at an edge environmentally, socially and geopolitically, we are faced with a truly Scorpionic choice of life over death. Are we going to be stuck in our dangerous scorpion exoskeletal instincts? Will we act with our fearful, sex and survival-only lizard brain? Or will we have the perspective of an eagle? All these animals are attached to the sign of Scorpio. One of these animals will actualize their presence, ruling in the form of the human, near the season of the Water-Bearer at the time of the Inauguration when our ruler is in essence, crowned.<\/p>\n

The world is smaller by its own design: accessibility to each other a cellphone flip and a text message away—all the way across the planet. We can talk to each other on video on our computers from Emeryville, California to Prague in the Czech Republic with satellites miles overhead broadcasting our images. Google Earth is now our instant display of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) for the planet, and the arsenal to mess things up forever is still available. These late falls and early winters have gotten warmer and drier and who knows how much longer the polar ice cap can hold or how long hurricane, typhoon and monsoon season will last this next year?<\/p>\n

This time we Americans are called upon to feel the spiritual force of this season of reaping in our hemisphere as true citizens of this planet, not just this country. We need to feel this with a stronger sense of obligation beyond our collective lizard brains. We’ve had our time of selfishness, aggression, megalomania and greed. We’re also capable of a great generosity and magnaminity. At this moment, the rest of this planet and its people require us to be even bigger and more magnanimous than before. We need to answer with humility instead of arrogance. Will we climb out of our scorpionic exoskeletal shells in time to recognize we need to evolve?<\/p>\n

Horatio’s skull is looking at us. To be or not to be? Winter is coming. All our survival is at stake.<\/p>\n

Yours & truly,<\/p>\n

Fe Bongolan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Friend and Reader, IN 1845 AMERICA, long before primaries, Super Tuesday, endless debates, in-your-face spin rooms and pundits; long before even the Republican and Democratic parties we know today were formed, founding fathers scheduled the Presidential election to happen on the first Tuesday of November. When they decided what day Presidential elections would take … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[359,36,52,279],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}