{"id":65912,"date":"2013-04-06T08:20:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T12:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=65912"},"modified":"2013-04-07T23:32:48","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T03:32:48","slug":"come-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/by-judith-gayle-2\/come-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Come Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The essential purpose of astrology\u2026is not so much to tell us what we will meet on our road, as it is to suggest how to meet it \u2013 and the basic reason for the meeting.<\/p>\n

— Dane Rudhyar<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Uranus\/Pluto conjunction* of the 1960s was, indeed, a decade of social transformation. At the time, I was too new at living to understand it as anything but the exuberance of youth. 1960 was my first year in high school, while New Year\u2019s Eve of 1969 found me too close to delivering my second child to go out celebrating. When I think back on all that I experienced in that decade — both personal and political — I wonder how so much could possibly be packed into a day, let alone a tumultuous stretch of social growth that gave us a renaissance of love and sexual freedom, pock-marked with violence, assassination and eventual disillusionment.<\/p>\n

\"PoliticalAll the experiential messages sent to that younger self insisted that unrest and turmoil was how life looked, exciting and unpredictable, exhilarating and dangerous. My romance with the early peace movement in San Francisco was ignited by the resurgence of folk music, preferred by Beatniks and writ large in Berkeley’s coffee houses; a Petrie dish for what came to be known as “the counterculture.”<\/p>\n

The\u00a0agitation and activism<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on the Berkeley campus was orchestrated to televised news of Dr. King’s marches, dogs snarling and snapping, blood running in southern streets. Peace and justice became a phrase; not separate words, one not possible without the other. Civil disobedience became the prerequisite to changing the static absolutes of a government unwilling to flex; it still is.<\/p>\n

By the Summer of Love, I was looking for answers to life’s larger questions. Suddenly in touch with my own mortality after my first baby was born, the gang-style murder of an ex-boyfriend in the Haight Ashbury sent me off on a quest for spiritual answers, heavy on Eastern thought. In those days, information was scarce. The most accessible astrological instruction was through the\u00a0Rosicrucians<\/strong><\/a>, who offered a course by mail.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I can’t tell you how grateful we should all be for the technology that allows us to retrieve a chart in seconds; erecting a chart by hand, back in the day, was excruciating. And while I’m forever grateful for their patience, the Rosicrucians taught traditional astrology, heavy on the scary stuff. Even the words were fatalistic, like “malefic” and “detriment,” which we occasionally still hear today. Warnings did not seem adequate to the kind of inevitabilities one would face in the karmic cycles. All of this was so dire that many people avoided psychics and astrologers because they “didn’t want to know.”<\/p>\n

Thank God\/dess for the rise of astrological humanism, practitioners of which — along with those of other occult topics — found publishers in the \u201970s. People like Stephen Arroyo and Liz Greene, dozens of other frontrunners who followed the cosmic urge to ‘grow’ astrological thought, gave us early “get out of jail free” cards by defusing negative understanding of planetary influence and introducing psychology into interpretation. And we can’t discuss progressive movement in astrological understanding, of course, without gratitude to the Grand Poobah of Transpersonal Astrology, Dane Rudhyar, or his colleague, Marc Edmond Jones. In those early years our attention shifted from the frightening and dire, to awareness of potential and self-development.<\/p>\n

Now, in this new era, astrological practice with a small ‘a’ still examines and defines self; astrological practice with a capital ‘A’ examines and defines the larger cycles of growth and maturity essential to the collective. Forming a synthesis between these two pools of information largely defines the future of astrology, in my opinion; defines the future of the whole of us, spiritualized and self-reflective, poised on discovering the ability to create healthy, dharma relationships, governments and systems.<\/p>\n

While none of this is news to Planet Waves readers, it’s important to acknowledge and appreciate that Eric Francis is one of those frontrunners — visionaries, if you will — on the frontier of new astrological thought. His work with the Centaurs, for instance, has opened up a whole new understanding of nuanced energy for his readers, fleshing out the factors impacting our world and ourselves. While giants in astrology wrote the old testament of the stars, only a handful, like Eric, are writing the new.<\/p>\n

Eric’s ability to make the political personal, and vice versa, is part of the alchemy he brings to this moment, creating an easy link between the individual and the collective. And it is, after all, the collective that will usher in the reformation we’re anticipating, the Hundredth Monkey effect that makes evolution seem sudden, as we’re seeing now in the acceptance of gay marriage, the growing cry for declassification of marijuana and the pending breakthrough in immigration reform.<\/p>\n

Pluto in aspect to Uranus creates initial shock, followed by transformation. What grows green and strong as these two giant energies face off is awareness. If you look around you will see it, feel it, taste it. We must invest in the sure knowledge that progress is inevitable. The cycles predict it, history assures it, and just because growth is not easy there is no reason to avoid it.<\/p>\n

Another frontrunner from long ago, Isabelle Hickey, tells us that we do most of our growing during difficulty, that in an individual chart, squares “represent the lessons we have failed to learn,” but she also reminds us that if we are to grow into our spiritual stature we must realize that we have the strength to overcome obstacles.<\/p>\n

Hickey was\/is one of my personal favorites because she emphasized that one of those obstacles that needs to be overcome is the personality quirks we wrongly identify as self. Of an individual chart, she tells us the following, but within the statement is the capacity to correct any challenge to our common problems, our political challenges and social obstructions:<\/p>\n

Never let a difficult chart frighten you. The blueprint shows the personality pattern, but not the Spirit or High Self behind it. That Self has the Power, the Love and the Intelligence and it will help us if we invite it to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Uranus and Pluto are in square now, a repeat of the chaotic and compelling \u201960s but not nearly so romantic or hopeful. Where we were looking up into the sky then, we’re looking down at our feet now. Where we were waiting for a man on the moon — our options open and our altruism still intact — now we’re watching stinking rivers of oil run down our streets to threaten our water supply.<\/p>\n

The Planet Waves team gave us a fine overview of the oil spill in Arkansas in Friday\u2019s edition, and I’d like to flesh that out a bit. The\u00a0full impact<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of spilled tar sands remains an unknown for many environmentalists, but we are quickly discovering what a horror it is. The crude spilled in the Arkansas suburbs is a type of diluted bitumen — called dilbit — that is heavier and more toxic than most. Alberta dilbit is thinned with corrosive solvent because the thick, heavy crude won’t flow in the pipelines without it. The solvent includes naphtha and benzene, both carcinogenic, which explains the toxic fumes that required homeowners to evacuate. Think about that just in terms of wildlife — it will take more than dozens of bottles of Dawn detergent to revive animals caught in this crud.<\/p>\n

The Arkansas incident is the second spill of Canadian tar sands oil in a week. On March 27, a mile-long Canadian Pacific train hauling Canadian crude derailed in Minnesota, spilling as much as 30,000 gallons. A spill in Michigan in 2010 still has scientists and regulators challenged to remove the submerged oil from the Kalamazoo River; so far, it has cost the offending pipeline operator $820 million, with more to come.<\/p>\n

You can watch an\u00a0ExxonMobil spokesman lie<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0about the toxicity of tar sands in this YouTube. We’ve heard that before, haven’t we, when BP repeatedly lied to our face about the damage in the Gulf? We simply aren’t that gullible any more, but are we ready to do something about it?<\/p>\n

Many of us are concerned that Obama seems to be leaning toward approving the last leg of the XL pipeline. Truth is, there are enough pipelines and carriers already in place to do this horrific job, so approving this last portion is essentially moot. I suspect that impacts the way Obama considers this issue. No matter his personal preferences, his pragmatism — long the bane of progressives — comes down on what’s do-able as opposed to what isn’t. He does not consider the public engaged enough to make this do-able.<\/p>\n

Let’s change his mind, and make as loud a noise as we can to awaken the two-thirds of this nation who don’t understand the dangers at hand. The ridiculous draft environmental review of the pipeline recently released by the State Department supposes minimal environmental impact from the project. At minimum, we have the ability to make sure that review includes both facts and a sense of public outrage. Whether that impacts the politics of this project or not, we have to stand up for what we believe. State will accept comments until April 22, to be included in the final report.<\/p>\n

CREDO<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0has a petition in place, asking you to commit to civil disobedience. Will you sign it? The\u00a0Audubon Society<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is sponsoring remarks to the State Department; gather your thoughts, be respectful. Write your congresspersons, write the president. Write a letter to the editor reminding them of what happened in the Gulf. Join a march or start one. Stand up and be counted!<\/p>\n

In the \u201960s, we changed the course of the war; we opened the Deep South to integration. No matter how difficult, how dangerous, progress was made, but we didn’t finish the job. The opposition of Pluto and Uranus planted seeds for this moment. We are in constant growth,\u00a0readying again to challenge\u00a0oppressive authority and refine our commitment to a healed planet. Perhaps it is ever thus, an internal struggle to come up from the depths, lift ourselves into a better iteration of self.<\/p>\n

For me, Neale Donald Walsch has captured this moment when he reminds us that, “You have come here to become the grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are.” That is astrology at its best, evolvement at its core and — dare I say — why we came. If stopping the XL’s completion is merely symbolic, then so it is. But it’s ours to do, if enough of us care. In the \u201960s, we let disillusionment take us, but this is a new day. It’s time to finish the job of peace and justice.<\/p>\n

* correction: the original post misidentified this as an opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves The essential purpose of astrology\u2026is not so much to tell us what we will meet on our road, as it is to suggest how to meet it \u2013 and the basic reason for the meeting. — Dane Rudhyar The Uranus\/Pluto conjunction* of the 1960s was, indeed, a decade of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1744],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65912"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}