Much Needed Laughter

 Gotta record this.  Reading 'Son of Hamas' on my day off.  Interspersed with devastating testimonies from Breaking the Silence - mostly IDF soldiers telling about how they witnessed abuse or themselves abused Palestinians.  It appears from their financial transparency pdf and this link that they receive a good bit of funding from Open Societies Foundation of George Soros.  That's some serious support of free speech aimed at uncovering sobering truth.

I'm taking a break, by the way, from 'Sequel' by Rachel Maddow.  

Compared to the Maddow book, 'Son of Hamas' by Mosab Hassan Yousef and Ron Brackin, is much more fast paced and emotional.  It is Yousef's autobiography of Palestinian childhood, imprisonment in Israel, and now I'm in the period where he is 'working' for Shin Bet which basically means he's getting paid to go to college and meet secretly with his Israeli handler.  

Mars just met Saturn yesterday.  You can see the pair setting on right side of chart.

Quick cut to astro stuff.  This my blog so we gotta gaze upward for a moment.

Jupiter is closing in on its meetup with Uranus.  That's happening in the last 3rd of Taurus and it's a pretty big deal since these two outer planets last met in 2010/11.  But the arresting pair that's got my attention right now is Mars and Saturn.  I'm seriously digging into war, statehood and all sorts of national conflict.

This biography of the oldest son of one of the founders of Hamas is taking me to the depths of the Israeli Palestinian war.  He mentions historic moments like the Camp David Summit, but from a perspective I've not yet encountered.  He throws very few dates around, but plenty of gut wrenching stories of torture and abuse on both sides.

His dad is a flawed sweetheart, a true hero trapped in a very bad place.  Yousef is a very confused young man wondering who he can trust, feeling very lost, but guided by his father's abiding kindness.  I repeat, the kindness of Yousef's father is flawed; no matter how strongly Venus shines, Mars is always still present in heaven.

I've just come to the part where Arafat has succeeded in igniting riots after Sharon's uneventful visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque.  By the way, I did not know Sharon's visit was a staged message to voters that he would not tolerate the Palestinains bulldozing archeological sites of Jewish Temples; there apparently had been video footage in the news, during the preceding weeks, of archeologists shaking their heads in disbelief at the bulldozers hauling away mounds filled with who knows how many ancient artifacts to a land fill.¹

Yousef had driven his father to the mosque.  Arafat had called him the night before requesting his help as a Hamas leader in bringing the Palestinians out to protest.  When they couldn't get a crowd up at the mosque his father dutifully went to Ramallah to help bring people out into the streets.  Yousef expressed outrage at his father for doing Arafat's bidding and then drove off to go camping near Galilee with his friends.  

He had no idea about the riots unfolding until he got a call from his Shin Bet handler.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in Galilee camping with some friends."

"Galilee!  What?"  Loai started to laugh.  "You are really unbelievable," he said.  "The whole West Bank is upside down and you're out having fun with your Christian friends."

*     ♡     *     ♡     *     ♡     *    

I've watched a few videos with this guy, Mosab Hassan Yousef.  He exudes intense, brooding anger and self confidence.  He speaks against people adopting false identities. 

I'm mostly thinking about the corrosive influence of war, of Mars, of the ugly reality of the constant battle for survival that we all face every day.  But some survive incredibly brutal fights and come out ready to tell the rest of us what they have learned.

The moment I got that relief of laughter, when Yousef's Shin Bet handler was laughing at the absurdity right beside this very explosive, deadly sobering situation -at that moment the deadly sobering pair of Mars and Saturn were setting in the Leo duad of Pisces.

^{1.  From Son of Hamas Yousef and Brackin Page 130 "Sharon's visit was designed to send a silent but clear message to Israeli voters: "I'll put a stop to this unnecessary destruction."  In planning the trip, Sharon's people had received assurance from Palestinian security chief Jibril Rajoub that his visit would not be a problem as long as he did not set foot in a mosque.}

^{"He came, he looked around, and he left.  He said nothing. He never entered the mosque.  It all seemed like a big nonevent to me. On the way back to Ramallah, I asked my father what the big deal had been.}

^{"What happened?" I said,  "You didn't start an intifada."}

^{"Not yet," he answered.  "But I have called some activists in the Islamic student movement and asked them to meet me here for a protest."}

^{"Nothing happened in Jerusalem, so now you want to demonstrate in Ramallah?  That's crazy," I told him.}

^{"We have to do what we have to do.  Al-Aqsa is our mosque and Sharon had no business being there."}

^{I wondered if he was trying to convince me or himself."}

Egyptian King Farouk Invades Israel 1948

I'm seeing a lot of stuff on the net about Israel/Palestine.  I'm not going into my personal feelings here, just adding some pertinent info that seems to be falling through the cracks.  The chart is for the morning several Arab countries invaded newly declared Israel.  Pluto and Saturn in their historic meeting were rising as the invasion unfolded, with the new Moon right between them.  All three planets were in the Leo section of the ecliptic.  A collection of 'Arab kings' were determined to expel a newly formed state of 'western colonizers' and rushing to beat each other in a grab for power.

A quote from Wikipedia article on King Farouk:  In May 1948, the prime minister Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha advised against going to war with Israel, saying the Egyptian Army was not ready for war.^[182] However, King Farouk overruled him, as he feared the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was clamoring for war with Israel.^[182]

The Wikipedia article on Farouk is long but packed with enough salacious details to satisfy any fan of lush life exposés. 

This is from the Wikipedia article on Azzam Pasha:  Azzam believed that King Abdullah of Jordan had decided to move his forces into Palestine on 15 May, regardless of what the other Arabs did, and would occupy the Arab part of Palestine (blaming other Arab states for failure). King Farouk resolved to contain Abdullah and prevent him from gaining further influence and power in the Arab arena.^[30]

I'm deeply disturbed by current events.  But that's ok.  It motivates me to learn as much as I can about the situation. 

I've watched several videos of Israeli Oct 7 survivors.  I've also watched some videos about and by Edward Said.  I like Said, but feel compelled to raise my hand and say, "Yes, you have an important account to give the world about the suffering of your childhood community of Palestinians, but what about the Arab invasion?"

One last quote:  At the last moment, several Arab leaders, to avert catastrophe – secretly appealed to the British to hold on in Palestine for at least another year.^[147][148]

The Kindness of Venus in Scorpio

I am often asked why the time of birth from a birth certificate is important.  An astrological example from a memorable moment of life is a good way to illustrate the power of knowing the exact time and place of first breath.  Today's post is such an example in my chart.

Venus passed over the location of my natal Moon yesterday, Dec 19.  It was late, actually I should have said the transit was last night.  I was going to the car to do a couple of night errands; I needed to pick up a winter jacket I had left at my customer's house Monday, the day before, and then head to the Food Lion (the one on Avent Ferry that stays open till midnight) for onions and greens etc.  

Venus is in 3rd house (bottom left quadrant of circle) at 18°♏15'

As I was walking to the car I called for Brownie - she'd been missing since Monday when I left for work at lunch time.  She was not out front in the morn, when I got up, waiting patiently in the sun, facing the front door so she could see me when I looked out the little window.  There was still no sign of her when I left for work just before 1pm.  I wasn't worried, just figured that was lucky because I was running a bit late and feeling very sluggish.  If she had been out front I would have been pressed to return to the house to put crunchies in her dish and fresh water in her bowl.  She does occasionally skip a meal.  Saturday night I was up till 4am cleaning windows to beat the coming storm.  And she was in and out the whole time.  Then Sunday while it rained all day she spent a lot of time inside and on my lap.  It seemed natural that she would want to enjoy the clear skies after so much time in the house.  She likes to lick water from the various buckets I use to catch the rain.  There was a wide assortment of freshly filled buckets to taste from.  So even though I didn't see her around I figured she'd be waiting for dinner when I got home from work.

It was after dark, 7:15 and pretty chilly.  I missed her meeting me at the car, meowing loudly as she approached the driver's side door.  Lately, she is at the foot of the driveway and wanders from one side to the other a couple of times; I stop, back up a bit and talk to her from behind the windshield, asking her to get out of the way.  Ugh, wondering if I will have to put the car in park, turn off the engine and get out to move her, but no, she always crosses to the roots of the giant oak tree eventually.  I pull in the driveway, park the car, and our evening conversion begins as soon as I exit with my bag of cleaning gloves, and 'cleaning uniform', an old pair of shorts and a t-shirt covered with bleach marks.  We talk all the way to the mailbox and into the house.  Unless it's really cold she stops at the door and waits for me to come back out with food.

On the bottom left of the chart you can see Venus; most non astrologers will recognize it as the female symbol, but don't be fooled, Venus is about much more than traditional notions of sex and gender.  That pie slice is the 3rd house counting counter clockwise from the AC (ascendent).  When we say Venus is in the 3rd house we are saying it is in the 3rd section of the ecliptic lined up to rise above the eastern horizon.  See the Sun (little circle with dot) in the 4th house?  Right now Venus is a morning 'star', it rises before the Sun, so early birds can see it in the wee hours of darkness right before daylight.

At 9:54 Tuesday night, when I found Brownie's corpse on the other side of the street, Raleigh was turning back toward the Scorpio area of the ecliptic where Venus is currently traveling.  The Sun is almost finished going through Capricorn, while Venus is flyng through the second half of Scorpio.  

Plato had Timeaus talk extensively about how our casual notions of up and down are very misleading.  The chart makes it look like Venus will eventually (in about 6.5 hours) cross above the horizontal line, but actually, we in Raleigh are revolving toward Venus and it just looks to us like 'her' beautiful light rises up out of the sea of darkness before daybreak. 

When we go backwards in time, by 12 minutes, we can see Sun in 5th house and Pluto in 6th. 

I do feel the loss, but writing about the detailed order of our sister planets helps enormously to keep me focused on the long haul of life.  A taste of immortality does actually diminish the ache of loss and worry about failure.

So there she had probably lain, her corpse at least, since Monday morning when she did not show up for breakfast.  All those times I had called her, night and day, her body was within hearing distance.  But the breath of life was gone.  Psyche in Greek, ruach in Hebrew.  

I skooped her up in an old towel, placed her on a rug in the mudroom, it was down in the 20's last night so I was not worried about bugs yet, then I went to run my night errands with no more worries about where she was.

That's the kindness of Venus in Scorpio.  

My natal chart showing Moon at 18°♏ 14' in the 2nd house.

My natal Moon is 18° ♏ 14'.  During the 12 minutes that I was making my mind up to pick up the jacket and go to the store, instead of putting it off till morn, Venus was passing over the place where the Moon was the moment I was born.  The Moon travels at least 12° in the Zodiac every 24 hours.  That means it takes about 1 minute of clock time for the Moon to travel half a minute in the Zodiac, which is about 1/120 of a degree.  That's pretty specific.  We're not talking about Venus being in the same sign as my natal Moon - Venus has been in Scorpio since Dec 5.  That's 2 weeks.  We're not even talking about the same degree.  Venus right now takes about 24 hours to pass through a degree.  We're talking about the 12 minutes of clock time Venus took to pass through 1/2 a minute of the Zodiac - the same 1/2 minute of arc my natal Moon passed through in just one clock minute 65 years ago.

Only by having my exact time of birth from my birth certificate could I know that last night, while I was about to find Brownie's body, Venus was moving over the same position as the Moon when I drew my first breath.

Brownie was 21 years old when she died.  Though she ate and lingered around my husband as he used to sit on the front porch, noone could touch her.  Her greatest fear was to be touched by us or enter the house.  That was when she first appeared. She was young, but already full size.  She never sprung or jumped from one place to the other.  After a few years and auspicious but seemingly tragic events: she lost a litter of kittens to a predator and tried to steal another litter from the cat who left her babies in my closet to go out.  I had no screen in my bedroom window, and she snuck in to nurse the babies.  Only then could we touch her.  Gradually over many years she came to love sitting on our lap or having her thick winter coat brushed out in the summer. 

She never iniated play like a kitten.  She would occasionally swat at a crumpled paper at the end of a string.  Sometimes at night I would see her stalking something under the street light.  But there was always something very humble, practical and uncatlike about her.

Scorpio is associated with procreation and death.

The Hour is Nigh

 

A further quote from Philo.  I just love that this is stuff people were reading when Jesus was walking on Earth.

XXV. (77) And some one may inquire the cause why it was that man was the last work in the creation of the world. For the Creator and Father created him after every thing else as the sacred scriptures inform us. Accordingly, they who have gone most deeply into the laws, and who to the best of their power have investigated everything that is contained in them with all diligence, say that God, when he had given to man to partake of kindred with himself, grudged him neither reason, which is the most excellent of all gifts, nor anything else that is good; but before his creation, provided for him every thing in the world, as for the animal most resembling himself, and dearest to him, being desirous that when he was born, he should be in want of nothing requisite for living, and for living well; the first of which objects is provided for by the abundance of supplies which are furnished to him for his enjoyment, and the other by his power of contemplation of the heavenly bodies, by which the mind is smitten so as to conceive a love and desire for knowledge on those subjects; owing to which desire, philosophy has sprung up, by which, man, though mortal, is made immortal.

This Mars conjunction of Sun is getting to me.  A bit of astrology helps distract my mind from all the distressing thoughts generated by distressing events.  They're always out there.  But sometimes they really grab our attention and squeeeeeze!  They wring it like the final spin on a Maytag wash cycle.

Sooo - in case anyone is wondering how I got this time.  It really is not hard to get to.  Just follow these 7 easy FREE steps.  We're entering the deep, dark secrets of the Swiss ephemeris.  Oooh!  This will be an adventure for sure.

First go to the astro.com page.  Go from All about Astrology (at top of page) > Ephemeris > 9000 Years Ephemeris > Planetary Cycles > Mars Cycles 1600-2100. I made the images for these steps small, but you can click on them to get a better look.

Now for the wand waving -- That 5:43 time next to the Nov 18 date is UT which is kind of like GMT.  (London Calling)  If you scroll back up and look in box of info above the chart you'll see Time and then Univ Time right under that.  To get the time for Raleigh, I subtracted 5 hours from the Univ Time.

I got a chart for Nov 18, 2023  Raleigh, NC 00:43 and there you can see (in the bottom left quadrant) Sun right next to Mars at 25Scorpio37. 

Venus Ruling in Sign of Diplomacy

The chart below is for the moment the following phrase came into my mind:  

They anthropomorphized universal traits and called them gods.

For several months I've been pondering the ancient Greek stories of gods, especially as told in the Illiad.  I have struggled for years with the Bible, mythologies of various cultures and miracle stories.  I used to find them all very irritating and just wanted to make them go away like flies at a picnic.

Now, on the internet, we all have access to scholarly presentations from people who are steeped in the languages and cultures from which these tall tales originate.  It's so refreshing to get a respectful but sober perspective on these ancient writings.  Here is a link to one of my favorites Mueller on Menis.

I still have many moments of profound irritation:  do they really have to make it all so convoluted and complicated?  And after a break from study, a return to the everyday ups and downs of human existence, I am reminded of just how frought and complicated life is, all life.  Scientifically and psychologically life is a barrel of monkeys and very often a fight to the death.

Sure, when we get a better look we can see that the nucleic acids in our cells are all neatly wound on spools, and the amino acids in the proteins that hum away like invisible robots hidden deep in our cells are all folded according to a rule that precedes the oldest form of human knowledge.  But it took an incredible amount of human striving, searching, real suffering and dispassionate cooperation to unravel those secrets.  This morning I clicked on an article about how scientists have linked forms of lead and silver to various ancient mines to trace the early spread of silver coinage and the rise of Athens.  They neglected to mention the slave laborers who extracted ore from those mines.

I like to quietly give thanks for the social justice rabble rousers when I see mentions in articles, say in wikipedia, that make a note of slave labor.  A fact that once would have been considered unworthy of mention.

But back to my chart for this post.  See Venus at the top?  It looks just like the symbol we use for female.  It's in the sign Libra ♎ where it actively rules.  It's only been in this place of power since Wed.  Can you see diplomacy on the rise?

Meanwhile the Sun is less than 2.5 degrees from its lineup with Mars.  They have this meeting every couple of years, but it rarely happens in a sign where the planet of passion is ruling.  See the blue M to the left of Libra with the arrow on it?  That's Scorpio ♏.  So while the planet of the ego is lining up with War in the sign of self preservation, the planet of diplomacy is in a section of its cycle where it too has power.

÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =

The Moon (crescent at top of chart) in ♎, was crossing the meridian the moment that phrase came to me.  That really means Raleigh, where I live, was facing toward the Moon in the sign of diplomacy, just at the moment that phrase was finally born in my little mind.  A location on Earth only faces a particular planet along the ecliptic for a few minutes, then passes on to the next degree in the 360degrees it passes each day.

I've been reading Philo of Alexandria.  He was about 25 years older than Jesus.  Like most Jews of those days living in Egypt, he didn't speak Hebrew.  He knew enough to make Hebrew references in his writings, but by that time most Jews in Egypt were reading their sacred books in Greek.  Also like a lot of Jews he read a good bit of Greek philosophy.  And though I never see it mentioned, I would guess he was familiar with a good bit of Egyptian and Achaemenid writings.  I'm reading his work 'On the Creation', a commentary on the Book of Genesis.  I'm delighted with many passages, but I made a note of the one copied below, which refers to a place in Genesis where 'God' is referred to in a plural rather than singular term.

XXIV. (72)   "And he would not err who should raise the question why Moses attributed the creation of man alone not to one creator, as he did that of other animals, but to several. For he introduces the Father of the universe using this language: "Let us make man after our image, and in our likeness." Had he then, shall I say, need of any one whatever to help him, He to whom all things are subject? Or, when he was making the heaven and the earth and the sea, was he in need of no one to co-operate with him; and yet was he unable himself by his own power to make man an animal so short-lived and so exposed to the assaults of fate without the assistance of others? It is plain that the real cause of his so acting is known to God alone, but one which to a reasonable conjecture appears probable and credible, I think I should not conceal; and it is this. (73) Of existing things, there are some which partake neither of virtue nor of vice; as for instance, plants and irrational animals; the one, because they are destitute of soul, and are regulated by a nature void of sense; and the other, because they are not endowed with mind or reason. But mind and reason may be looked upon as the abode of virtue and vice; as it is in them that they seem to dwell. Some things again partake of virtue alone, being without any participation in any kind of vice; as for instance, the stars, for they are said to be animals, and animals endowed with intelligence; or I might rather say, the mind of each of them is wholly and entirely virtuous, and unsusceptible of every kind of evil. Some things again are of a mixed nature, like man, who is capable of opposite qualities, of wisdom and folly, of temperance and dissoluteness, of courage and cowardice, of justice and injustice, in short of good and evil, of what is honourable and what is disgraceful, of virtue and vice."

=    ÷    =    ÷    =    ÷    =

Somehow, thinking on Philo's commentary on Genesis helped formulate the idea I've been striving for, just like the Titans whose name means to strive or reach, those early generation gods of the Greeks.  I keep thinking of Paris being pressured into choosing the fairest of 3 goddesses, and how that was not even the root cause in the tragic war recounted in the Illiad, but a step along the long descent into madness.  Beauty personified, righteous anger personified - not just personified but elevated to a godlike status.  Why?  Maybe because all humans have been striving since first memory  (Mnemesone, another early generation goddess) to free themselves, ourselves from the bondage of these universal traits.

Link to Philo of Alexandria 'On the Creation' 

Scorpio as Quiet Strength

Mercury lines up with Mars tomorrow morn US east coast time.  The meeting occurs in the sign Scorpio.  

Mercury on point of overtaking Mars.  They are in upper left quadrant under the sign Scorpio.

The blue M in outer circle with an arrow is the symbol for Scorpio.  Here is a video that introduces some of the zodiac signs including Scorpio.  This link goes to a page about how the amount of radiation we get from a body changes as it moves from one sign to another.  We have lost quite a bit of light during Sun's passage through Libra, and it is continuing to decrease in Scorpio.

Early Scorpio (almost 12 degrees Scorpio) is the area of the ecliptic where Mercury meets Mars tomorrow.

Then it will take almost a few more weeks to reach the Sun Mars line up.  They will still be in Scorpio.

Sun is next to Mars in lower left quadrant.  They are meeting near the end of Scorpio.

Scorpio is often associated with secrets, death etc.  I like to imagine food cooked, stored safely in sanitized jars and stashed away for future use.  Then of course there is the unattractive fruit left behind whose seed will find a place in the soil to germinate when the time is right.

Naturally (as in according to the patterns of nature) with Mars in the mix there will be quite a bit of adrenaline involved.  Mars comes with an acute sense of urgency, and it rules passively in Scorpio.

I've got to save this chart.  It's for the moment I got the thought that kindness is not something that can be enforced, it has to be learned by example.

Moon meeting Venus in early Virgo at top of chart opposing Saturn in Pisces at bottom.

It's possible to enforce politically correct behavior.  But what's correct is hard to agree on.  Kindness.  Venus is kindness.  It just entered Virgo, the sign of correct behavior.  How to hold kindness in our hearts as we debate on correct politics, correct government, correct behavior.

I learned kindness by watching carefully the people who have been kind to me and everyone they encounter, regardless of their beliefs.  We can't all do that.  The world needs fighters.  People who will heroically defend their right to exist.  But if you feel a need to be kind don't let political correctness get in the way.  It's like Jesus said about the poor, applying that same logic, political correctness will always be with us.

 

Desantis on Stono Rebellion

I'm distracting myself from finishing a difficult book on Mongolia.  At the rate I'm going I will not finish before the Fri due date, but this is too rich to let pass.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion  That's the link to an article about a courageous  rebellion around Charleston SC Sept 9, 1739.  

@          ?       @          ?

I was studying the chart for the Qing dynasty empress dowager's imperial decree to take first steps toward constitutional monarchy.  The road leading to that event was long and winding, or downright circular.  She had imprisoned a relative some years earlier for trying to initiate similar reforms and now here she was acting like a western radical.

I circled Neptune at 12° Cancer in top right quadrant of the chart.  You can see Jupiter at 6° Cancer following close behind along the ecliptic.

I do this all the time.  Not sure how people put up with it - are you wondering what the impending fall of Qing dynasty has to do with The Negro Act of 1740?

Well... my dizzy little astrological mind was wondering about the last time Neptune was in Cancer!  I played around in the ephemeris, a kind of mathematical river of organic time, and saw that was around 1740.  Since I am most familiar with US history I gravitated to the opposite side of the globe from China/Mongolia, and looked up events for US in 1740.

Up popped the Negro Act of 1740 precipitated by the Stono Slave Rebellion of 1739.  Get this!  The rebelling slaves were trying to escape to Spanish Florida!  Politics are so dynamic and slippery.  Moments like this I give myself a pass for feeling lost.  It's hard to keep up with all the twists and turns and byways of history.

Of course with all the controversy about Disney Land and how to teach history I had to make a note of this event in American Colonial history.  

Below is the 1740 paragraph from the Wikipedia US History timeline 

• 1740 – The Plantation Act of 1740 is passed to encourage immigration to the Thirteen Colonies and regularize the colonial naturalization procedures. Battle of Cartagena de Indias, where the colonists are called "Americans" for the first time. James Oglethorpe fails to take St. Augustine. South Carolina enacts the Negro Act of 1740.

Next is the chart for 9 months earlier, the day after the Stono Rebellion started.  

The slaves heading for asylum in Catholic Florida had already killed 1 or 2 people in the South Carolina Low Country and I imagine the slave owner posse was close on their heals.  You gotta read the article, here's the link again.  Stono Rebellion.  There's  a beautiful detail in the 1st paragraph under Events of the Revolt - ^] The Africans marched down the roadway with a banner that read "Liberty!", and chanted the same word in unison.  

Well, that's it.  Like I always say, there's so much in those charts.  When I perused the first one for Empress Dowager Cixi finally taking steps 'forward' to westernize China, and by extension Mongolia; and saw that hope mongering Jupiter coming to it's meeting with Neptune, it was like looking at a mathematical painting of industrial visions taking physical form and moving onto the Mongol Steppes with modern technology.  While many Chinese reformers were hailing the imperial proclamation that signaled a move toward modernization, positively inebriated with hope for a kinder more democratic government; nomadic herders in Mongolia were eyeing the arrival of thousands of Chinese technocrats and agricultural enterprises with grave worries about their own future.

Earth looks like such a jewel in the pictures from space.

Trump Chart and Facing the Truth

 I'm going to try to keep this one quick.  I have a great book from interlibrary loan about the history of Mongolia which will require a lot of my time.

$      $      $      $      $   

I often think about Trump's progressed chart having Venus in Libra.  In fact I believe his progressed Venus may have been rising around the time he declared his first campaign for pres.  It's been a while since I checked his chart though, so my memory could be playing tricks on me.

Above is Trump's chart progressed for Jan 6, 2021.  Maybe I checked his chart today, after so many years, because I watched the movie Uncle Tom a couple nights ago.  I found it to be a very polished presentation of right wing propaganda.  Venus rules in Libra and it is exalted, though accidentally, in the 12th house.  That's just the tip of what I think more people need to understand about this current set of circumstances.

Here is a link to a Youtuber's reaction to Uncle Tom.  I stumbled on the full movie for free, but can't find it now.  

I've been having a rocky transit of Saturn in Pisces on my natal Mars.  My 9 year old cat was really sick and  I wrestled with calling my wonderful vet as I watched her 3 month decline in quiet horror.  By the time I contacted the team of animal angels to euthanize her she was in shamefully awful shape.  I knew the doctor would be very diplomatic and not judge me, but I judged myself and found myself miles below the level of kindness this team of medical women apply to their work. 

As I was digging the hole for Mimi's corpse in my back yard I got in a visit with my Mexican neighbors.  We talked about animal care and our various experiences with vets; their encounters have been very judgemental, "How can you feed your dog that horrible food?!"  They pushed my neighbor to buy Science Diet.

Then the conversation moved to the recent gunshots.  I hear them at night and wonder.  Turns out our neighbor around the corner has had 2 bullets come through her front bedroom windows.  We all know the back story.  She is from the same pueblo as my next door neighbor.  We are all friends attending each others' bday parties etc.

I get irritated with liberal activists demonizing cops and tell people I have a secret inner Trump.  But after this episode with having my cat euthanized by a very kind and understanding vet, and only realizing after talking to other people about my shame in not spending more money to intervene in my cat's disease, that other people struggle with the same shame;  I'm coming to understand I'm not alone in this failure to reach such a high level of care for my pets.  

There's a difference between reaching for a goal because we're inspired by a stellar example and doing something to avoid being shunned.  I feel confident my vet wants the best for my pets, but understands my limitations.  

I'm surrounded by people who speak little or no English and struggle mightily to improve their lives.  Their hope, like the kindness of my vet, is a constant source of inspiration to me.  

My cat's body was in my freezer for a few days.  I had to interrupt digging the hole and save energy for cleaning houses.  Every time I opened the door her peaceful face was there.  I had wrapped her in a blanket but could not bear to cover her face.  It was a bit spookey.  I thought about the words for breath in Greek and Hebrew; psyche and ruach, and how they are related to the concept of soul.  That spookey feeling, like seeing her body was seeing her, as though she could wake up and return to life, made me think, "this is where ghost stories originate."

For me, every new experience with death is a chance to understand the popularity of ghost stories.

Saturday, while I was cleaning a house, I received a txt photo of flowers delivered to my front door.  Sure enough they were from the vet team.  I put them out on the spot where Mimi is tucked in the earth.  I keep driftimg to the back door and looking out at the beautiful bouquet.  I feel so forgiven for my limitations, so accepted as I am, so grateful for what I learned from both Mimi and the vet angels.

-      -      -      -      -

I think people could learn a lot about both astrology and Trump by studying this chart, by contemplating the meaning of his progressed Venus in Libra and his progressed Saturn eggsactly on the midheaven the week of Jan 6, 2021.  Only an understanding of the mathematical likelihood of such an alignment can reveal the wisdom, or as the Greeks said, Sophia, tucked in the charts.

Whatever will be will be.  Like my vet, I believe that the vast majority of us are trying our best.  We're trying to take care of our pets, to be good citizens, to make it through life as creatures of impulse reaching for an understanding of our various stews of desires.

Seeing polished right wing propaganda made me feel better about my irritation with left wing propaganda.  I just don't like the smell of mendacity period.  But the whiff of truth, from any direction, is truly the breath of life.  Most of the time I find truth mixed in with tall tales.  I'm learning to live with that.

Hippy Roots

 When I first started reading about Magnus Hirschfeld I thought of him as an early activist for queer rights.  But Uranus in Cancer (circled at bottom of chart) flagged his position in history as a forerunner of the flower children born around 1952, when Uranus was next passing through the nurturing sign of Cancer.  That's right, the cycle of Uranus is about 84 years.

Uranus's 84 year orbit is slow, but Neptune's is even slower; it takes 165 years to revisit a position.  Neptune was in explosive Aries when he was born and so had made it only half way around the ecliptic by the time Uranus returned to Cancer and our idealistic followers of war resistors were born.  The more diplomatic placement of Neptune in Libra was just one difference between his generation and the 1950's babies.  Notice the faster planets Jupiter and Mars are also in Aries.  His chart is pretty much ruled by that Mars in Aries.

One person's hero is by definition someone else's enemy.  This dedicated and nurturing hero of suicidal queers was an enemy of closeted high officials of the imperial state.  He thought he miscalculated the forces he was facing, but his impulsive courage laid a path for the following Uranus in Cancer cycle.  

Magnus Hirschfeld wikipedia article. The section about the Harden- Eulenberg affair is a good example of how daring he was in his willingness to go up against the prevailing ideas of society.  But I also like the parts that discuss how persevering (Mercury superior conjunct Sun both lined up with Pluto in Taurus) he was in seeking out evidence of the universal nature of sexual variations. 

This is a chart for the morning 2 million people were assembling to form a human chain extending 430 miles across the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

11 weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall

 

Note Jupiter at top of the chart.  The planet of the soul ruling over the cross of existence, aka HOPE, was crossing the meridian as people were coordinating their movements with portable radios to form the chain across three countries, or would be, wanna be countries.  That's how the Soviet Central Committee characterized the demonstration:  "People should know the abyss to which they are being pushed by their nationalistic leaders.  Should they achieve their goals, the possible consequences could be catastrophic to these nations.  A question could arise as to their very existence."  Declaration of the Central Committee, August 26, 1989.

Eleven weeks later, when Saturn was at the very end of its cycle with Neptune, the Berlin Wall fell.  See Uranus, Saturn and Neputne at the bottom of the chart in Capricorn?  Saturn the old ruler of time is between Uranus and Neptune.  Saturn used to be the slowest one on the block in our neighborhood of the Milky Way, then, with a bit of techno wizardry our vision improved, and we learned to follow Uranus and Neptune as well.  So in 1989 Saturn was like a tag team messenger running from one historic marker to the next.

The photos of people lined up peacefully, holding hands along various stretches of highway make me feel a bit emotional.  These demonstrations when Uranus and Neptune were in austere Capricorn (which is nurturing Cancer in the Southern Hemisphere) are a far cry from those of the last 2 decades while Uranus has progressed from Pisces through Aries and now Taurus.  Jupiter, enough hope to stand for a dream, forming that upright Cancer Capricorn axis, fulfilling a fresh vision of how people can organize themselves in states, was at its high point in Riga that morning.

Bloody History

Jefferson was ok with Lafayette's arrest and Louis 16th's beheading; he said innocent blood was a small price to pay for the liberty he believed would follow the excesses of the revolution.  I try to keep that in mind as I watch the events of this decade unfolding.

Then too, it is only as I compose this post that I'm reminded Uranus is in esoteric Scorpio, say in Chile, while it's moving through stubborn Taurus for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. 

It's a really big globe we turn on, and a long trek from one tropic to the next.  As we spin on Earth's axis we think we we're exposed to the whole of heaven once every revolution, but the very axis that makes that spinning possible makes it impossible to see the heaven above those in the opposing, 'southern' hemisphere.  While Argo Navis is a brilliant and real constellation ever present in the lives of Southern Hemi's, for us, chidren of the revolving Big Bear, it is just a wild and crazy story of Greek heroes handed down through the centuries.

When I follow astrology to it's logical limit, which is the limit of my mind's ability to synthesize layers upon layers of information, information about the real heaven that holds all of us in it's dark, vacuous paw, I am reminded of Krshna and Arjuna, literally Black and Silver, in their long dialogue standing on the edge of the bloody battle.

The Baltic Way article from Wikipedia.  A link to that other time and place.

 

Current Events

Now Saturn is under the influence of Pluto in Capricorn, or the other tropic, Cancer.  Either way you see it, from Valdivia, Chile or New York City, Pluto is where that historic trio (Uranus, Saturn and Neptune) was during the breakup of the Soviet Union.  That's just one way of seeing it.  One way of seeing the river of time that feeds the tree of life which the Norse called Yggdrasil.

 

Out of Bounds Soul

 Today I came across a video of a soul out of bounds.

Out of bounds in astrology 

Out of Bounds has been on my mind for the last few months.  Now that the Moon's North Node has finished backing through Cancer and is precessing* through Gemini we are beginning to see the Moon out of bounds twice a month; when it is in Capricorn it is lower than the low of the southern tropic and when it is in Cancer it reaches higher than the high of the northern tropic.  This cycle of the Moon's pulsing wave, as it currently increases in amplitude, is a good one to follow when meditating on the soul unfolding through life and history.  From May 2020 through Jan 2025, twice every cycle, the Moon will push the boundaries progressively further.  While this process will peak in Jan 2025, it will still take 4 1/2 years for the amplitude of the lunar wave to come back down to the level of the ecliptic.  One of my favorite meditations on the soul centers on following this cycle of the Moon's nodes through the years (using an ephemeris) and considering historic events.

Meditating on the Meaning of Soul

I've also been noticing my deepening conviction that past lives, past life regressions and discussions of reincarnation can be a distraction from understanding the real meaning of soul or psyche.  I think stories about recalling an individual past life, as though an ego, aka I, or individual identity, can retain its existence from one creation to the next, can be misleading fictions.  They serve some purpose in coming to understand how individual lives are connected through generations; but by inferring that we can carry even a part of the identity we experience in our physical existence from one body to the next we are negating the definition of psyche in its relationship to ego.  Psyche is free of the body and free of the limits of the ego.  The ego is limited to the body and physical existence.  

Observing our actual changing relationships with others, especially in the context of the Moon's cycles, gives us invaluable insight into our very real psyche, or soul.  I'm including this video of a young Syrian born YouTube star in the Netherlands as an example of soul or psyche in action.

 Obada Sykh is a Young Netherlands YouTube Star

First I want to tell a bit about what led me to the video. I was looking for examples of how to pronounce the Arabic word for service - عبادة‎. 

It is transliterated Ibadah, but when I pasted the Arabic version of the word in the search bar I kept getting hilarious videos of a kid parodying himself, his mother and his brother.  They were all labeled Obada Sykh.  I could not understand a word he was saying, but his facial expressions, props and body language were enough to hold my attention and make me wonder who he was and what he was saying.  I guess he was imitating his mother when he modestly adjusted the scarf he was wearing over his curly hair.  I really wanted to be in on the jokes that were unfolding through the various characters he played. 

 After several searches for some information in English, I came upon a video about him made for Netherlands public television.  "Obada: YouTube star but all alone."  I'm putting the same link near the end of this post.

The story of this young man's family is as soulful as any story I can think of.  It tells about all the ways it is difficult, but essential, for us to maintain connections.  It's a full 45 minute documentary.  During much of it I was reminded of all my neighbors and friends from Mexico and further south.  One remark especially made me think of them.  The father said that their family members in Syria were jealous of their lives in the Netherlands, while they in the Netherlands were jealous of, and longed to return to the life of their family in Syria.

The video that originally led me to this beautiful family's story was posted May 15, 2021.  Here is the link ---> Funny video by Obada Sykh  

This link goes to the documentary about the young performer and his family ---> Obada: YouTube star but all alone. 

And now for the charts.  It was 9:35 when I started watching the video.  Raleigh was just turning past Uranus in Taurus on the midheaven.  Maybe this family's journey will be as inspiring to you as it was to me.  If you are an astrologer I wonder what will be going on in heaven when you watch the video.

Below is the chart for when the video ended.  Jupiter was crossing from the 7th house of friendship (right side of chart, just above horizon) to 6th house of service.

 

*precess is an old astrology term for cycles that go backwards compared to normal planetary motion like the Sun progressing through the 4 cardinal points of the seasons.

 

 

Mars Entering Taurus

 The Planet of War passed from the Sign of War into the Sign of Peace 

while Subordinate Officials of State Authority Cleared Smashed Glass and Enraged Protesters from the Halls of Congress

"They asked Judge Linda V. Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to refer Powell and her team of lawyers to the court’s chief judge for disbarment, and to refer them for further professional discipline to authorities in their home states — Texas, in Powell’s case.

Detroit also asked the judge to levy a financial penalty “sufficient to deter future misconduct,” at least equal to the amount of money that Powell and her team have raised to fund their post-election lawsuits."

The above quote is from this article in Washington Post - Dominion Sues Powell for Election Fraud Lawsuits  <---(click to follow link)

Jupiter and Saturn are working their way through Pluto's 1st house of New Beginnings.  We'll still have the intense trio rising within an hour of each other every day, for the whole planet, through this month.  But the deal is now done; both Jupiter and Saturn have completely finished their passage through Pluto's 12th house of  Dreams and Fate. Earth is now swinging around the far side of the Sun from the historic conjunction, and so we see them all moving forward again, and at their greatest speed.

Solar system view with straight arrow going from Earth through Sun, passing near Jupiter then Saturn, and finally pointing at Pluto.  Click to enlarge.

 During spring and fall, while Earth was passing between Sun and the slow outer planets, we saw them either slowing down to change direction, or literally regressing along the ecliptic.

 

And then there's Mars which just left Aries after 6 grueling months, and passed into Taurus the evening of Jan 6 while the subordinate officials of authority began clearing the US Congress of smashed glass and the enraged Trump supporters who had stormed the building.  It's hard for me to write this.  I grew up in a home with sporadic periods of domestic violence.  The chaos is not fun.  I am not attracted to large rallies of people amassing and fighting for a cause.  But then again I'm white, fairly literate, with a couple of years in an engineering program at a large university and fond of manual labor.  I have all the privilege and personality traits that guarantee a secure future.

 

But the greatest privilege that was handed to me was going to high school in Brunswick County North Carolina in 1974-76 just a few years after the school was racially integrated.  The ratio of blacks to whites was nearly 50/50.  A drive down coastal highway 17 was mostly tobacco fields dotted with sagging tobacco drying sheds.  The county was then one of the poorest in NC.  My father had been laid off after more than 20 years of service as an analyst with CIA, and my parents reunited, after a very dramatic and chaotic period of legal separation, and moved the family from the suburbs of Washington DC to this very poor county in NC.  Dad started a new career as an instructor of metallurgy and meteorology at Cape Fear Tech and the family worked at pulling itself back together.

 

My mother had a really terrible temper.  My father was not perfect by any means, he was a very quiet, affable alcoholic who never, and I mean, never, missed a day of work.  My mother was ambitious.  They both came from working Irish families who had struggled through the depression.  Even as a child I could see the quiet happiness my dad felt as he moved down the aisle of the grocery store picking up produce, meat and canned goods.  My mother told plenty of stories about life during the Great Depression and WWII so it was easy to make a connection between Dad's happiness with a full grocery cart, and the pair of shoes he had shared with his cousin in the snowy north of the 1930's.

 

We had so much in Vienna, Virginia; a horse, goat, chickens and a duck on 3 acres of land.  Yes, the house built before the Civil War was falling apart, just as the family was by the time the oldest of 4 children became a teenager.  The 70's tore my mother apart.  In our house the generation gap was a gully full of land mines.  The drugs, the boys that wanted to wear their hair long like girls, the parents that let their daughters sleep with boys; she felt compelled to fight the decay of morals that she had grown up with.  By the time she died in 2008 she had begun to make peace with the changes, but it was a long road with many years either fighting with children or not hearing from them or even knowing where they were.  The violence was so disturbing, even when things were peaceful we all felt we had to walk carefully and keep alert to manage her gathering tirades.  Until my Sagittarian older brother would just let her have it.  He was going to go his own way in the world and had no fear of her rage.  It was like a barely civilized cock fight, but between the brother I looked up to and the mother I adored.

 

I don't like chaos.  My mother's  anger was not just hidden in the home, though her family did suffer the worst of it; she also had a reputation for calling down local elected officials she had worked tirelessly to elect, publicly accusing them of transgressions they had committed against the electorate they served.  On one of my rare visits home as a young adult I was reminded of her remarkable courage when she stepped into the middle of the road at a town parade and harangued a local official. Her face was red, she was pointing at him and hollering at the top of her lungs, just like the people in the riots this year.  But she was all alone.  The combination of shame, pride and wonder at her conviction; this stew of emotions was familiar, and now that I had a life of my own, and she could not corner me and get my bare legs with the belt for my transgressions, I was beginning to sort out the many qualities that made her the amazing mom that I sometimes hated and wanted nothing to do with, and others loved and watched with wonder and curiosity.  How could she be so certain of herself?

 

And she wasn't just blunt, more often than not she was astonishingly quick in both her judgement of an unfolding situation and her delivery of the scathingly hilarious insult she felt it required.  Then she would riff on the phone with friends, considering other bombs she could have dropped that might have come even closer to the target she was always aiming at.  Then she would get sick, for days.  She smoked a lot, which couldn't have helped, but I can't help wondering how much that rage contributed to her long periods of illness.  She threw herself heart, soul and mind; fearlessly, into her battles.  

 

She was a passionate woman.  Not about love, or romance, but about family, the Catholic Church, her country.  Passion is Mars.

 

Every 2 years Mars spends about 3 months going 'backwards.'  Other planets spend a total of 3 to 5 months a year doing this backstepping routine; Mercury does it several times a year like a nimble tap dancer, Venus does it much less often and the change is more languid.  The planet of war can take as little as 6 weeks to plow through a sign or dig in for 6 months.  Of all the planets, Mar's retrograde period generates the biggest interruption in its cycle.  And every time it happens in a different sign.  For instance it has not done a retro period in Aries since 1988.  This last 6 months is the first time in over 30 years that Mars has been able to rocket daily over the horizon, as active ruler in the chart (Mars rules actively in Aries) for 6 months in a row.  That's a lot of passion without an interruption for other life considerations.

 

Meanwhile, every day, for those same 6 months, that triumverate of Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto have been rising like a super pac in the limit enforcing sign of Capricorn six hours before inflamed Mars.

 

When I was born Mars was in Pisces.  My passion is fighting for the right to love any and every one.  I see BLM/Queer/Trans folks throwing bottles of water at cops, smashing windows of local businesses and wonder how I can explain to my strident liberal friends that while I fully appreciate their anger and frustration, I reserve also the right to express compassion for the cops standing behind plexiglass shields.  I see Rednecks smashing windows and attacking photojournalists and want my Brunswick County Redneck friends to know I understand why they like Trump.  I love my friends and will not call them deplorable.  I fight the urge to cry and look for opinion pieces by diplomatic thinkers who can put all this rage about how we govern ourselves in a historic context.  I binge watch Steven Colbert and feel guilty when I laugh at the scathing wit he uses to attack the Redneck Racist Revolutionary mob.  I watch black cops talk about how it tears their hearts up to hold young black men in their arms, bleeding to death from shots fired by their peers, and know they will have to deliver the tragic news to some worried mother.

 

There are no easy explanations for all this.  There is no sinner, or contingent of various sinners that we can blame for all this rage, not even corporate capitalists.  Let she who is without sin cast the first stone is not a cliche, it is a well polished pearl of wisdom.

 

Soon, all these people will have their day in court.  I've been there, when I broke up with my husband.  It was a mess.  No fun for us or our son.  There were cops and banging on doors and yelling in the middle of the night.  I was so glad for someone who had the authority of the state to help bring things under control, including myself.  

 

Weeks after the drama in the streets I was amazed how the sober air of that courtroom made me feel almost as though I was floating.  Everything came to a dreadfully quiet halt.  Officials in uniforms made it clear that no one was to make a sound while court was in session.  No one was permitted to interrupt anyone with name calling, derisive laughter, witty comebacks, self righteous diatribes or even well meaning helpful insights on misguided behavior.  Each had their turn, plaintiff and defendant sitting in a chair, in an elevated box, given the sobering quiet space to collect their thoughts, guidance from the judge about the proceedings and what specifically was under question, and what, under the law was considered extraneous, what was admissible as evidence and what was hearsay.  I saw cokehead husbands flatly declare their wives were plotting against them, and was uplifted by the respect they were given, and the absolute dispassion of the judge who made it clear what would be considered evidence pointing toward the truth and what would not be considered evidence because it was an unsubstantiated accusation. 

 

I saw a few really slack lawyers, accepting money from clients though they clearly had no real defense.  But I also learned what it's like to think within the framework of the law, and clearly define weighty concepts that are often juggled frivolously in recreational conversation or fired indiscriminately in heated arguments.  I gained a lot of respect for lawyers.  

 

Libra is opposite Aries.  Around the 36th parallel Libra takes almost twice as long to rise as Aries. <--- (click to follow link)  A planet in Libra takes over 2 hours moving through the 1st house, while one in Aries springs up in an hour and 18 minutes.  Mars is now restrained in Taurus, but eventually it will also pass through Libra.  Venus will lead the way beginning Sept 17.  But even before that they will all, Sun and its court of Mercury and Venus, as well as militant Mars, pass through the Virgo gauntlet of rules and paperwork.  But I'm mostly looking ahead to Sept and Oct when we see Sun catching up to Mars while they are both in Libra.  I'm remembering those sobering but uplifting moments in court when the authority of the state felt like a boon to me, looking back on chaotic periods in my life and feeling relieved that they are behind me but grateful for the lessons they taught me.

 

I don't like the chaos, but my faith that things can and often do improve, is deeper having survived it.  My ex husband is now my dearest friend.

Circular chart for Sunday Jan 10, 2021 showing Mars and  Uranus in early Taurus both 90 degrees from Jupiter and Mercury in early Aquarius.  Venus, Sun, Pluto and Saturn are in Capricorn right next to the planets in Aquarius.  click to enlarge.