I was looking at Romney and Ryan's charts the other day and noticing that they both are under Neptune's spell. A few pieces of literature contributed to my deepening understanding of what that could mean. I was listening in the car to a recording of J.R.R, Tolkien's Return of the King and was struck by the phrase "suffer himself to be led". Here is Gandalf's 's horse Shadowfax, this great and noble stallion who allows no bit, bridle or saddle and few riders, who'd just taken the wizard at lightening speed to the Citadel at Minas Tirith; "suffered himself to be led away at the soft word of his master." This supreme act of sacrifice is met with the humility of being led away.
In the beginning of Portrait of a Lady, Henry James writes of his heroine, Isabel Archer and her cousin speaking about suffering. She says; "It's not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that". And later: "Only if you do not suffer they call you hard." What is it about suffering that softens us? Does compassion arise from suffering? Is that what is wrong with Romney and Ryan? They do not appear to have suffered much?
And in Mark's gospel Chapter 8 verses 27-38, Jesus asks the apostles and then Peter, "Who do you say I am?' Peter answers "The Messiah". Jesus cautions them not to tell anybody. Then Jesus begins to teach them quite directly that He will suffer, be rejected by the elders, be killed and rise from the dead 3 days later. 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?' What does it mean to gain your life by losing it? Does losing life imply surrendering the ego?
Suffering, surrender and sacrifice are in Neptune's realm. Romney and Ryan both are, at present, having planet Neptune transiting over their ascendants. The ascendant sign is about who we are, our approach to life, the personality we show others, how we see our place in the world, how other people see us, the mask we wear. It is the window through which we see the world and dictates how we go about fulfilling the rest of the planets in the chart. With Neptune sitting there neither man can be seeing very clearly, nor can they be seen very clearly.
Paul Ryan has Neptune rising on his natal ascendant at 0 degrees of Sagittarius. He is getting a double dose of the dissolver of boundaries as Neptune is sometimes called. Romney has one degree of Gemini rising, with ruler Mercury in Pisces, Neptune's sign. Both men are heavily influenced by the current transit of Neptune coloring the way they see the world, and will be for many more months. Their words and actions speak to its influence. Neptune is not only where we suffer or surrender or sacrifice, but also where we are in denial, are ambiguous, deceitful, where our imaginations have gotten away from us, where and what we are addicted to, where we sacrifice and for what. What are they surrendering too? Is it their egos? Or is it to a higher calling-one of service to a Higher Power where the ego gratification of the personal self dissolves into acting for the greater good and being able to see the whole picture.
If there has been one major theme in the Republican party's attempt to win in November, it is that they are vague on their platform, what they would do if elected to office to solve America's problems. This theme has carried on since the convention with the "weird" scene with Eastwood talking to an invisible Obama, the gaff when the Syrian Ambassador was tragically killed and just recently with the secretly obtained talk Romney gave at a high-end fund raiser where he clearly states he wants to be President of the "haves" not the "have-nots". Romney's position that 47% of the people do not pay taxes because they want to be taken care of and like their role as victims seems to say that some people are "better" than others.
Neptune has been at 1 degree Pisces from mid-August and will apparently move back to 0 degrees September 23rd, stationing there on November 11th. Neptune remains at the 0-1 degree mark through January 2013. That means that on election day, November 6th, Neptune will be the major influence in their lives. I doubt whether any clarity will come forth from either candidate now or then unless they get clear within themselves who they are representing-all the factions of American society, for not just those like themselves. Neptune will form a cloud over both men and either they cannot tell that they are lying or we are fooled by them or they are sacrificing themselves. Maybe they really do not want to win. If they have no solutions to offer, why would anyone want those jobs? They are in Neptune's dream.
If there is one lesson to note here it is that it is easy to kid yourself and delude others if you are not able to transcend the physical and look at things from a divine perspective. That is Neptune's kingdom. Neptune asks us to dissolve our egos by letting go of attitudes, habits, belief systems and words that separate us from one another. Neptune demands inclusiveness, it abhors boundaries. The boundaries we have put up to separate us from each other either by race, gender, age, sexual preference, religion, walls, gates, faiths, language, social class, income status, must be broken down. Unless Romney and Ryan can understand that we are all in this together, they have not risen to their Neptune's higher calling and will be mired in the confusion that comes from not seeing the community of man in its entirety.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Epochs of Revolution
I took the title of this blog from Richard Tarnas' book Psyche and Cosmos. Each chapter is devoted to a pair of outer planets that periodically form geometric patterns in the sky. Tarnas writes about what synchronistically unfolded in the social, political, cultural, literary and scientific affairs in the western world at the same time. Uranus and Pluto is the pair we are focusing on with these days. Uranus coincides with sudden awakenings and Pluto with revolutionary uprisings and shifts in power that affect large numbers of people.This current alignment of these 2 has been in orb of influence since 2007 and will be until 2020.
Epochs of revolution have beginnings at the conjunction or apparent merging of the two bodies (think monthly New Moons when the Sun and Moon are together). At that time a new concept of what counts as truth is formed. The last time Uranus and Pluto were together was 1960-1972, most intensely exact between 1965-6. Approximately 40 years later the opening 90 degree square forms between the same 2 planets. That is when the seeds formed in 1965 have to be modified or redefined. One example of this is Medicare, enacted in 1965 and now by the agreement of all parties needs modification.
Certainly the polarity of the platforms held by the democrats and republicans in the current election is an example of this country (and many others) at a crisis point. Are going to go backwards from the progressive movement started in the 60's and undo those reforms in social policy made then, or are we going to strengthen and expand those initiatives? We are at a crossroads; voting for one side or the other will have a decided effect on our lives. The crossroads coincide with the opening square of Uranus and Pluto. Our change in perspective as to who we are, our place in and responsibility for the world we live in has to take a more defined form. There is a great deal of tension surrounding these shifts as there are many who are incapable of seeing the world differently than they have known it to be and hang on for dear life.
We are speaking of it today for two reasons. One is that becoming conscious of the second of seven exact 90 degree opening squares between Uranus and Pluto (through March 2015), occurring on the 18th of this month, will help us navigate our way ahead; and secondly I was inspired to write about a prime mover of another epoch of revolution as I heard Dava Sobel at Ross School speak about her latest book and play centered on Copernicus (1473-1543).
Copernicus was one of those highly educated persons whose intuitive and reasoned insights changed the way we thought of ourselves and our place in the universe. As Tarnas says: "The nature of the Copernican revolution was so fundamental that what had to be rethought was not only all the conventional scientific theories but the entire hierarchy of humanity's place in the universal scheme of things: its relation to the rest of nature and to the cosmos, its relation to the divine, the basis for its morality, its capacity for certain knowledge, its historical self-understanding."
The beginning of what was to become know as the Copernican revolution was at the conjunction of Pluto and Uranus that occurred during the years 1450-1461. Uranus and Pluto conjunctions form once approximately every 100-150 years and usher in periods of cultural and political upheaval. Guttenberg developed the movable-type printing press during the conjunction years, which was the necessary prerequisite for the Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment as new ideas could spread through printed materials. Copernicus was at Krakow University 1491-95 studying, among other things cosmology (not called that then of course) during the same opening square of Uranus and Pluto that we are experiencing now.
The publication of Copernicus' book did not occur until 1543 when Uranus and Pluto had come 180 degrees to each other and the fulfillment of the promise inherent in the coupling of the same 2 planets 100 years before. Copernicus knew that what he was proposing: that the earth moved around the Sun and also on its axis was revolutionary, upsetting thousand of years of unquestionable belief that the earth stood still. It was not until 50 years later when Kepler and Galileo made their mathematical calculations and planetary observations with the telescope that confirmed the heliocentric theory and the Scientific Revolution was advanced forward.
The next few years we will live through are the 1/2 way point between the conjunction of Uranus and Pluto 1960-72 and their coming 180 away from each other in the 2040's. We now need another Copernican Revolution as upsetting to the status quo as his theory was then. A revolution in rethinking humanity's place in the universal scheme of things, the consequences of our actions on our planet and towards each other, our morality and self understanding.
I heard Tim Bishop speak yesterday, incumbent in Congress running a race with a right-wing opponent whose policies, speak to holding on for dear life to the life they have made for themselves with those like themselves. Bishop said this election was a confirming or defining one. We voted "hope and change" with Obama in in 2008 but we need another election cycle, this one, to confirm we are set on the path chosen then, or do we want to regress backwards? We are at a turning point and the second square of Uranus and Pluto (with Pluto stationing direct-extra powerful) exact again on the 18th and close to the equinox on the 22nd will not go unnoticed. Are we able to move forward and free ourselves from old ways of seeing things or are we in denial of the realities in front of us?
Epochs of revolution have beginnings at the conjunction or apparent merging of the two bodies (think monthly New Moons when the Sun and Moon are together). At that time a new concept of what counts as truth is formed. The last time Uranus and Pluto were together was 1960-1972, most intensely exact between 1965-6. Approximately 40 years later the opening 90 degree square forms between the same 2 planets. That is when the seeds formed in 1965 have to be modified or redefined. One example of this is Medicare, enacted in 1965 and now by the agreement of all parties needs modification.
Certainly the polarity of the platforms held by the democrats and republicans in the current election is an example of this country (and many others) at a crisis point. Are going to go backwards from the progressive movement started in the 60's and undo those reforms in social policy made then, or are we going to strengthen and expand those initiatives? We are at a crossroads; voting for one side or the other will have a decided effect on our lives. The crossroads coincide with the opening square of Uranus and Pluto. Our change in perspective as to who we are, our place in and responsibility for the world we live in has to take a more defined form. There is a great deal of tension surrounding these shifts as there are many who are incapable of seeing the world differently than they have known it to be and hang on for dear life.
We are speaking of it today for two reasons. One is that becoming conscious of the second of seven exact 90 degree opening squares between Uranus and Pluto (through March 2015), occurring on the 18th of this month, will help us navigate our way ahead; and secondly I was inspired to write about a prime mover of another epoch of revolution as I heard Dava Sobel at Ross School speak about her latest book and play centered on Copernicus (1473-1543).
Copernicus was one of those highly educated persons whose intuitive and reasoned insights changed the way we thought of ourselves and our place in the universe. As Tarnas says: "The nature of the Copernican revolution was so fundamental that what had to be rethought was not only all the conventional scientific theories but the entire hierarchy of humanity's place in the universal scheme of things: its relation to the rest of nature and to the cosmos, its relation to the divine, the basis for its morality, its capacity for certain knowledge, its historical self-understanding."
The beginning of what was to become know as the Copernican revolution was at the conjunction of Pluto and Uranus that occurred during the years 1450-1461. Uranus and Pluto conjunctions form once approximately every 100-150 years and usher in periods of cultural and political upheaval. Guttenberg developed the movable-type printing press during the conjunction years, which was the necessary prerequisite for the Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment as new ideas could spread through printed materials. Copernicus was at Krakow University 1491-95 studying, among other things cosmology (not called that then of course) during the same opening square of Uranus and Pluto that we are experiencing now.
The publication of Copernicus' book did not occur until 1543 when Uranus and Pluto had come 180 degrees to each other and the fulfillment of the promise inherent in the coupling of the same 2 planets 100 years before. Copernicus knew that what he was proposing: that the earth moved around the Sun and also on its axis was revolutionary, upsetting thousand of years of unquestionable belief that the earth stood still. It was not until 50 years later when Kepler and Galileo made their mathematical calculations and planetary observations with the telescope that confirmed the heliocentric theory and the Scientific Revolution was advanced forward.
The next few years we will live through are the 1/2 way point between the conjunction of Uranus and Pluto 1960-72 and their coming 180 away from each other in the 2040's. We now need another Copernican Revolution as upsetting to the status quo as his theory was then. A revolution in rethinking humanity's place in the universal scheme of things, the consequences of our actions on our planet and towards each other, our morality and self understanding.
I heard Tim Bishop speak yesterday, incumbent in Congress running a race with a right-wing opponent whose policies, speak to holding on for dear life to the life they have made for themselves with those like themselves. Bishop said this election was a confirming or defining one. We voted "hope and change" with Obama in in 2008 but we need another election cycle, this one, to confirm we are set on the path chosen then, or do we want to regress backwards? We are at a turning point and the second square of Uranus and Pluto (with Pluto stationing direct-extra powerful) exact again on the 18th and close to the equinox on the 22nd will not go unnoticed. Are we able to move forward and free ourselves from old ways of seeing things or are we in denial of the realities in front of us?
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