Monday, October 11, 2021

Reality checks & "flipping the switch” on Neptune-Pluto challenges

 


Just when I've been wondering if I’ve overstated the frustrations of our heavy-feeling Neptune-Pluto times...

I happened upon the following all-too-prescient passage from Dane Rudhyar’s groundbreaking work, The Galactic Dimension of Astrology: the Sun is also a Star:  

“If the Neptunian collective mentality of a society, class, or group has readily opened itself to the new vision provided by its creative personages (creative on one level or another), Pluto reveals a new center of integration vibrating with galactic consciousness and power. If Neptune has brought very little or nothing except fallacies, glamour, confusion and degeneration, Pluto reduces everything to chaos, often after a more or less brief period of compulsive ganglike subservience to a darkly powerful and totalitarian leader.”1 

Rudhyar wrote these words in the 1970s, but I can’t think of a better introduction to this week in Trump(ism) news: among other stories, the Senate Judiciary Committee released the documented results of its investigation into the attempts Trump and company made to overthrow Biden’s 2020 election by any means necessary.  CNN.com summarizes: 

“Trump directly asked the Justice Department nine times to undermine the election result, and his chief of staff Mark Meadows broke administration policy by pressuring a Justice Department lawyer to investigate claims of election fraud, according to the report, which is based on witness interviews of top former Justice Department officials.  

The Democratic-led committee also revealed that White House counsel Pat Cipollone threatened to quit in early January as Trump considered replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer who supported election fraud conspiracies. 

After the eight-month investigation, the findings highlight the relentlessness of Trump and some of his top advisers as they fixated on using the Justice Department to prop up false conspiracies of election fraud. The committee report, the most comprehensive account so far of Trump's efforts to overturn the election, described his conduct as an abuse of presidential power.” 

The actual Senate report underlying this summary can be seen here. None of this is surprising; anyone watching the news during Trump’s lame duck session (from the election to Biden’s inauguration) witnessed the relentless efforts the former president made to overturn the election. In retrospect, we can see why Attorney-General Bill Barr bailed out when he did; once he was out of the way, Trump’s pressure campaign against the DOJ relative to election results began in earnest. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D, IL) described these three phases to CNN: 

“Appearing on CNN's ‘New Day’ Thursday morning, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said the US was a ‘half a step away from a constitutional crisis, a full-blown constitutional crisis’ and explained the events unfolded in three phases. 

'First phase, Trump goes to court. Loses every lawsuit, which claims there was voter fraud in the election. Next, he decides he has to take over the Department of Justice and the attorney general, and have the attorney general push this narrative on to the states to tell them to stop from sending in their Electoral College vote totals. When that failed -- and our report goes into graphic detail of the efforts that were made -- the third step was to turn the mob loose on the Capitol the day we were counting the ballots,' Durbin said, referring to the January 6 riot.” 

Yes, we kind of knew how bad things were just from watching the news, but this report really firms up the sticky, gelatinous Neptune-Pluto mess that Trump left behind. The fact is, he hasn’t stopped trying to discredit and overturn the 2020 election—he's just using it as the basis for a perpetual campaign/fund-raising effort. Now that we have at least some of the cold Saturnian facts, however, what’s next? It’s apparent that Trump fully plans to stage a comeback—at least in influence, if not in actual government power—but I’m cautiously optimistic that some measure of accountability will succeed going forward before the 2024 election.  

 


Let me emphasize that word “cautiously.” Biden’s refusal to extend executive privilege protections to Trump over documents related to January 6th is heartening, but we know Trump rarely takes “no” for an answer, so a legal struggle enmeshed in glacially-paced government bureaucracy is bound to ensue. It’s not helping that Mercury, Pallas, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Ceres are all retrograde as I write this (10/11)—not a bad time for intense deliberation related to justice- and ethics-related issues, but some types of forward action can be stymied. Saturn and Pluto have turned direct over the past week, and on the 18th, Jupiter will follow suit. Again, cautious optimism is warranted—if nothing else, we’ll probably feel like things are moving a bit more smoothly as these newly-direct planets return to normal pace.  

Three high-level recipients of Jan. 6th committee subpoenas.
Meanwhile, Trump’s told his minions to ignore subpoenas from the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, and his extremists within Congress itself are advancing a narrative about Biden’s “tyrannical” DOJ that’s ready-made for the right-wing media outlets—a narrative that is bound to whip up victimization fervor in Trump’s base if their would-be messiah is held responsible for anything.  Projections and misinformation are ricocheting around Neptune-Pluto's hall of mirrors in mind-blowing, but no longer surprising ways: the more our public affairs and certain media outlets are kept in thrall to these two overwhelming planetary forces, the more Trump’s “Big Lie” and that “ganglike subservience” that Rudhyar spoke of, is perpetuated. There are, however, other cosmic players who will have a say, if their energies can be wielded effectively.  

Most significantly, it seems like the countervailing forces of Saturn and Uranus can at least moderate (dare I say restrain?) the chaotic, unchecked energies of Neptune and Pluto. They can also be weaponized to implement Trump’s right-wing agenda, however, so the more helpful uses of Saturn-Uranus dynamics require a delicate balancing act.  

At our founding, the waning Neptune-Pluto trine (Virgo-Capricorn) worked to our advantage, unleashing a compelling “ideal” and the material means to achieve it; today’s (I’ve used this month’s New Moon chart for October 6th for this) combined complex of transiting Neptune opposite Sibly Neptune (Pisces-Virgo) and sextile Sibly Pluto-transiting Pluto (Pisces-Capricorn, all seen in Biwheel 1 below) is supporting the opportunistic assault on our collective consciousness that Trumpism represents. He’s cultivated and incited an armed, revolutionary fervor that echoes those times, but it’s based on a personality cult laced with lies and misinformation, a foundation that’s bound to fail because it’s entirely based on him.  

Newsweek reports "civil war" trending on Twitter after Trump Iowa rally.
 It won’t fail from lack of trying, however: his recent campaign/fund-raising speeches are sounding more megalomaniacal than ever. The more threatened he feels by legal issues in D.C., triggering his natal Saturn-Venus conjunction in Cancer (see Chart 1 below), the more we can expect that to continue.  

Is he truly interested in being president again? We can probably guess that, if not, he at least wants the presidency to be his option to pass on, as he blesses and supports some hand-picked (and super-loyal) successor. Perhaps, in the face of multiple financial fraud-based law suits working their way through the courts against him and his businesses, he’s actually more interested in saving his own financial "face" than in governing a nation: based on the way we’ve already seen him wield political power, he knows that being president can be the ultimate protection from prosecution. A "puppet" presidency could be useful, however--more time for golf.

The ridiculous irony of this shouldn’t escape us here, but it’s also possible that Donald Trump no longer depends on buildings and golf courses emblazoned with his name to support himself and his family, for two good reasons: one, he’s engaged in perpetual political fund-raising within very loosely-regulated PACs, and two, it's likely that very deep, “dark money” pockets are backing up his constant, but always loosely-defined campaign efforts. Some say that he’s off on a “revenge tour,” designed to undermine those GOPers who voted to impeach him this past January, but as plausible as that description sounds, that could also just be the latest pretext for what is really just his constant, lucrative grievance crusade. Victimization = Power, Neptune/Pisces 101!

Maybe the rewards are lucrative enough that Trump has decided, whether he runs again or not, that it’s his “job” to turn the American people against each other and to continue shredding the fabric of democracy as we know it? Neptune is now transiting t-square his formidable Gemini-Sagittarius oppositions (Chart 1 below, Sun-No. Node-Uranus opposite Moon-So. Node), perhaps supporting this delusionary “quest.” I wish this were hyperbole, but I fear it's not. 

 


Chart 1. Donald J. Trump, June 14, 1946, 10:54 a.m. DST, Jamaica, NY. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts cast on Kepler 8.0 and courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software. 

 

Needless to say, the health of our democracy may depend upon being able to hold such rogue players accountable, and IMHO, an institutional mechanism to do so that’s not limited by the current impeachment rules would be a noble, right-minded use of Saturn-Uranus power. Saturn and Uranus played a key role in our founding (see Sibly inner chart, Biwheel 1 below), with its nice waxing trine from Libra to Gemini that stretched between the 11th house of collective collaboration and the 6th house of workers (using Equal houses), between the institutional framework of government and the military/public servants who were critical to its creation and support.  

Indeed, our current public servants—even those working within the Trump administration—have been the courageous stalwarts who shielded the democracy founded in 1776 from Trump’s post-election ambitions and from the extraordinarily potent forces of Neptune and Pluto that he wielded so toxically while in office. As we've seen, he continues doing much the same from outside the White House: hopefully those public servants and others of like mind (regardless of party) find support these days from Saturn Rx (Aquarius) transiting the Sibly 2nd, conjunct Sibly So. Node (Aquarius). This is testing our values and resourcefulness, while widely squaring transiting Uranus Rx (Taurus), which has just stepped over into that all-important Sibly 6th.   

Even the modicum of Saturn-Uranus pushback to the Trumpism phenomenon that we’re seeing is taking a great deal of focused effort—under the exceedingly adverse conditions of a Neptunian pandemic, weaponized by the political right for its own purposes, of course—but there are signs that a legal/institutional bulwark of some kind is taking shape against further chaos, and these signs have Saturn-Uranus fingerprints on them. Subpoenas have gone out from the Jan. 6th investigation committee in Congress to some of Trump’s biggest enablers in the insurrection—time will tell if those recipients can get by with stonewalling the committee the way many of them did during both of Trump’s impeachment proceedings.  

Such Congressional committees are starting to “follow the Money,” as well, as all such investigations do, which fits Saturn’s transit of the Sibly 2nd. However, accountability that is fact-based and worthy of Saturn and Uranus is still feeling pretty elusive (there is almost no precedent for holding Donald Trump accountable for anything), which can be unnerving, but the rumors that he’s somehow above the Law and invulnerable to prosecution are also an illusion. He and his media minions have carefully cultivated and perpetrated this misleading narrative, but to my mind, it can’t help but fade away as the public just gets more and more exhausted with what David French of The Dispatch calls our cycle of “malice and misinformation.” In speaking to polling that suggests a large percentage of Republicans and a surprisingly hefty number of Biden supporters think it’s time for the nation to split in two along party lines, French points out: 

“We’ve seen it time and again. The combination of malice and misinformation is driving American polarization to a fever pitch. While there are real differences between the political parties, a fundamental reality of American politics is that voters hate or fear the opposing side in part because they have mistaken beliefs about their opponents. They think the divide is greater than it is. 

For example, other polls have found that Americans ‘substantially exaggerate the extent to which members of the other party dehumanize, dislike, and disagree with them.’ In addition, ‘Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents as reality hold views they consider extreme.’ Moreover, this ‘perception gap’ gets worse with increased education and media consumption.” 

Yes, it gets mentally and emotionally exhausting to fight yet another “forever war,” only this time with neighbors and fellow community members (often now identified by their “masked” or “unmasked” faces). Indeed, Neptune and Pluto are exhausting energies when they’re wielded the way we’ve seen since the election: I would think that even Trump supporters are in serious need of a break from the relentless assault on their ability to tell truth from fiction and to think for themselves. Dems certainly need to take a break from hating on each other to the benefit of none. Divide and conquer is a well-worn tactic of war that works to maintain ruthless players right where they want to be—with a chokehold on power and resources.  

At some point—perhaps when Pluto moves on into Aquarius and Neptune enters Aries—I suspect there will be an “awakening” of sorts about all this. Having Saturn and Uranus in solid, pragmatic and fixed signs like Aquarius and Taurus in the near term should help, although these are energies that can be misused and abused as well, and both Jupiter and Saturn will be ingressing Pisces in the near future, which could exacerbate Neptunian frustrations.  

As for the myth of Trump’s invulnerability, he lost the election, plain and simple and, whether he and his idolatrous followers want to admit this or not, this loss was probably as much about rejecting his behavior and policies as it was about approving of Biden. Trump's natal Jupiter Rx-to-Sun-No. Node-Uranus trine (Libra-Gemini, Chart 1 above) almost certainly contributes to his “golden boy” entitled attitude, however such delusions of grandeur are also an Achilles heel of sorts—his natal Jupiter Rx/Neptune Rx (midpoint, Libra), in fact, conjoins his Chiron (Libra). Interestingly, this Chiron has recently been activated by the New Moon this past October 6th, which seeded itself at 13°+Libra. Let’s take a closer look at Biwheel 1 (which includes that lunation chart) with an eye towards his chart (Chart 1 above) as well. 

A season of retrogrades and inconjuncts 

 


Biwheel 1. (inner wheel) USA-Sibly chart, July 4, 1776, 5:10 p.m. LMT, Philadelphia, PA; (outer wheel) New Moon, October 6, 2021, 7:05:14 a.m. DST, Washington, D.C.. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts cast on Kepler 8.0 and courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software. 

These two charts paint a fairly amazing picture of the divisiveness and rancor that has overtaken our politics of late and will apparently remain the case for at least the short term: all of the outer planets in this chart (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto), not to mention Chiron and Pallas, are retrograde, and the New Moon forms uncomfortable aspects with more than one of them.  

New Moon (Sun-Moon conjunction, Libra) conjoins NM Mars and Sibly Saturn (Libra) and squares Sibly Sun (Cancer). This promises to keep the anger flowing within and between our two houses of Congress and the Executive branch, and while the NM Sun-Moon trine to NM Ceres (Gemini) might temper that anger a bit with some good news on the domestic agenda front (Congress will be in the mood for action), the NM Sun-Moon trine to Sibly DSC and the Sibly Mars/Uranus midpoint could trigger internal enemies. We’ve been seeing far too many flare-ups of public incivility and bullying lately, and this may add to it. 

Interchart Yod: NM Mars-Sun-Moon-Sibly Saturn inconjoins NM Uranus Rx (Taurus) and NM Pallas Rx (Pisces). In my experience, yods always seem to signal “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations, so it’s not surprising at all that this yod implicates Congress (Sibly Saturn), the Justice system (Pallas Rx) and issues impacting the working public (Uranus Rx). We expect Uranus to speak to issues of “freedom” and perhaps even education (it rules Sibly 3rd here), but both these issues are fraught with partisan baggage at the moment and will likely remain so. Significantly, NM Chiron Rx (Aries) bisects the Yod by opposing Sibly Saturn and the Libra lunation point, suggesting that deep-seated wounds are surfacing in Congress and elsewhere, demanding attention under the agenda of this New Moon. 

 Once uncorked, grievances are difficult to stuff back into their “Genie” bottle—notice that this DM Chiron opposes Trump’s Jupiter Rx-Chiron conjunction (Libra). He regularly projects his own grievances out onto the American people and onto the nation (it’s never “great" enough for him); maybe it’s his way of offloading his own burden of woundedness while achieving power over others. This dynamic likely shores up his own sense of personal security as well: his Chiron (Libra) squares his Mercury/Saturn midpoint (Cancer).  

This NM Chiron Rx also squares Sibly Sun and trines/sextiles the Sibly ASC-DSC horizon (Sagittarius-Gemini). Chiron Rx has been similarly transiting these points for a while now and has been reflected in Biden’s drooping approval ratings (Sibly Sun) and the confusion surrounding the nation’s very “raison d’être” (Sibly ASC-DSC). Both certainly took a hit during the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan; not surprisingly, the only institution with a lower approval rating than the president right now is Congress (opposed by this Chiron).  

I usually look to racial and other such karmic issues when I see an active Chiron, especially when it’s transiting in the last phase of its Sibly return (Sibly Chiron is at 20°+ Aries), but at the moment, Trump and the dysfunction in D.C. seem to be stealing the spotlight. Those other issues have certainly not gone away (they underlie a lot of what Trump does), but unless something dramatic triggers our awareness of them (which could happen), they seem to be on the back burner for this lunation.  

NM Venus rules this Libra lunation from late Scorpio, square Sibly Moon and widely square NM Jupiter Rx-Sibly Moon (Aquarius) and trine NM Neptune Rx (Pisces). All of this likely puts pressure on the U.S. economy, with Jupiter still retrograde and stifling growth somewhat, on treasury and debt issues (Venus also semi-sextiles NM & Sibly Plutos in Capricorn). With Sibly Moon (Aquarius) involved, those pressures will probably translate into higher consumer costs, although as Jupiter goes direct on the 18th of this month, the public may begin realizing some gains as well. It is an employees’ market out there and probably a good time to expect higher wages than usual.  

Maintaining a balance is key under a Libra lunation (the chart for the lunation alone, set for Washington, D.C. features Libra rising, too), but this could be challenging with the Venus-Neptune Rx-Sibly Mercury Rx grand trine (Scorpio-Pisces-Cancer). The public is likely to be fed the narrative (Sibly Mercury) that Biden’s original $3.5T reconciliation package amounts to reckless, even socialist spending, but how will the media deal with his recently expressed willingness to compromise and scale down the package somewhat? If the obstructionists within the Democratic party continue making life difficult in light of Biden’s compromising attitude (I won’t put anything past them), the opportunity to move ahead for so many households (NM Neptune Rx falls over Sibly 4th) could be undermined and/or lost.  

NM Venus sextiles both Sibly (and transiting) Pluto Rx (Capricorn) at the same time it trines Sibly Mercury, opposing those Plutos. This is probably the energy tapped into by the investigative team behind the so-called Pandora Papers , an investigation that has revealed "the inner workings of a shadow economy that benefits the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.” A brief explanation, from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: 

“Millions of leaked documents and the biggest journalism partnership in history have uncovered financial secrets of 35 current and former world leaders, more than 330 politicians and public officials in 91 countries and territories, and a global lineup of fugitives, con artists and murderers. 

The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unofficial minister of propaganda” and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey and other nations. 

The leaked records reveal that many of the power players who could help bring an end to the offshore system instead benefit from it – stashing assets in covert companies and trusts while their governments do little to slow a global stream of illicit money that enriches criminals and impoverishes nations.” 

Clearly, the political powers-that-be would prefer to downplay this story (it begs far too many questions) so we’re being kept well-distracted these days with “laundered” news (NM Mercury RX-Pluto RX opposition) that’s less threatening to shadowy would-be oligarchs. The Pandora Papers revelations are outside the scope of our discussion here, but well worth looking at in more depth—for more, click here. 

That this happens with Pluto nearing the final degrees of Capricorn is certainly not surprising; its whole transit in that sign has enabled obscene levels of toxic wealth inequality, and we’re just now waking up to it? Bottom line, just another sign of toxic Neptune-Pluto times—Scorpio Venus is disposed here by Pluto and trines Neptune!  

NM Neptune Rx (Pisces) opposes Sibly Neptune (Virgo); this axis t-squares Sibly Mars (Gemini). We’ve alluded to the challenges posed by this configuration earlier; it’s made especially daunting because it ties in tightly with Trump’s natal Gemini-Sagittarius oppositions (Chart 1 above). I think we’ve seen the impact of his Sun’s conjunction to Sibly Mars in the hair-trigger attitude he brought to a lot of issues regarding the public while in office, but especially in the violence he’s outright incited in incidents like the January 6th insurrection, but also in less headline-grabbing ways. Watching even local news some days, I’m struck by how an atmosphere of violence-as-a-solution-to-every-problem has taken shape around us, impacting daily life in both large and small ways.  

Too great a portion of Trump’s followers think a new civil war is inevitable (an idea he's insinuating into his rallies); far too many local mask mandates end up spilling over into senseless violence at school board meetings, etc. In the wrong hands, this Neptune “half return” has been used to patiently, but relentlessly erode our collective consciousness and to undermine the sensible psychological guard rails that have allowed our pluralistic society to function. Never without bumps in the road, but at least with some civility and rational order. And some forward motion (Sibly Mars, before Neptune bogged it down from Pisces).  

Neptune also operates on the level of collective/environmental dynamics as well, of course, so we can see its present dilemma (the dualism built into every opposition) in developments like the “Great Supply Chain Disruption,” and the recent California oil spill (10/2) off the shore at Huntington Beach. Infrastructure dysfunction is an ever-present theme everywhere we look. From the New York Times: 

“It has come to this in the Great Supply Chain Disruption: They are running out of places to put things at one of the largest ports in the United States. As major ports contend with a staggering pileup of cargo, what once seemed like a temporary phenomenon — a traffic jam that would eventually dissipate — is increasingly viewed as a new reality that could require a substantial refashioning of the world’s shipping infrastructure.” 

The long haul of the Neptune-Sibly Neptune opposition can’t help but drag out and intensify this situation, at least within the U.S.-related part of it. I’m not certain if Biden’s infrastructure plans have anticipated this need, but it’s an issue that isn’t likely to get better any time soon unless it is addressed in a big way. So many serious challenges can only be addressed on that BIG collective level these days—yes, it’s exhausting and expensive ($3.5T is probably far too little for all our physical and human infrastructure needs), but needs must! In the late 1930s and early 1940s when Neptune returned to Sibly Neptune in Virgo, we also had very big things to achieve; this time the “enemy” is mostly within (Neptune transiting Sibly 4th), but the situation is complicated by global realities we can no longer ignore.  

 


Final thoughts 

Everything I look at in charts for the next few years tells me that dedicated and constructive Saturn- and Uranus-fueled projects are likely our best way forward. We must simply “get back to work” on all levels and start overcoming the Neptunian malaise that has festered and that too many continue to promote for dubious purposes. Clearly, our collective mindset needs to flip a switch; by way of analogy, we need to get our collective focus off “binge-watching” (waiting for the next shiny object to show up in the media feed) and get it back on the “real” world, where we might be able to make a difference. Those ships jammed up in port traffic are real problems that can be solved—the oil slicks off the coast of California are real problems that can be solved, if we’re focused and determined, and Saturn-Uranus may have some answers for us there. If corporations won’t respond to anything but government regulation, as even Facebook seems to be saying these days, then so be it!  

Let’s take a quick look at a chart for what appears to be the very first signs of that recent spill in California, as reported here by CNN:  

"’We were not aware of any spill until 8:09 a.m. on Saturday morning,’ Willsher told reporters Wednesday when pressed about the timeline. 'I promise you. If we were aware of something on Friday night ... I promise you we would have immediately stopped all operations.' 

The transportation department's ‘corrective action order’ said the off-shore control room received a low-pressure alarm -- indicating a ‘possible failure’ -- at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday. The pipeline was shut down three hours later, just after 6 a.m. The accident was reported to the National Response Team three hours after the shutdown, according to the order.  

The timing is important because of how many people were potentially impacted by the spill on Saturday, said Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley.” 

So Chart 2 below is cast for that 2:30 a.m. “low-pressure alarm” indicating “possible failure.” The chart for that time on October 2nd, in fact, shows the Jupiter/Saturn midpoint in Aquarius conjunct the chart DSC and square Uranus, sitting 6 degrees beyond the 9th house MC (Taurus). Tying it all together in a suggestive fixed t-square is the Moon rising at the Leo ASC and casting first light on the problem.  

 

Chart 2. California Oil Spill, October 2, 2021, 2:30 a.m. DST, Huntington Beach, CA. Tropical Equal Houses, True Node. All charts are cast on Kepler 8.0 and courtesy of Cosmic Patterns Software.

Toxic oil spills are ruled by Neptune on several levels: first the resource (oil) being spilled; the “spilling” action itself (a fluid exceeding its container), and of course, the toxic threat posed by the whole development. All of this makes Neptune’s 8th house placement here trine 4th house Venus (Scorpio)  sobering, at best: the grotesque loss of sea and bird life, the wasting of massive amounts of resources, both financial and natural—it all speaks to choices made by our Plutonian corporate (Pluto disposes Venus) system to privilege profits over Life.  

Uranus (Taurus) seems to be saying here that it’s time for change; it seems that our Justice system (Jupiter/Saturn) will agree, although not without challenges, but time will tell to what extent pipeline owner Amplify Energy will be held accountable. Maybe under the wide Saturn-Uranus square here it can happen (as with so many other toxic Neptunian players), but we’ll see!  

As for Trump, delusions and image-crafting have served him well over the years, but Reality, as opposed to “Reality TV” will have its say eventually. The release of the Pandora Papers should remind us that we’re not living in “Oz,” after all...this is Kansas,” and even the high and mighty are still subject to gravity, although billionaire space-jockeys now want to sell them a brief reprieve from it. Those working to protect our institutions and democracy might want to keep that in mind.  

I was reminded of this need we have for a collective “Reality check” when I read Eugene Robinson’s column in the Washington Post, entitled “How stupid can we get and still survive?” It’s worth a final extended passage here: 

“T.S. Eliot wrote that the world ends ‘not with a bang but a whimper,’ but I fear our great nation is careening toward a third manner of demise: descent into lip-blubbering, self-destructive idiocy. 

How did we become, in such alarming measure, so dumb? Why is the news dominated by ridiculous controversies that should not be controversial at all? When did so many of our fellow citizens become full-blown nihilists who deny even the concept of objective reality? And how must this look to the rest of the world?” 

Robinson cites a number of “ridiculous controversies” that are wasting our time and energy—too many to enumerate here, but I was left with some hope from his outpouring of frustration (very unusual for a journalist of his caliber). Anyone who has ever had to deal with an addicted family member knows that there’s a point at which the person “hits bottom,” and the only way (aside from total demise) is up. We may be staring at such an existential moment in our U.S. body politic at this very moment—even normally sanguine observers like Bill Maher are sounding much more heightened (and well-reasoned) alarms these days that we need to pay heed to, and while there will be no half measures for moving through the crisis (there never is with Neptune-Pluto), move we must.  

Take care—be well, be safe! 

Notes:   

1. Dane Rudhyar, The Galactic Dimension of Astrology: the Sun is Also a Star, Aurora Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, first published in 1982, p. 50. 


 

 

Raye Robertson is a practicing astrologer, writer and former educator. A graduate of the Faculty of Astrological Studies (U.K.), Raye focuses on mundane, collective-oriented astrology, with a particular interest in current affairs, U.S. history, culture and media, the astrology of generations, and public concerns such as education and health. She’s published articles on these topics in several key astrology journals over the years, including most recently, the TMA blog. For information about individual chart readings, contact: robertsonraye@gmail.com. 

© Raye Robertson 2021. All rights reserved. 


No comments:

Post a Comment