Editor’s note: As you may recall, the Cosby allegations gained momentum at the midpoint of last fall’s Scorpio eclipse season, when a video of a stand-up comic calling Cosby out for his behavior went viral — making this essay even more fitting for Saturn’s final weeks in Scorpio. This piece originally published here on Carolyn Gage’s website. — Amanda P.

By Carolyn Gage

What does it take to confront a rich and powerful rapist?

It would be easy to think of Andrea Constand as a kind of Wonder Woman who brought Bill Cosby to justice with her Lariat of Truth.

That’s just it. It would be easy. Easy to believe that heroines are born that way, that they have an extra chromosome for courage or fearlessness.

I think of a quotation by Albert Einstein: “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

What if Andrea Constand was not Wonder Woman? What if she just stayed with the problem longer?

Let’s look at the temptations she faced, temptations that face any victim who attempts to confront her perpetrator. Constand didn’t always meet them successfully. Sometimes she wavered, hesitated, fumbled, backed away… but she always — eventually — came back, and when she did, she came back stronger, with more support, and with greater clarity.

So here are the Seven Temptations of Andrea Constand:

1. The temptation to believe it never happened, to doubt one’s perceptions, to blame oneself.

Cosby was not a new acquaintance, nor was he a date. Constand had known him for two years, since 2002 when she came to work at Temple University as the director of operations for the women’s basketball program. Cosby, a member of the Temple Athletics Hall of Fame was a frequent fundraiser and honored guest. In his sixties, he had positioned himself as a mentor to her, inviting her to dinner parties, and then to private dinners, at his home outside of Philadelphia. He would talk to her about basketball, her career, and spiritual beliefs. He met her family and cultivated a relationship with them. He had groomed her patiently for victimization.

The night of the rape, Cosby invited her over, to “offer her assistance in her pursuit of a different career.” She testified that he gave her three pills, claiming they were herbal supplements for stress. He insisted that she take all three.

Constand was drugged. Her memory of the incident was impaired, filled with blackouts, vague impressions, and she experienced enormous disorientation when she recovered consciousness. She remembered waking up on a couch at four in the morning, her clothing in disarray and Cosby standing over her in a bathrobe. Confused and mortified, her initial response was a kneejerk, socially conditioned one: She expressed embarrassment over her disheveled state. He gave her a muffin and took her home.

2. The temptation to get on with one’s life, to distance oneself from the episode, to attempt to normalize the situation and/or relations with the rapist.

Four months later, she left her job and career, moved back home to Canada, and began studying to become a massage therapist. She stayed in contact with Cosby, and, several months after returning home, she took her parents to see his show at a casino in Ontario.

3. The temptation not to tell anyone.

Constand did not tell anyone for a year. This is not uncommon. She was in survival mode, in flight. What eventually brought her back to the rape was the emphasis in her massage classes on a code of ethics around touch.

In January 2005, Constand finally broke her silence and told her mother. Immediately after that, she reported the rape to the authorities where she lived. They passed the case on to the police in Pennsylvania.

4. The temptation to accept an apology as sufficient.

Three days after the report to the police, Cosby and his people began to call her. Constand and her mother stated repeatedly that all they wanted was an apology. Even Cosby admitted this. According to the filing, he told the police that she had not asked for money, “but had only asked him to apologize to Plaintiff and her mother, which he did.”

He apologized several times. On the phone, not in writing.

5. The temptation to accept money in lieu of accountability.

Offers of money are standard ploys for predators with resources, especially when the victim is not wealthy. Cosby called Constand’s mother and offered to set up an “educational trust” for Constand to attend graduate school, provided she could prove to him that she was maintaining a grade point average of 3.0. He later admitted he had done this for another accuser.

Constand turned it down.

6. The temptation to give up when the police refuse to file charges.

The District Attorney, declining to file charges, stated, “I think that factors such as failure to disclose in a timely manner and contacts with the alleged perpetrator after the event are factors that weigh toward Mr. Cosby… Much exists in this investigation that could be used to portray persons on both sides of the issue in a less-than-flattering light.”

Constand’s actions were consistent with choices made by trauma survivors in the immediate aftermath, but juries and judges are rarely trauma literate, and it is easy for victims to feel ashamed for not being better plaintiffs. At this point, many victims give up, and Constand might have done that, except that Cosby began a campaign to discredit her as an extortioner.

After offering Constand an apology and money, Cosby and his reps went to the tabloids with a story about how Constand’s mother had demanded money from him even before Constand had contacted the police. Cosby insisted that the relationship had been consensual. As a second and then third woman came forward with similar stories of being drugged and raped by Cosby, he gave a personal interview to The National Enquirer, in exchange for them killing the story of the third woman. In the interview, he described Constand in such specific detail there could be no question about her identity.

Six days after the Enquirer story, Constand filed a civil suit in federal court — under her own name, her anonymity already having been compromised by Cosby’s interview. She accused Cosby of “battery, assault, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, defamation/defamation per se, and false light/invasion of privacy.” Because of all the publicity—much of it propagated by Cosby himself—ten other victims contacted Constand’s legal team to offer corroborating testimony.

Constand’s team requested a protective order to shield the identity of these women from the press. This was not unusual. What was unusual was that the Cosby team also moved for a protective order that would seal not only his testimony, but that of his accusers. This move caught the attention of the Associated Press. What was Cosby attempting to hide? The AP made two separate attempts to force open the court records, and Constand sided with them.

7. The temptation to say “enough,” to tell yourself that you’ve gotten everything that you’re going to get, to let it go short of full accountability.

Cosby settled with the usual terms: neither party is ever allowed to discuss the case or to disclose the amount of the settlement.

But Cosby continued to defame Constand. When even more women began to come forward, Cosby’s website posted a statement in clear violation of the settlement agreement, that “decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced. The fact they are being repeated does not make them true.”

Immediately Constand forced him to publish a retraction, which he did: “The statement released by Mr. Cosby’s attorney over the weekend was not intended to refer in any way to Andrea Constand.”

And, finally, as the AP continued to push for disclosure of the court records of her civil suit, a federal judge ordered the deposition unsealed. He stated that Cosby, in posturing for years as a “public moralist,” had forfeited his right to privacy. The world could read for itself Cosby’s admission that he had obtained nine prescriptions for Quaaludes to be given to women with whom he wanted to have sex.

Constand is now urging the unsealing of all of the testimony from that trial, and there are several civil suits pending, as well as a criminal investigation. It’s all over for Cosby. He may even go to prison.

All because Constand just stayed with the problem longer.

Copyright 2015 Carolyn Gage

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Carolyn Gage is an award-winning playwright who specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history. You can find her work online at www.carolyngage.com.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It’s the Labor Day weekend, a time when we anticipate the best retail deals since Black Friday. No, wait. That’s not it, that’s just what we’ve made of it in this century. Prior to that, it was a holiday to reflect the end of summer and return to school, football season at hand, celebrated with cook-outs and the best retail sales since … ummm. No.

Labor Day was designated a federal holiday in 1894, on the heels of the Pullman strike that ended badly, with then-President Grover Cleveland ordering military intervention in favor of the railroad. At the time, the country was struggling to unionize under the leadership of Eugene Debs, who was found guilty of conspiring to stop the mail (trains). Debs was sent to prison for six months, only to emerge a confirmed socialist and energized to become the father of the growing union movement. The history of unionization in this country is fascinating, and echoes our current struggle against income inequality and diminished working rights.

The holiday was meant to be a tribute to the laboring class, offering them a sop in the wake of the deaths of their fellow workers and defeat of their union attempt. Remember, eight-hour work days and five-day work weeks were unheard of then. Sick leave, overtime and child-labor protections were non-existent. A day off to honor the average worker’s contribution to the nation’s prosperity was a real concession, nothing to sneeze at.

A hundred and twenty years later you’d be hard pressed to find either a parade to attend this weekend, or someone who knows the history of the labor movement. With twenty-some states having passed Right To Work legislation, you’d be challenged to find a union member, which is reflected in the crumbling middle class neighborhoods everywhere we look. And, insult to injury, some of us feel we have a right NOT to work while we continue to collect a fat paycheck

Four-times-married Kentucky county clerk, Kim Davis, took on the federal government this week by disregarding a U.S. District Judge’s order to issue marriage licenses to gay applicants. The elected public official had refused to issue marriage licenses of any kind since the Supreme Court ruling in June. A class action lawsuit, brought by the ACLU on behalf of four couples — two gay, two straight — resulted in court orders that Mrs. Davis has defied.

Kim Davis, an Apostolic Christian, believes that marriage must be between a woman and a man — and, it appears, another man and another and another, in her patchwork of serial monogamy — although, to be fair, Davis has only been a convert for the last four years. Leaving behind a permissive past that would put a Days Of Our Lives script to shame, Kim’s Old Testament ardor proves once again that no one is as zealous as the newly reformed. And, let me add, few so useful to the Christian corporatocracy as the newly recruited.

Now, thanks to the liberal bias of the Roberts court [sic] her $80,000 a year job has brought her to a knee-shaking, soul-crunching “Heaven or Hell decision” that she refuses to make. And although Davis swore an oath to perform the duties of her job description, her ability to make same-sex marriage possible has come under “God’s authority,” violating the teachings of “Jesus himself.” She claims that to do so would “violate her conscience” (which, once again, her earlier divorces seemed unable to do).

Apostolic Christians are also known as primitives, embracing a mix of Amish, Mennonite, Nazarene and Baptist liturgy. Asked if he had advice to offer Davis, a spokesman for the GLBT Chamber of Commerce quipped, “Girl, take off that romper.” Indeed, Mrs. Davis presents herself in shapeless dresses, sans makeup, long hair hanging loose — the epitome of, to use the Quaker inference, ‘plain,’ which is a tenet of this very small religious sect.

So is strict adherence to the Bible as the literal word of God. Those looking on have suggested that Kim and her supporters are proponents of a Christian version of Sharia Law: a law of theological absolutes, piggybacked onto the Judeo-Christian traditions that inform the Republic. It’s that ‘literal’ business that has split us into camps.

I watched a black comedian talk about FOX News on Comedy Central this week. He took a poke at the dust-up last Christmas that had a very blonde commentator insisting that Santa Claus was white. “No, bitch,” he commented, shaking his head. “Santa Claus isn’t real.” It struck me that a good percentage of Americans feel the same way about Kim’s crusade to serve her tribal god of antiquity.

Found guilty on charges of contempt and jailed, Mrs. Davis will be released when she pledges to do the job she was elected to do. Meanwhile, rule of law has returned to Rowan County, as her deputy-clerks — many of whom disagreed with her stand but were afraid to cross her — have begun to issue licenses to all comers. There was one hold-out, by the way: Kim’s son. Evidently nepotism isn’t frowned upon in the Old Testament.

All of this could have been avoided if Kim Davis had simply submitted her resignation rather than do something that offended her sensibilities, but the Almighty is evidently in need of defenders. Mike Huckabee points to this incident to prove that there IS a war on Christianity, that true believers and their freedom are in the cross-hairs. This is the kind of martyrdom that thrills Christocrats, making Davis a poster child for the victimization of fundamentalist believers by the hellhounds of secularism. Almost all of the conservative candidates have jumped on board to support this cause, which is calculated to energize the base and put stars in their crown.

We are once again gnawing on the bones of an old sociological carcass that arrived on these shores with the Pilgrims: can Davis exercise her religious preference, conceptualized as religious ‘freedom’ in this circumstance, without denying the public their own spiritual belief or constitutional right to marry whomever they please? Does her distaste for her responsibilities supercede the rights of others? And importantly, is a literal interpretation of Christian theology the final authority here, or is that the purview of our secular government?

I first noted this workplace anomaly early in George W.’s tenure. It began when pharmacy employees refused to fill prescriptions for morning after pills, and It didn’t take long for their boycott on ALL contraceptives to follow. This was my first red flag indicating the political clout of the right’s fundamentalist coup, protected by a sympathetic administration.

Then — as now — I thought those people unwilling to fulfill the duties of their job description should either resign or be fired. Responding to push-back from secular America, WalMart solved its problem by careful scheduling of  pharmacy personnel, assuring that someone would be available to wait on those customers. Lesser facilities had to make a choice between which medications, therefore which customers, to serve, which I considered an assault on the separation of church and state, and still do.

Those who realize how often we repeat patterns won’t be shocked that this Labor Day weekend, already resonant with the energies of the coming super moon and eclipse, we are still sorting out the ethics of our working lives, still engaged in the kind of infighting that delights the plutocracy and weakens our collective power by pitting us against one another. That has been the weakness of this epoch, according to channelers.

Around the same time that Eugene Debs was organizing his railroad strike, a Theosophist named Rudolf Steiner was plumbing the depths of Christian mysticism. We are living in the “fifth post-Atlantean epoch,” wrote Steiner, a time of “Christ mind and spiritualization toward an ethical future.” The goal, said he, was to “overcome Luciferic-Ahrimanic forms of community with rigid belief.”

Seems Mr. Steiner is describing the clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky, doesn’t it? And so to Mrs. Davis, who is hostage to powerful political influences, I would simply suggest that if the god she believes in requires her defense of hate-speak and homophobia, he ain’t worth his salt. She might also benefit from studying up a bit. Jesus, the one she has proclaimed devotion to, never mentioned the issue, one way or the other.

While she spends Labor Day martyred to a losing cause, she might consider the dark unforgiving tongue her religion speaks, as opposed to other more loving and inclusive religious messages out there, although it will be harder, now that she’s a hero of the radical right. She will not hear the truth from them: that she is a useful sacrifice to the culture wars, a convenient tool for the plutocracy — or that Santa, bless his little heart, isn’t real.

One last mention that my Fix The Computer project still needs a little love. If you’re able to throw something in the hat, please go to PayPal and contribute to judeshere@yahoo.com, or write me there for a snail-mail option, and with thanks.

It’s likely your childhood or adolescence included at least one experience of having an adult remark on your growth. It probably happened upon meeting and greeting somebody you had not seen for a while. It was almost certainly gratifying to have somebody notice what you had gained in height or some other indication of development toward maturation.

It’s also probable you don’t get such affirmations as much anymore. The most positive corollary upon maturing into an adult is usually an inquiry as to whether you have been exercising.

It’s just as probable you have learned to do without the validations received in youth. Adults are expected not to need such props. Indeed, as we get older it’s often satisfying enough not be greeted with a barely suppressed gasp.

Even so, your growth continues. Every day you learn something. Each passing week leaves you with a greater storehouse of experience. Successive months are reliably marked by new insights, and as one year follows another, you evolve. You have to. We all have to. The world is too challenging to remain the same and still survive.

It’s important to be conscious of and acknowledge your own evolution. Even if nobody else notices. Especially if others don’t appreciate the awareness and effort with which you have applied yourself to do and be better.

For without giving yourself the gift of acknowledging your transformations, you can lose sight of what you want to be. And if you lose sight of what you want to be, you can lose control of what you become.

It’s not easy to recognize and advocate for what you want to be. It’s a trial to empower your intended becoming. The path of least resistance is to bemoan what you are not, wasting both your time and yourself in the depths of destructive deprecation. Yet, overcoming your tribulations (self-imposed and otherwise) is often simply a matter of taking the time to reflect on and appreciate yourself for your labors, and for how you have indeed grown because (not in spite) of them.

If astrology is any indication, this coming weekend (an extended “Labor Day” holiday weekend in the U.S.) would be a good time for compassionate contemplations of your personal evolution. At least in part, that’s because the Virgo Sun will form what astrologers would call a ‘trine’ aspect with Pluto in Capricorn just after 7:10 pm EDT (23:10:21 UTC) on Saturday. A trine is a separation of 120 degrees.

To see how the Sun’s trine to Pluto can work for you, consider each of the components (Sun, Pluto and the aspect itself) separately.

Perhaps foremost among all its other manifestations, the Sun represents consciousness. Just as the actual Sun brings day and light to the world, being conscious makes you able to see where you are and where you are going in your life. A holiday weekend, in turn, provides the opportunity for you to step back from the proverbial ‘rat race’, and to will yourself into being present and mindful long enough simply to be aware — so long as you have a point of reference.

Thanks to the unique perspectives offered by both astrology and information recently returned from a robotic spacecraft, Pluto is a good point of reference for you now.

Astrology, alone among oracular methods, allows you both to analyze the past and anticipate something of the future so as to evaluate your present. That’s because the objects that constitute the medium of astrology (the Sun, Moon and planets) are always moving — or, at least, apparently so from our perspective here on Earth. More importantly, those movements are orderly and predictable.

Were Pluto’s movements not predictable, it would have been impossible to launch the New Horizons spacecraft from Earth in 2006, and have it travel billions of miles to arrive precisely on schedule this year. On July 14, it revealed Pluto, its binary partner Charon and their moons (Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra) in heretofore unimagined detail.

The collective consciousness of humanity (and to some extent your personal consciousness) has evolved as a result of the New Horizons space mission and your awareness of it. At the very least, nobody can now picture Pluto without a white, heart-shaped configuration on its surface. That awareness has in turn contributed to your evolution. Furthermore, you can look back and correlate with how things have come to be.

When New Horizons was launched in 2006, Pluto was considered a planet. Since then, some astronomers (not astrologers) changed their mind about that. Your being conscious of the resulting discussion and dispute have contributed to the evolution of how you see your own place in the universe.

Tellingly, the controversy also took place as Pluto was changing signs from Sagittarius (where it was in 2006) to Capricorn (where it is today). That change of sign for Pluto has symbolically represented a change in how Pluto is expressed in your life — a change that has manifested (albeit not predictably) in your personal experience and resulting evolution.

More recently, when the Sun (from Taurus) last formed a trine aspect to Pluto in Capricorn earlier this year, on May 6, New Horizons had not yet arrived at Pluto to reveal that white heart (and many other, less subjective details). In parallel, you can no doubt see some corresponding change in your world (and yourself) compared to four short months ago.

Now, as the Sun approaches its second trine aspect to Pluto this year, you might be able to become more present to those changes, and better flow with them. For flow and the ease implied are among the things that go with trine aspects.

So take some time this weekend. Even if for an hour or two, step away from the televised sports, the social occasions, and the hubbub of so-called recreation (which is often not much different from the hubbub of the rat race) and get into a flow with your own self.

Consider and appreciate how you define yourself now as compared to 2006. Reflect on what has been revealed to (and of) your own heart since May 6. Contemplate what you have done with the awareness you have acquired since July 14, and acknowledge yourself for how you have demonstrably and irrefutably grown. Oh my, how you have!

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Amanda Painter

Venus retrograde has been the keynote astrology of (Northern Hemisphere) summer 2015. If anything astrological has marked or framed this season in any coherent way, Venus retrograde is it. Now it is winding down.

On Sunday, Sept. 6, at 4:29 am EDT (8:29 UTC), Venus stations direct in mid-Leo, after having been retrograde for the past six weeks.

While ‘Mercury retrograde’ has become a common term even in mainstream discourse, and conjures up images of tech glitches and travel SNAFUs, Venus is retrograde far less often. Its station direct may feel a little mysterious to you.

However, if you know that Venus signifies who and what you value (both intangibly and materially), how you give and receive love (your relationships), and also beauty and aesthetics, you can think back over the last six weeks to see how and when those themes have presented themselves to you. You might glean particular insight from issues, people and relationships from the past that you’ve revisited — or that seem to have revisited you.

Continue reading →

Dear Madame,

I hate my boss. Can I say that again, please? I hate, hate, hate my boss. He is a loathsome, foul-breathed, close-talking, beetle-browed, tyrannical dragon of the worst sort. And while he’s not come on to me outright, I suspect that’s not far from his teeny little reptilian brain each time he comes ‘round with his daily office inspections.

Harsh, I know. But the innuendo and subtle aggression is no longer tolerable, even if this position gets me the kind of professional credit I wanted when I first got the job. My jaw hurts from clenching it just trying to keep my disdain from flying out at an inopportune time.

I’m sending you birth details so hopefully you can judge if it’s time for me to safely get out of this situation. As you will see from my Capricorn rising, I’m not easily deterred, but this is the end of my rope here.

— Consternated Cappish.

Dear Consternated,

No one enjoys working for a dragon. They’re just not the right kind of leadership material. They hoard and heave, and fly around blowing hot air for the sole pleasure of terrifying creatures they perceive to be smaller than themselves. Displease them and they will flame you like yesterday’s shish-kebab.

The upside of working for a dragon is that close in, they’re more manageable. Like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, they often have tiny, helpless arms, which require others to carry out their plots. Helpless is the key word. Can’t do anything on their own. Which gives you a degree of agency. And that commanding ass-end? It’s hardly subtle when it begins to twitch. Easy enough to dodge.

I recognize you’d rather not become more intimate with your current boss. Barring any illegal behavior on his part, however, just this moment is not the most advantageous time to flee the cave. But I can offer hope.

You’re a Virgo Sun, Capricorn rising, with an Aries Moon. Tough work — and ‘dirty’ work — doesn’t frighten you, but bullying would be intolerable in your workplace. I get it.

However, if you jump ship now, you may risk significant reprisals against your reputation and future prospects. Saturn’s sitting at the last degree of Scorpio, high in the sky of your natal chart, i.e., your public service zone. And Mars, Scorpio’s agent, sits in your 7th house opposing you. The pressure’s on to stick it out for a bit, at least until Saturn shifts signs Sept. 17 and switches his allegiance to Jupiter, who has just moved into your Sun sign, Virgo.

But for now let’s look at Saturn in the last degree of Scorpio. It’s also important because of its association with your rising sign, Capricorn. In one sense it represents your own frustration of wanting a situation to just end, already. The story’s nearly over, so can’t we just rush to the last paragraph, find out what happened, and close the book?

Nope. This is Saturn, after all, and Saturn work requires no shortcuts if you want a reward at the end — like, say, a well-paying new position elsewhere. Saturn, particularly in Scorpio, also sounds a bit like your dragon boss — reptilian, hoarding, constipated, and secretly obsessed with and repulsed by human naughtiness.

So the story is not as simple as it first seems. Saturn’s grasping hold on that last degree of Scorpio could easily represent some aspect of both your dragoneering boss and YOU. There’s a very good chance you’ve got a bit of dragon within you, too. And as the sign says, “Those who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by them.”

What does that mean to you? Sit with that idea for a half-hour or two. Please.

Leaving before Saturn’s exit from this sign could lead to an entrenched attitude of resentment and vengefulness in both parties, one you won’t easily shake for a long time. Like a bad break-up, it could color your next relationship or job with negative feelings and dark expectations.

While you can do nothing about the boss, you can do something about yourself. For starters, these next three weeks might be better spent forgiving yourself. All those “why did I do this to myself?” conversations in the middle of the night need a different approach. You earned; you learned. You’ll move on, or your boss will move on, soon enough.

Besides, Jupiter will cross your Sun in a few days. Positivity, expansiveness and new opportunities won’t necessarily come flying in the door, but this is an optimistic rebirth of a 12-year cycle for you. What will you do to make use of it?

Are you sending resumés out, networking a little? Mercury in your 9th house now suggests it’s time to offer some charm to folks who may be outside your usual connections. (Get work out of town? State? The country?) But just as Saturn changes signs, Mercury will also station retrograde. If you’re throwing lines out and getting bites, you may not reel in your bona fide winner until late October.

Until then, might I suggest a stylish asbestos suit?

Happy Solar Return,

Madame Z