Today’s Oracle takes us to the Libra weekly for May 13, 2005
When we go from a time of being under high pressure or deep stress to a time of relative ease the transition can be challenging. You may have quite a bit of extra energy on your hands. You may fear that if you let yourself go a little relax and take a breath you will lose your productivity entirely. I’d propose you need to re-adjust your relationship to your work and creative processes starting from the beginning if necessary. Reassess your priorities. Get a sense of what you’ve achieved and what goals or ideas you set aside that would now benefit from some love and attention.
The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our All Access and Core Community members. See this link for more information.
Two topics are competing for my attention this week as I glance at the world stage at the same time as I retreat into a much-needed 12-day staycation. The first is that of hierarchy and the process of ‘othering’ that I see going on around me at all levels. The second is that of simple reflection as we reach the mid-point of the year. And what a year it has been.
Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day
I glanced at my journal to see what I had written at the winter solstice. Not much is there, but my column that week clues me in a bit.
Themes of prioritizing inner work have definitely — always! — remained front and center, even as I decided to take a break from regression and soul retrieval work to try to spend some time integrating. Truth be told, it turns out I no longer need the container of retreats and regression work to dive deep — this year has seen so many plummets to the depths that it is no wonder I am giddily grateful for the grace of having a stretch of time off right now. It feels life saving.
I’m also amused that one of the few things I did write down at the winter solstice was something that recognized an increasing focus on the process of coming into my body. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m someone who avoids being in her body, but several years ago I began to somaticize everything. Stress would show its first symptoms in tension, and for a while there, sickness.
Regression work taught me how to track — or shall I say, feel — the way emotions are held in my body and how to release them. I’d honestly hoped that the whole ‘I somaticize everything’ trend was just an unfortunate side effect of grueling graduate work, but three years after graduation the trend has continued. So here I am — coming into my body.
2015 has not been my favorite year. I type that and then realize that there is a pretty high probability that when I look back on it from some far-off place in the future, I’ll likely recognize it as one of the most profoundly transformative times in my life, and we all know I love transformation. In fact, when I mentally list the events that have taken place, including a slew of really intense consecutive New Moon rituals that activated specific points in my chart within a degree, I am in awe of the ways it does seem the universe is conspiring to help. Even if it makes me want to throw a temper tantrum sometimes.
Talk about grueling, though. 2015 has opened me up as a healer and as a human in ways I’d only conceptualized, has made me question my entire path, and has broken my heart. Perhaps I should own all of that a bit more — the year itself has not done those things, I have.
Of course, when a person who somaticizes to the extent that I can uses phrases like “it has broken my heart,” some prudence is probably needed. In the past few months, my body has registered all of the shock waves and depth, bringing on a whole new slew of fears for me to face. For the first time in my life, I am struggling with the cost of health care. Because, you see, the legal right to affordable health care is one of the arenas where I am very much an ‘other’.
This is not where I’d intended on leading into the ‘othering’ portion of our journey today. The murders in South Carolina or the acceptance of gay marriage under the guise of marriage ‘equality’ (there are still many of us who do not wish to be monogamously married) seemed more appropriate for that topic. But here we are. Our drive to be different can clash so harshly with our drive to be the same as. I’m fascinated by the ways in which we can be so desperate to belong and feel connected that we tend to exercise power over the other or emphasize our differences in order to achieve that goal, or rush head-first into the structures that were once used to oppress us.
I am an individual who is incredibly grateful for her life, who tries to be aware of the gobs of privilege I was born into and that I maintain to this day. I am also aware that I am part of a demographic that tends to be ignored — you know: the 30-something who has opted out of marriage, traditional relationships and bearing children; who is a [clearly selfish] non-white, fat female who has never been in a cohabitating relationship; who is also trying to make a living outside of an office job and pays careful attention to how she makes that work.
I tend to self-select ‘other’ on demographic forms as much as possible because categories rarely feel appropriate or accurate. I chose not to claim my Hispanic heritage on early college scholarship forms because I felt like there was always someone who would need that assistance more than I — and besides, what about the Lebanese and Swedish running equally strongly through my veins?
In the case of health care, I’m part of a demographic that is essentially being asked to foot the bill for everyone else’s insurance. I am someone who has always made check-ups and follow-ups and self-care a priority through buying into health care co-ops with low monthly fees and staying on top of preventative care.
Now that it is mandated that I get health insurance, I find myself left with high-price options with high deductibles that have essentially left me facing a legal mandate to pay an insurance company so that I can pay out of pocket for my health care. My monthly premium takes up what used to be spent on bodywork. I pay out of pocket for the therapist that I want because he is an astrologer too, and the container we’ve created is invaluable to me. That’s a choice I deal with.
It is incredibly frustrating to feel like I can no longer afford health care, even as I recognize the ‘greater good’ of the Affordable Care Act, which I am well aware has helped millions. However, the Vitamin D test that I used to pay $30 out of pocket for costs almost $300 when billed through insurance, and my insurance only pays for part of it.
My twice-yearly rounds of STD testing are not covered through the ACA. It has been deemed appropriate that insurance pay only for once-yearly HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia testing, never for HSV and rarely for HPV. Instead of spending $100 per year on testing now, I am looking at twice that, at least — unless, of course, I grow up and realize that what I really want is a monogamous relationship, or to just keep my legs closed like a good adult. Or even better yet, to just forgo testing all together.
Before I trigger any more alarm bells, I should say — the body symptoms that have been pressing on me and stressing me out have lifted almost entirely in the past week. A mix of Western medicine, dietary change, acupuncture, energy work, and reconciliation with an important person in my life seem to have done the trick. There’s also that lovely Venus-Jupiter conjunction, smack-dab on my ascendant, to thank for some much needed levity and brightness.
The July 4th weekend will be spent in a relative land o’ hippies as I gather with friends to live-stream the ‘last’ Grateful Dead shows for three nights in a row, and I could not be more ridiculously excited about it. I need some good ol’ fashioned free-lovin’. I mean, at least the kind that doesn’t lead to more STD tests, because those are just expensive.
But seriously — the heartbreak of the South Carolina murders has very much combined with my feelings about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage (Which are, in summary: Yay! And also, it’s not marriage equality, it is monogamous marriage equality!), and with my own frustration with health insurance, to churn up a whole lot of wondering about where, when and how we can all just be seen and treated as worthwhile, precious humans.
Why is it that we go through these periods of increasing witch-hunts? When do we get to move past categories and labels and recognize the inherent interconnection of our Earth and the wider universe? Why is it that your relationship is valid and worthy of legal recognition and benefits and mine are not? Why can’t we work together to figure out how each and every human can be cared for?
These are huge frickin’ questions, I know. Social conditioning exists, at least partially, to make our infrastructures more effective and orderly, and changing that is a process many would rather avoid. I’m not the avoidant type, however. So I suppose I say to myself, and to all of you, too, congratulations on navigating the first half of a weird, time-warpy, challenging and mind-bending year. Astro-land says that perhaps the second half will be ‘easier’. Here’s to not equating ease with complacency — and also to boogie-ing down this weekend.
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Dear readers,
It’s still membership drive time here at Planet Waves. Every time I read an article on this website, listen to a broadcast, or just tune in to the incredible community that responds on these pages I’m inspired to do what I can to keep the container going. If you haven’t invested in a core community membership or a reading, please consider doing so now. Your support is what keeps this place alive.
What happens when the Sun and the Moon come together?
Illumination.
The High Priestess, The Sun, Six of Swords from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.
Illumination is the name of the game with this week’s reading of (from left to right) The High Priestess, The Sun, and the Six of Swords. From reflected light, to radiating light, to a moment of en-lighten-ment and the a-lighting after travel from one place to another.
Contrary to what many assume, The Moon in tarot does not correspond to its namesake, but rather to Pisces. It is The High Priestess who is the tarot representative of our Moon, and for good reason: she reflects the light of consciousness, much like the Moon reflects the light of the Sun. She is the feminine lunar to the masculine solar.
This can be seen practically in the role of The High Priestess, which is to experience Spirit. She then ‘translates’ her experience — non-verbal as it is — to those who cannot experience it directly. She is an intermediary, much like her partner The Magus, who, as Mercury, is the messenger between the divine and the human realms. But whereas Mercury is active, The High Priestess is receptive. She is not so much interested in outer communication as she is in inner communion.
The High Priestess also works alone. So this card, representing as it does the near past and foundation to your present circumstances, speaks to a time where it was necessary to take a step back and to listen. What you were listening for was the wisdom that was able to move through you when you were still enough to be its container.
How still were you? How clearly did you hear it? How true to its words were your own?
Because the challenge with The High Priestess is that the truth you received may have been an inconvenient one — for you, or for those around you. Or both. It’s one thing knowing for yourself a particular truth; it is quite another fully admitting it to yourself and communicating it to those for whom it is meant. Frequently, The High Priestess will know, but she or others will not want to. Sometimes, The High Priestess is in the painfully privileged position of holding an answer that will remain unacknowledged. More than that: she may be punished for it.
However, The High Priestess’s power is not in the message: it is in her ability to connect in the first place. Anything that comes from that is secondary. Her power is personal, private, often silent and seldom recognised — and cannot be diminished for its lack of voice or recognition.
You may have gone unacknowledged, what you held inside undiscovered — maybe even ridiculed. Take heart in your ability itself, and not in its results.
It is this ability that has connected you with the current illumination that is hitting your world full-on. What you knew, can now be seen first-hand. What you felt as truth has, in some way or another, come out into the open. Under the light of The Sun, everything is revealed. There can be no secrets and no hiding; there is instead an opening to consciousness and the rays of awareness that blaze into every corner, nook and cranny.
The work is done. Well, this particular aspect of the work anyway. In one fell swoop, we have spanned nearly the entire major arcana, and walked the path of the Moon and into the Sun. Night to day. In the relative blink of an eye.
The Sun is an interesting card to me because frequently it is seen as an entirely positive one. I see it differently. It is positive, but objectively so: it is not limited to joy or happiness but encompasses the myriad ways that something can come ‘to light’. It is neither good nor bad. It shines. And in that way, we are freed from the secrets we have kept.
It reminds me of a conversation between the two main characters, Sue and Mick, in the movie Crocodile Dundee. Sue is trying to explain the concept of therapy to Mick, but it is Mick’s wisdom that throws things into a different light:
Sue: I suppose you don’t have any shrinks at Walkabout Creek.
Mick: No. Back there if you got a problem you tell Wally. And he tells everyone in town, brings it out in the open, no more problem.
That’s The Sun. Out into the open; no more problem. Not unless you want to make more of a problem out of it. But why would you want to? This is a shift into a new state, and one that brings you into the company of others: when there’s more light, you also get to see who’s around you.
And there is more ‘shift’ to come in the final card, which hints at what is moving over the horizon — perhaps even literally. The Six of Swords — or Science — describes the voyage from one place to another — often metaphorically, but sometimes geographically too.
What had remained unclear in the painful skirmish of the previous card that is implied by the Six’s presence — the Five of Swords — has now had the light of consciousness trained on to it. This consciousness is fearless; it simply wants to see. There is currently in you a willingness to see what The High Priestess knew all along. You are at a point of admitting to yourself and others what you had sensed, and in a way that sets everyone free. This light generates forward movement, the solution to what seemed like an insoluble problem, the ironing out of a wrinkle or two — or three — of misperception.
There is the understanding of something at hand. A “light-bulb” connection is made. New shores beckon.
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Planet Waves is currently running a membership drive entitled the Art of Service — pretty fitting with a tarot reading this week that has illumination as its core focus. I spoke a little about my own experience of Planet Waves last week, and how I found it at a time when its support made an appreciable difference in my life. I know that I’m not the only one.
We can all do our bit to keep Planet Waves shining. You can do this by simply spreading the word, donating, or joining our community if you haven’t already done so.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The High Priestess (Moon), The Sun (Sun), Six of Swords (Mercury in Aquarius)
If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.
Today’s Oracle takes us to the Pisces weekly for June 20, 2008
I suggest you look at the effects of your policy of being so psychically open. I can assure you that you don’t see them for what they are; in many ways your current astrology is pointing you to your blind spots, encouraging you to scope them out and be a little more guarded. During the past few weeks of Mercury retrograde, a lot that could have been said was not said. Instead, much of it was transmitted, vibed or otherwise hinted at. You have probably benefited by saving yourself misunderstandings with those who did not feel safe or ready to have actual conversations where they actually take responsibility for how they feel; much of what you have to say involves communicating directly how you feel, first to yourself, then to others. The question now is not how many times you have to repeat yourself, but rather who hears you when you say something meaningful once.
The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our All Access and Core Community members. See this link for more information.
Dear Reader: It’s Independence Day in the U.S., the day celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the revolution that led to the founding of a new country out of a handful of British colonies. But we experience revolutions of all kinds on a regular basis — from the Arab Spring revolutions that woke us up to the building Uranus-Pluto square, to the small yet momentous inner revolutions we wage to free our minds, bodies and souls from less tangible forms of psychic, karmic and cultural colonization.
As a hat tip to the latter variety, here’s a classic by Eric (first published in 1998) about the revolution that follows when we liberate our sexual pleasure. Sometimes the Art of Service is a downright revolutionary act, when it serves inner freedom. — Amanda
By Eric Francis
If you want a revolution, liberating sexual pleasure is the place to start. And if all you want out of life is to be authentic, open-minded, creative and loving, opening up your sexual life-force is the heart of the matter. How do you do this? If you really want to be free, start with self-love. Learn to give yourself deep and satisfying orgasms, release your guilt and shame, and then watch what happens.
Lucille at Burning Man, in the Erodome at Poly Paradise. Photo by Eric Francis.
Guilt about sex is guilt about life. Guilt about your own sexuality and shame around your pleasure mean that you are struggling for life. Give up the struggle. Just come into yourself and be alive. In this article, I will give some suggestions for how you can practice doing this in some really fun ways.
I recognize that many of us are in some kind of crisis, living in a state of overload or feeling out of control; many of us are looking for direction, and in response, we’re seeking some form of spiritual enlightenment.
Virtually all enlightenment programs teach that love is the answer to everything, and many speak about loving yourself as the essential ingredient to this state of mind. The Golden Rule is to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” but notice that nowhere is there mention of physical self-love and self-pleasuring. Of course, if religion let on that giving yourself great orgasms was the easiest way to find God, love and freedom, you would probably have reasons for knocking on your neighbor’s door other than borrowing a cup of sugar.
And you’d have more creative things to do on a lovely Sunday morning than sit in a dark building hearing about what a bad person you are.
IN HONOR of an issue on July 4, I thought I would take a look at the chart for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Independence Day is considered by most people to be the birthday of our country — the moment when the 13 colonies joined together against the King of England and declared themselves free and independent states.
American flag in a field of milo, Kansas, autumn 1998. Photo by Eric Francis.
Have you ever read the thing? It’s short, it’s very sweet and it sets an example for the world. The Declaration is the document from our history that sets the goal of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for our nation. It states in part, “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Gee whiz. We need this thing today. Has it expired? It continues, “Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.”
The Framers then provide the candid world with 27 paragraphs outlining the long train of abuses and acts of tyranny, at the end of which the colonies declared that “they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”
The document concludes: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Consider this: here we had the richest and most powerful men in the country pledging to one another their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Can you imagine Donald Trump, Bill Gates and Dick Cheney, saying this kind of thing, much less even meaning it? Not beating their chests singing “God bless America” out of tune, but rather, humbly stating that we trust Divine Providence?
The July 4 chart reflects this idealism, and casts us in the role of a visionary nation (Sagittarius rising, with Jupiter in Cancer — we are envisioning a home). We are a culture based on reason, knowledge and science (Aquarius Moon conjunct Pallas Athene); on the sharing of resources (Venus conjunct Jupiter in Cancer in the 8th house); and a place that cares deeply about its people, and acts on it (Cancer Sun). If we were born on July 4, we are a nation of laws and not men above the law, or men who think they are the law. We recognize equality and the parallel, responsibility. We are a country that protects its people, is fair to them, and that recognizes our common interests with others in the world community. Think of it: Sagittarius, Aquarius, and Cancer work quite well together in one chart.
The chart has 12+ Sagittarius rising — two degrees from the Great Attractor(which was, at the time, at 10+ Sagittarius). If nothing else, the Great Attractor’s presence talks about an event that will have implications far beyond what the participants themselves understand. If you are an astrology student, I suggest you familiarize yourself with this point which, in our era, is at 14+ Sagittarius. It is the largest known object in the universe, and it is being pursued by a million galaxies (including our own). But it exists along the plane of the Milky Way, so dust and debris interfere with our ability to perceive it accurately.
If we were born on July 4, the United States of America is not the nation of Watergate, of Abu Ghraib, of genocide in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, or of so many wars for oil. It is not the chart of a government that, under the leadership of Nixon and Kissinger, overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973, killing thousands of cultural heroes; nor are we the country that signed off on providing South American oil for Hitler. July 4, 1776 is not the birthday of the country that bombed both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not the chart of the last Western nation to use a peacetime death penalty (a distinction we share with Iran, China and Saudi Arabia).
The July 4 chart is, rather, the nativity of the country we think we are, when we think at all; the one we feel good about being: of amber waves of grain from sea to shining sea. It is the United States of our dreams.
The Sibly Chart and Sept. 11
There are several USA charts. It is not known exactly when the Declaration of Independence was signed, though it’s likely to have gone on for a few days. It took a while for all those guys to come up and sign the thing one by one, and political meetings always take longer than you think.
Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Dick Cheney, signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Image by Rachel Asher.
One July 4 chart that seems workable (and which is demonstrated to be accurate by recent history) is the first one ever calculated, called the Sibly chart, and that is the one that gives Sagittarius rising.
It’s an 18th century document based on statements attributed to Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and John Q. Adams, who said they signed the Declaration in the “late afternoon” of the 4th in Jefferson’s case, and “late in the day,” according to the Adams’. The Sibly chart is one of about a half-dozen speculated times given, and birth time is pretty important in astrology.
The “late in the day” time, more or less, is confirmed by other sources — such as the marginalia in the Raphael’s Ephemeris of an astrologer contemporary to the Revolution, someone named John B. Early. Its data are July 4, 1776, Philadelphia, 5:10 p.m. LMT (Local Mean Time), and it’s the chart most often used. I am not sure how it got the name “Sibly chart.”
Due to the variance in possibilities for when the Declaration was signed I considered this chart iffy until the Sept. 11 incident. This event was associated with the alignment of Saturn and Pluto across Gemini and Sagittarius. That opposition, exact for the first time on Aug. 5, 2001, went directly across the axis at 12+ Gemini and 12+ Sagittarius. In other words, it intersected the ascendant/descendant of the Sibly chart to less than one degree of exactitude; and then we had this terrible thing happen, which changed the course of history forever.
This transit includes Pluto crossing the ascendant of the Sibly chart. Pluto in the ascendant is one of those transits that redefines one’s identity; it changes the nature of one’s relationship to existence. Indeed, at the time of Sept. 11 we became identified with Plutonic forces of death and destruction, both as victim and perpetrator. We allowed the righteous fundamentalism of Pluto in Sagittarius to literally seize our identity, reinvigorating the long battle between Muslims and Christians. We allowed other people to lure us, once again, into believing lies that would not even fool a dog. As James Madison warned, “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” And as P.T. Barnum warned, “there is a sucker born every minute.”
On one level, the Saturn-Pluto opposition seems to have derailed us as a country; but really, it exposed who we have been as a nation through much of the 20th century. We might want to ask ourselves: is this the side of Sagittarius we want to express — the one that thinks it can define right and wrong for itself? Are we happy remembering remnants of the American Dream, paid for exclusively on credit?
The Dark Side of the Dream
If there is a dark side to this chart, it involves Mars in Gemini. Mars has a special role, because it represents the 12th house (which has Scorpio on the cusp). So Mars is the ambassador of the 12th house — which is the most paranoid and delusional of the lot; the house of secret enemies; the house of not quite knowing what is real and what is not.
Mars is in the 7th house, which is the zone of projection. Mars, particularly in Gemini, is aggressive.
See if you can follow the moves. Mars emerges from the 12th house and Scorpio, that deep, unconscious place, and materializes face to face with us in the 7th house in Gemini. It’s as if everyone we look at is potentially our enemy. But the whole arrangement is in Gemini, suggesting that our friends are our enemies and vice versa. This would cover two men who were well-established CIA assets, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Perhaps it’s every country, but it seems that the United States is always gazing into the eyes of a supposed bogeyman who wants to hurt us because he doesn’t like our way of life. We would be wise to consider the psychological projection involved in having Mars being the effigy of this evil critter, be it kidnappers, Communism, queers, heathens, al Qaeda or our neighbors.
James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution, was cautious about scenarios where we give up a little freedom to have a little safety, something we seem to do on a regular basis. “It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad,” he wrote in his commentaries on the founding of the U.S. republic.
It would be nice if we could define ourselves some other way than by whom we despise. Because at the end of the day, if that is how we choose to live, then we must ultimately despise ourselves.
“… the Court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the States and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?”
— Chief Justice John Roberts
As we contemplate the Art of Service to one another, we define what is important in our lives. When we are in service to something larger than ourselves, our lives expand with opportunity and growth. We have seen what happens when we serve only our own needs and desires, contracting into a kind of littleness that does not serve anyone. When Edgar Cayce told us that here, on planet Terra, we “serve or suffer,” I suspect he meant exactly that.
Here at Planet Waves, we hope you will grow with us by supporting the work we do, if you are able. You will find several ways to contribute to our mutual well-being here and we thank you for all you do.
This was the week that Chris Christy decided we needed another belligerent presidential candidate besides The Donald, whose annual Miss America/Miss Universe beefcake presentation was canceled by Hispanic channel Univision after he called illegal Mexican immigrants rapists. NBC decided to turn the “You’re Fired” meme around on him, no longer supporting him as host for Celebrity Apprentice, and Macy’s will no longer carry his menswear line. Appropriately, New York Mayor de Blazio is “reviewing his contracts with the city.” Trump being Trump, he will sue (everyone, apparently).
As fallout, the ineffectual responses to Trump’s racist allegations by candidates have moved the Hispanic community farther away from the GOP than ever, as has the Pope’s encyclical, which has galvanized Hispanic youth in support of sound environmental practice and acceptance of climate change. If you have concerns about the young ones, read America Ferrera’s take down of Trump and soothe yourself. Unless the Republican leopard can change its spots, the likelihood of their capturing the national flag anytime soon is slim.
Christy, meanwhile, has pledged not to sugarcoat any issues, not that we expected him to — he’s a Jersey boy, after all. Obama mentioned that if this funneling of candidates into the Pub locker room keeps up, they will soon have enough contenders for their own version of the Hunger Games. A chilling thought, eh?
This was also the week that the media noticed that Bernie Sanders isn’t just a scruffy old socialist curmudgeon but a viable contender for the crown. Everywhere Bernie goes, his staff has to upgrade the facility to hold more warm and enthusiastic bodies. The message is the medium here, and the medium is a grassroots populist movement that has raised over $15 million dollars of support since April, with no big donors. This deems him legit, making his race against Hillary’s well-funded war chest suddenly ‘do-able.’
Pity the Pub who still wants to demonize the word ‘socialist’ when it no longer plays with those who hear Bernie’s populist message: citizens who think fair is fair and government is meant to benefit them, not pound them into silly putty. Starting out virtually unknown, Sanders is now just 8 points behind Hillary in New Hampshire and within 19 points nationally, according to a recent poll. He has consistently drawn the largest crowds on the stump, proven by no less than 10,000 people flocking to hear him speak in Madison, Wisconsin this week. The Elizabeth Warren wing of the Dem party is alive and well and it’s got legs.
A fifth Dem, Southern centrist Jim Webb, has thrown his hat in the ring and brings a bit of gravitas with him. As a senator from Virginia, Webb voted against Shock ‘n Awe, disapproves of the war on drugs, and has populist appeal. But he also voted against women in combat (or even admitting them to our service academies) and against strict carbon emissions standards, and he has continually — and recently — defended the Confederate flag, none of which will play with the Dem base. At minimum, we now have a mix of left-leaners, almost all of them left of Ms. Clinton.
A year and a half from the next presidential election, we’re well begun in terms of defining what we want to come next. Although it seems tedious to follow the election hijinks so far in advance of the event, it feels somehow appropriate to me — at this juncture, to again quote Poppy Bush — to recognize that re-definition is exactly what we’re up to, now that so much of our national persona is bent and broken and drowned in the Republican bathtub. With all the Sturm und Drang of attempting to move us backwards into what was, a very clear assessment of what is would serve us well.
In the decision to allow same-sex marriage, each of the four conservative judges — Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts — wrote his own dissent. Each followed the philosophical thread we’ve come to expect from the right, which amounts to fear and loathing of change = instability = chaos. Out of all the nonsense sputtered by Scalia (watch this excellent little Fiori ‘toon to get a sense of the lyrical word salad he mixed with these two lost decisions), the tone-deaf meanderings of Thomas, and the harsh pronouncements of Alito that remind me of Cotton Mather pounding his podium, it’s a phrase from John Roberts that grabs my attention: “Just who do we think we are?”
This was a finger pointed at the apparent hubris of attempting to change the social order that has kept the marriage bed sacred for the propagation of the species. Essentially, Roberts considers the ruling unconstitutional, although — to give him his due — his dissent seemed the most secular. And clearly, to Roberts’ thinking, messing with that ‘natural order’ brings up too many questions to juggle in one little ruling, fiddles with the old paradigm notion of a husband in ownership of both wife and child, opens the possibility of polygamy, and worse. Most dreadful of all, now anyone loathe to tolerate same-sex marriage will no doubt be vilified and called bigot!
Amazing how hypocritical this seems, flipping the zeitgeist. Now it’s the Christians who are bigots, much as it’s the racists who defend their flag without a hint of remorse for the cruelty that inspired it. Looking in that mirror isn’t for sissies, my dears — it takes a big sack, as Stephen Colbert would say, and some of us just aren’t up to it. Smell the fear?
Indeed, the gay marriage decision made Scalia so verklempt he called it “The end of democracy,” and scorched his own seat at the table by calling SCOTUS “a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine.” I don’t recall him saying that when he ruled on Citizens United, which DID turn the democratic process on it’s head. I can’t help but think of the historical holes in their dissent, obvious enough to twist an ankle should we be unwise enough to step in one.
If we are to hold to the societal absolutes of the period in which the Constitution was brought forth, Justice Clarence Thomas would be standing at the door to the court, helping the white gentlemen with their coats. The Aztecs frequently broke open the chests of their slaves and enemies in order to raise their still-beating hearts to the crowd, a triumphant public offering and sacrifice to their cruel gods. As for marriage between one man and one woman, that is a complete cheat. The early Biblical law that later distilled itself into a one-on-one began with a plurality of wives under the same tent. We forget what is inconvenient to remember.
Still, with all the hot air wasted on this marriage argument, now encoded into law, Roberts’ question of who we are — meant as a chiding reprimand — is the most important question of the season, especially as we contemplate the snarled mess we’ve made of our Republic on this 239th national birthday weekend.
We, the People, have a very imperfect union right now. That doesn’t discount the extraordinary potential of the documents upon which our government was formed. The founders themselves were flawed humans, not holding to their own declarations. Feet of clay is the way of these things, historically. Best not to confuse the message with the messenger. Our childish mythologies about who these people were — mostly hard-nosed businessmen — must take on some reality if we’re to put a flawed past behind us, and this would be a good time to invite them off their (elitist) pedestals.
We have much to be concerned about and much to remedy, going forward, but we’re not lost yet. We still haven’t decided whether we should enter a hologram to take us back to those Good Old Days of colonialism and vigilante justice, or we’re to pitch in, each of us, to rebuild this nation with an egalitarian platform that supports a diverse and creative population. That’s up to us. That’s the assessment we must make.
That’s the question that’s finally posed itself, made clear by an embarrassment of riches in candidates like The Donald, the captain of crony capitalism and ego-speak, or Rick Perry, a delusional type who has assured the African-American population that they’re much better off voting the GOP. And even Hillary — who has more political experience than most of the others and would surely make history as the first woman president — is too busy courting Israel, to whom she promises to be a better friend than Obama, and dodging positions on the trade deal, for instance, to do more than offer lip-service to the progressive ticket.
In a perfect world there would be voices like Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein and old friend Dennis Kucinich heard loud and clear, bypassing the muck and mire of establishment politics and big money to propose answers to that profound question at hand. Yet in this imperfect world, amazingly, we do have one like them in Sanders. The miracle of the moment is that he’s no longer considered a long shot and his message can’t be missed.
In fact, if you like the idea of a populist reformation ticket, Bernie is putting together a “series of conversations about how we can organize an unprecedented grassroots movement that takes on the greed of Wall Street and the billionaire class.” If you want to host or attend an organizational meeting at the end of this month, you can contact his campaign here.
With the election still far off, promising allegiance to any particular candidate seems premature, but sharpening our skills at grassroots organization sounds pretty productive. As for Bernie, I haven’t heard any other candidate say “They have the money, but we have the people, and if we stand together, there’s nothing we cannot accomplish.” Until any of the remaining four do — and until they convince the people of this nation (as has Bernie) that they’re just one of them, lucky to be born an American and committed to making her that place the founders hoped for — he’s my pick.
The revolution that started this nation so long ago is not dead, just resting, as they say. There’s energy stirring from the bottom up to take on the greed and avarice at the heart of our social and political problems. On a joyful occasion like the Fourth of July, with fireworks and barbeques and family gatherings all around, it would be a fine thing if our nationalism was used not to mark or defend who we were, but to celebrate and define who we will become, because that IS the question, isn’t it?
Marianne Williamson tells us we didn’t come here to play it small. Neale Donald Walsch urges us to become the best version of ourselves we can conjure. Just who DO we think we are, this Independence Day? That decision holds the design of our future.
Today’s Oracle takes us to the Sagittarius weekly for Dec. 5, 2008
You are coming into your own, and it’s about time. Finally you are driven not by the obsession with being someone, but rather with the realization that you are indeed someone. This is never a discovery that you can take for granted on Earth, and I don’t suggest that you do so. It may be difficult for you to feel the scale of the impact that you are having, and that you can have in the future; but you may have a clue. What you can feel is what is important to you. If you focus on that, and allow that to grow, you will at least be able to direct the course of your impact, even if you don’t quite know what it will do.
The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our All Access and Core Community members. See this link for more information.
