Monday, July 11, 2016. Outside of going to the gym and making a round for the groceries, my house saw a lot more of me than it’s used to. I live upstairs in a duplex in Oakland, CA, where outside my front porch is an 80-year-old spruce tree that’s three stories high. Outside my bedroom window is a golden plum tree, the twin to the other plum tree that accompanies the spruce on the porch side.
Squirrels make their journey from tree to tree, using my roof and the redwood deck railing as frontage roads on their scamper from tree to tree. They never touch the ground. In the morning, I have my first cup of coffee sitting on the front porch — which is large enough to be a patio — to listen to the birds sing. Based on my own advice from last Friday, and the consistent writings of our PW team these last few days, I have heeded the advice of the planets and allowed my home to be my personal form of medicine.
I needed it. The thought of watching or listening to the news this weekend was so disturbing that my insides ached even at the thought of it. I can’t hear one more news anchor argue about or even talk about last week. My bullshit meter is so hot right now, I can’t afford the time to blow another gasket over yet the same old arguments and same old framework used in an attempt to explain, contradict or analyze the killings of the two African-American men in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, or the five policemen in Dallas.
Right now, and apropos to our current Cancer Sun, the animal I most see myself as is a nautilus, a mollusc in the same family as octopus and squid, but it has a shell as its outer body. Its shell grows out in a logarithmic spiral as it matures, adhering to its basic shape yet expanding out. As its tentacles reach out to forage and hunt in the ocean, its tender inner body remains inside.
If this description seems like I am retreating into a shell, let me assure you I am not, as this very article’s presence and my willingness to write about this self-induced introspection should prove. If anything, I am absorbing the lessons of my life and our lives in this day and age.
One Daily Kos diarist, dkmich, said it this way in a diary on July 8:
I need a new lexicon for this. I can engage in this differently. I can find common ground. I can be sad about officers killing unarmed civilians AND, at the same time, be sad about heavily armed civilians killing officers protecting citizens. And posing with protesters in pictures.
As of this week we are further along than we’ve ever been on discussing the disproportionate deaths of African Americans by police. We are now in our sixth day of this topic in the news cycle. NRA members are openly questioning their leadership as to why they are not defending the rights of a black gun owner, Philando Castile. Conservative websites Redstate and Daily Caller are having serious discussions on the recent deaths; and Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, complained open carry laws endanger more lives than protect them. Well, duh. But believe me, to say that in Texas is a big fucking deal.
I hope we are not settling for easy answers. Easy answers — lone shooter, rogue cop, suspicious black man going for his gun — got us to Alton’s death, Philando’s death and the deaths of the five Dallas police officers who work under a black chief of police — a police chief who runs a police department that has a good reputation with the black community.
Easy answers and assumptions based on biased viewpoints crafted over the years got us to this point. We are reaching — literally and figuratively — a dead end. Having had time to reflect and not react, it feels like we’re in a self-imposed nautilus shell. An easy answer is not acceptable.
The trauma of last week’s events are forcing us to work on releasing ourselves from the previous chambers of old and worn-out ideas about race and culture, policing and gun violence in America. Are we undergoing logarithmic growth? Can we begin to expand on our old understanding of race without resorting to defensiveness or having to limit ourselves to thoughts and prayers for more of those shot dead?
I am a person of color in America. I feel fortunate to have a front porch where I can drink my morning cup of coffee and reflect on the state of our country and the world. Too many do not. We need to think, feel and act on the conflicting feelings we feel to begin to come to terms with the roots of this insidious tree of racism and violence that threatens to choke us. And we need to do more than pray. We need a new way of thinking.
The late, great Fannie Lou Hamer once said: “You can pray all you want, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” It’s a good time in the aftermath of the most recent tragedies to work to provide some meaning to the lives and deaths of those lost last week — and in the weeks, months and years before. We need to do the logarithmic growing from the left-behind-smaller-space of our former shell to become greater, and overcome this.
The Planet Waves Boutique has plenty of balm for your soul. Come pay us a visit, put your feet up, and enjoy discovering all the wonderful readings we have to offer.
I hear you Fe, those creatures that carry their shell home with them know there is a time to retreat and despite the burden of keeping it close, escape is only a moment away. I would imagine that exhaustion is possible even among the strongest of us and it serves a purpose. Even most of the planets need a retrograde from time to time.
Your lovely description of home reminds me of mine; squirrels using the roof and trees as shortcuts to their favorite feeding places, birds singing their conversations not caring who is eavesdropping. We don’t recognize the need for retreat until we gasp from carrying the stress of accumulated defense against bad news. Now that I think of it Neptune probably contributes a lot to that sense of futility; will things ever change? Yes they will.
I started my retreat a couple of weeks before you (being less dedicated than you) and I’ve been reviewing some pre-Mars-station-direct charts, one of which is the recent Cancer Solstice for June 20th, 12 hours or so after the Sagittarius Full Moon. Not only was Mercury involved in a mutable grand cross with Neptune, Saturn and Jupiter, he was conjunct the U.S. Sibly chart’s descendant, the cusp of the 7th house of partners, or The Other, or open enemies. You know Mercury the Trickster.
Another thing about Mercury in the solstice chart (and in the chart of the full moon whose reign is now over) was his conjunction with Vesta. I’m thinking there might be harbingers of better times in that chart thanks to Vesta and Mercury, some of which I’ve written about on Starlight News. But there was also this trine between Chiron in Pisces and Mars in Scorpio (still retro but only days from stationing direct) that formed a grand water trine with the U.S. Sibly natal chart’s Mercury in Cancer. This grand water trine holds true for the NEW (as of July 4th) U.S. Sibly solar return as well.
You say you can’t hear one more news anchor argue . . . and you aren’t alone. This overload of repeated data is too much to bear. Theories abound about the why’s and wherefores of the things that have happened that shouldn’t have happened. Mercury doing his job of data gathering and even more data coming in was, in the Solstice chart, at a turning point in 3 major cycles he shared; one with Jupiter, one with Saturn and one with Neptune.
I wanted to note that one of those cycles is coming to an end starting a month from now. Mercury will make the 1st of 3 conjunctions to Jupiter, the last of which will happen on October 11th. The cycle he has been in with Jupiter during the last 11 months began in the 30th degree of Leo. That degree has been influencing us all – most notably Donald Trump whose ascendant is there – but we have all succumbed to the drama of Leo and the expansiveness of Jupiter.
Even though that conjunction between Mercury and Jupiter in the last degree of Leo was square Saturn in the next to last degree of Scorpio, Saturn has done little to curtail the drama and the sheer number of dramatic events to examine. On July 28th transiting Mars will be at that same degree where Saturn was when Mercury and Jupiter last came together. I believe that’s the last day of the Dem convention too. Perhaps then the overwhelm of dramatic news we don’t want to hear will taper off until August 22nd when the new cycle between Jupiter and Mercury begins. Yes, the Sun will be in the last degree of Leo (the Donald will still be with us) and opposite transiting Pallas and the U.S. Moon (yes!) in that new cycle. But Mercury and Jupiter will be in Virgo, a much less flamboyant sign and a sign noted for fixing things.
And about the Cancer Solstice chart (June 20) that had both Mars and Chiron trine the U.S. Sibly Mercury. That influence will be with us through September 20 or thereabouts. There is the promise of an inescapable tug at the emotions, especially for the U.S, due to its water element. This deluge carries the vibes of pain but also healing. Deep healing. With the summer solstice’s dedicated Vesta at the degree where Venus was occult the Sun in the last one of those rare occurrences . . and her conjunction with Mercury in his 4-way challenge from Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune . . . AND her exact T-square with the north and south nodes, Love is the mode of operation in these decisive times. It is that inescapable Fe, and why would we want to escape that?
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Just saw this on the Guardian website, and felt it was worth sharing. Reminds me of the famous Tiananmen Square image.
Stunning picture, eh? Goddess rising!
Amy sent me this YouTube. Be prepared. Its powerful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WHPGL_wBaM
I spent the morning looking at my Facebook feed. Rhodessa posted a late March article from Fortune magazine on the three women who lead the Black Lives Matter movement, as part of the “World’s Great Leaders” list for 2016. Fortune.
I can only think of those lyrics from “Hamilton”:
Rise up, when you’re living on your knees
You rise up
Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up
Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up
A reporter from Breitbart.com – a conservative news site, was arrested in Baton Rouge, LA, along with other protestors, and learned some mighty lessons.
Found on Daily Kos today: “A Little Bit of Hope”
The first time I’ve ever linked us to a conservative website, but its worth it. Full article is here.