Tag Archives: Nuclear

Democracy Now! — Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Hillary Clinton theatrically criticizing the Drumpf and looking all regal and stuff. Image: video still

In a major economic address in Ohio on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton warned the election of Donald Trump would be disastrous for the U.S. economy and result in what she dubbed a “Trump recession.” “He’s written a lot of books about business. They all seem to end at Chapter 11. Go figure,” Clinton said.

But Hillary Clinton’s economic policies are still facing criticism from her own party. Last week, in an address to supporters, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told supporters he planned to go to the Democratic convention next month in Philadelphia to push the party in a more progressive direction.

Thomas Mair, the British man who killed British parliamentarian Jo Cox last week, reportedly yelled out “Britain First” during the attack—a reference to the far-right, anti-immigrant political party of the same name which is pushing for Britain to leave the EU in tomorrow’s Brexit referendum. In court on Friday, Mair gave his name as “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain.” Cox was a vocal advocate for Britain to remain in the European Union.

More information is coming to light about Mair’s ties to neo-Nazi groups in the United States and Britain. Meanwhile, a former paid FBI informant named Todd Blodgett has revealed he met Thomas Mair at a neo-Nazi gathering that the informant set up in London in 2000.

In a major victory for environmentalists, California is going nuclear-free, ending atomic energy’s more than half-century history in the state. On Tuesday, one of the state’s largest utilities agreed to a proposal endorsed by environmental groups and labor unions to shutter California’s last operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, by 2025.

California is the world’s sixth largest economy, and it was among the first states to embrace nuclear energy in the 1950s. Diablo Canyon began operating in 1985 and stirred controversy from the start. For years, anti-nuclear activists called for the plant’s closure because of safety concerns over its precarious location near several major earthquake fault lines.

We are honored to offer this broadcast as part of our affiliation with the Pacifica Network. Find out where the Democracy Now! crew is visiting next during the show’s 100-city tour, celebrating 20 years on the air.

Neptune in Pisces: A Watershed Event

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn and within a matter of months, we saw the collapse of the banking system and a massive heist of public resources by different private entities. It was an event so perfectly described by Pluto in Capricorn (which lasts till 2024) that it was a little eerie. Many astrologers had been discussing the potential for various forms of systemic collapse under Pluto in Capricorn, and one happened immediately after the transit began.

The world’s first underwater presidential cabinet meeting, held by Mohammed Nasheed off Irufushi Island in the Maldives in October 2009. Image is screen shot from “The Island President,” a documentary about Nasheed and his quest to call attention to global warming. As ocean levels rise, the Maldives could become geographically extinct.

Then in April 2010 when slow-moving Chiron ingressed Pisces, within 24 hours, the BP oil platform explosion and spill happened, dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months (and the well may still be leaking). Once again, an outer planet changed signs and we saw an event that was strikingly similar to the astrology involved — Chiron, which can call attention to issues of wounding and healing, put all eyes on the ocean.

In March 2011 when Uranus made its ingress to Aries, within hours an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, creating one of the top two worst nuclear disasters in history. Uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear reactors, is named after the planet Uranus, which has a volatile, even explosive quality at times. Aries is hot and fiery, and what happens close to the Aries Point (the first degree of Aries) can affect the world — and once again we had an effect that illustrated the astrology in a vivid way.

Astrologers are on notice: when slow-moving outer planets change signs, there may be an immediate effect. Pay attention.

Knowing that Neptune would be entering Pisces, I was on the lookout for a development at the beginning that would give us some clues about what might be up. I suspected that the rising of the oceans, involving global warming, would be an issue. Neptune is the planet of water, named for the god of the sea (and of earthquakes). Pisces is a big ocean. What happens when you put a lot of water in an ocean? The level rises — and that is exactly what’s happening due to the melting of the glaciers. It’s obvious that with Neptune in Pisces, we will be dealing with the reality and not the concept of global warming.

Former Maldives president Mohammed Nasheed after his underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. Image from “The Island President,” an upcoming documentary.

In a late edit to last week’s edition, which summarized the history of the past 14 years of Neptune in Aquarius, I mentioned that the global warming controversy was a kind of poster child for denial (Neptune) of science (Aquarius). An inconvenient truth that is convenient to deny, global warming may turn out to be the biggest scandal in the history of the world. Has anyone noticed that the biggest deniers are those who profit from doing so?

But not everyone has been in denial. At the head of the class has been the president of the Maldives, an island nation located just above sea level in the Indian Ocean. It’s the country with the lowest average elevation — 1.5 meters above sea level. One of the country’s outspoken politicians, Mohammed Nasheed, came home from exile in 2008 to be the first democratically elected leader of his country. Nearly 30 years of dictatorship ended with an authentic triumph for the people, and the inauguration of a progressive, intelligent president.

And Nasheed was breathing fire on the issue of global warming. The Maldives are so close to sea level that when the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami happened, most of the country (which consists of a group of islands) was submerged. That’s to say, most areas were flooded under one to three meters of water, a stark reminder of what is possible if ocean levels continue to rise.

When Nasheed took office in November 2008, he quickly brought global warming to the top of his agenda and became one of its most articulate spokesmen. He stated his intentions to have the country purchase land in India, Sri Lanka and Australia for its citizens to inhabit, saying, “We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.” If the rising of the seas wasn’t stopped, his own country would become geographically extinct by 2100. He spoke at the United Nations, and he participated in a recent documentary, The Island President.

Among other methods of getting attention, in 2009 Nasheed held an underwater meeting of his cabinet in scuba gear to illustrate the point that his country was being swallowed by the ocean. (For astrology fans, this happened with many planets in Libra, and during the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius.)

Then on Tuesday, just four days after Neptune entered Pisces, Nasheed was forced to resign the presidency at gunpoint. He was ousted by allies of the old dictator, who apparently wanted some of their power back, or didn’t want to face prosecution. Nasheed had just ordered the arrest of a criminal court judge who was allegedly refusing to allow corruption cases against members of the old administration to proceed. That was used as an excuse for the military and police to force him out of office.

The Maldives are a nation consisting of about 1,200 islands, close to the equator in the Indian Ocean. They are on average 1.5 meters above sea level — the lowest country in the world. Image from “The Island President,” which comes out in March.

The judge who Nasheed had arrested “was the chief judge of the Criminal Court, which is one of the middle-ranking courts in the Maldives,” according to one of Nasheed’s aides, quoted on Democracy Now! “And the government had accused him of defending the former dictatorship of [Mohammed Abdul] Gayoom. There was a number of cases against former regime members for [inaudible] and corruption, and some involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the government contended that this judge was essentially preventing those cases from ever reaching fruition.”

Yet the effect is that one of the few people in power speaking up about global warming and rising sea levels was taken out of commission. As of press time, an arrest warrant had been issued for him. Many fear that he will be imprisoned, and his adversaries have stated that’s their goal. Despite this, he led a street rally on Thursday. BBC has reported that there is no sign of the new government trying to carry out the arrest warrant.

Nasheed has more important plans, focused on the fate of the Earth. He used his presidency to cast the Maldives as a canary in the coal mine of global warming. Many areas of Manhattan, he’s pointed out, are only slightly higher above sea-level than his country.

And there are American scientists who agree with him. One of them is Malcolm Bowman, a professor of oceanography at SUNY Stony Brook, who said in an interview, “Looking at the city, with the setting sun behind the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s a sea of tranquility,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine the dangers lying ahead.”

Severe beach erosion in the Maldives has claimed substantial amounts of coastal land. Image from “The Island President.”

He told WNYC Radio in New York that as global warming brings higher temperatures and more violent storms, flooding in parts of the city could become as routine as the heavy snows of this winter. We could even have “flood days,” the way the city now has snow days. Higher sea levels will give severe storms much more water to funnel toward the city.

“We could expect the FDR Drive to be underwater,” he told the station, referring to Manhattan’s East Side Drive. “We could expect the water lapping around Wall Street,” he said. “We could see vital infrastructure, hospitals, sewage treatment plants, communication conduits all paralyzed by flooding with seawater, which is very corrosive.” He said the city could resemble Venice in 200 years.

How would the city deal with this? Possibilities include building enormous storm surge barriers like the kind used in the Netherlands, much of which is below sea-level. The Dutch have managed to hold back the ocean successfully for many years. Or, the city could pull back from vulnerable neighborhoods, moving them to higher ground and using low-lying areas as parks and buffer zones. But given real estate values, that seems unlikely. And with half of the world’s population living within 200 km of the shore, we would have to build a lot of dykes to protect even the areas that could be protected.

All the studies in the world may not convince world leaders to take action. It’s going to take actual events, and even then, many people are too despondent or corrupt to deal with a problem this complex. And even when the proof comes in the form of an event, it can take a generation or more to get the physical infrastructure in place, such as happened after the North Sea flood of 1953. This flood affected the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.

Official New York City map showing flood zones. This is an actual document, not speculative.

The flooding was caused by a high spring tide and a severe windstorm that caused a storm tide. Existing sea defenses were overwhelmed and many breached. (Appropriately enough, this happened during a Saturn-Neptune conjunction. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita happened during a Saturn-Neptune opposition, which is similar to the conjunction.)

In the Netherlands, where 9% of the country’s farmland was flooded and 1,836 people died, a flood defense system was put into place, but it wasn’t completed until 1998, nearly half a century later.

There is no doubt that Neptune is associated with floods and events involving the sea, and Neptune in Pisces certainly seems to be the image of a lot more seawater. The thing about Neptune is that it’s a slow acting influence, until the drop that spills the cup. The story of floods is always the story of what was not expected, but which was obviously coming.

One thing to keep in mind from an astrological perspective is that Chiron in Pisces is running vanguard of Neptune in Pisces. During its whole time in Pisces, Chiron will be a few years ahead of Neptune’s progress, finally leaving in 2019 (about six years before Neptune leaves Pisces). Chiron will bring sufficient warning-type events that we can have all the foresight we might need. Precaution is another story.

Speaking of Chiron, Nasheed was born in 1969 right at the end of the last run of Chiron through Pisces. His Chiron is placed in the very last degree of that sign, which is also the last degree of the zodiac. It’s theme is the self-created person.

During the Sixties, we learned that martyrdom makes the movement stronger. It was an era of assassinations: JFK, RFK, MLK, names so common we don’t even need to say them, representing people who set an indelible example of leadership. I trust that this time around, Nasheed can make his point without becoming a martyr. In less than a month, he’s about to become a movie star, as The Island President, the documentary about him, is released to select theaters.

Let’s not forget that mythic Neptune can be as placid as the ocean can be, he can be equally violent and wrathful if wronged. The tyrants who seized power might recall just a few years ago when their whole country was under water. Don’t dis Neptune, ’cause paybacks are hell.

Lovingly,

Additional research: Fe Bongolan, Dale O’Brien, Amanda Painter, Yasa Angelus Sereno, Carol van Strum and Lizanne Webb. If you would like to see the film “The Island President,” here is a schedule.

Venus, newly in Aries, made a conjunction to Uranus last night/early this morning, depending on your time zone. Today that energized Venus makes a trine to Juno in Sagittarius. Also overnight Thursday to Friday, Mercury conjoined centaur Nessus in Aquarius. Saturn, which recently stationed retrograde in the last degree of Libra, is trine Pallas Athene in the last degree of Aquarius. Pallas will leave Aquarius for Pisces minutes after midnight EST on Sunday, where it will conjoin Neptune Monday. Later today (Friday) the Moon ingresses Libra at 2:54 pm EST, where it will oppose Uranus and Venus in Aries. Sunday the Moon ingresses Scorpio at 5:01 pm EST. The Aquarius Sun sextiles Eris in Aries Friday, then tomorrow squares Sedna in Taurus. Sunday the Sun makes a conjunction to Nessus. Mercury, also in Aquarius, sextiles the Galactic Center in late Sagittarius Sunday, and then on Monday makes an air trine to Saturn.

In the upside-down world of the Republican presidential primary race, candidates have taken aim against President Obama’s initiative that requires health insurance companies to pay for women’s birth control. In particular, he’s even required that religious institutions that don’t approve of birth control still make it available to their employees, who might benefit from it. (You can read more about this in Venus on the Aries Point in the News on our daily blog.)

Santorum after winning the Republican primaries this week.

Here is something to consider. Republicans have come out waving the flag of the First Amendment, saying that mandating that a Catholic hospital provide access to contraception for its non-religious employees is a violation of freedom of religion.

Actually, they have it backwards: any employer bound by federal anti-discrimination laws attempting to compel its employees to follow a religion they don’t believe in would be the real violation of the First Amendment — known as compelled speech. This is is so obvious that it’s comical. Many have noticed that modern Republicanism is a religious crusade focused on sex (and little else), but few are pointing out how bizarre this is.

Meanwhile, the competition for ‘most surreal comment’ prize continues at an exciting pace. Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator and representative from Pennsylvania, recently surged from behind, winning Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri on Tuesday. Santorum is famous for a 2003 episode in which he ignited the ire of gay rights activists when he implied a comparison between same-sex marriage and marriage based on pedophilia or bestiality. In response, sex columnist Dan Savage held a contest to coin a definition of “santorum.” The winning entry was “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex,” which was the top Google return for his name until recently.

Following his three-state win, Santorum took the pulpit and claimed that making birth control available was a product of, “The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology. It is a — it is a religion unto itself. It is just not a biblical-based religion. And it is — it is the most intolerant, just like we saw from the days of the atheists in the Soviet Union. It is completely intolerant of dissent, because they fear dissent. Why? Because the dissent comes from folks who use reason, common sense and divine revelation, and they want no part of any of those things.”

Note, this is coming from someone who in this primary race compared gay sex to people having sex with dogs, and from the same man who rebuked a college student who’d suggested people should be able to marry who they want (with regard to same-sex couples) by asking, “So anybody can marry multiple people? What about three men?” Notice that social conservatives are ahead of the curve, getting ready for when people start to speak up in favor of polyamory. That’s why they define marriage as one man and one woman.

Oops, sorry — here’s the real picture of Rick Santorum, after winning a few Republican primary elections this week.

Meanwhile, multimillionaire candidate Mitt Romney is calling out established D.C. Republicans on their lavish ways with money.

“Republicans spent too much money, borrowed too much money, earmarked too much, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have to be held accountable. This is one of the reasons the Tea Party grew up, of course, is that people were unhappy about incumbents, people who had spent their careers in Washington borrowing, spending and earmarking. … And in this race, I’m the only guy that hasn’t spent time in Washington. And Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich, they are the very Republicans who acted like Democrats. And when Republicans act like Democrats, they lose.” Once again, right words in the wrong order: Democrats are the ones who have become Republicans, going along with illegal wars and tax cuts for billionaires, among other things.

Newt Gingrich raised the right’s latest favorite bogeyman and invoked the obscene false-flag tragedy of the 9/11 attacks in a transparent appeal to people’s fear in the name of creating manufacturing jobs. “You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon. You think about the dangers, to Cleveland or to Columbus or to Cincinnati or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros, and it’s 300,000 dead, maybe a half million wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. And that’s why I think it’s very important that we have the strongest-possible national security. And so, I wanted to come see how you manufacture, remind the news media and others that manufacturing in America can be the dominant system in the world.”

Apparently Newt is happy to roll up his sleeves and do some manufacturing of his own when it comes to paranoia and its exploitation. Ron Paul, on the other hand, seems to be waging a stealth campaign for the surreal comment prize, given the lack of juicy quotes form this week in a quick search. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that one of the super-PACs supporting him is headed by a supporter of the 9/11 Truth movement.

If you pay attention at all to the news (even if it’s just the articles in this issue), don’t be surprised if you find yourself empathizing with the world’s injustices — and how they manifest in your own life. When the Moon moves into Libra later today, it opposes Uranus, Venus and Ceres, which are within a few degrees of each other on the Aries Point. Activity on the Aries Point tends to raise our personal struggles onto the cultural stage in some way, and brings political issues close to home. In this case, aspects of women’s health, women’s rights, motherhood and the health of Mother Earth may all feel especially compelling to you — especially with Uranus charging up the batteries.

When the Moon shifts to Scorpio on Sunday, watch your feelings closely. You might find your sensual passions intensifying; it’s also possible that any lingering frustration with the injustices you noticed earlier in the weekend could grow into brooding. One release point could come in the form of physical/sexual pleasure. You can also explore how it feels to put your money where your mouth is — literally or figuratively — with regard to your values. Taking action even in small ways can move energy. Neptune and Chiron in early Pisces suggest creative solutions that move from imagination to tangible practice would be a great way to channel your emotions.

U.S. regulators on Thursday approved plans to build the first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years, despite objections of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, who cited safety concerns stemming from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, Reuters reported. The NRC voted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based Southern Co to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its existing Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. The units will cost Southern and partners about $14 billion and enter service as soon as 2016 and 2017. How many solar panels could $14 billion buy?

The approval was cold comfort for nuclear industry officials who have touted a “renaissance” that has failed to materialize, undercut by high costs and the cheapest natural gas prices in about a decade. No nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. After the accident, the NRC adopted more stringent safety standards, which caused construction costs for nuclear plants to skyrocket and stopped dozens of planned plants in their tracks.

Just one day after a federal appeals court ruled California’s ban on same-sex marriage (called Proposition 8, or Prop 8) to be unconstitutional, Washington State positioned itself to become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage following a vote in the State House. Washington State lawmakers approved marriage equality legislation on Wednesday — just a week after it was passed by the State Senate. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the legislation into law next week. Meanwhile, this week’s ruling in California all but ensures that the same-sex marriage issue will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Art of Astrological Storytelling with Eric Francis

Note to Potential Participants: This workshop will be at UAC 2012, but I will be doing a test run in New York City at 1 pm on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012, hosted by Nightlight Astrology. Write to nightlightastrology@gmail.com for more information.

Eric Francis.

How do you write astrology in a way that others understand you? First you must understand the chart, then express it in ways that don’t rely entirely on astrological references. Metaphors, descriptions of form, color and other sensory data, and most of all, a cohesive narrative will help you relate to your readers and clients. Eric Francis, founder and editor of Planet Waves, has been developing astrology content on the Internet since its nascent days. His articles present world events as personally relevant experiences, and reveal how and why readers can participate in seemingly global changes.

In this workshop he will cover how to write astrology for novices that also breaks new ground and makes sense to those advanced in the field. We will work on the details of description, of phrasing ideas in an understandable way, what you assume your reader knows, and how to tell when you have a good idea to work with. Eric’s central idea is that the best way to ‘market’ your website is with excellent content.

If you’re going to be at UAC, come a day early and catch this workshop on May 23. It’s part of a full-day presentation being taught by Eric with Donna Woodwell. Here is the official website.

Eric Francis is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and essayist who has been a practicing astrologer since 1995. He’s a specialist in new planetary discoveries. He has written for many magazines and newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia, as well as for Astrology.com, StarIQ.com, Rob Brezny’s Televisionary Oracle and many other astrology websites. He’s taught astrology in England, Canada and across the United States at many conferences and events.

Austin Kleon, artist and author of the books Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout, has taken a unique approach to horoscope creation. Using newspaper horoscopes, he blacks out the text except for a few choice words to create a new message.
It’s a technique he began playing with to create poems out of redacted newspaper stories in 2005, as a way to beat writer’s block. You can read all 12 of his February horoscopes here. What do you think — did he get your sign right?

We’ve received much gratifying feedback on the 2012 annual edition, which provides readings for all 12 signs and rising signs. Here are a few of the notes that you’ve sent in. Subscribers may still purchase all 12 signs at the discounted price (12 signs for the price of three) or just get your individual sign.

“This is like you took a page from my soul and wrote it out for me to look at and remember, when I get lost, that there are breadcrumbs to knowing again. This is my first impression, that this is beautiful and accurate and poignant for us Tauruses this year. Thank you, Eric!”

Leo. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.

“Ok were you a plant in my house when I was growing up? The Virgo audio and written parts (so far, I still have yet to listen to part 3) are EXACTLY what I have experienced. The section about sex is so true it is as though you have been privy to my innermost thoughts! How can you know these details and articulate them so well? Thank you SO much for doing what you do so perfectly. Like an intense and beautiful light in a dark room, your insights are a wonder and an inspiration.”

“I ride with great glee on the positive, hopeful, visionary challenge you present in your readings. You pour crystal-clear light into the chalice. Thank you. I have been so thirsty.”

“I just listened to Eric’s 2012 Taurus horoscope and it was AMAZING! I learned some crucial, new information about myself that is really vital to my self-healing. I am just constantly blown away not just by Eric’s ability, but also his compassion and sensitivity.”

“I am absolutely amazed and grateful at how deep you went and how accurately you managed to describe or tap into the essential Leo SELF. Some of which I have kept hidden from all except those closest to me… Much Gratitude, Appreciation and Love to you Eric.”

“This roadmap of a horoscope is phenomenal. You nailed it! I have become aware of the power I possess to change my world and use it on a daily basis. We are all powerful beings, we must acknowledge this power. And thanks to Eric’s prediction, I just might save the world (or at least my little corner of it — with lots of love to boot)!”

“I don’t know where to begin in saying thank you. Such a careful and thoughtful package of insights put together with love and craft and care. I am very grateful for this.”

The February monthly horoscope (long edition) was published Wednesday evening, Jan. 25. The long edition of the monthly horoscope is now on a new schedule — it will be the only Planet Waves mailing the week that it comes out, giving the Planet Waves team a chance to slow down a bit once a month. The next long edition monthly horoscope will be published the evening of Weds., Feb. 22. There was not an Inner Space monthly horoscope for February due to an overload of work during the production of the annual edition. The next Inner Space will be published the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #890. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You may feel challenged by a situation that feels beyond your control — particularly one involving the opinion that others hold about you. Obviously what matters more is the opinion you have of yourself, but you’re especially vulnerable to outside influences right now. It’s the kind of setup where one thing could lead to another, therefore, when any one thing points in a direction that you don’t want to go, quickly make a decision to go another way. You seem to have a particular vulnerability where the opinions of coworkers are concerned, when you’re doing your best to mind your business and do your job. I would say do one better — make a point of doing your work in the most competent and creative way possible — and really shine despite what vibes you may feel are in the air or what anyone may think or say. Very simply, that whole head-trip is meaningless. The good part is that right now, many other elements of your life are beautifully meaningful.

Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. has been published and is available. It is still available at the special subscriber discount price for all 12 signs, or the order price per sign. This year’s annual offers an extended written report plus 90 minutes of audio for each sign and rising sign. You will love it.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There may be some vivid contrasts in what you’re feeling and what others are perceiving about you. They’re not incompatible, but they are different enough that you need to account for any potential contrast. While on the one hand you may be creatively lit up, and have an abundance of good ideas, other factors suggest you want to be extraordinarily careful where communications are concerned, particularly where anyone in a position of authority is involved. What you say matters, and you cannot take it back. Along a similar line, the quality of any idea is only as good as your ability to express it or put it into action in a useful way. This could be a genuinely fortunate time in your life, when actual opportunities are abundant. But you can take no chances on anything other than careful, honest effort, and sincere gestures to cooperate within any group environment.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — As you’ve figured out by now, most spirituality has nothing to do with spirit and most religion has nothing to do with anything Divine. The substitute or the excuse is not the reality, though there are many who would — and do — confuse the matters. You cannot afford to be confused, though at the moment it could happen easily. The most likely entry point for misunderstanding is going to be false belief, so I suggest you subject what you hear and what others try to persuade you to an extra high level of verification. This would count for anything that you find is emotionally disturbing or where you get the sensation that you’re shutting down because you’ve encountered some information. That shutdown sensation may be precisely the clue you need to know that something is simply wrong. But doing nothing about it is not a useful option. At the very least, a clear decision is called for.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — This week’s Full Moon may still have you feeling like you just got off an entire afternoon on the teacup ride. Clearly, you’ve taken a few steps to renegotiate some of the more sensitive situations in your life, yet you likely figured out how much more you have to change. One particular situation where push came to shove contains a lot of good information for you, and I suggest you do some data mining and make the most of what you learn. There is something fundamental you can discern about your own nature and that of someone close to you. We may be talking about your relationship to a group. The truly important thing to focus on is how to make sure that your values, opinions and sense of presence do not take second place, or get swallowed by, some entity seemingly larger than yourself. Yet the way to distinguish yourself is not with how ‘different’ you are, but with the power and beauty of your gradually awakening sense of self-worth.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Your relationships are in a delicate spot, and you can help yourself immensely by being the person who defuses any tension and lets any seeming insult roll off your back. This may not be easy, because you’re almost as edgy as certain people around you — almost but not exactly. This is all going to come down to communication, which means being a specialist in understanding everyone’s motives: certain individuals around you, certain dynamics as they manifest in a group, and of course keeping a pulse on your own inner currents. Here is the thing to remember — life is more flexible than you remember it being any time in the recent past. Opinions are subject to change, facts are subject to reinterpretation and any situation you may encounter has many negotiable points. What will make that flexibility available is creativity: that is, imagination, seeing the possibilities, and knowing that any problem has a solution waiting to be discovered or invented.

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

Last year we offered an All Access Pass for subscribers who wanted access to everything we offer in a calendar year. The response from our All Access subscribers was overwhelmingly positive, and we are happy to once again offer one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012. One price gets you a subscription to the weeklies and all other products on Planetwaves.net through December of 2012.

Using one password for everything, which you choose yourself, you’ll have easy access to every product, including birthday reports and special audio recordings, weekly email service, the annual edition, and whatever additional projects we create. It’s a great discount on a year of our work.

We trust that this idea is a fun way to meet your needs, whether you use astrology for daily spiritual inspiration, therapeutic purposes or pragmatic decision-making. And it’s truly a valuable resource for students of Astrology.

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

– Tuesday/Friday Email editions of Planet Waves weekly content and horoscopes. Follow Eric’s weekly and monthly interpretations for all of 2012.

– All sign birthday/ascendant audio for 2012. This is almost like getting a personal consultation with Eric for yourself and any loved ones whose astrology you track. Each audio report includes a fresh perspective on current transits and how they extend into the future, along with a special tarot reading for that sign.

– Your choice of the 2012 or 2013 annual edition, all 12 signs. This book-length online publication includes written and audio segments, is accessible by password at any time, and always meets rave reviews by readers who refer to it throughout the year for its long-range, big-picture guidance.

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You would be wise to pull your punches over the next few days — that is to say, meet aggression with something other than aggression. This won’t be easy but it’s definitely possible. If something makes you angry, start by shifting perspectives and figure out where someone is coming from. Merely empathizing with them will have a healing effect from the outset of the discussion or encounter. You will then be less inclined to think or act in a way that is self-judgmental — which is one of the best ways to defuse tense situations. You are the one who is dealing with the inner-violence dynamic. The person you’re connecting with is working through a mix of an identity crisis and self-deception. Therefore, be honest with yourself, listen with care, and set the example that there’s another way of looking at the world. Once you actually observe and acknowledge that, the whole relationship will shift.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Mars retrograde (now through April 13) is about you turning a corner in your relationship to fear. The thing about fear is that it seems so real, yet it so rarely works out to be true. Have you ever noticed that? Here is the thing about fear that is true, in my experience: it points to an energy source. What could be creative potential is converted into something, heavily tinged by the negative elements of the imagination, and something ‘unreal’ is created. The objective your charts seem to be describing is learning how to convert fear back into something creative. This would start first with feeling the fear or inner tension, acknowledging the inherently neutral nature of energy. Then notice how you color it one way or the other; how you make it into whatever it is. Though it’s emotionally difficult, stay with the feeling a little longer than you might otherwise, so you can get to the good stuff.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — One theme of this season is discerning what you think from what is true. Thoughts are powerful in that they have the power to subsume the mind. Whether you believe in ‘manifestation’, thoughts are creative, and they can also be destructive. It’s not a coincidence that the most destructive ones are those that are not true, by which I mean, the ones that are based on fear, attack or have no basis in verifiable reality. Yet one challenge you face is discerning those thoughts from what is real for you. The easiest way to tell the difference is going to be by the results. What leads to a creative outcome was a creative thought; what leads to conflict was a destructive or deceptive thought. To use this method of discernment you’ll need to track your mental process, through the actions it leads to, and then observe what happens. Think of this as observing yourself, which is a vital skill any time, but especially with Mars traveling retrograde for the next few months.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You need to apply effort, but a certain kind that to you might feel passive. The idea is to slip into the flow, and know when you’re there. You’re in one of the richest and most abundant creative moments for many moons — though this also has a potentially disruptive quality if you don’t ride the tiger just right. This is why I am suggesting a move-with-the-energy, no-resistance approach to what you have to do, and for engaging with the thoughts and ideas that pass through you. Definitely keep a notebook, and remember that not everything is worth acting on — but nearly everything will be worth considering, and some will be worth developing. Ideas for career development may have to wait, but it’s never too early to prepare with knowledge, strategies and most meaningfully, with a vision for what you want to do. Remember, visions develop in layers, and are combined of adding what you want and removing what you don’t want.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — I suggest you be cautious of any ideas that equate money to power. They are likely to be turned against you. You can think of money as creative potential or energy, but that is different than this thing we call power, as in the power to get people to do things, or to motivate you to action. If you’re looking for motives or inspiration, find more imaginative ones. You might think in terms of what inspires people to cooperate toward a creative goal, or any goal, for that matter. These days it seems that ideas have more energy than cash when it comes to focusing the energy of groups, and there’s certainly no shortage of those right now. I would note that there is a bold, new quality to what is coming through, which may seem to challenge your preference for what is tried and true. Yet it’s a fact that time marches on, and you’ve been trying to light the fires of progress for a long time.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — One of the defining characteristics of our moment is the refusal to think in terms of consequences. Notably, this is happening at a time when a lot of consequences of the past are emerging for everyone to notice. An aspect between the Sun in your birth sign and a small, potent object called Nessus, are a reminder to think your plans and desires through. Consciously consider a diversity of what-ifs. This is not for the sake of ‘worry’ but rather for the sake of considering your options based on the potential of what they might create. At the same time you’re doing this, you may be experiencing a boomerang effect of things that you initiated in the past and to which you did not devote this consideration. Now is the time to make the necessary corrections, one at a time, as you become aware of what needs to be done. Note that some will require going through layers to get to the core of the matter.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — There seem to be many hidden factors at work in your life, though the most significant, useful and creatively rich are the ones you can see, feel and hear. Certain factors in the astrology suggest that you have a line into the unseen aspects of your life, which you can navigate intuitively. Therefore, use your senses. Look and listen for opportunities, both to express yourself and to exchange with others. Most of all, feel what you’ve got: notice your resources, your potential and how much freedom you actually have to make choices. The truth is that many options are open, and your freedom is available to the extent that you can mix potential with focusing power. To get that equation right, it’s necessary to work both sides, and I suggest you experiment with one and then the other till you can put them both together. If you keep your eyes open and your mind on your priorities, that ability will come sooner rather than later.

Through the Looking Glass

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Neptune entered Pisces this week. In astrology, one of the measures of significance is how rare an event is. Neptune has not been in this position since 1847, just one year after its discovery, and a good while before the Civil War ripped the United States in half. No living person has experienced this transit before. So that qualifies as news. It’s especially news given that for the past 12 years, Neptune’s presence in Aquarius has worked like a fog machine to obscure the difference between truth and lies, to the degree where many are pleasantly oblivious to any distinction at all.

Illustration of Humpty Dumpty by John Tenniel, from Through the Looking Glass, 1871.

I realize that playing games with public perception is a time-honored tradition among the rich and powerful. Even as individuals, we have PR departments that work overtime, to make sure people think we’re pure and feckless. But the tools for manipulating perception have never been more influential, and it seems like the minds of most people have never been more susceptible to corruption (unless you count the ministrations of religion, which set us up to believe anything at all).

To be fair, the world has problems more serious than most mortals have any concept of how to confront, deal with or process emotionally. One could argue that denial is a reasonable approach. Yet the background fear level, coupled with that denial, is precisely what makes people so vulnerable to psychic attack. There is a direct relationship between denial of what is going on in the world around us and denial of our own personal material. And at times, the exaggerated sense that there is ‘something wrong with us’ can send the whole mind into denial — and this now has lots of cultural sanction.

Meanwhile, during Neptune in Aquarius, tsunami has become a household word. We have seen the flooding of New Orleans and many, many other places — too many to count (some days it’s hard to tell the difference between a tornado in the Bronx from a flood that covers a swath of New Jersey; it all blends together). Ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising to the point where island nations disappear under the water before our eyes — while climate change deniers tell us it isn’t so.

We’ve witnessed the contamination of the Gulf of Mexico with crude oil, and the federal government is back to issuing deepwater drilling permits for rigs using blowout preventer technology that predates the BP platform explosion. Thursday night, Rachel Maddow had on her program Michael Bromwich, the federal official responsible for issuing those permits. He defended using the old blowout preventers on the grounds that the federal government knew all along that they don’t really work. That’s what he said! It’s supposed to be an acceptable answer! If you would like to have the awakening experience of being really pissed off, here is that video.

For the past decade-plus we have been living with water on the brain. The first major example of a world-changing event under Neptune in Aquarius was the fraudulent impeachment of Bill Clinton — you know, the president who was dealing quite well with the federal deficit. That is to say, under Neptune in Aquarius we have been experiencing a wide-scale failure of logic. Though we can see the roots of this particular thought form going back a long way, the process has accelerated exponentially in these years of Neptune in Aquarius, which are now, finally, drawing to a close. Yet the damage done by floods is insidious.

I speak as someone with a lot of both Neptune and Aquarius in my chart. I respect these influences, and I know how destructive they can be. It is challenging to get your head above water; you have to really want not to drown. In order to function, Aquarius requires intellectual discipline, and Neptune requires discernment and a bit of detachment. When you subtract these, the psychotic politicians and the directors of television commercials set the tone of consciousness. We can, and did, end up with a political system that is ruled by people under no obligation to make any sense; no obligation to have any empathy at all.

Barack Obama greets Republican mastermind Karl Rove at a White House reception for freshman senators in 2005. Photo by Doug Mills for The New York Times.

Does anyone remember this bit from The New York Times Magazine, written by Ron Suskind? It’s an interview with a presidential aide to George W. Bush, from 2004, and is to me the essence of the Neptune in Aquarius era:

The aide said that guys like me [the author, a Times writer] were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Did you get that? He said, “You, all of you.” His psychic posture is demanding the total submission of the writer and his audience, that is, the whole population, to his own hallucinations. He is saying, we set the terms of reality, we will build our empire on this, and you must surrender (your mind and your will). Do you know who the speaker was? In a recent book, he was revealed to be Karl Rove. It’s no wonder that Rove is the reputed mastermind of the plot to get rid of Julian Assange, the creator of WikiLeaks. We cannot have any leaks of reality (such as our own documents) into this fantasy empire.

Now, it’s one thing that someone says this kind of thing, though it’s more appropriate for Shakespeare or a psychiatrist’s office than you would hope it is for anyone to be saying or even thinking in the White House. It’s another thing that Rove and his colleagues were and apparently still are involved in the military, the economy, the whole world. It’s what Lewis Carroll was getting at when he wrote this passage of Through the Looking Glass:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory’,” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

All paranoia, all the time — Glenn Beck, live and on the air, for now. Photo from Fox PR department.

Speaking of anything meaning anything, Glenn Beck didn’t last but a few days with Neptune in Pisces before he bailed out of, or was heaved overboard from, primetime TV. The imminent end of his psychopathology hour was announced by Fox this week, though sadly, no date was given. Beck has viewers, but apparently not sponsors (besides those selling survivalist gear, and gold, which qualifies as such). As Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, you can’t really sell cars or insurance policies or anything particularly useful when you’re also telling people the world is going to end.

The End, however, is a popular item among the populace. Expectation of the world ‘ending’ is the ultimate release from responsibility, from the drive for growth and, well, from just about everything else in our particular world and on our level of existence. In this context The End can translate to, ‘Why should I bother going for that new job, if the currency system is going to collapse?’

Because The End is near, you don’t really have to do anything. We don’t have to do anything, such as set about the challenging task of solving global problems that have amassed during the past century; why bother? Here is the thing not said often enough about the many, many people, including every single fundamentalist Christian politician, who are into The End. It’s the projection of individual mortality onto the collective. In other words, when a person is not mature enough to have a conscious relationship to death, one way out is to say that ‘the world is going to end’ and thus ‘we are all going to die’.

Suppressed orgasm — the very stock-in-trade of religion — pushes conflict around death to the level of a psychic frenzy. Everything, including every relationship, becomes a survival drama. It is a condition wherein the mind cannot let go or embrace the idea of change. If political leaders know a lot of people are simply not dealing with death or sex (matters of the 8th house), then the money aspect of the 8th house is open to being pillaged. Money becomes the symbol of survival and the symbol of power, and that in turn can be used to manipulate anything.

Proposed Shutdown of the Federal Government

At the moment we are witnessing a drama wherein the federal government may be shut down today. I guess this happens every few years (the last time was about 15 years ago), but I don’t remember any such incidents directly. As it’s being explained to us, the Tea Party movement’s new representatives in Congress are pushing the more traditional Republicans into an agenda disguised as ‘austerity measures’.

Pushed by the Tea Party movement, Speaker of the House John Boehner is trying to use the budget crisis as a way to get rid of Planned Parenthood and take regulatory power from the EPA. Wire service photo of the great man.

Congress could pass a temporary law to keep things funded as the different sides work out the issues. This has been going on for a while, and each time, the Mad Tea Party tacks on conditions: We will vote for this temporary extension if you cut this much more money and include this brilliant idea.

The latest version of such a temporary spending law was passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives yesterday, which includes 60 measures that read like the right-wingnut wish list: de-funding Planned Parenthood, taking away regulatory power from the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce clean air and water laws, stripping from ATF its ability to collect information on people who want to buy multiple weapons, and on and on. There is an agenda in operation. The problem with these wild conservative proposals is that they are unpopular with most Americans, so it’s necessary not only to sneak them in but to force them though using this kind of blackmail. Then they get on TV and talk about how they want to be fiscally responsible. In truth, the Mad Tea Party agenda includes threatening to cut funding to the troops (which means their families) and hold that as ransom in order to withhold reproductive healthcare for young women.

This is similar to how Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, has tried to bust his state’s public employee unions as a supposed austerity measure. In fact, he created Wisconsin’s budget deficit by giving huge tax credits to big companies. And the unions themselves are budget-neutral; they merely give a lot of money to Democratic candidates. This strategy is becoming standard fare for our times — create a fiscal emergency, then do everything in the name of responding to that emergency. Here we have an example of pure Shock Doctrine politics: everything is done in the name of a crisis, or of responding to an enemy, and generally in the name of fear. It still amazes me to see my fellow human beings stand in front of a TV camera and spew out lies right in front of everyone. It amazes me that we cannot look at them and recognize: these people are so messed up emotionally, how do we trust them with that much power?

Fred Rogers testifies before Congress on the importance of Public Television on May 1, 1969 when Nixon was threatening funding to the program. You can watch the video here — it is amazing.

Among the other items on this same legislative agenda are getting rid of Public Television, NPR, Medicaid and Social Security. Clearly, our nation is in the grip of an opportunistic infection of the mind, based on its weakened integrity. Under this theory, tax cuts for the rich remain the answer to all the world’s ills. I watch a lot of cable news. I keep hearing guys from the Mad Tea Party come out of the room and say, “Yeah this is gonna create jobs. Lots and lots of jobs.” Most newscasters just let this go by unquestioned, and the general public — outraged by high taxes — just swallows it whole. But they (which is to say we) don’t get the tax breaks!

I am wondering how much Americans must have taken away from them before they figure out that something is missing. How long before we wake up from our ADD around social consciousness and realize we can do something? I wonder what we think is the purpose of all these taxes we pay. If the social programs all disappear, all we’ll have are bombs and guns. For those who live in a world of pain and fear, that does make some sense.

I will add, however, that the introduction of Chiron and Neptune in Pisces is a game-changer. Like anything involving Pisces, it may take a while to get tangible results. The first thing that will change is perception. Outer planet transits always shift the whole climate and our perception of the world around us. For a while the lies will be transparent before we figure out what to do about them. There are other game-changers that are en route, particularly Uranus square Pluto. That is the action piece. I’ve said in previous articles that this presumes something against which to take action — and now we’re starting to see what that is. The next essential step is coming from a positive vision for the future, and I know that seems like a heck of a lot to ask right now.

When In Doubt, Raise the ‘Safe’ Level

Also this first week of Neptune in Pisces, Japan dumped 15,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Engineers managing the cleanup of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant were making room in ‘low’-level waste tanks to hold high-level water (some of it reported to be 5 million times more radioactive than the allowable levels). Thus, the ‘low’-level water had to be flushed, and the only place to flush it was the Pacific. The official line is that these persistent toxins will he harmlessly absorbed by the ocean, but one would need to have no understanding of biology to believe that. These toxins will migrate through the entire globe through a process called diffusion, while at the same time moving up the food chain in a process called bioconcentration.

Finally, a clear image of the external damage at Fukushima. This picture, taken by a small drone aircraft, shows the destroyed reactor building of Unit 4, the one with the spent fuel pond that kept bursting into flames. The photo shows the scale of the building, which has been nearly impossible to see in previous photos. Photo: Air Photo Service Co. Ltd., Japan. More photos here.

A strong aftershock hit northeastern Japan on Thursday. Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS) reported: “Today’s earthquake (which we have seen variously reported as between 7.1 and 7.9 in magnitude) has knocked out power in some sections of northeast Japan. The single-unit Higashidori Boiling Water Reactor and the Rokkasho reprocessing plant have lost offsite power and are running on emergency diesel generators. Offsite power may also have been lost to the three-unit Onagawa nuclear complex, although there is a report that power remains for the reactors themselves, but not for the fuel pools and that those are relying upon emergency diesel generators.”

Meanwhile, as radiation continued to spread across the United States, the EPA raised the supposedly ‘safe’ level of radiation exposure — something that Japan did recently as well. According to The Tennessean, a Gannett newspaper (associated with USA Today), “The EPA is preparing to dramatically increase permissible radioactive releases in drinking water, food and soil after ‘radiological incidents’, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.”

The newspaper reported that the rule does not require public airing before it’s decided upon. The article continued, “Drinking water, for example, would have a huge increase in allowable public exposure to radioactivity, the group says, that would include: a nearly 1000-fold increase in strontium-90, a 3000 to 100,000-fold hike for iodine-131 and an almost 25,000 rise for nickel-63.” Gee, when the going gets unsafe, redefine safe. This would not be the first time in history that the ‘safe level’ has been raised to just above the probable exposure level. That’s how it’s done with PCBs and dioxin. You clean as much as you can (or feel like paying for), and call it good.

For some reason this reminds me of Alan Hale, the state legislator in Montana who is arguing in favor of abolishing drunk driving laws. He also happens to be a bar owner. Here is some video of that. But back to nuclear power.

Physicist Michio Kaku, one of the founders of string theory, has been outspoken about the nuclear crisis in Japan. Photo: BBC World Service.

Michio Kaku, a professor of physics at City College of New York, is warning that “three raging meltdowns” are underway at Fukushima. Here is that video interview.

But probably the most distressing news of the week came in the form of speculation, though based on history and the available facts. Yoichi Shimatsu, a Hong Kong–based environmental writer and former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has proposed that the nuclear installation at Fukushima was housing a covert nuclear weapons program. She believes that several of the reactors were functioning as enrichment devices rather than as civilian power plants.

She writes:

“The smoke and mirrors at Fukushima 1 seem to obscure a steady purpose, an iron will and a grim task unknown to outsiders. The most logical explanation: The nuclear industry and government agencies are scrambling to prevent the discovery of atomic-bomb research facilities hidden inside Japan’s civilian nuclear power plants.

“A secret nuclear weapons program is a ghost in the machine, detectable only when the system of information control momentarily lapses or breaks down. A close look must be taken at the gap between the official account and unexpected events.”

The Way Forward, Through Pisces

I recognize that none of this is pleasant to think about. But it all points to the need for something better. If we want the quality of life on our planet to get better, we need ideas, and we need ways to apply those ideas. But first we are going to need to understand our thinking, and the thinking of the people who are pushing the world into various nightmare scenarios. Or maybe we don’t need to understand them, actually — maybe we only need to understand ourselves. That might actually work.

For example, if we challenge our tendency to believe lies, that blocks the process of deception. It actually stops the pathogen of deceit in its tracks. That is about shifting our own motives toward valuing truth. Sooner or later, we will need to face this shadow that is cast over humanity, yet for now we can begin with our own hearts, minds and souls.

One of the most dysfunctional beliefs is that what we think, feel or do does not make a difference. That is to say, if you ask the question, “What does my being more informed about nuclear power do to prevent a nuclear accident?” you may get a null answer: logically, it may make no difference at all.

You may decide that, if you live within 100 miles of a nuclear power plant, you need an evacuation plan. That will help you and your family but it won’t help solve the larger problem. In fact, however we analyze it, there may not seem to be an answer to the larger problem. We can make token gestures, which make small contributions, which might add up — but that takes a good bit of self-convincing.

So what if we take the whole situation as a matter of personal integrity? What if that’s the only thing on the line? What if we make just one decision — to stop believing lies? That is by default a commitment to be more discerning. It is a decision to be better informed. It implies a decision to be more honest with ourselves, and in turn, more honest with others. Doing this would shift our relationships toward integrity. I know we don’t usually think of this as being associated with Pisces, but that’s what time it is.

Yours & truly,

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Mercury Retrograde: A Change of Mental Perspective

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury stations retrograde on Wednesday. This is a little like turning up the volume on our mental environment.

Poster by Kevin Paulsen. Photo by Eric Francis.

And that environment has been overwhelming lately. Monday’s news that plutonium is leaking from one of the crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant is a reminder of what you might encounter on an hour-to-hour basis, if you pay attention. For more than two weeks, events at this fairly typical nuclear plant have been spinning out of control — the latest in a very long series of developments that are reminding us how close to the edge the world really is. Since Sept. 11, 2001 we have lived through a decade of one calamity after the next. Just how many of the ‘one of the worst earthquakes ever’ can we have in a few years?

Heck, we’ll go back merely to the first week of January, when the prevailing news was birds falling out of the sky by the thousands and fish floating to the surface of streams. If that seemed a little ominous, it actually was; the day after we reported that, the shooting happened in Tucson. Then there was a wave of revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. Then the corporate puppet Teabag party governor tried to shut down the public unions, leading to three weeks of the most massive U.S. protests since the 1960s. Some governments gave in; others started shooting at their people (Bahrain, Syria, Libya). Then came the quake and nuclear crisis in Japan, which, by the way, is every bit as serious as it was the first day; the threat of a meltdown is just as great. Radiation is leaking into the atmosphere, the groundwater, the oceans and has spread across half of Japan. Then the US, NATO and its allies went to war in Libya, with no plan to get out.

So, let’s be clear. While the world needs attention and its systems need updating and rethinking, and while things fall apart, those who have taken over society are spending most of their time making war and taking money. The two are related. And one way or another, this is affecting all of us: energetically, emotionally, spiritually, economically. If you happen to know people in Japan, you will be feeling that personally. If you’re one of many people who loves Japanese culture for some inexplicable reason, you are feeling this. If you live near a nuclear power plant, you’re feeling how vulnerable we are. You have probably never had to abandon your home and the pattern of your life as a refugee, but the way the world is, you may be able to relate to the feeling.

I don’t care how deep a person has their head stuffed in pillows as the alarm clock goes off again and again: everyone is feeling the global call to awakening. For some this is exciting, for some it’s annoying and for others it’s literally terrifying. As you watch videos of that tsunami sweeping away cars, tractor-trailers and warehouses full of goods, you realize the power of the natural world to impact our lives; the order of nature becomes apparent, and I think that’s liberating.

Everyone’s favorite nuclear power plant operator.

It is easy to lose context in the midst of all of this; to lose connection with the greater scheme of existence. It’s also possible to be brought into connection with that greater scheme, with others who care, with others who want to grow and make a difference rather than freak out. I would remind you — maybe I don’t have to — that plenty of people are actually, genuinely scared. By that, I mean certain people among your coworkers, friends and neighbors, who are feeling the potential for everything to fall apart, or maybe even yourself. I mean kids who might have a clue what’s going on in the world, yet not fully understand or have a way to process the information.

One morning about 10 days ago, I woke up, looked out my bedroom window and saw the rain dripping from the neighbor’s roof. I was grateful it was not radioactive rain. Here is the truth. We may not be able to say that for long, and in fact there is a large, densely populated part of the world where rainwater is carrying elements like cesium and iodine. Tap water as far as Tokyo is contaminated, and radiation has turned up in many crops. Plutonium has escaped from Unit 3 and has been found outside the plant. Remember that there are numerous nuclear plants with the same design currently operating in the United States. I would note also that while actual increases in radiation are not apparent everywhere, there are some individuals who can feel an energetic breach like this, or an injury to the Earth, no matter where they are.

And here is something else: there may be a lot of people who just don’t care. Part of the skill of being alive now is not letting the zombies and the green, three-eyed space aliens get you down. Part of how you do that is by maintaining a sense of who you are. Note that this is not usually experienced as certainty but rather as an active question. Once you become comfortable with the question, you will be a lot more comfortable with who you are. If you keep asking the question the same way, you may get frustrated. Therefore events and astrology come along to shake up the whole matter — and that is what Mercury retrograde in Aries is about.

Here is a short summary of that transit, which goes from March 30 through April 23.

Mercury represents the mental environment. It is not merely the ‘theme of communication’ or ‘the mind’, but rather where consciousness intersects the world around us. The two patterns overlay one another and create a totally unique pattern within our minds. Because it’s so compelling, and dominates consciousness so thoroughly, we tend to associate this pattern not merely with what we are experiencing, but also with who we are.

Chart for Mercury stationing retrograde.

Aries, where Mercury will be retrograde, has lots to say about who we are and who we think we are — and at the moment Aries is the scene of a revolution. When Mercury stations retrograde Wednesday there will be six major points collected there — the mean lunar apogee (Black Moon Lilith) on the Aries Point, Uranus one degree away, the Sun, Jupiter, Eris and Mercury. Not shown on any commercial chart is a point you’ve read about here — 1992 QB1.

Here are a few highlights:

Mercury is making a series of conjunctions to Eris. The furthest known planet from our Sun, Eris represents the personality chaos that marks our era in history. It’s the obsession with not knowing who we are. There is a lot of freedom in over-emphasizing that ‘you don’t know’ — such as being liberated from the need for authenticity. Once you tune into who you are, the next logical step is to stop bullshitting yourself and anyone else. Awareness of self implies commitment. You can gradually become powerful in that way that you always struggled with not being. Mercury is stationing retrograde very close to Eris. It’s just made a conjunction and over the next five weeks as the retrograde works out (the process is longer than the actual 24 or so days that Mercury’s apparent motion is in reverse), there will be two more. This is an opportunity to see your issues for what they are, and to assemble the seeming pieces of yourself into a cohesive idea.

Mercury is close to a conjunction with 1992 QB1. This is the planet that helps us get past the notion that ‘death rules’. I suggest we take a look at how deeply and unconsciously we accept that. In our current version of the world, whoever has the power to kill is the boss. Have you ever considered this one? Oh, Mr. Policeman has a gun. My husband might beat the snot out of me (and kill me). That nuclear power plant might blow up — we better treat the guy making millions off of poisoning our kids as a god. Taking that to another level, we are fond of the phrase, ‘death and transformation’. Oh, doesn’t that just make the notion of change sound like a wheelbarrowful of fun? 1992 QB1, as the first planet [ever] discovered beyond Pluto, offers another notion of change; another idea of transformation. Its energy feels more like gradually slipping into orgasm than someone coming along and saying, ‘change or die’. The thing is, this requires willingness.

Tags on the wall, Kingston, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.

Mercury is making a series of conjunctions to Jupiter and oppositions to Saturn. This sounds like an experiment in understanding the difference between willingness and resistance. Human consciousness is not merely dualistic; it requires contrast to be able to sense distinction. People who either blur everything into one gray mess or see the world hotly polarized in stark black and white are not seeing the subtle shades. Jupiter and Saturn are more similar than most astrologers acknowledge, representing complimentary rather than contradictory energies. It just helps to know the difference between the way the water feels and the way the edge of the pool feels, and Mercury getting into the opposition of Jupiter and Saturn is here to offer us the sensation of that contrast.

Part of the contrast is the difference between self and other. Oppositions imply relationship. On the most basic level of astrology, Aries represents self and Libra represents other and our relationship to other. We now have a kind of revolution happening in the sign of self, complete with the planet of revolution (Uranus) right there. But we tend to get stuck in out-moded concepts of relationship and then caught in the confusion of not understanding why we feel so trapped. Conventional wisdom holds that there is no other way, except to seek self in other and then get stuck there. But at the moment the influence of self-awareness is so strong we’re likely to figure out that we don’t need another to be who we are; we can be who we are and relate to others if we want.

One last. The Moon is conjunct Neptune waaaaaaay at the end of Aquarius. There have been more than 150 Moon-Neptune conjunctions in Aquarius over the past 12 years or so, and now there are just a very few more before Neptune takes up residence in Pisces in 2012; and just one more before Neptune visits Pisces starting next week. Cutting a long story short, the conjunctions in this last degree of Aquarius are an opportunity to help us transform our emotional body into a living instrument tuned to subtle energies (rather than the sticky, heavy thing that we so often experience it to be). Most of what we think of as growth, transformation and healing involves our emotional body, which is the thing that tends to get stuck in the past no matter how smart we are. However, part of the challenge is about doing this at a time when there is an enormous emotional strain on the world, indeed many; it is daring to open up and let yourself feel at such a moment.

Mercury retrograde offers us many chances to shift our mental perspective as an experience and not merely as an intellectual concept. As you take this ride you can actually experience different sensations based on seeing the world differently, which is another way of feeling your own existence differently. That starts with consciously exploring with curiosity and willingness rather than resistance and judgment. Those are your basic choices. And in them more is contained than you may think — for example, we are actually face to face with the potential to spark a global awakening.

Catch you Friday with a weekly horoscope.

Yours & truly,

PS, looking at the minor planets, there is also a triple conjunction of three asteroids — House, Hera and Memoria. It’s time for something other than jealousy, shame and control drama to rule the roost. True, one has to have some authentic confidence to allow in another idea. It’s possible, and it’s easier if we’re willing to consider the alternatives.

PPS, here is the article about the most recent Mercury station direct, in early winter. And here is the article about the corresponding Mercury station retrograde three weeks earlier.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s

new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Attention Light Bridge Subscribers: Light Bridge audio readings are now available for half the signs — the rest are coming soon! If you have not signed up yet, you may do so here. Everyone is invited to read the articles on the Light Bridge blog, which will update periodically. Customer reviews of Light Bridge are collecting here. Don’t miss the free audio introduction to the project that explains how I created these seven-year readings. To everyone: thank you for your patience while we completed the written phase of Light Bridge.

Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span

Dear Friend and Reader:

Planet Waves has just completed a digital compilation of my writing about 2012 dating back to 1987. It’s called Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span. The span extends from the Harmonic Convergence through to the winter solstice of 2012. [Here is an audio introduction. Here is the purchasing link. Note that this is a different project than the Light Bridge annual edition.]

The articles in the collection are drawn from a number of sources, including Planet Waves and our various annual editions, as well as blog entries, my notebooks and one from an earlier book called 313. The book begins with a new piece that covers the history of the Harmonic Convergence and its possible influence on world events. I then present a retrospective of writing describing events that fit the pattern, either historic or philosophical, of how we approach the topic of irrevocable change. Even if you’ve read some of this writing before, the pieces will now come together when you see the ideas in context.

I have consistently treated the concept of 2012 as something we are creating now, even as time accelerates and we race toward the future. Different articles offer perspectives on the Mayan day count as well as the Western astrology associated with 2012. I am not making predictions; rather, my intent for all of these articles has been to focus our minds on the present moment and enter the future through immediate awareness. I am describing the process of opening up to the moment.

The book is beautifully illustrated with Mayan-inspired glyphs created by Carol McCloud.
These are like no artwork you’ve ever seen before. Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span comes with a separate file of historic charts. We have done our best to leave links to other sources embedded in the text.

As you may have read, Jose Arguelles, who created the Harmonic Convergence and first called attention to 2012, died Wednesday. According to his website, before he departed he said to his apprentice, Stephanie South, “I have done all that I could on this planet. I am being called to assist in the closing of the cycle from the Other Side.”

Arguelles was the author of The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, which became a kind of platform for creating the Harmonic Convergence. He was also author of Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013 which was a book and a game that came out in 1990. Dreamspell is an interpretation of Mayan daykeeping that teaches one to use the Mayan calendar in a practical, accessible way. Arguelles was the father of the current movement to adapt Meso-American calendar systems and other alternative models for considering time. In a sense, what we think of as time is really a prison that locks us into a time/money orientation of consciousness.

I was never Jose’s student, but his ideas have touched my life and informed my astrology through different teachers, friends and colleagues. We think it’s an intriguing synchronicity to be making this work available when so much attention is being given to Jose’s ideas.

Here is ordering information. Delivery is instant. The format is a downloadable PDF with images solid enough that they will print nicely.

Thank you for your interest. I think you’ll love this project. It’s been a lot of fun to create.

It’s only change —

Here at the Edge of the World

Leave a reply

Atlantis as envisioned by computer graphic artist, for the Nat Geo program Finding Atlantis. The producers say that the image is a composite of many ideas from classical monuments.

Dear Friend and Reader:

In the midst of all of this nuclear madness, Nat Geo channel premiered a special about some scientists who have discovered the remnants of what they believe is the lost city of Atlantis. Its location, according to the theory? Some mud flats in southern Spain, near Portugal, called Donaña. The program, called “Finding Atlantis,” was created for the Nat Geo channel by a Canadian production company, and with a little research is revealed to be controversial.

Beneath this concrete dome on Runit Island (part of Enewetak Atoll), built between 1977 and 1980 at a cost of about $239 million, lie 111,000 cubic yards (84,927 cubic meters) of radioactive soil and debris from atomic bomb tests on the Bikini and Rongelap atolls. The dome covers the 30-foot (9-meter) deep, 350-foot (107-meter) wide crater created by the May 5, 1958, Cactus test. Note the people atop the dome. Credit: Defense Special Weapons Agency.

The original archeological project, started by a Spanish team and then joined by Richard Freund of the University of Hartford, searched the Donaña bogs using a kind of MRI device, looking for underground evidence of a civilization of which they seem to have found some additional clues (this is a previously researched site). Freund proposes that the location of the presumed Atlantis focused on by the special was destroyed by a tidal wave. “This is the power of tsunamis,” he told Reuters. “It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about.”

“Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years,” Reuters reported as background to the program. “Plato’s ‘dialogues’ from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis ‘in a single day and night…disappeared into the depths of the sea’.” Yet though many have gone searching for Atlantis, others believe that Plato was speaking in a kind of intellectual metaphor.

Of the things about the archeological find that Freund claims exist, the most endearing are models of the fabled city that were supposedly created as memorials by its refugees who landed in Spain — something denied by the Spanish scientists who say that no such models were found. For our purposes, though, it doesn’t matter whether the TV special is true or not — what matters is that the symbol of Atlantis makes a spontaneous appearance in our culture just as the world is on the brink of nuclear disaster.

Though we know very little about the actual Atlantis — including what it was called, when it existed, or whether it existed — the archetype of the lost continent is a persistent aspect of human consciousness. Sometimes it’s called Lemuria, or Mu. From one past-life regression about 10 years ago, I have a direct memory of being captain of a merchant marine vessel when Antarctica was inhabited, at the time of the mass evacuation from that continent. According to what I learned in my regression, one of the destinations for refugees was Spain. My wife went there. I stayed behind. It turned out that the leaders of the society who ordered the evacuation were about a century or two early in their predictions.

The myth of the lost civilization is persistent and it is intriguing. So, too, is the notion that a civilization, such as our own, might fall by its own undoing. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t considered whether this is inevitable; not out of any particular meanness or religious belief, but rather because we’re such a bunch of dumb asses who refuse to wake up.

Until 1970, solid low-level and transuranic waste at the Atomic Energy Commission’s nuclear weapons facilities (shown here is Hanford Reservation, circa 1950s) was frequently disposed of in cardboard boxes. Once filled, this unlined trench would have been covered with dirt, leaving the cardboard to deteriorate and allowing the waste to contaminate the soil and leach into the groundwater. Photo from the Brookings Institution archives.

In modern mythology, Atlantis represents a society that was stricken from Earth because it was unable to handle the technology that it created. In some versions of the tale, that is specifically what we (in our era of gadgets) would think of as spiritual technology (telepathy, mental manipulation of matter and time), yet where the ethical capacity to handle these talents has failed to evolve along with the power we hold.

It is the same basic idea; and it’s the same issue we’re facing now. It’s what Kurt Vonnegut was talking about in Cat’s Cradle, which we read about two weeks ago when I covered Borasisi. In a particularly literal moment of astrology, the idea for the chemical that ends the world came out of General Electric, when Vonnegut was a PR man there. Notably, GE manufactured the transformers that are now threatening to spin totally out of control. This gives us a hint, by the way, that Borasisi has a resonance with the long history of crimes committed by GE.

Atlantis shows up as a factor in astrology as well. Minor planet specialist Martha Lang-Wescott delineates the asteroid (1198) Atlantis with the following themes: “Sense of impending doom; belief in deserved punishment/negative karma; invasions of privacy; access to inside or confidential information; abuse of resources, talents or information; importance of confidentiality/use of knowledge; water disasters; warnings.”

In a phone interview Thursday, Wescott added another theme: “The other part of Atlantis is a negative projection, and we’re seeing a lot of that. Atlantis is ‘doomsday is here’.” For example, she says that, “People with Venus/Atlantis aspects doom their relationships. If Atlantis is prominent [in a public chart], then you’re going to hear astrologers talking about doom and gloom.”

Here in our era dominated by the negative obsessions of fundamentalist Christians, there’s plenty of that; it’s a religion based on the Revelation or the Rapture or the Apocalypse, which is the supposed ‘end of the world’ — predicted relentlessly for the past two thousand years (blended artfully with a radically sex-negative message), and presumed in modern times to be nuclear. I often wonder whether all these negative projections about cataclysm are adding up to the thing itself. Human thought is powerfully creative, and the federal budget has a lot of potential.

Museum display replica of the ‘Fat Man’ bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Photo is from the Digital Photo Archive, Department of Energy (DOE), courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives. It is part of the Manhattan Project collection.

It is little known that J.R.R. Tolkien, in a work called The Silmarillion, gives his own version of the fall of Atlantis, an island he calls Numenor, located off of the western shores of Middle Earth. Numenor existed about 35 generations prior to the commencement of action in The Lord of the Rings. Anyone who has read this book has met and loved one of the descendants of its refugees — Strider (Aragorn, son of Arathorn), who becomes King Elessar I. Most of the wondrous places that readers visit along the way as Frodo and Samwise seek to destroy the ring were created by former Numenorian refugees and their descendants. The fictional empires of Arnor and Gondor were founded by a handful of people who escaped to Middle Earth right before a quake and tsunami destroyed Numenor. That is why they were described as the ‘race of kings’. They founded empires. Incidentally there is a direct bloodline back to Elros, the founder of Numenor preserved by Strider in the group of which Strider is a part, which is known as the Rangers of the North. In other words Strider would be heir to the Numenorian throne, had that civilization existed in his day.

The most beloved fantasy novel of the 20th century has its early origins in a version of Atlantis. Numenor falls because its people, who live long and abundant lives in a kind of paradise, are terrified of death. They first become obsessed by wealth, then they crave the power and immortality of the gods who live on islands further west. Their downfall is propagated by Sauron, in an earlier incarnation than we know him in The Lord of the Rings. Their hubris is spiritual rather than technological: based on their fear of the unknown, they want to live forever.

More recently, in Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a part that I think of as the Atlantis passage. “As I have said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink,” God says to Walsch at one point in their dialogue.

“I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.”

Whatever you may be hearing about the nuclear crisis in Japan, this week human civilization is now revealing how close it is to doing just that.

Fukushima Daiichi: Thousands of Tons of Radioactive Waste

As of this writing on Thursday evening, here is the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. All six of its reactor cores are in some level of distress after being damaged by an earthquake and tsunami one week ago. We’ve been covering this extensively on the Planet Waves blog — here are some of those articles, and my most recent audio. In short, the tsunami damaged the reactors’ cooling systems, which has allowed the fuel to heat up and in three cases, partially melt.

Uncapped spent nuclear fuel stored underwater in K-East Basin on the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. Photo is from the Department of Energy archives.

As a result, there have been hydrogen explosions in reactors 1, 2 and 3. From what I am reading, it’s fairly certain that the explosions in 2 and 3 breached the steel inner containment structures. Fuel cores have been exposed in all three due to cooling system failures, and there is a struggle to keep any water level at all in units 2 and 3. This means the fuel cores have melted partially and may melt entirely if they get too hot and the self-sustaining reaction goes out of control. When you hear news reporters use the word ‘catastrophic’ to describe something worse than is now happening, that’s what they are hinting at.

While a full meltdown creates a worst-case scenario for reasons I will explain in a moment, Unit 3 has a special issue: about 6% of the fuel is called MOX, or mixed oxide, which contains plutonium.

Plutonium is another universe of toxicity than uranium. Inhaling as little as one-millionth of a gram can cause lung cancer, according to Dr. Helen Caldicott, co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility. I would dare to say it’s more toxic than the worst dioxin, TCDD. Every single gram of the stuff is supposed to be highly regulated. So there is a special focus right now on Unit 3, though the presence of plutonium is rarely being mentioned; it is getting a bit of attention and I’m glad of that. Here is an NPR article that covers the issue, even as the Tea Baggers try to pull federal funding for that station. And it is mentioned in this New York Times article.

Impressively, the Times reported Thursday night, “The decision to focus on the No. 3 reactor appeared to suggest that Japanese officials believe it is a greater threat, since it is the only one at the site loaded with a mixed fuel known as MOX, for mixed oxide, which includes reclaimed plutonium.”

This is a tank farm under construction on the Hanford nuclear site in Washington. The principal function of the tank farms is the storage of byproduct material left over from plutonium extraction operations prior to permanent disposal. This byproduct material has no useful purpose and is stored in 177 underground storage tanks with a cumulative total capacity of 55 million gallons, with individual tanks ranging up to 1,000,000 gallons (pictured). This waste material is composed of toxic chemicals that were used to remove fission products from irradiated reactor fuel. Photo is from the Department of Energy.

Unit 4, meanwhile, has another issue. The spent fuel pond (a storage area for massive amounts of old fuel rods) has run dry (or was pumped dry in an emergency need for water) and the old rods are getting very hot from fission reactions that are stirring to life — hot enough to potentially melt down. Unit 4 has burst into flames several times, apparently not from hydrogen explosions but rather from the fuel rods themselves starting to burn (most likely, the explosive zirconium cladding). The problem with spent fuel is that it contains high concentrations of the degradation products of fission, a whole stew of isotopes that move through the food chain and can jeopardize many organ systems.

Units 3 and 4 are currently being doused with seawater by helicopters, a technology better suited for fighting a forest fire. This is an utterly desperate measure. Units 1 and 2 are, we’re told, being refilled ongoing with fire hoses and water cannons. As of late Thursday, engineers were still trying to restore power to the plant, which could provide some hope of the remaining cooling systems coming back online. And, by the way, there are problems with the spent fuel storage facilities heating up in Units 5 and 6, though the reactor cores in those units are presumably in fairly good shape compared to the others. But I have not heard the words ‘cold shutdown’ applied to them.

Assuming the situation stays stable for a while and is eventually brought under some vague semblance of control, that still implies the release of a plume of radioactive steam, an underground plume and a flood of radiation into the Pacific Ocean. This will contaminate much of Japan, and because the Jet Stream carries air east at a fairly rapid speed, I’ve read the plume will reach North America (particularly the West Coast) as early as this weekend. The levels may seem low at the moment. But relatively low levels of radioactivity can cause the same issues as higher doses based on what is known as the Petkau effect.

In addition, there is the issue of bioconcentration. Radioactive materials move through the food chain quickly, concentrating not only in predators but (for example) also in grass-eating cows. There is no such thing as a little radiation, and every drop of the water being dumped onto these reactor cores is turning radioactive and being released to the biosphere.

Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Laboratory presents award to Robert Oppenheimer, a key scientist who developed the atomic bomb. Left to right are Oppenheimer (the wraith in the white hat), General Leslie Groves and Robert G. Sproul. Photo is circa 1945, from the Digital Photo Archive, Department of Energy (DOE), courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives.

That was the good news. Borrowing from Rachel Maddow, I know this is a difficult time to say worse, but it actually can get worse and has been hovering close to it from day to day.

Remember that we are in new territory where nuclear accidents are concerned. This specific thing has never happened before. However, it is probable that if even one of these reactor cores or spent fuel ponds goes into full meltdown, it can sink below the land, reach the water table and create an underground explosion that destroys the small swath of land where this drama is unfolding, causing all of the reactor cores and spent fuel to go out of control. In any event there would be too much radiation for anyone to stay on the site keeping a grip on the others.

That would make Chernobyl into something that seems like a Science Fair experiment by comparison — and it wasn’t. There were about 180 tons of radioactive fuel involved in Chernobyl. At Fukushima, there are at minimum 1,000 tons and so far as I can tell, as much as 3,000 tons (including spent fuel) based on comments made by our government Wednesday, all concentrated in this one facility. (Rachel Maddow covered this in some detail last night).

The Full Moon, and the Aries Sun Conjunct Uranus

The astrology for the next five days is not particularly encouraging, though if the workers now sacrificing their lives at the plant can keep a grip on this through around March 24, I would say the situation might de-escalate. Here’s my reasoning.

Leó Szilárd, one of the co-inventors of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb. Recalling the night of his invention, he wrote, “We turned the switch, saw the flashes, watched for ten minutes, then switched everything off and went home. That night I knew the world was headed for sorrow.” Original copy of this image is held in the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Oregon State University Libraries.

We are currently building into the Full Moon in Virgo. This is a close Full Moon, happening at perigee. It’s running with a lot of momentum, and it’s happening at the very end of the astrological year, with the Sun at equinox — about to enter Aries. Hence Saturday’s Full Moon is an Aries Point event, which (as we have seen) tends to magnify things greatly and brings a lot of people into whatever situation is involved. It’s the world crashing into your living room. It’s you taking part in collective destiny in some direct way, just like we saw the people of Wisconsin do.

The Full Moon represents a peak, and the Sun-Uranus conjunction exactly on the equinox represents a kind of collective surprise development. Let’s hope that’s about some friendly space aliens showing up with their radiation extinguishing devices and cooling off the whole situation; that’s approximately what we need right now, because so far, things could use improvement.

A number of other features make this a pretty special Full Moon. For example, it’s directly involved with the lunar nodes (which I covered two issues ago, and in the second article down). It’s exactly square the nodes, which gives the event the feeling of an eclipse, or a point of no return.

The lunar nodes are aligned with two particularly meaningful points. The node in Sagittarius is pointing to the Galactic Core; hence, this Full Moon is square the core of our galaxy. This stirs up a spiritual crisis. To me the core represents our connection to Source, or our homing signal. The star that Planet Earth hangs out with is located 25,000 light years from the core — far out near the edge of the galaxy. And our star is located between two of the spiral arms. So we are in a distant, remote location, in the boondocks of the galaxy — and for this reason I am not surprised our particular planet so often has a ‘god forsaken’ feeling. The square between the Sun, the Moon and the Galactic Core suggests strongly that we have to seek inwardly for our spiritual connection. It also represents events that might provoke us to do that, and I would say if you have not noticed that fact yet, this is an awesome time to pay attention.

Remember that on our plane of reality, emotional impulses are binary: love and fear. Many have a hard time telling the difference. Here is a clue. If it does not feel like love, then it’s probably fear.

The ground crew of the B-29 “Enola Gay” which atom-bombed Hiroshima, Japan. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot, is in the center. Photographed on Mariana Islands in Guam. The entire Enola Gay’s flying crew on Aug. 6, 1945 consisted of 12 men. The plane was famously named after Colonel Tibbets’ mother. Photo: UPI.

The South Node, opposite the Galactic Core, is conjunct a point that keeps showing up again and again in charts. The point is at 28+ Gemini. This is a very strange spot in the zodiac that shows up prominently in the charts for Sept. 11, the Asian tsunami of 2004, WikiLeaks, two key charts for Japan — and then for the quake one week ago. These are events that involve the breakdown of systems, turning points in history and in one case someone who is working to tell the truth about those systems.

I happen to have the asteroid Beagle there, and I’ve been hunting this point like a hound for several years. Up till now I was aware that the connection could not be a ‘coincidence’ (I covered this in my first article on WikiLeaks, by the way). Now, this is not merely a point that appears in the charts for catastrophes; it comes with an odd kind of disaster that seems eerily out of place — and it’s also present in people or things that raise our awareness. For example, WikiLeaks just published memos that prove Japan knew it could have this problem years ago.

When I saw how involved it was in both the charts for Japan and the quake, that made me more curious. There is a fixed star at this point, called Betelgeuse. I knew this star was there but I never researched it. A friend looked into it this week, and she dug something out of a 17th century astrology textbook — no ordinary one, the first one ever published in English, called Christian Astrology by William Lilly. He associates the star with “rare engines of war.” That is a quote. Now, that is interesting, since at the time he wrote that there was no such thing as a jetliner or a skyscraper.

Checking Wikipedia next, we learned more. Betelgeuse is a red star, connected with Mars. “With the history of astronomy intimately associated with mythology and astrology prior to the scientific revolution, the red star, like the planet Mars that derives its name from a Roman war god, has been closely associated with the martial archetype of conquest for millennia, and by extension the motif of death and rebirth.” Notably this star is opposite the Galactic Core, facing toward intergalactic space. It feels that way.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Here is what I am thinking. As these global events come closer together, it’s starting to feel like someone is doing all of this. I got that feeling the strongest over the weekend pondering how this extremely rare quake — the 3rd most powerful on record — struck a region in Japan just where there are numerous nuclear reactors (including others not currently in distress). When I read the phrase rare engines of war, I suddenly felt like I was sitting in the middle of someone else’s war.

The question is: whose war, and over what? I don’t know, but I can tell you that the atom was not split for peaceful purposes. It was split with the intention of killing a lot of people. That much is history. Most wars are fought over the usual stupid reasons — power, greed and egotism. Heck, why not? The world is ending anyway.

Next, it occurred to me that this was a war in which environmental disasters were being used as weapons. When Friday’s quake happened, there were a spate of posts that went around about how the federal HAARP facility on the Alaskan tundra was turned up to full tilt at the time. I wasn’t in the control room taking pictures — I don’t know. But many people believe this is an electromagnetic device capable of changing weather patterns and inducing seemingly natural disasters. But this is not my field of inquiry; it was a little too tinfoil hat for me, that is, until I was looking at video of nuclear reactors blowing up one after the next.

So, I started asking around. I asked a friend who is an engineer if you can make an earthquake. He sent back a number of references, the most interesting of which was a quote from Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense, a guy named William S. Cohen, during a news briefing. The quote comes from the Department of Defense transcript of that briefing.

The atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

He said he had read about the prospect of “some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves” [emphasis mine].

Gee whiz: the very secretary of defense speaking, not some conspiracy (or astrology) website? And, um, like — others are doing this? Like who for instance?

Saddam Hussein? Castro? Russia? Darth Vader? Well, whoever.

When the United States is talkin’, it’s always someone else. We’re nobody special, just the only country ever to use the Bomb on a population. And we happen to have one of these electromagnetic wave thingies — a really big one and it keeps getting bigger. That would be HAARP. And this is not particularly new technology. Stuff like this was being developed by Nikola Tesla, an electrical engineer who was busy in the early 20th century. Tesla, who invented alternating current and thus the modern electrical grid, was ahead of his time. In 1897 he was researching cosmic rays.

I just looked at his chart. He has Mercury in that mysterious 28+ degree of Gemini: Mercury, the planet of the mind, of ideas and of messages. By the way — for what it’s worth — he was the biggest rival of Thomas Edison, the founder of GE — the company that designed those nuclear reactors that are melting down.

Thank you, that was all very interesting

— but at the moment we’re sitting here wondering what to do. Wondering what’s going to happen to all that radiation. Wondering if they’re going to get a grip. And the show is not over — far from it.

In addition to the 2012 configuration (Uranus square Pluto) I’ve been describing for weeks, there are many other aspects gathering around the Aries Point that I haven’t mentioned yet which hint at the possibility of a confrontation. These are about self-awareness awakening us to the forces of darkness that have, so far, kept themselves rather well cloaked. I mean, one definition of the perfect war is one that nobody knows is going on. It looks like something else.

In terms of how to process all this disaster by design, my own preference is to be aware rather than to pretend something is not happening. My preference is to stay connected and creative and curious rather than to pull away. I choose to embrace this moment with a sense of adventure rather than dread. This is a moment of collective awakening.

It may be the beginning of the very moment of collective awakening, here at the edge of the world.

I just have one question for you — what are you doing?

lovingly,

Additional Research: Tracy Delaney, Amanda Painter and Carol van Strum. Photo Research: Sarah Bissonette-Adler. Many readers have contributed ideas, facts and proofreading — thank you.

Waterfall at the Grandmother Land on Earth Day 2010. Photo by Eric Francis.

A Full Moon in Virgo: Turning a Corner

Saturday’s Full Moon in Virgo represents a turning point on many accounts, illustrated mainly because the axis of the Full Moon is square the nodes of the Moon. This is being called a ‘super’ Full Moon because the Moon is at perigee particularly close to the Earth. You can think of this as opposite Black Moon Lilith, the lunar apogee, or you can just think of it as large and close.

Full Moon chart set for Kingston, NY.

The Moon and Sun are also square a point out of a system of astrology we don’t usually use here — that point (a hypothetical, without an actual physical body but with a symbolic and mathematical presence) is called Hades, and it’s in late Gemini. This seems designed to help us become aware of anything that is “unpleasant, useless, antique or deeply buried,” in the words of Arlene Kramer, such as power generation inventions that don’t work and that we don’t need. Similarly in our own lives we might look for defenses, ways of relating to ourselves, ideas or concepts of dualism that no longer serve us.

Hades (not shown in the chart, but at 28+ Gemini) also represents the occult, and the secrets of the atomic world would clearly qualify, making any dark sorcerer proud — except for the fact that no sorcerer likes to see his spell run wild. Still, we need to go deeply into whatever it is that we encounter, make an authentic inquiry and check our basic facts. This is a slow-moving point covering just a degree a year, so it’s going to be hanging around that odd degree that binds together many of the biggest news events of the past decade.

Part of what makes this chart influential is the proximity to the lunar nodes. When the Sun and Moon are conjunct or close to either of the nodes, we usually get an eclipse. When they are square the nodes, there can be a similar sensation. This is an especially close square, coming in at less than one degree away, so this chart indicates both a turning point and an opposition one needs to integrate into one’s psyche in order to proceed with a growth process. That opposition might involve the emotional nature of Pisces and the mental nature of Virgo, an opposition which can cause significant struggle (as if the two have nothing in common).

The nodes themselves align with the Galactic Core — the North Node points right to it. There is an idea that we need to focus on the homing signal represented by the core of the galaxy — that irresistible pull toward the center of consciousness that might be at odds with the normal human experiences of feelings/thoughts and that can seem to exist on a different plane of reality. In fact it can seem so different that we pretend it’s not there, or get entirely distracted in the rest of the sensations we’re feeling. The intensity of this Full Moon suggests that the polarity between the male and female principles (illustrated by the Sun and Moon) becomes so intense that it dawns on the mind that there might be a better way.

This is also an Aries Point event; the Sun and the Moon are both close to Aries and Libra. The Sun is close to an exact conjunction to Uranus in Aries, which it will be through the equinox. This suggests something new; a new idea about oneself (Aries) or about where we fit into the community (Uranus). The world is not always based on the choices we perceived yesterday — often there are other alternatives that we can invoke, though they will take us on a seemingly narrower path.

For an interesting comment on the Full Moon chart, please visit this article on the Planet Waves blog.

Last chance to tell…

For three years, Mark Cocker, the author and conservationist, has been working with BirdLife on a massive and remarkable initiative that documents how birds fill our lives. Called Birds and People, the project is building an international chorus on just why birds are so important to people, how they resonate throughout human cultures, and how they influence our responses to wider nature and the environment.

Eagle Hunters crossing the Altai plateau in Mongolia (David Tipling).

Mark is now calling for more stories, and the next few months will be that last chance to contribute and get your personal experience into Birds and People.

Birds and People will be a unique book for many reasons, but particularly because it contains original contributions from people around the world. Already, the stories of more than 420 people are woven into Mark’s authoritative text — from Paraguay to Portugal, from India to Australia, Azerbaijan to the Bahamas. More than 60 countries are represented already.

Images for Birds and People are being gathered by renowned bird photographer David Tipling, who has already travelled widely seeking pictures. In these examples of his work, red-crowned cranes are trumpeting at dawn on Hokkaido in Japan (shown in link), and the Eagle Hunters are crossing the Altai plateau in Mongolia, en route to the Ulgii hunters festival in October 2009.

Back From the Edge

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Dear Fellow Traveler:

Today is the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I do have some good news to report in today’s short edition (which does not include a horoscope), but first I suggest we pause in remembrance of the people who unexpectedly met their end as the American B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb over them on a warm, cloudless morning. Three days later, in a move that made no sense for strategic purposes, the American military dropped another bomb on the city of Nagasaki.

Born in Quincy, IL, in February 1915, then-Col. Tibbets (center) was one of the pilots who tested the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the world’s first atomic bomber. He was the commander of the mission that dropped the first atomic bomb on a population. Photo retrieved from BBC obituary of Paul Tibbets. See gallery here.

To glimpse the mentality behind the use of the atomic bomb, let’s consider that Col. Paul Tibbets, the commander of the mission, named the B-29 after his mother — her name was Enola Gay. As if to emphasize the point, the ship was codenamed Mother. The bomb was codenamed Little Boy. And 65 years later we are still killing mothers and fathers and small children, and it is rare that I hear a word of dissent. So while we’re asking how this could have possibly happened, we need to ask how the same thing is happening today.

I have covered the astrology of Hiroshima previously, on the Planet Waves blog. That entry includes the chart. I did the astrology of Paul Tibbets for Jonathan Cainer’s site several years ago — here is a link.

The Hiroshima chart has an image of mother and little boy — an exact Moon-Saturn conjunction: exact as if someone had planned the chart (I’m sure nobody did). Saturn, ruler of the feminine sign Capricorn, is often an image of mother and matriarchy. The Moon is an image of mother, or of child. The implicit message is sick: blame mom for this ethical and technological disaster. And it has the signature of craving an emotional high, one that is typically expressed sexually: a Venus-Chiron square. Most significantly, the chart picks up something called the Nuclear Axis — the defining moment of the nuclear age, when an atomic reaction first took hold — from every corner. Currently there are two potent, slow-moving minor planets dancing around the Nuclear Axis, which forms a cross through the early-to-middle mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.

They are the centaur Pholus (small cause, big effect) and Ixion (anyone is capable of anything). Isn’t that charming? So we — whoever ‘we’ is — need to be careful. And they form a conjunction from March 2011 through September 2014. This happens near the Great Attractor, which is like a giant energy magnifier in the middle of (go figure) Sagittarius. So we have another image of what 2012 is about, and that sounds like sorting out this nuclear issue both politically and spiritually.

When we think of our great country (and by that I include the UK and allied Europe), we need to remember Aug. 6, 1945. When we think of our constitutional democracies and the lifestyle that it’s possible for us to attain here, we need to remember this holocaust — literally, an all-consuming fire. Holo means whole, as in holistic. Caust means burns, as in caustic. When we wonder what it’s possible for humanity to do to itself, and wonder about Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot, we need to remember Harry Truman and the Enola Gay.

The bomb went off over the Shima Surgical Clinic. Truman came on the radio shortly after the bombing and described Hiroshima as a military base. He was lying. (Like many cities, it had one, but it also had a large civilian population.) He told his fellow Americans that we had done God’s work. It is incredible that there hasn’t been more outrage or even philosophical pondering of the use of an atomic bomb on a civilian population. It happens occasionally. Few people are aware of the reference in U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.

The Shadow of the Bomb

I have a theory about the nuclear issue, which is that it lurks in the background of our minds all the time. Those of us who were born before the Berlin Wall came down were basically raised on the idea that humanity could blow itself up within 15 minutes any day of the week. We’ve all heard of the near-misses caused by geese being picked up on radar as incoming missiles, which may be urban legends — but that doesn’t matter. It is very much the thought that counts.

The first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima early in the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The explosion and radioactive fallout killed 140,000 immediately and many more in subsequent years. The bomb was extremely inefficient, fissioning just 1.6% of its fuel. Photo retrieved from BBC obituary of Paul Tibbets. See gallery here.

So when we wonder why the people who run the world, and we who are part of the world, can live with the many games of brinkmanship that go on every day, we have an example of how we are trained to live with this as an emotional state. I am asked several times a week whether “the world will end” in 2012 and what stuns me every time is that people seem to accept that this is a possibility.

And it is true, it’s technologically possible to wipe out a lot of humanity using manmade devices in a very short time. As kids, we all spent time, perhaps a lot of time, thinking about this, and it is soaked into our cellular memory. The vision of the mushroom cloud is something that everyone exposed to books, movies or television has seen, and we all know what it means. And this potential did not exist before Aug. 6, 1945, when the great and good United States of America became the first and so far only nation to drop a nuclear bomb on a population.

For those who are interested in considering the implications of the nuclear issue, I can recommend two books: American Ground Zero, a book of photos from the testing era in the American Southwest; and The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell. If I had my way these books — particularly the first — would be out on a table in every classroom. The first describes the nuclear testing program centered in Nevada and New Mexico that conducted 140 air burst detonations in the 1950s and 1960s, including extensive human and animal experimentation; and the second describes the consequences of nuclear war and how we can avoid it.

This really is our problem. It may seem that awareness of how it influences our psychology and emotions is all we can gain from understanding history, but that is where the healing process begins. On a deeper level, I believe we need to understand what humanity is capable of, and the depth of shadow we possess — at least those of us who want to be empowered members of our race, devoted to creating a sane and peaceful world.

And in News from Vesta

On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco has ruled that Proposition 8, the Mormon-backed amendment which banned gay and lesbian couples from marrying in California, is unconstitutional. This is a victory both symbolic and real. It won’t take effect immediately — the judge made his ruling and then stayed the decision until appeals can be filed by the losers. Everyone knows how this is going to shake out. Everyone knows that [some] heterosexual people don’t have the right to claim that marriage is exclusively for them.

Hon. Vaughn Walker.

This is a truly incredible decision, which sorts out the issues in a clear and declarative way. After an exhaustive trial, court found no evidence that heterosexual couples do a better job raising kids than homosexual couples. Heterosexual marriage is not harmed by the creation of homosexual marriage.

Here is a little taste of the ruling’s language:

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”

Gee whiz. Those of us who are civil rights freaks live for paragraphs like that. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who tried the case and wrote the decision, was first appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan (his nomination was stalled) and then nominated a second time by George H.W. Bush (it was approved by the Senate). So he is supposedly a conservative’s conservative. Now the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, he is also gay.

As Time put it, “Instead of ‘gay marriage’, Walker wrote in a 138-page ruling, there is just marriage — and everybody is entitled to it, no matter what gender they and their would-be spouse happen to be.” This is called equal protection under the law, which is provided in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This is the same amendment that grants citizenship to any child born in the United States, and which has recently come under attack by the Tea Party.

This is also the case where supposedly archconservative attorney Ted Olson (solicitor general under Bush) joined forces with supposedly uber-liberal attorney David Boies to sue the State of California on behalf of their clients, a gay couple and a lesbian couple, who sued because their rights were being denied.

Richard and Mildred Loving sued the Commonwealth of Virginia for the right to marry, which even in the 1960s was banned by state law. Today we look back at that and wonder what flavor crack everyone was smoking. As a result of their lawsuit, all race-based restrictions to marriage were ended in the United States. In a few years we will be wondering what people who favored banning gay and lesbian couples from marriage were thinking. Wire service photo.

As this decision came out Wednesday, Venus was conjunct Vesta. Conjunct, as in you would think they planned it that way — again, I am sure nobody did, except the great cosmic dance of synchronicity. We have a glimpse into this marvelously complex asteroid that few astrologers seem to notice has everything to do with sex, sexual orientation and sexual shadow material such as guilt and shame.

Why do certain people rabidly oppose homosexuality and try to push their position on the whole population? Well, it doesn’t take much of a psychology background to figure out that they’re not dealing with some of their own issues. At the end of the day, homophobia is fear of oneself. Homo means same, and you cannot get more same as you than you. Homophobia is self-hatred, and when these folks make laws or constitutional amendments that affect what millions of people can and cannot do in their most private lives, they are projecting their self-hatred onto society. The personal is indeed political.

This case is headed for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and almost invariably to the Supreme Court. All the legal scholars I’ve heard comment on the decision say it’s impeccably well-crafted and it’s going to hold up under scrutiny. The facts of the case are set in stone; now it’s up to the higher courts to see if the judge applied the law correctly. Just like in the 1960s when the ban against interracial marriage crumbled (in 1967, during the last Saturn-Uranus opposition), we are watching history being made before our eyes.

In addition to Venus-Vesta, which clarifies a theme, this decision came in what we will remember as a momentous summer of the cardinal T-square on the Aries Point.

Plugging the BP Well

And in yet another not-so-random bit of good news, BP killed — as in really killed, with a cement plug — its runaway oil well Thursday. The well blew its five million or so barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico concurrently with Chiron in Pisces, nearly to the day. The rig exploded about 22 hours after Chiron entered Pisces, and was initially capped July 15, stopping the flow of oil five days before Chiron retrograded back into Aquarius.

We learned a lot from this process. This week we were also told in a NOAA (the federal agency that regulates the oceans and the atmosphere) report that most of that oil had mysteriously disappeared; that the Gulf of Mexico had somehow cleaned itself up. We will know something close to the truth when Chiron returns to Pisces in February, or rather, that is when the real damage assessment will begin.

Venus in the Cardinal Cross; Leo New Moon

On a strictly personal note (there is no such thing, of course), Venus enters Libra today, and joins the cardinal T-square. It will make conjunctions to Saturn and Mars, square Pluto and oppose Uranus and Jupiter — that’s a lot of Venus action in a few days. Then tonight the Moon enters Cancer, joining the cardinal cross as well. The whole arrangement aligns with the June 26 lunar eclipse, shaking a few fruits and nuts out of that cosmic tree.

Simplified chart for Venus ingressing Libra late tonight (early morning Saturday in Europe and the UK). The Moon is at 3+ Cancer, precisely opposing Pluto for the event. This is an emotional, fast-moving setup where events, feelings, love affairs, opportunities and various forms of drama can precipitate quickly. Pay attention! More details are in the free weekly audio.

It might be a lot of fun — Venus is an eccentric planet, and loves to get up off the couch and become a totally different cat from time to time — or it could be emotinoally stressful. The Moon is suggesting that our feelings could go through a whirl of hot water, passion or indulgence. These would be a fine few days to cultivate the art of avoiding drama and imbibing trust, and learning how to let loose and experiment with your feelings in a creative (rather than destructive) way. We do a lot of suppressing our feelings and desires here in our moment of the Anti-Sixties, and the charts are saying that there are plenty of other possibilities.

For those curious about the Leo New Moon on Monday, I have covered that in the latest free weekly audio, along with an introduction to the forthcoming Mercury retrograde in Virgo. The Leo New Moon is opposite a conjunction of Nessus and Damocles — not asteroids, but high-voltage minor planets — and is something of a game of psychological chicken, played out on a cosmic scale. This New Moon seems like the perfect opportunity to keep your sense of self, and your esteem of self, when faced with those who perpetuate psychological abuse as a way of life.

The two aspect patterns — Venus-Moon joining in with the cardinal cross, and the New Moon opposite Nessus and Damocles — are related. What they have in common is that we need to learn how to make better relationship choices, and to discover the limits of when to stop identifying with another person and their role in our life. The missing piece is our sense of self: literally, our sense of existence. As I have suggested before, many of us barely know we exist, and we would be a lot happier if we had the revelation that we do. Often we need to figure it out. In that process of deductive reasoning, we can start with making a list of all the people we think we would betray by existing — and proceed from there.

I will not be writing Tuesday, and there are no more August horoscopes to distribute; I’ll be back Friday, one week from today. I’ll send out a reminder Tuesday. Daily Astrology & Adventure, our positively awesome blog, will continue updating, and I do plan to do Wednesday’s audio — so listen for me there.

That’s the news! We’re living through once-in-a-lifetime astrology. You can taste the freedom that brings sanity.

Yours & truly,

Eyes Wide Shut

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Sometimes it feels like we, the people, are just spitting into the wind. For reasons I cannot fathom, there are those who think that the way things are is the way things are supposed to be. They think out-of-control Wall Street is a necessary evil, that adventure capitalism is the only way to keep the boat afloat. They believe insurance companies are a necessary middleman dedicated to our wellbeing, leaving us to fight for our right to be victimized. They think militarism is still a way forward toward stability and power even as we borrow to invest in unnecessary wars. Maybe they aren’t thinking at all, and that’s the problem: they just don’t want to know the reality of our situation.

An article in The Wall Street Journal this week floated the notion that the rich no longer need the working class to sustain them, because thanks to NAFTA, their money is invested and yielding profit overseas. This outsourced economy is the logical consequence of decades of stagnant wage growth — essentially flat-lined since 1973 — and constant erosion of the middle-class for more than a generation. Remember failed Democratic candidate John Edwards, who was wrong on so many levels? He was right on the one that counted: we live in two Americas, but few are willing to admit it. The rest are not only in a state of denial, but use every possible pretense to keep from recognizing the ugly truth about our political, military, financial and social systems.

For instance, documents examined recently by The Washington Post reveal a shadow government of more than 850,000 employees with top secret clearance overseeing our national interests. With neither public oversight nor fiscal accountability, homeland security has metastasized into a huge, unwieldy, ever-expanding secret government. The Washington Post tallied up “more than 1,200 government organizations and more than 1,900 private companies working on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in some 10,000 locations across the U.S.” Given this level of overkill, I’d have expected someone to sound the alarm on this as either blatantly un-American or overblown bureaucracy run amok. I didn’t hear a peep.

In addition, Wikileaks has provided an unwholesome picture — in 76,000 leaked documents — of Afghani and American incompetence and cultural limitation during many years of war. The reports, which mainstream media and government dismiss as neither news nor secret, reveal American attempts to prop up an illusionary Afghani government to be as effective as herding cats. The record shows that our intention to root out Taliban and al Qaeda quickly dissolved into supporting thugs and coddling traffickers, giving us little to celebrate ethically or militarily. What is most disturbing about the Wikileaks revelation is that the flap about leaked state secrets didn’t even phase us: we’re so used to being lied to that we fully expect a truthful version of events to surface eventually, and we’re so apathetic we can’t even rouse ourselves to defend the whistleblower.

Continued at this link…