Hard to believe how quickly this year has passed. So much for the “time speeding up” theory being all in our heads. Or not. Maybe the fact that each day is jam packed with so much noise and news and mayhem that our brains are bedazzled, spilling over with a glut of information, accounts for why we can’t recall the details from yesterday’s breakfast or even the telephone call we got ten minutes ago. That can create the illusion that life is one endless stream of crises, requiring ingestion of at least one Emergn-C® (the equivalent vitamins of 10 oranges without any of the pleasure of eating them) a day to boost our immune system.
You can’t contemplate a new year without taking a scan of the old one, jotting down a few notes, and this year was packed full of all manner of dire speculations and dangerous thinking, infecting the whole of our conversation. We had ISIS and Putin and Clive Bundy and Ferguson. We had missing airliners and erupting volcanoes and an annexed Crimea. We had the Clippers and Syria and McCutcheon vs. the Fed and Hobby Lobby. We had Palestine and Israel, the XL Pipeline and fracking. We had Ukraine and any number of school shootings and Ebola.
We had EPA changes by presidential authority, hundreds of thousands of political commercials, and a mid-term election that proved, without a doubt, that the average citizen does not understand politics. Now we have the Attorney General and Secretary of Defense resigned with no replacements in sight; we have Obama determined to use executive power to close Gitmo even if the Republicans swallow their tongue over prisoner placement, and that’s if they even notice, now that they’re busy suing over both Affordable Care and immigration. We have a lovely mess, indeed.
2014 was, essentially, Year Two of the new Era, the first to allow our chronic problems to break the surface, catching our eye like half-buried diamonds waiting for someone to notice their sparkle. Racism, sexism, classism — they glitter brightly. This current year seemed to bring everything up for our careful attention, while seeming to have no agreement about what, if anything, to do about them. The Republicans, for their part, didn’t even try, but the Democratic attempt to break through their stonewall was so puny as to be embarrassing.
This was a political year with little political movement, essentially, but all the big themes were there, exposed and glittering dangerously, for us to examine. It’s taken us awhile to get the full picture but now we see pretty clearly, don’t we? Now it’s up to us to decide what to pick up, what to lay down, what to mend and carry forward into the future.
I read an AP article this week that startled me. I had to stop and think about how the dots connected to our global challenges, because clearly — they did. The article was titled “How Torture Physically Changes The Brain Forever”:
At times, waterboarding rendered al-Qaida terror suspect Abu Zubaydah hysterical. But later, a message to CIA headquarters described an interrogator merely lifting his eyebrow and snapping his fingers, leading Zubaydah to “slowly (walk) on his own to the water table” to lie down.
The Senate torture report released earlier this month describes how the CIA’s harsh interrogation program sought to make detainees passive and powerless to resist, using techniques from sleep deprivation to stress positions to waterboarding to induce a state that psychologists call “learned helplessness.” ”Compliant” was the interrogators’ description of Zubaydah.
While this article describes the result of pure torture — the kind we peek at through our fingers in war movies — there are all kinds of torture in the world. I’ve seen interviews with those who have survived physical torture, and you can see it like a shadow behind their eyes, a presence within them they will carry forever. And yet, I’ve seen fundamental Christians similarly afraid of their own thoughts and the snapping fingers that control them.
I know that some of us are held prisoner in financial situations that make it near to impossible to refuse to do jobs that seems torturous to us, and many of us have been stripped of dignity by loss of income, health, relationship or opportunity. Even self-doubt, inflicted upon ourselves, is a kind of emotional cruelty that stops us from being all we can be. There are many kinds of torture in the world, and all of them leave a mark of learned helplessness and compliance.
Still, forever is a long time, and we’ve faced down demons before. On the other side of these emotional bombshells, when we discover we’ve not only lived through our suffering but learned how to make the best of it, there is a renewed sense of self available to us. We can overcome much of what frightens us with the help of those who have already gone through it. We can begin to get a sense of our self, unafraid of those who seek to control us, when we know we don’t stand alone. I think this is the year that those who are willing to awaken will look for an outstretched hand to take — will yours be one of them?
I have great hopes for 2015. We accomplished a good deal this year under ridiculously constricted circumstances. We made great strides in matters of same-sex marriage and transgender issues, and although we are facing an emergency regarding women’s right to choose, feminism seems to be recreating itself. We’ve reconsidered the War on Drugs, decriminalized weed in many places and legalized it in others. We’re examining civil liberties, something we’ve taken at face value as “done” since the last Pluto/Uranus dust-up.
We’re kicking up the diamonds of racism, sexism, fiscal corruption and warped political influence. We’re rethinking everything, attempting to meet the needs of citizens on local levels, influencing from the bottom up, and learning how to take care of one another. We’re finally growing into ourselves.
The planets have moved into position, over and over again, to give us an opportunity to heal ourselves. They will continue to amp up the energy for our transformation as we approach the last of the 2012 squares that have shaken us to our roots and shown us so dramatically what no longer works for humanity. The finger-snappers of the world are losing their power because those who have sleep-walked through these generations are finally awakening to the pain and the possibilities.
We’re entering the third year of the New Era. We have our work cut out for us, but then — we’re cut out for the work. With open hearts, there isn’t much we can’t accomplish. With a dangerous year behind us — a year of sorrow that brought those ancient, diamond-hard problems of hatred and mind-control into stark relief so we could say we’d finally seen them, awake and aware — the fireworks ahead of us should be less fearful. Perhaps we can even find them exciting, knowing them as we do and newly knowing ourselves.
There will be challenges, and we’re up to them. There will be sorrows, and we will come together to heal them. Ultimately, there will be progress because we can’t do without it. There is no question of “if.” The question is “when,” and only we can answer. If we choose, we can put the end to finger snapping and mind control, to media bullshit and political nonsense. We must have the courage to simply face it down, every time it seeks to intrude. Once we become proficient at that, demons chastened and chased away, our healing is sure and our future bright.
2015 looms, coming up quickly. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Make it everything you want it to be.
Boy, you can say that again Jude. . one endless stream of crises. How much can a body and mind and heart take?
You have seen the Big Picture too; how the masses have been brainwashed, just like the torture victims, into submission. Thank goodness the human being is pretty pliable and can recover from most all assaults on our psyches with enough love. Thank you for putting it all into perspective once again; how we are going through a process – so far 2 years into it and now we begin the 3rd with much more determination to not only survive but thrive.
A note to P. Sophia in hopes she will see it. . . I have a very sick computer and although I wanted to respond to your first noting of having a planet at 11+ Aquarius, I can only be on line for a certain amount of time and then I get cut off. Please be aware that in January (11th through 13th) Venus and Mercury will transit (conjunct) 11+ Aquarius, then the Sun will do the same on January 31 and February 1. Be alert to any push to react or behave in certain matters that seem to spring from nowhere. You could be extra sensitive to the energies described by the outer planet ingress charts in which all three have symbolism tied to that degree. Hopefully, by the end of January I will have a better grasp on how that works, and also have a new (or at least a fixed) computer!
be
Judith: Beautiful! Thank you. Barbara, I agree – so much can be healed. One of our limiting beliefs is that our wounds are forever. That feeling is part of the wound, and it’s not true.
Here’s my 2014 story: this was the year I finally left my codependent marriage, which meant leaving my home and work, as well (we ran a farm together) – then the job I was counting on didn’t come through. I went from living on a lovely organic farm, with all my physical needs abundantly met, to sleeping in my truck for four months. Things are better now – not just better: I’m no longer afraid of that kind of loss. And I’d had no idea how much I was sacrificing just to have an illusion of safety – how much life, self, community, and compassion.
I know there’s more challenges to come, within myself and, now for me, out in the world – I know they’ll come because now I have more courage and more faith that facing them is well worth the fear and pain. They’ll come because I want them! I understand now that a million things I took for granted were just “they way things are” aren’t necessarily as fixed as I thought. Seeing what I’ve gained already, personally, by shaking things up in my little life, I’m excited to apply this new feeling of confidence and power in the larger world.
I want to encourage people not to value the peace and stability of their lives so much! Remember that line from Braveheart, when Wallace is invited to a meeting that’s probably a trap? One of his men begs him not to take the risk, and Wallace asks, do you know what will happen if we don’t? Nothing.
Here’s to another year of waking up, facing up, and kicking up!
I’ve been given a 2nd chance (by my computer) and since I last read your article this AM, I was thinking about all the trouble the U.S. (and the rest of the world) has gone through since the 12/21/12 solstice 2 years ago. We may not have known what it meant to have a yod in that chart that put the U.S. Uranus at the point which had to adjust, but we do now!
That yod was made up of Pluto (8+ Capricorn) sextile Saturn (8+ Scorpio) in mutual reception (double trouble) both quincunx (adjust) Jupiter (a lot of) at 8+ Gemini retrograde, who was conjunct the U.S. Uranus (unexpected). The solstice chart had the Moon (14+ Aries) opposite the U.S. Saturn (14+ Libra) which is pretty self-explanatory.
Another chart I thought of that might be revealing regarding the trauma of the (American) people as outlined by today’s look back was at the triple conjunction to the U.S. Sibly Moon by transiting Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune. That happened in 2009, the year after Pluto entered Capricorn, at least the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction part, as Chiron would turned retrograde days later. In it, Jupiter and Neptune (and Chiron) were sextile Mars at 26+ Aries, as well as being sextile the Galactic Core (26+ Sagittarius). It would suggest that the U.S people (Moon) were being readied (conditioned) to express themselves (Mars in Aries) in a way that Universal energies (GC) were compliant with.
Less than year later, in February 2010, Chiron would finally conjunct Neptune, in the same degree of 26+ Aquarius, and this time they were sextile Juno at 26+ Aries as well as sextile the GC. Since Juno is a symbol of the search for equality, it would appear the 3 planets, Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron were inoculating the U.S. People (U.S. Moon) with the spirit of resistance to suppression. In both of these charts of slow-moving planets conjunct each other and the U.S. Moon and Pallas were divinely inspired; a wake-up call of sorts.
In May, 2017, transiting Uranus will reach that degree, 26+ Aries, where first Mars and then Juno (trine the GC) made a sextile to the conjunction(s) between Jupiter-Neptune and Chiron-Neptune. At that time Saturn will be conjunct the GC making something of it. The U.S. Moon and Pallas will still be mid-way between them. Here’s the good part, it sounds like a plan to me. Knew you would want to know the following. . . . . .
Sabian Symbol for 26+ Aries (27 Aries in Dane Rudhyar’s An Astrological Mandala) is: THROUGH IMAGINATION A LOST OPPORTUNITY IS REGAINED Keynote: Revision of attitude and inner revaluation
So apparently we are going through an attitude adjustment, nothing more. 🙂
be
Well said Patricia and welcome to the club of survivors who have faced their fears and come out ahead of the game. Sounds like a Pluto transit (facing fears) which always seem to last forever.
be
Thank you, Barbara! Could be Pluto – he’s in my 5th house (Sag, untenanted) – and my writing has opened up beautifully since I left. But I think the major influence is Chiron return – it entered the orb in April, when I left, and will be in conjunction till 2018! I’m buckling in for a long ride!
Oh good grief! We have another missing Asian flight!
Whaaa? Yes, got it from CNN . . . left Surabaya, Indonesia at 5:30 AM for Singapore. . . missing more than 8 hours now, 162 on board I believe. Time might be approximate, but if correct:
Asc: 24+ Sagittarius
MC: 20+ Virgo
Chart asc. ruler Jupiter at 22+ Leo rx, in 9th house
Moon near IC 24+ Pisces (square ascendant)
Saturn in 12th house
Sun/Pluto/Mercury/Venus in 1st house
Pluto-Mercury square nodes
Pluto in new degree as of Saturday, Jupiter in new degree as of today, Saturn in new sign as of Tuesday.
re: takeoff time of missing AirAsia plane from Indonesia:
Ceres at 25+ Sagittarius on the ascendant (along with all those minor bodies in Sagittarius)
Vesta conjunct Pluto 13+ Cap
Eurydike (don’t look back) conjunct Sun 6+ Cap
Minerva (aka Pallas-Athene) 22+ Taurus rx square Jupiter 22 Leo 02 rx, so had not yet left 22nd degree for 21 degree of Leo . .my bad
Klotho 5+ Pisces conjunct Neptune (Klotho spins new thread, as opposed to Lachesis at 0+ Libra conjunct Super GC who twists the thread, or Atropos at 14+ Sagittarius conjunct Great Attractor who cuts the thread)
So glad you shared your story with us, Patricia — as be sez, those who have come out the other side of that dark tunnel make up a survivors club, and that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Who I am today was born in that struggle … and since that occurred thirty years ago, I’m living proof that there is life-after-wrecking ball!
It’s amazing how much misery we can wrap our arms around before we’ll act on what we know we must. In your instance … and mine … it appears that relationship is what the lesson teaches us, but in truth, we’re in relationship with everyone and everything, and the dynamic is applicable in all areas of life.
For instance, I was fired a couple of times in my past — I was miserable in each of the jobs, but didn’t know how to do without the paycheck, so hung in, white-knuckled. Looking back, I don’t recall any huge crisis in finding new positions on the other side, but I can instantly call up the agony I felt being stuck in limbo, like it happened yesterday. Honoring myself was the key, and truly, when one finds themselves that unhappy in ANYTHING, they may find … looking back from a better perspective … that they had already “poisoned the well” of the situation, making a quick release the better part of valor. Finding courage to tell the truth to ones self comes first, then to everyone else, but that first step is a doozy, so … well done, kiddo! I celebrate your liberation and your possibilities!
Re: the Plutonian energy, I’ll NEVER accept a rationale for it’s being downgraded from a planet! I can’t think of anything more powerful at re-making humanity. We’re currently dealing with so much of the rubble produced when Pluto went through Sagg and we came nose to nose with religious dogma, fanaticism, philosophical polarization, the attack on education, yadda. The debris bled over into the shift to Pluto in Capricorn, creating personal experience with which to view the impersonal structures that have fractured. Now the systems, themselves, are shaking as we examine who and what we’ve allowed ourselves to become — and that seems like the perfect next step for transforming ourselves.
Have to say, be, that thinking of our changes as mere “attitude adjustments” make me laugh, but that DOES make sense if I think of it as an adjustment-a-day, year-in, year-out, particularly in the last decade. A channel I particularly appreciate says that our consciousness is growing by leaps and bounds, not in spite of our many challenges but BECAUSE of them.
http://www.matthewbooks.com/matthews-messages/
“In short, everything happening in your world is purposeful! Knowing that every volatile, disappointing or highly-charged issue is a step toward peace, fairness and justness lets you view all situations and individuals without judgment or condemnation. Indeed, a great deal more is needed to materialize the fullness of the Golden Age, and it is coming. The change that starts within each person is creating the groundswell of love that is transforming your world, and behind-the-scene efforts in this respect will start blooming unmistakably.”
As regards the missing flight, my son said this morning, as we watched CNN (groan!) show distraught relatives waiting for word of their loved ones, that he hopes they aren’t “strung along” like the last set of hopeful’s were, and that appears to be the case. There was an immediate announcement when the plane went missing and services for relatives began at once. And, although this flight changed it course to try to avoid bad weather, it did so in conventional terms, no deviating completely from flight plans. Searchers know where to look, and while this is likely to have sad outcome, it doesn’t appear to be the clusterfuck that Malaysia Flight 370 was … and still is.
Thanks for the commentary, dearhearts — and to all, may our New Year bring everything we need to Lift us into … as A Course in Miracles has it … a happier, gentler dream.
Thanks again Judith, I hope the relatives and loved ones aren’t strung along either. I wanted to note that the flight apparently (they said later) took off at 5:35 AM, which doesn’t change the numbers much from what I listed. Ascendant is now 26+ Sagittarius and MC is now 22+ Virgo. Both of these signs and degree numbers tie into something that occurred to me after some sleep.
Jupiter (in dramatic, theatrical Leo at 22+ degrees) is and has been square the degree of the 2000 conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn at 22+ Taurus. duh. The Virgo (nature) MC of this lost plane takeoff trines the 2000 Jupiter-Saturn conjunction which transiting Jupiter squares. I believe the air disasters will lead to the positive benefit of greater awareness of the oceans’ garbage and its effect on the marine life.
With Ceres at the ascendant of this chart (and conjunct the Galactic Core) square Salacia (clear, still waters) at 26+ Pisces, and Sedna (24+ Taurus) sextile the Moon at 24+ Pisces about to conjunct Salacia, and with Klotho conjunct Neptune, there is much astrology pointing to the ecological world, especially it’s water, and some of it symbolizes new starts (conjunctions). Perhaps the only way Mother Nature (Ceres) has to get enough attention focused on the dire straits of the planet is through disaster. How very sad if it has to come to that. Matthew will have a message coming soon about this mystery I’m sure.
be
So very well said! I’m going to save this and read it everytime those demons snap their fingers. And there will come a Day when I don’t have to read it anymore, because I’ll know it by heart. Thank you.