Forecast for Saturday 23 January 2010

Saturday 23 January 2010

\Fascinating Chaos Need Not Become Rapacious/

An enormous earthquake making millions homeless, tens of thousands killed . . . A congress tied up in knots over health care reform and unable to do anything intelligent because of partisan bickering . . . a Supreme Court which has as of Thursday effectively sold the nation to the highest bidder, the fattest-cat lobbyist . . . ending democracy as we know it . . . three straight days of a precipitous stock-market slide . . . It must be the Dark Hermetic Epoch!

And it is, until February 5. (As of today, I recommend that the Supreme Court be in complete recess during every Dark Hermetic Epoch. That is almost half the time; but they could study their briefs etc. during that time, just not make their final decisions.)

If you have a feeling nobody knows what they are doing, I think you may be right. Maybe I don't either, but I struggle on with these forecasts giving you the best I can fathom each day . . . (As usual, there will be no forecast for Sunday. I need one day off.)

And it is not just the DHE which is plaguing us. By the way, as I have said endlessly but must say again and again, astrology is not fatalism and the planets do not control us. That is, unless we give in to "them," which really means to our "mechanical" desires and impulses, rather than our "non-mechanical but purposeful" higher nature and ideals and hopes and intelligent plans. Even such plans may be flawed if not imbued with the Supramental, in Sri Aurobindo's terms, or the Divine Will in universal theistic terms.

The planets can be said to be as dual as our own nature. That is, the higher Mars is a serious, reliable male who does his work honestly for himself, his family and all who depend on him, "a real mensch." The lower Mars is a libertine who believes in "might makes right" and bullies his way through lover after lover and fight after fight until he wears himself out or gets himself killed or imprisoned. The latter may be more colorful, and more pleasing to novelists and script-writers, but few would say he has a happier life than the former.

And so with the other planets. I mention Mars because he is now retrograde, until March 10 (and has been since December 20), so we get a solid chance to see male-ness ridiculing itself by being ridiculous or backward or silly. This is good, ultimately, because it helps males get a better grip on themselves and their peculiar genetic code. Interestingly enough, while Mars has been retrograde some geneticists have propounded the theory that the male gene, not the female, is responsible for innovation. Hmm, is this news? Any astrologer would have said the same. According to Marc Edmund Jones, Mars initiates things and Venus consummates them.

Mars is retrograde in the sign Leo, President Obama's sun-sign. This is highly significant in view of the thick and repetitive discussion now of "Is the President off course? What went wrong? Can he recover?" and on and on. Maybe we will get better answers to those questions in March, April and the rest of the year.

A professor of biology, David Page, said that the Y or male chromosome "is an almost ongoing churning of gene reconstruction. It's like a house that's constantly being rebuilt." Boy does that sound like Mars. In fact, the Tarot card representing Mars is Major Trump 16, The Lightning-Struck Tower, a symbol of the need for endless rebuilding and reconstruction.

Of course, all males have a Venus in them that wants to finish the job and just rest for a long time. Likewise, all females have a Mars in them capable of the same kind of reconstruction (or redecorating perhaps).

Saturday has the potential of focus on household and neighborhood needs. You are trying to hold on to what you have gained, rather than gain something new. You are reviewing the past as necessary preface to the future. If you think of certain friends at a distance almost as enemies, or ex-friends, this is a normal part of the current pattern while Mars is opposite Venus and the sun. I used the term "distancing" in the title of Friday's report, and it is equally pertinent today. This does not necessarily mean cold aloofness, although it could, but a need to "give each other space" in friendships and relationships. This could be true especially through February 3. People do not want to feel you are meddling with them, and vice versa.

It is possible to find healing, calming influences, in the Hindu way through spiritual study, mantra, and meditation, or the Christian way through spiritual study and prayer or ritual, and so on. This could be specially important today.

Indifference to things which plague you can be a higher indifference based on philosophic or spiritual understanding, rather than a lower indifference which is little more than laziness. Then you are willing to do things to rectify the situation, but do not feel you have to fret and struggle continuously, so that in fact your efforts become more effective as "effortless effort."

Essentials are essentials, and you intuit what they are. You could get off the beam (colorfully, as above!) by letting your desires, which could get intense, lead you to push your way into either arguments or erotic imbroglios. A lustful urge could make itself felt, a desire to penetrate into someone else's consciousness and ravish it. Well, we all know how that can end up (the script-writers love it!) and so we are mostly careful. The word "rapacious" is not nice, but could be appropriate today to indicate some of what many will be feeling. Let's be civilized.

{Saturday} /Fascinating Chaos Need Not Become Rapacious\

Cosmic Piper