Forecast for Thursday 24 June 2010

Thursday 24 June 2010

*True to the Basics*

The |difficult or self-searching third of the week| begins earlier than in recent weeks, today at 11:54a PT | 2:54p ET | 6:54p UT, extending through late Saturday evening. I hope that knowing these periods is helping you to be more content with less during those times, for reducing expectations is sometimes the key to happiness.

Still, there is a strong desire for the good things of life, which need not be totally curtailed of course. Although feasts and entertainments are the “lesser goods” while spiritual awareness is the “greater good,” the former are not to be denied.

This may be the day that the fallout from General McChrystal’s, and his staff’s, drunken comments reaches a peak, with some heads rolling---not perhaps the General’s any more than those of all involved in this insane war which any 7th-grader would be able to see is not only absurd but evil. (At what age does the ability to discriminate good from evil disappear? Is that what “education" does to us?) Both civilian and military personnel and officials shall be “shaken up” to find a more intelligent way of proceeding, or let us hope. Some will suffer embarrassment or loss of face.

The two sides, or two heads of this multiple conflict we call “the Afghan war” (think about it: who is fighting whom? Can you even answer that question?), represented perhaps by Vice President Biden on one side and General McChrystal on the other, are going to have to look beyond their usual presuppositions to find a way out. Not a way of solving Afghans’ problems for them, the problems of a multiple culture with multiple tribes, but a way of extricating the U. S. from a situation in which it has no business. Well, you say, there is El Qaeda. True; incompetent terrorists fighting among themselves who are being repudiated by their own people and probably would be repudiated more starkly and effectively if the U.S. were not stirring up support of them by its interference. (I didn’t say “Do nothing”; I am saying “Do something that makes sense.”)

Rash acts and words, indicated by Jupiter conjoined to Uranus in Aries the warrior sign, have their inevitable comeuppance. Protecting oneself is one thing; stimulating reprisals is something else and it is important to know the difference before rather than after the event. (This can have application in your own life, not just in military affairs.)

Questioning things, including sometimes authorities, or questioning procedures which are not working, is good. It becomes wrong only when it is insatiable, unwilling to accept any compromise whatever.

You feel reborn when you settle down to what is most basic and unquestionable. Then you will be constant, reliable to yourself and others, giving up anything trivial which would get in the way of steadfast purpose: self-true and so at peace.

{Thursday} *True to the Basics*

Cosmic Piper