Tags
Chiron, Moral outrage, Neptune, Old fashioned values, Saturn, The Sun, Thoughts, Values, Wisdom, Wounded healer
OK So it’s like this, over the past few days I have more and more been considering the expression of moral outrage in the news and trying to make sense of it. I wrote something about it earlier in the year As Yet Untitled. I am sure that this type of outrage over the trivial has been happening since the dawn of the newspaper, but today it seems that the greatest outrage expressed is over the most trivial things like cheating dogs on talent shows whilst that which we should be angry about is ignored by the majority of the press like TTIP.
Looking at my astrology for this time I have Chiron trining Saturn over the long term and today the Sun trining Neptune. For the non – astros amongst you, the first is all about the wounded healer, finding inner strength to deal with and learn from old wounds, therefore being able to pass on help through your own experience. The second enables a positive slant to be put on this process, maybe a little romantic but it also sees a spiritual task involved in this. So it is my spiritual task to pass on my ‘wisdom’ to you today. Of course Neptune may suggest that this is not wisdom at all but the ramblings of a deranged mind but it is offered anyway for you to decide.
I found myself getting cross even with people that I have agreed with in the past because it seems to be a continual whine about the same old thing, sign this petition, please give us a donation, this is my ‘gofundme’ page because we have to do something about this. So I sign the petition, I like their page and share their post. Sadly I don’t give a donation because I have the charities I support and have made a decision that this is where my charity money is going and no more. The disappointment of Neptune you see.
One of the catalysts has been re-reading an article about the consequence of continual growth The Impossibility of Growth – George Monbiot and realised that as I move towards semi-retirement on a very small pension, that I have decisions to make about how much more stuff I actually need. Do a really need to spend some of my redundancy compensation on a new tablet or the diamond ring which I always wanted but have never had?
The daftness is that I have lots of jewellery which I never wear, so it will just be another box to hide away and bring out to look at every now and again. I already have a tablet, it’s slow but all I do is use it to listen to Radio 4 podcasts and play solitaire on. Would that redundancy money not be better used to supplement a part time job and the pension in order to pay my bills so that I have the gift of more time? Time to spend with my ailing mother before she leaves us and my grandchild before he gets too old to enjoy the ‘Granny chats’ and I get too infirm to go on the ‘Granny adventures’ with him. To have the gift of time for the rest of my family and for me to breathe deeply and smell the roses. Of course there is the argument that tells us buying said ring gives a whole lot of people jobs, however there are enough acquisitive people out there so I can leave it to them.
In my typical Piscean/Neptunian way this article lead my thinking off on more of a tangent, so what are we teaching our children? To be adored you have to be perfect, you have to have money and you have to have the latest gadget. Whether it’s as good as the previous one doesn’t matter as long as it’s the latest. So they are anxious about their looks, they are anxious about their exams and they are anxious about the fact that they haven’t got what their mates have. This leads to teasing and bullying. Surely what we should be teaching our children is to be confident in their own skin and that they are loved and cherished whatever. But our own insecurities are passed down the generations, like the mother I knew who was always on a diet that she didn’t need to be on affecting the self worth of her daughter, or our need for stuff taking over our waking lives. Of course, teach our children healthy living and that nice things can be …well…nice, but not that they are worthless unless they conform to an unattainable ‘norm’
Technology is designed nowadays to become obsolete within a certain time period so there are warehouses with brand new but obsolete goods ready for recycling, which no one wants to sell because it would reduce the price of the new stuff they need to sell. The Men Who Made Us Spend (There are a couple of free learning opportunities on this link which look interesting). Resources such as food and non-renewables are wasted at an alarming rate just to satisfy our ‘needs’ and put money in the pockets of people all ready richer than they need to be.
It’s a cycle of abuse, abuse of the planet, abuse of our children and abuse of our resources but no one seems to have the time to stop it. The number of people I know where both parents are working to keep up their life style of holidays and iPads and in order to pay for their childrens entertainment because they don’t have the time or the energy to engage with them ….. because they are always working. We are caught up in this cycle of fear and guilt where we are using consumerism to make it all better, hence the toxic debts, the bank collapse, the so called need for fracking and the cycle goes on with more fear and more anxiety, more depression etc. etc. Even meditation has become big business under the umbrella of ‘Mindfullness’. We now pay to be told how to take time out – it’s a nonsense!
The reasons are many and complicated, as numerous as the people themselves, the solution is not a one size fits all but it starts with taking our power back and regaining our concept of personal responsibility and sense of identity. Yes – I know I bang on about it but there is so much of our culture which shifts the blame. The Devil made me buy that dress
I would be shirking in my responsibility as an astrologer not to mention that a powerful way of exploring these issues is through the use of astrology but it is by no means the only one.
Once we get the idea that no one has the right or the responsibility to govern our thoughts and actions and that our choices and decisions are our own, then we can start to realise that we control more of our life than we are lead to believe.
As a species we are inherently selfish so once we get the concept that we are rewarded for every decision and choice we make, we can have the freedom of taking on that responsibility along with the consequences. This works even if the reward is only the sense of relief that by doing something that we feel forced to do, we have averted an undefined crisis. I have been guilty of this on numerous occasions and have realised that it is a form of arrogance on my part thinking that unless I do something, it will all fall apart. This ultimately takes the power from everyone else involved. It has, in the past given me a ‘Martyr’ or victim complex, hence the strapline on one of my email accounts is ‘The trouble with self-martyrdom is that you can never get that last nail in’ just to remind me.
Taking my own words on board, I am in no position to tell anyone else how to bring up their children, how to live their lives, what to buy, where to buy it from and what they should or should not own. Not even those on benefits because although I have paid my taxes and so have the rest of my family, over the years we have had child benefit, job seekers, child tax credits, carers allowance and attendance allowance between us, I have no right to judge.
However I do say this, what is needed by everyone is the awareness of the consequences of our decisions and choices. Once we take back our power and make those choices accordingly we regain our sense of identity and purpose, a sense of respect for ourselves and others. Then our choices will start to make a real difference ….. and that can be very scary.
Earthworks Astrology 