Welcome to the Thanksgiving 2018 Cosmic Weather Forecast. Warm greetings from your co-Editors, Curtis and Jane.
Since our last newsletter there has been a nonstop deluge of bad news all across America, and I don't mean just the unprecedented torrent of news stories and Presidential tweets about alleged voter fraud, election rigging and incompetence on the part of officials overseeing America's 2018 national elections.
Acknowledging the potential for explosive and deadly events, last month's Cosmic Weather Forecast reported in understated fashion that the "Full Moon occurs mid-day on Wednesday October 24th at 01°13′ degrees Taurus, conjunct electrifying Uranus, opposed by Sun in Scorpio conjunct retrograde Venus. Jupiter and Mercury join Sun and Venus in Scorpio, giving us a quadruple helping of Scorpionic energy. This is not a comfortable lunation, in any sense of the word."
The 2018 campaign season featured racist dog whistles by GOP candidates in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere. Democrats accused the GOP of voter suppression in red states, designed to prevent African Americans, Latinos and other minorities from casting their ballots. Vitriolic rhetoric inflamed partisans of both parties, and by late October, violent right wing extremists cast their votes early, with bombs and bullets. Deadly environmental catastrophes engulfed California, and a deranged mass shooter seeking an end to his boredom added to the carnage.
On October 26, Florida man, musclehead, male stripper and Trump fanboy Cesar Sayoc was arrested for mailing pipebombs to more than a dozen prominent Democrats, and FBI agents who searched his house found evidence of more planned attacks. The devices seem to have been poorly designed and constructed, and none exploded.
Debra Gureghian, a lesbian and manager of a pizza parlor where Sayoc previously worked, told the Huffington Post that Sayoc's right wing extremist political views were no secret. “I’m very proud of who I am, but he told me I was an abomination, God’s mistake,” Gureghian told HuffPost on Saturday. “And I should be on an island with Rachel Maddow and Ellen DeGeneres and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and he would nuke the island. He said I was an abomination, that I was gonna burn in hell.”
The day after Sayoc was apprehended, a gunman ran amok at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, during Shabbat services, killing eleven, making this rampage the most deadly assault on American Jews in history. After a shoot out with police, a suspect, Robert Bowers, was apprehended. Bowers had been posting anti-Semitic slurs on Gab, a social media network favored by the alt-right, Neo Nazis and other right wing extremists.
"They're committing genocide to my people," Bowers told police during the shootout, according to an FBI affidavit. "I just want to kill Jews."
November 7, the day after the election, ex-Marine Ian David Long posted to Instagram while engaged in a mass shooting spree in a Thousand Oaks, California country western bar frequented by victims of last year's Las Vegas mass shooting.
"It's too bad I won't get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it," Long said in the Instagram post. "Fact is I had no reason to do it, and I just thought....(exploitive), life is boring so why not?" Long posted, according to ABC News and Buzzfeed.
That same day in Northern California, the Camp fire destroyed the town of Paradise, and began to spread. The Camp fire is not yet fully contained, and has so far destroyed 150,000 acres and 12,794 structures, leaving tens of thousands homeless, killing at least 77 people, and creating an air quality emergency throughout the San Francisco Bay area, far to the south of the blaze. Nearly 1,000 people are missing. The Camp Fire is the most destructive wildfire in California history since San Francisco burned to the ground in 1906
Before we proceed, let's take a minute to say a prayer, send some energy, and otherwise honor the victims of these horrific fires and depraved killers. If you are able, please send some money to help the tens of thousands displaced by California's wildfires this Thanksgiving season.
Charity Navigator , Refinery 29, and The San Francisco Chronicle have compiled lists of worthy charities that are hard at work in SoCal and NorCal alike.
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, the uniquely American holiday of community abundance, we offer our gratitude to the approximately 10,000 firefighters in California, 3,700 of whom are prison inmates working for $1 per hour. We honor the many volunteers, first responders and emergency workers, neighbors and community organizations involved in human and animal rescue operations. Let us keep all these hard working individuals and groups in our prayers.
Here in South Florida, Jane and I are enjoying a season of accelerated growth, cooler temperatures and sunny days punctuated by sporadic tropical rainstorms sufficient to our garden's needs. Jane planted from seeds, after preparing the soil, and in just a few weeks Russian kale, lettuce, and more have grown so much we will be eating micro-greens this week, just so we can thin them out a little.
Pole beans and sweet potatoes started weeks ago now provide exuberant greenery. We just got our first harvest of yummy pole beans this week as well. Orchids and marigolds are proliferating, providing us with flowers for our several altars scattered throughout the house.
It's been a long hot summer, politically, culturally and meteorologically, but now it's very hard to believe that it passed so quickly. It's holiday season once again, but Jane says it still feels like summer!
Gemini Full Moon, Sagittarius Solar Festival Cosmic Weather Forecast
This year Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 22, as the Sun enters Sagittarius.
On Friday, November 23rd, 2018 at 12:39 AM EST we celebrate the Full Moon at 00°52′ Gemini.
Stellar energies at cross purposes this Full Moon could trigger bouts of simmering anger infused with bewildered incredulity at the incomprehensible actions of people around us. A desire to move forward at warp speed could be thwarted this Thanksgiving week by circumstances beyond our control, leaving us exhausted. Everyone wants the floor at holiday gatherings, and everyone wants the last word on every subject.
Once the dishes have been washed and we have time to relax for a day or two, the planets provide us a golden opportunity to reflect upon our goals and the paths we have chosen to travel in pursuit of our preferred future.
Be alert for flashes of intuitive insight that pierce the depths of murky emotional waters, and illuminate key people, places and purposes in our lives so we can see the big picture with uncanny clarity.
Be open to unexpected revelations that reveal Higher Purpose in our lives! We may discover a previously overlooked path forward in a conflicted situation.
This dynamic Gemini full Moon is opposite retrograde Mercury, Jupiter and Sun, which are closely conjunct in Sagittarius. Moon, Jupiter, Mercury and Sun all form squares with Mars in Pisces.
If this all sounds like a combination of frustrating gridlock and sweet inspiration to you, you've got the big picture.
Mars in Pisces square Sun in Sagittarius and Moon in Gemini is an ungrounded, conflicted stellium in mutable signs, depicting emotional turbulence, mental instability and strong will forces unable to find a suitable outlet for excess energies.
With Mercury retrograde, clear thinking is at a premium for the next few weeks, so don't over react to transient emotional tantrums, and don't allow minor misunderstandings to escalate into flame wars.
The key to managing this combustible energy is to exercise patience, restraint and discernment. Others around us are perhaps as annoyed and irritable as we are!
Neptune in Pisces goes direct on Saturday November 25, redirecting the focus of our attention. While Neptune has been retrograde, it has been tempting to react to turbulence in the world around us by escaping to an astral realm of dreams, fantasies and escapist behavior patterns. Now the planets provide energetic support for us to begin to manifest our positive visions of potential Paradise on Earth while fully engaged with the world around us.
This shift of momentum from inner to outer directed behavior is strongly supported by a newly forming stellium of planets in Sagittarius, sign of aspiration and expanded consciousness. Jupiter has just exited Scorpio and entered Sagittarius, where the planet of the Guru is at home and at maximum power. Sun, Jupiter and retrograde Mercury, united this week in the sign of the archer, impel us to move past our self-imposed boundaries in every area of life. It is time to explore new ways of thinking and new ways of being in the world.
This cosmic weather pattern will influence the next month, taking us through the bulk of the holiday season. Mercury will go direct in Scorpio December 6, and from that point on, the positive vibes generated by the Sagittarian stellium will reach full expression, just in time for us to complete our Christmas shopping and embark on holiday excursions.
Uncovering the True History of Thanksgiving
Much as I love Thanksgiving, I always experience a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance as I contemplate the huge gap between the spiritual message of Thanksgiving and the cultural celebrations that overwhelm the spiritual component of the holiday with a completely different subtext.
According to the conventional story, strong, righteous English Puritans arrived at a wilderness in the New World. They brought what was considered to be a superior civilization and most important, their Christian values, to a thankless, scattered group of itinerant savages, and received turkeys, pumpkins, squash, corn and cranberry sauce in return.
But that's just a pleasant myth that has become part of our consensus reality. The truth is quite a bit more complicated.
The original Thanksgiving was a celebration of the generosity of the Native Americans who taught the clueless Puritans how to cultivate corn and other New World crops the British had never seen before, saving their New England colony from disaster.
The original Thanksgiving was a celebration of gratitude and an occasion to practice humility. The Puritans acknowledged their fellowship with the Native Americans, and honored the power of Mother Nature.
The original Thanksgiving highlights the indispensable role of the indigenous peoples who were wise stewards of the New World, and who attempted to teach the Puritans their ways of life, a life lived in balance with Mother Earth.
Modern day Thanksgiving has little to do with gratitude or humility or any spiritual values of any kind. Thanksgiving has become a celebration of conspicuous consumption, the beginning of a month-long orgy of Christmas shopping, and a spectacular collective celebration of the joys of rational materialism.
America’s current cultural mythology of rational materialism, social Darwinism and free market capitalism owes a lot to our Puritan forebearers. Puritan theology held that competition among individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of others and the commons is the God-given right and the moral duty of all people, because in the Bible God made Adam and Eve stewards of the Earth, and all that lives upon it. A good steward must improve the property, so to speak. So individual profit seeking activities such as exploiting natural resources could even be considered a Biblical mandate.
According to this mythology, the economic war of all against all will result in a Divinely ordered society, with the most deserving individuals conspicuous by virtue of their wealth and 10,000 square foot McMansions, and the least deserving individuals marked with the unmistakable stigmata of their moral failure, apparent to all in their lack of material possessions.
This is not originally an American narrative, rather its origins can be sought in the religious and political wars of 17th century England, where competing interpretations of Biblical narratives by Catholic and Protestant Christians triggered bloody wars across all of Europe and throughout the United Kingdom.
If you're interested in uncovering the true history of Thanksgiving, read our article entitled Thanksgiving: History of Community & Conflict , which unpacks the complex history of the Puritan rebellion in England and the subsequent Puritan exodus to America, and reveals the many ways that Puritan cosmology, theology and moral philosophy shaped American culture in general and Thanksgiving in particular.
Despite the troubled origins of the Thanksgiving holiday, Jane and I always take some time to reflect upon our lives, and to give thanks for the multitude of blessings we have received in this life.
As we look around us this Thanksgiving, we are surrounded by abundance, blessed with abundance in every aspect of life. We have a warm, snug home, just minutes from beautiful beaches, with a lovely garden full of flowers, herbs, spices and veggies.
We have a closet full of fine quartz crystals, and a kitchen full of dried herbs, tinctures, flower essences, and essential oils, teas, tinctures and remedies.
We have some money in the bank.
Most important of all, Jane and I are blessed through a multitude of gratifying relationships. We thank our neighbors who care for one another. We thank our families for their support and love. Without that we would be impoverished indeed.
We wish to thank all those who contribute their stories, their poetry, their wisdom, their time and their efforts to the Satya Center website. We wish to thank our many dear readers who make the website a worthwhile endeavor. We wish to thank our many friends, near and far, with whom we communicate and share a tremendous energy, with whom we share our lives.
Reflecting upon these blessings, I give thanks to the Divine Source and I honor my guides and teachers every day, I ask to be given the opportunities to share the wealth I’ve got. I start every day with sincere feelings of gratitude so strong my heart opens.
Runup to America's 2020 Pluto Return
Here in the United States, the long hot summer of political conflict leading up to the 2018 election reached a dramatic climax during and after election day that exceeded the worst nightmares of the most cynical pessimists.
Florida is naturally at the epicenter of the political firestorm. As of 5 pm, Tuesday, November 20, as I write this, votes are still being counted across the state. We've seen recounts, and then hand recounts, accusations of fraud and abuse, and a spectacular generalized breakdown of the system's ability to process votes here in America's very own mini Banana Republic.
You may remember last month's newsletter, when I made this prediction:
"It is quite likely that the results of elections during this period will be slow to materialize and contested vigorously when they do. With both Republicans and Democrats spending more money than ever before on campaigns around the country, and with more at stake emotionally for all concerned, you can be sure there will be an outpouring of negative emotions by those who perceive the election results to be unfair, unacceptable and perhaps even unlawful. So you may want to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for a deluge of anger, fear, loathing, disappointment and recriminations, which are sure to follow this election no matter what the results may be."
The November national election, which transferred power in the House of Representatives to the Democratic Party, triggered street protests, acrimonious legal confrontations among hordes of Gucci hoofed attornies, and a tsunami of bad feelings, as both Republicans and Democrats accused one another of election fraud.
Elected officials in many states were accused of creating geographical boundaries for Congressional districts favoring one party over another, statewide, and of creating a host of "safe" voting districts, where incumbents of one party or the other have nearly unassailable advantages. This is called "gerrymandering".
Republicans including President Trump accused Democrats of voter fraud in hotly contested races in Georgia and Floria and elsewhere.
Democrats accused Republicans of illegal voter suppression in numerous states.
In the Democratic Party stronghold of Broward County, Florida poorly designed paper ballots may have been responsible for confusing thousands of voters who apparently couldn't figure out how to cast their ballot for Senator. These voters were disenfranchised to that extent.
Security experts decried the use of insecure electronic voting machines and demonstrated how hackers could manipulate election results using the machines currently in use.
Electronic voting machines in Florida failed to accurately count votes in some counties, even after a machine recount, and eventually a hand recount delivered the final results, weeks after election day.
Reformers pointed out that the Constitution as written favors large, less populous Western states, which vote mainly Republican, at the expense of far more populous coastal states that vote Democratic. All states get two Senators regardless of population, and that could be seen as undemocratic.
After ten years of the infamous Uranus-Pluto squares and Grand Cardinal Crosses that appeared in sync with the Global Financial Meltdown and the rise of extreme right wing populism in Asia, Europe and North and South America, Uranus has recently retrograded back into the Cardinal sign of Aries, and at this point the entire framework of our democracy is clearly shaky. Critics of all political persuasions are questioning the basic institutions that structure our political system, and it is clear that as America approaches its Pluto Return in 2020, a complete restructuring of the system is on the horizon.
We can expect that over the next decade, all the elements of our democratic system of governance will be rebooted in an atmosphere of partisan rancor that will make the entire exercise extremely combustible, unpredictable and potentially explosive. That includes potential revisions to the Constitution, and the most basic structures of our political system.
My prediction at this time is that the 2018 election will be followed immediately by the advent of the 2020 election season, with every twist and turn of the daily news cycle being spun furiously for partisan advantage, while politicians of both parties begin fundraising and grandstanding. You can expect political warfare to intensify from this day forward until the fundamental restructuring of our democracy has been completed.
The 2020 election is sure to be more polarized and acrimonious than this year's political slugfest, reminiscent of World Wrestling Federation levels of drama and mudslinging, and every step of the election process will be contested by both parties, with much greater intensity than we saw this fall. All parties know that a moment of dramatic political realignment and restructuring is upon us. Even those who consider astrology literally in-credible have an unconscious awareness, at least, that the stakes are rising every year in a struggle that will take a decade to birth a completely new America, for better or worse.