TAURUS & PSYCHE

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“Since I gave up hope, I feel much better”. Pundits joke, but having no hope is not a laughing matter. It doesn’t take a seer to see that the human race has become a race against bad shit happening. We’re primed and ready for a loss of hope and faith.  Programmed to feel impotent, incompetent, and indifferent, we’re resigned to apathy and acceptance of the poisoning of the positive results of the hard lessons learned and resolutions made when Uranus last transited Taurus from 1935~1942.

The USA went off the gold standard. People focused on values and questioned materialism. President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Labor organized, forming unions that went on strike and engaged in sit-downs across the nation. There was strength in solidarity. President Roosevelt defended the Four Essential Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. What happened?

Uranus in Taurus stimulated aristocracy, autocracy, and plutocracy. Greed and anti-socialism were nourished and flourished. Uranus in Taurus brought us William Randolph Hurst and Orson Welles, two bulls, who bullied each other over the creation and release of the movie, ‘Citizen Kane’. Self-righteously determined, Welles smugly, immodestly, and arrogantly modeled the notorious media mogul Charles Foster Kane after Hearst. Despite his abundant natural charm, brilliant portrayal, ground breaking cinematography, and exceptional directing, Welles art was no match for Hearst’s wealth and capacity to influence courts and public opinion. Welles persisted in his righteous defiance of Hearst, while Hearst relentlessly tortured Welles with legalities and bludgeoned him with bad publicity until Welles could no longer afford to hang on to his principles, rise to his challenges, or control his self-indulgences. Like Kane, Welles longed for his lost innocence too late in life.

‘Less is more’ learned Midas as he yearned for a touch of gold, got it, and transformed his beloved daughter and their loving relationship into a cold hunk of metal. His food turned to gold as it touched his lips. One moral of Midas is having stability, security, and good health, meaningful work, satisfying relationships, happiness, and not needing more. Healthy people value what they have, nourish their relationships, choose higher purpose, and feel satisfaction and fulfillment without affluence. Having too much or too little of anything raises our awareness of what truly matters. Black and white, all and nothing, good and evil, love and hate, and rich and poor are opposites of equal value; identical in nature, but different by degree. An old billionaire dying of cancer will gladly trade his $$$ for youth and good health. A glamorous celebrity with a brain injured child will gratefully scrub public toilets at Grand Central Station to heal her child.

Can a ‘Stable Genius’ destabilize a nervous and fickle public with lies and manipulation? Our political, financial, and religious ideologies, philosophies, and paradigms are in danger! Will we see our Emperor for who he is or only dressed in the clothes he chooses us to see? The New York Stock Exchange and Federal Reserve are bulls. Uranus will enter Taurus two weeks from now for seven years.

Faulty ideological, philosophical, and spiritual paradigms must shift or our culture will face a Black Tuesday worse than ‘29. As transiting Saturn opposes our Stock Exchange’s natal Chiron and squares its natal Moon, transiting Pluto will square natal Jupiter, Uranus will conjunct Venus and Neptune will oppose Mars! People born 1935 ~ 1942 know and understand that unexpected gain and reversal means that we must lose what we have to learn to value what we had. It’s time for a new generation to learn those very same lessons again.

There’s a lot of nostalgia and talk of Civil War these days. Black and white wages endless wars on battlefields of infinite shades of gray. Needing guns is a symptom of a decaying culture. What will we do when partisan Republican bullies with their laws, fascists and terrorists with their semi-automatic weapons of mass-destruction, and evangelical fundamentalists with their bibles and guns show up at our doors? I’m not a big fan of guns in general, but I’ve been thinking a lot about self-defense. Most sensible people are scared of crazy people with guns. The idea of protecting family, friends, and humanity is good, but the idea of shooting someone or getting shot stimulates horrible fantasies, terrible ideas, and supports unhappy states of being for me. Will I purchase my first weapon?

Clients ask, “How long is my life?” “When will I die?” Life is about quality, not quantity. Everyone dies. I encourage my clients to be responsible for their thoughts and feelings. Alchemy is not transforming lead into gold. Alchemy is melding Saturn with the Sun by synchronizing and harmonizing the Sun’s talents, energy, optimism, and initiative with Saturn’s skills, skepticism, master planning, determination, and enduring patience. We need all of our planets, families, friends (no matter how dysfunctional), and everyone else to live, work, and play in harmony. Courage, strength, wisdom, and grace embody four paths to achieving and maintaining good mental, emotional, and physical health. Responsibility, discipline, determination, and devotion are ideas, ideals, and values that build sound structures on solid foundations. Spirituality is earned by practicing faith, virtue, integrity, loyalty, dignity, nobility, and honesty. Shine your brightest light on your most valuable talents, abilities, and desires. Be clear in your intentions, decisions, and actions. You can be an alchemist, own best friend, and master bull shit detector.

Limericks by Steve Benko ~ Artwork by Mark Seltman

Said Donald, “Our minions I’ll galvanize,
And with porn stars and thugs again fraternize.
Vlad, I’m walking on air,
But though Mueller was fair,
For my insults I’ll never apologize.”