HOW I LOST MY SANITY ~ Episode 4

Posted on August 15, 2023 by markseltman

There were only two patients in the art room. One was warily tucked in a corner, the other was a pretty twenty something African-American woman quietly cutting colored paper with a child’s scissors. I gently mused out loud. “You look healthy and normal. Why are you here?”

“My psychiatrist tells me it’s because I feel no remorse for what I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I killed my roommate”. I chopped her up in the bathtub and flushed as much of her as I could down the toilet. The rest of her I put in black plastic garbage bags that I tossed in a dumpster.”

“Did you think you would get away with that?”

“I didn’t think at all. I got the idea from TV.”

“And you don’t feel badly about what you did?”

“The girl is dead. There’s nothing I can do about that!” “I guess I’m sorry for her family”.

Mary grew up in a verbally abusive emotionally constipated family with no privacy. When Mary left home, she applied for a single room at college and was forced to have a roommate. Enduring a year, Mary reapplied, and lost the room to her roommate. Completely losing control of her mind and heart while stuck in a state of rage, Mary eliminated her problem.

Many strange stories unfolded over the next several months in the art room. Every day promised new adventure. I was glad I’d survived the bog of bureaucratic bullshit. I was yearning to examine everyone’s hands, but decided to wait. I anticipated astonishing tales of intrigue and amazing artworks. Many patients had artistic talent. There were two professional artists in the group. I supported everyone’s creativity and acquired special materials and supplies above and beyond my call of duty.

The first patient I bonded with was a refined and cultivated woman in her mid to late fifties. Bizarre circumstances led to Betsy’s hapless and senseless captivity. She lived on Treasure Island, a wealthy seaside community. Betsy managed an art gallery and was gossip columnist for a local newspaper. She loved to garden and was a member of a local gardening club.

A lawyer of considerable power purchased the land adjoining Betsy’s and neglected it. Weeds and branches drooped and draped sloppily onto Betsy’s property. Her neighbor‘s obvious dislike of landscaping and disdain for his neighbors annoyed the hell out of Betsy. One very vexing afternoon, she verbally threatened to chop off everything extending onto her domain. Grabbing her ax, she angrily severed every limb over her property line. While quietly recuperating on her porch, Betsy became alarmed and frightened when police in plain clothes marched aggressively through the gate of her yard.

Betsy grabbed her ax, attempting to chase them away. The next thing she knew, Betsy was sedated in a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation. Her neighbor had pulled strings and managed to have her temporarily committed. Then her serious problems began. Because Betsy was so agitated, Thorazine was prescribed, mandated, and administered. Betsy had a bad reaction to Thorazine. She was rushed to a local hospital. Her spleen had to be removed.

Betsy was no criminal. Nor was she crazy. She had great character references. Her son, a successful architect, pleaded fervently for her release, but no one appeared able to help her. A series of unfortunate events had led to her getting caught up in ‘The System’. Betsy’s attitude remained positive and optimistic while her mental and physical health deteriorated. She lost three productive years of her life. The lawyer tried to acquire Betsy’s property while she was locked up, but her son successfully blocked him.

Everyone admired Betsy. I was self-appointed president of her fan club. She could draw, paint, sculpt, and write better than anyone. She won several patient art awards. She was a positive role model. As editor and illustrator for the patient newspaper, The Scene. Betsy also created signage for hospital activities and events. I got special permissions for her creative seamstress work and purchased (my $) supplies like needles, threads, and unique fabrics.

Betsy designed stuffed insects. She called them ‘love bugs’. Sewing and sowing the seeds of success in my mind, Betsy inspired me to imagine a patient run cottage industry within the confines of hospital life that would serve other sheltered workshops in social and medical worlds. We could be a source for products, design, and marketing.

I got braver each day as I investigated patients’ lives. I couldn’t divulge my appetite for wanting to know more, but I did look as closely as I could at their records, hands, and gestures. I printed crude hands using newsprint paper with poster paint. I assumed madness would be revealed in aberrations of hand morphology and topography. There were many unusual hands. I saw a lot of frustration, anger, and fear, along with an uncanny clarity or lack of clarity in thinking. Many souls saw only one solution to their problem, never considering the consequences. Invoking hindsight enables most folk to harness our strengths, mindsets, attitudes, and actions, and embrace whatever challenges we encounter on the path to becoming healthier and happier.

Repressed rage, confused minds, and constipated emotions rule mental illness. I’d never have predicted from the hands that I read, that most of these people would be committed to mental institutions. Many patients lacked peripheral lines. They were less neurotic than the wounded healers with highly developed superegos and many more peripheral lines who were paid to care for them.

I only saw one club (murderer’s) thumb in the patient population. I expected to see many more Mr. Hydes, motivated by passion, lacking impulse control, and having a propensity for violence. I didn’t. Other hands were soft and supple. Sometimes their bones felt detached. There was zero energy, enthusiasm, or desire to think clearly or do anything meaningful. I observed one psychotic person’s skin as appearing splotchy purplish red. I imagined the color combo was repressed rage. Many hands were stiff in the joints, preventing the lost souls trapped in limbo between their inside and outside from escaping. I examined schizophrenic hands with two sets of head or heart lines in dominant hands that were ambiguous, ambivalent, suffering, struggling, and striving to know themselves and others.

Betsy and I loved the symbolism of the Tarot. We consulted the cards many times with many questions. We rarely heard what we wanted to hear, but always heard what we already knew. I collected birth names, dates, times, and places from patients, but didn’t explain why.

Most artwork and poetry in The Scene came from the art room. The patient newspaper was a venue for creative expression for patients and staff. It offered hospital news and provided space for patients to express their concerns and share their creativity. It was an important venue because it provided an outlet for frustration, anger, and depression. Everyone spent too much time complaining and blaming their problems on ‘The System’ and each other.

I decided to become a spiritual ambassador and good sense maker. The real enemies were our bad habits, bureaucracy, and time. We were a team whether we chose ‘to be or not to be’.

One notorious patient infected my psyche with doubt. He was a young black man in his early thirties. Fred had been mentally, emotionally, and physically malnourished via many abusive foster parents. A gentle kindness lie beneath the surface of Fred’s deeply scarred face. Fred was violent, but it wasn’t knife fights and gang warfare that got him locked up. It was Fred’s unrequited love. Fred was obsessed with a teenage girl. Allegedly, she was ‘taken away from him’ by an `abusive maniac’. Fred created realistic ‘WANTED DEAD or ALIVE’ posters of his maniac. He posted them all over town, offering a phony ten thousand dollar reward for him. Fred had no clue he was creating evidence that would lead him directly to the loony bin.

Fred’s large feminine hands, rectangular palms, long slender knotty fingers, and conical fingertips embody the quintessential ‘feeling’ type: great for empathy, appreciating art, research, organizing, paying attention to detail, and mostly for caring. Fred’s long head line sloped into the heel of his hand, revealing a vivid imagination and rich fantasy life. Fred could copy anything perfectly. He could have been a master forger, but that particular crime would never have occurred to him. I cheered Fred’s abilities and encouraged him to draw from real life. I also convinced his treatment team and security on his ward to let him have pencils and paper and allow him to draw under supervision.

Fred had a private sketch book. He produced forty or fifty sketches and drawings in the first month and showed no one. I asked to see them. Reluctantly, he showed them to me. I was blown away. The political parody above was his first. That’s Ronald Reagan and its meaning is self-explanatory. What stunned me most were caricatures of staff sexually abusing patients. Patients were pleasuring staff in the sickest possible ways. Were security, therapists, and patients actually having bizarre sex acts using objects of pleasure and pain or was Fred’s vision an artistic fabrication of his unique psyche?

How could Fred have witnessed what he was portraying? He had a graphic imagination. Maybe his friends were telling him their stories and he was interpreting them. Fred let me photocopy a few drawings. I wondered about the veracity of Fred’s artwork and shared it with Dolores. She showed it to the cabinet. Betraying Fred’s trust was my greatest blunder and regret. Fred fought fiercely as his drawings and supplies were confiscated. It wrenched my heart to watch him being reduced to a drug induced stupor, artistic genius, never to create (during my tenure) again. I was responsible and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Mary 2 was a highly functioning, extremely troubled patient. Mary believed she was Satan’s child, a bad seed. Mary was three when she first unsuccessfully attempted to poison her little sister. Then she failed to drown her in the bathtub. She tied her to a tree in a lightning storm, hoping she’d be electrocuted. Finally, Mary’s dysfunctional fundamentalist Catholic parents enrolled her in a devout Catholic school. They hoped that would save her. Mary predictably became more twisted. At sixteen, Mary set a nun on fire and carved her charring body to a bloody pulp with a broken glass bottle. She told everyone, “The Devil made me do it”.

Mary produced dark artwork. I coveted and appropriated her drawings every chance I got. While under suicide watch in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital, Mary etched `666′ in the skin of her arms and legs with whatever sharp objects she could find. She also scratched ‘666’ on furniture.

I don’t frequently see hands that frighten me. Mary’s hands were scary. The creepy hand above with very stiff fingers that curl inwardly belong to Susan Atkins’ (Charles Manson’s protege’). They’re similar to Mary’s. Mary’s skin was hard, dry, coarse, and reddish. She chewed on her nails relentlessly, leaving her nail beds red, raw, and sore. Mary transformed self-critical into self-hatred. I wished I could help her let go of irrational terror. Mary’s soul was hard-boiled from the hellish reality of growing up with hypocritical parents, along with fundamentalist codes, irrational doctrines, punitive rules, and restrictive regulations.

Mary had a huge crush on me. She was the first to arrive at the art room and last to leave. I felt nauseous when I was alone with her. I was repulsed, but always smiled and acted nice. Mary generously offered to give me a quickie blow-job under my desk. I remembered Fred’s drawings and how easy it would be to become one of his vignettes. I thought about all of the Ministers and Priests, religious shepherds, who physically and spiritually rape the innocent lambs they are entrusted to protect. Does terror, shame, guilt, and disgrace trigger erotic fantasy? Is fear of being caught a turn on? Can the Devil sow the seeds of evil in a psyche?

Mary was hovering over me and monopolizing my attention. I was abrupt and impatient with her. Dark rings appeared around her darkening eyes. Mary felt rejected. Satan was hard at work, preparing her for evil acts that night on her ward. It was a full moon. Stealing the ‘six’ and ‘nine’ balls from the pool table, Mary loaded them in a black wool sock, then beat a new patient to death while she slept. The poor woman was there for shoplifting, a few days of observation, and psychiatric evaluation. Mary said she didn’t like the way the woman looked at her. She’d certainly think twice before shoplifting again had she survived. I felt guilty and responsible. I should have said something. Staff should have been more vigilant. Mental institutions aren’t called lunatic asylums for nothing.

It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters. Gene was undeniably the most incredible artist in the hospital. He’d been a successful commercial artist and advertising executive. Scuttlebutt was that he created the TV ads that everyone loves to remember.

Gene was unique. A celebrity on his ward, he had the only private room, outfitted with his own furniture, library, audio tape collection, state of art stereo system, Bose headphones, and grizzly bear rug.

No one messed with Gene. Dark satanic auras shrouded Gene. Angry facial expressions and aggressive body language told a tale of uncontrollable rage from a horrible childhood. Gene was hostile. Everything about him screamed, “Stay away from me!” In a jealous fury and fit of rage, Gene slit his girlfriend’s throat from ear to ear. She survived, didn’t press charges, and forgave him. Gene couldn’t forgive himself. He told me had to stay because he’d do it again.

Gene could have been free had he wanted to be and behaved accordingly. I tried to make good sense to Gene and convince him to become an active member of the real world again. Gene wanted to stay. With little interest in worldly freedom, he was free to love his literature, music, art, and still be king of the roost. I actually felt a little jealous of his inner freedom.

Gene was charismatic in a dark and dangerous way. He was the patient Dolores caught in the art supply closet with Janice. That untimely final exit for Janice turned out to be wonderful therapy for Gene. We frequently had philosophical discussions and co-created artworks that I still cherish. This life size pastel Gene drew of me in the art-room subtly captures a very private part of me.

Benny was Gene’s buddy. Benny was uncooperative. A strong fit black man in his early thirties, Benny’s phobia of homosexuality impelled the former transit policeman to assault a bar full of gay men one night with a semi-automatic weapon. While freebasing crack, Benny brutally slaughtered eight gay men.

Benny came up bi-yearly for forensic review. He believed he’d be set free one day, but was always rejected. One psychologist told me that a ‘secret agenda’ was to never ever let him go or know. It was in everyone’s best interest to humor Benny. Otherwise, he’d lose hope, become violent, and need to be permanently medicated.

There was never a dull day in the art room. One handsome young patient, recently admitted, had cut his mother’s heart out, artfully prepared, and hungrily ate it with her favorite knife and fork on her favorite plate while drinking her favorite wine and reclining in her favorite chair.

Another man was found combing his mother’s hair on her mantel, weeks after he had cut her head off. The entire hospital was full of lunatics and addicts who committed violent acts under the influences of bad circumstances, rage, or drugs. Schizophrenics, sociopaths, psychotics, and pathological liars flourished and blossomed. One sociopath from England had a Rolls Royce delivered to the hospital entrance based on conversations he had with a dealer from a pay phone in the hall of his ward. If only I could put everyone’s amazing talents to good use…

Jesus Jefferson was the angriest patient in the hospital. Rejected countless times by forensic committees, Jesus had nothing left to lose. Everyone steered clear of him. Jesus had thrown his girlfriend, her 3 year old child, and dog from a 17^th story window. They died instantly as they hit the ground. Jesus had zero remorse and never spoke of the incident. He clearly needed to be locked up, but what of his other innate talents and abilities. I envisioned Jesus as a capable production manager in a patient run manufacturing business. I shared my idea with two staff psychologists and they agreed with me. Unfortunately, Jesus was too unpredictable and angry to be given any real opportunity to take real responsibility.

Names have meaning. Many people who end up in loony bins are named after biblical figures. Jesus, Mary, Faith, Angel, Grace, and Hope haunt wards at mental institutions everywhere. Whatever their parents had hoped, wanted, or expected… something else weird and perverted happened. My parody below represents my interpretation of present-day archetypal names.

MAGA = TRUMP vs chump

HOW I LOST MY SANITY3

Posted on August 2, 2023 by markseltman

After six to eight working days, I’d met most of the patients. There were five men’s wards and one women’s ward. The wards traveled around the hospital escorted by SHTA’s. One, two, or three wards at a time would meet in the rehab department for recreational/religious services. Many patients found religion while incarcerated. Evangelists, fundamentalists, and self-styled ministers attended every service, along with agnostics, atheists, and heretics. I counted four Jewish patients in the mix. Jewish services were most ludicrous of all. Patients of every shape, size, color, and religious denomination wore yarmulkes (skullcaps) and pretended to chant pigeon Hebrew. For attending religious services, patients received extra rewards such as cigarettes, tea bags, and candy. They also hoped to earn a few brownie points with God and the Forensic Committee when they came up for evaluation.

The next several months were both enlightening and frustrating. It was obvious I needed more clinical training specific to a forensic population. I reached from the Rehab department to make allies on the treatment teams and in the cabinet. Unfortunately, protocol and position are guidelines in public service. If you go directly to someone outside of your department on your own initiative, it can be misconstrued as a breach of faith or as a failure on the part of your supervisor to control her staff. Employees generate truckloads of surplus paperwork and ask permission for everything in writing. Dolores was reprimanded. I felt dejected.

My initial impression of patients was that they were generally dull and apathetic, motivated by bribery or extortion. Cigarettes (nicotine), candy (sugar), tea bags (caffeine), and little packets of Sanka rewarded good behaviors. I believed they were ultimately harmful and destructive. Extortion was punishment for bad behaviors. Having no rewards, no activities, temporary isolation, or mandatory drug treatments is really `Pavlov 101′ in practice.

There were two types of patients. Nearly all had committed acts of violence. Some were there for psychiatric evaluation. Others were assigned for long term care by the court system because they were unfit to stand trial or too mentally and emotionally disturbed to be in a normal prison setting. There were several mass murderers and serial killers. You’d never know it as they appeared meek, apathetic, and ordinary. As they grew to trust me, they revealed hopes, dreams, fears, and tales of intrigue and horror.

I was steadily earning the trust and respect of the rehab staff. I’d read Dolores’s hands. Within a month, I was asked by other staff members to share my insights and observations about them. The rehab staff was caring and well meaning. I observed unhealthy doses of neurosis combined with fear, paranoia, and overdeveloped senses of responsibility, obligation, and guilt. Public service feels thankless and hopeless to many of the staff. I tried to be constructive, helpful, and leave everyone feeling hopeful.

I suggested to Dolores that she practice saying “NO”. I advised Zandor not to react negatively to criticism, even if it’s personal. I nagged Billy (Skinny) to lighten up and see reality as it is and not how he wants it to be. I encouraged Luscious Lips to let go of his guilt, cultivate good habits (like controlling his indulgences), and begin to schedule activities to look forward to in his life. I applauded Barbara’s ability to maintain clear boundaries and thanked her for her honesty with herself and everyone else. I cheered Maya’s energy and enthusiasm. I let her know I supported whatever she wanted for herself. I wanted Janice to clearly see and express herself creatively.

My reputation as a hand analyst spread quickly. Soon, I was in the hospital director’s office reading her hands. Dr. Helga presented a caring and friendly demeanor, but after examining her hands for a couple of minutes, I was positive it was an act. She had the stiffest hands and fingers I’d ever felt, inwardly curving pinkie fingers, and a clear simian line in her dominant hand. Knotty fingers and long index fingers were well suited for a detail-oriented directorship. Helga’s father had been a German SS or gestapo who ran a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. There was no place for emotion in Helga’s formative years. She was calculating, ambitious, and couldn’t tolerate disobedience. She ordered me to never discuss what I saw with anyone and told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from patient hands. I gained insight into the cabinet by reading several members directly and by carefully listening and observing body language at meetings and in casual exchanges without permission.

It took six months to learn the ropes while generating and accumulating huge masses of paperwork and proposals. I was ready to present my syllabus for prevocational classes to the cabinet when the hand of fate unexpectedly intervened. A quirky thing happened. Dolores accidentally caught Janice, the art therapist, in the art supply closet with her skirt up around her ears. She was dispensing her own personal form of emotional and physical therapy to one of the male patients. Janice was fired instantly.

Janice had self-destructed. I’d lucked out. There was no art therapist. I was the only staff member qualified to fill in until another was hired. I knew about art. I didn’t know the first thing about art therapy or forensic psychology. That didn’t seem to faze anybody. I was thrilled to put everything aside to be the new substitute art therapist. I’d finally get to meet patients. Nearly all the patients frequented the art room. It was a chance to play with art materials and express themselves creatively. They could sculpt with clay, draw and paint, make collages, write poetry, and play music. I’d examine their hands, astrology, and experiment with tarot on them. This was an important lesson in human nature and my nature that I’ll never forget.

The art room was small and private (14’X 14′). I was happy about that because in addition to having the potential for intimacy, I was required to inventory every pencil, crayon, scissor, and even staple. These were all considered potentially dangerous weapons. Everything in Rehab was either bolted down or fastened together with special screws and nuts that required special tools to unfasten. Every precaution was taken to protect us from patients and patients from each other and themselves.

One very crazy patient who seriously creeped me out was James. After James’s mother would visit him, staff would find him mutilating his genitals with a paperclip, staple, or whatever he could find that caused damage. James eventually died of AIDS after repeatedly letting other male patients have their way with him sexually. I stayed away from James’s hands, but I do remember ugly brown tobacco stains between the tips of his index and middle fingers from letting cigarettes burn to ash without taking a puff.

I was cautious around patients. I tried to be helpful. I spoke little except when spoken to. I’d sometimes sketch patients. They saw me drawing and sculpting and began asking for artistic advice. I happily provided tips and tricks. It took over six months to locate a new art therapist. During this time, I’d meet a dozen patients who would influence my destiny.

Stay tuned to meet the patients…

Author’s note: If you’ve read the first episode of ‘How I lost my Sanity’, you know my writing is a combo of fact and fiction. Using the same voice as my non-fiction writing may create some confusion. I break rules of grammar and syntax. A generous helping of political and social incorrectness sheds darkness on my protagonist. Made up names and characters from movies parody and give faces to characters in my story. If you have any thoughts, ideas, feelings, suggestions, advice, or whatever about my writing and story, feel free to comment.

How I Lost my Sanity 2

Posted on July 25, 2023 by markseltman

“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding.” Hermes

This is a tale of how I tempted fate and lost my sanity. You may think you know your dark side, or you may know someone who has been devoured by theirs, but until you’ve been seduced into madness, breached your sacred boundaries, and tasted the forbidden fruit; you won’t experience the boundless breadths and desperate depths of darkness in your psyche along with the stark realization that you can’t turn back.

Black and white are metaphors for oppositions that fuel our awareness and allegories that guide us between our whitest whites and blackest blacks. Love and hate are extremes of the same basic substance. Like and dislike are varying degrees of gray between black and white. If insanity is black and sanity is white, where does happiness end and misery begin? When does pleasure stop and pain begin?

As a life-long student of craziness, I coveted the opportunity to serve criminally insane people. I might never get another chance. Back in college, I studied Industrial Design. I minored in bizarre psycho-ideologies and isms. As an active member of a twice weekly study group at a Gestalt psychology institute for two years, I whetted my appetite for more knowledge and understanding of human behavior. I finally had a real chance to explore authentic craziness incarnate.

Criminal minds fascinated me. I learned from my study of astrology that each of twelve sun signs has its own unique criminal style. Take this with a grain of salt, but here are a few gross generalizations. Gemini / Mercury rules con artists and pickpockets. Taurus / Venus commits sex crimes and breaches of trust from petty theft to grand larceny. Aries / Mars loves warfare and commit crimes of passion. Sagittarius / Jupiter wears white collars. Capricorn / Saturn rules master criminals. Aquarius / Uranus rules arsonists, terrorists, and unexpected bad shit happening. Pisces / Neptune rules drug dealers and users. Scorpio / Pluto rules seduction, rape, murder, and betrayal. Pluto lustily awaits you at your final destination.

Our outer planetary pictures provide a karmic backdrop for past and future generations of actors and actresses striving to learn their roles. Life is a play of plays. Unconscious creates drama. Subconscious directs plot. Consciousness is stage manager. Sun enlightens. Moon reflects. Mercury connects. Venus senses. Mars energizes. Jupiter expands. Saturn limits. Uranus disrupts, Neptune dissolves, and Pluto destroys. ‘God’ is Master Playwright.

Before proceeding with my vocational classes, I need to regress and provide background material for my year of preparation preceding my choice to teach classes. It may take a couple of posts, but I promise you’ll be glad I did.

I entered the hospital from my first day through guarded locked doors, metal detectors, a bag inspection station, faded institutional beige paint, and buzzing fluorescent lights like parasites that sucked my vital essences. Hospital staff appeared to be the dregs of humanity’s helpers. Most had physical handicaps like limping, scarring, splotching, or gazing in hopeless desperation with myopic eyes. I hoped it wasn’t contagious. I had easy access to patient records and treatment plans. I could attend treatment team meetings with psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists. It felt too good to be true and it was.

Forensic hospital life is about rules, regulations, and self-defense. There are many more don’ts than do’s. Employees are sworn to secrecy, fingerprinted, and instilled with awkward feelings of mistrust. Orientation had been designed to help new staff members understand the organizational goals, policies, and procedures affecting job safety, security, performance, and delivery of care. We filled out a lot of questionnaires, surveys, and evaluations. We were briefed on the nature, structure, and policies of the facility. We learned about patient rights and privileges, rights and privileges of staff, and hospital policy.

The largest portion of hospital staff were security called SHTA’s. They accompanied patients to every activity. I attended life safety training with them: CPR, First-Aid, and Management of Violent Patient Behavior (MVPB). A violent person could `go off’ and all we could do was to defend ourselves. We weren’t permitted to be aggressive. We were taught Judo style moves by serious martial artists and laughed heartily as we fell, flipped each other on gym mats, and got to know each other. We were encouraged to nickname one another to help us connect. Based on obvious personal peculiarities our nicknames stuck. There was `Skinny’, `Luscious Lips’, `Gigolo’, and `Tortoise’. I was `Smiley’. Forever after, we addressed each other by our nicknames.

Fighting with patients was a scary idea. Despite my comprehensive training in self-defense, I envisioned myself grabbing the nearest chair and clobbering a violent patient over the head in a crisis. I’d be instantly fired and then indicted on criminal charges. Fortunately for everyone, most of the furniture was anchored to the floor or walls with specially designed hardware to prevent that kind of violence.

When I wasn’t watching over my shoulder for violent patients, I was cautioned to be on the lookout for ‘bacterial pathogens’ which cause disease. A lot of patients have hygiene problems and are unhealthy. Samplings are taken regularly from surfaces around the hospital in order to monitor disease. There were patients with AIDS. In 1986, that was scary! What if a patient with AIDS bit a staff member? We were briefed extensively on care and prevention. This job began to seem more than a little risky.

When I first met the patients, they appeared to be the most motley crew nature had ever assembled. They looked like R. Crumb characters. Many had deranged eyes. They were so whacky that I felt like laughing. Some had been given massive doses of thorazine. I couldn’t wait to find out who had done what. I’d heard there were a few notorious celebrities in the mix.

I was given a photo I.D. (I had to wear it at all times) and keys for areas I had access to within the hospital. Keys were given upon entering the hospital and deposited before leaving. Patients observed me with random glimpses, furtive glances, and glaring gazes. They saw me as one more ‘keeper of the keys’ who was attempting to figure them out, discipline, rehabilitate, or fix them. One thing for sure, I wasn’t one of them (yet).

I was directed to sit in on patient activities, assist rehab staff, and familiarize myself with patients. The first few days were uneventful. Important goals were getting the patients to brush their teeth, comb their hair, and to try not to be generally disgusting. Another important goal was to get them to stay awake and participate in activities such as art, music, education classes, and exercise. There were no interesting conversations yet.

The rehab staff consisted of nine members. As Director of Rehab, Dolores was beaten down by too many years in state service. Her sad name complemented her careworn face. A telltale twitch made me wonder whether she was smiling or frowning. Her unhealthy-looking teeth were yellowed from too many cigarettes and too much coffee. A deep raspy voice coughed her words. I was concerned she was ineffective. I was right. Dolores was caring but couldn’t say ‘no’ to anyone. She promised me full health benefits and then let me serve my half-time position by working two ten-hour days while the hospital’s needs would have been better served if my time were spread over three days.

Respiratory, pulmonary, and circulatory health problems could be seen in her bulbous whitish nails. Her square palms and short square fingers revealed a practical nature, while her dry, reddish, dishpan skin had weathered many storms that seemed to endlessly arrive from every direction. Despite our differences, Dolores and I liked each other.

My `other half’ was a furniture maker and restorer named Billy (Skinny). Billy was tall, thin, and bony. He looked like a scruffy middle-aged Abraham Lincoln. Billy was one of the hardest working, enthusiastic, and idealistic persons I’d ever met. Like me, he’d never had ‘a job’. An eccentric renegade from societal rules and regulations, Billy maintained a furniture restoration and refinishing business on the side. Like me, Billy had a hidden agenda. His was unselfish and equally unrealistic. He believed that he could actually rehabilitate lunatics and transform them into functioning members of society.

Billy’s ‘feeling hands’ had rectangular palms and long fingers. A hardness and stiffness ruled his fingers, and knotty joints enhanced his compulsive need to control his physical and mental life. His especially long middle fingers bent towards the top of his ring fingers. Billy had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, obligation, and guilt. An oversensitive perfectionist, Billy spent endless hours thinking about the best thing to do next.

Billy and I tried to set mutual goals, but my hidden agenda clashed with his righteous cause. Billy wanted to turn patients into furniture restorers. I wanted to help, but I wanted private time with them. Billy committed to creating a sheltered wood working shop. I chose to offer design classes to higher functioning patients. I’d also help Billy set up a workshop that would serve the entire patient population.

The Rehab staff was a smorgasbord of affirmative action. Zandor was Estonian. He was a rehabilitation counselor and second in command. Zandor should have had Dolores’s job, but upper management didn’t want a person they couldn’t control in that position. Zandor’s ‘thinking hands’ correspond to his strong handshake, firm elastic skin, long straight fingers, square fingertips, and open and frank nails. Zandor had also been abused by too many years in state service, but it didn’t break him. He had grievances pending against the Public Employees Union for obvious discrimination against him. Despite unfavorable circumstances, Zandor always presented himself with pride, integrity, and dignity. We became comrades.

Bruce (Luscious Lips) arrived at the same time as Billy and me. His meaty practical hands had square palms and short square fingers that were soft and supple with dominant plump third phalanges. His head and lifelines were tied together at their beginnings. He was a Taurus and a huge procrastinator. Bruce was in charge of recreation. He’d served state social service agencies throughout his entire work experience. Sweet and mild mannered, his desire to make a real difference had dulled from too many years of compliance to authority, rules, and regulations. Bruce had gone as high as he could in institutional politics. He was caring and attentive with the patients but seemed depressed and resigned to mediocrity the rest of the time. The only times Bruce revealed real passion and genuine enthusiasm was when we talked about gourmet food or going fishing together.

Barbara was the schoolteacher on our team. Her goal was to help as many patients as possible reach high school equivalency. She was a large boned middle aged Afro-American woman and a very kind person. I don’t remember her hands except for her large broad nails and the sparse clear lines engraved in her palms. Barbara had spent many years in state service. She was one of a very few state employees who managed to maintain a sense of humor and a life outside of her work. She complained the least of any full-time staff member and always kept her cool. Once during English class, one of the male patients pulled out his huge erect penis and started jerking off. Barbara walked over, looked him straight in his eyes and without raising her voice calmly said, “please excuse yourself and go to the bathroom”. He did. I wished I could have read her report about the incident.

Bob was the librarian. He reminded me of a Spam and Velveeta Cheese on Wonder Bread sandwich. Bob was a real life Walter Mitty. He was helpful when asked, but most of the time, gazed into the distance under thick lens wire rimmed glasses. As I think of him, I can still feel his cool damp mashed potato hand shake that confirmed a total lack of will power, energy, and enthusiasm.

Andrew was art therapist when I arrived. His tenure was short. The only thing I recall about him is that he sent his estranged daughter a gross of condoms for her sixteenth birthday. He quipped in his southern drawl, “If she’s going to do it, might as well be safe.” The new art therapist was Janice. She was an unsuccessfully aging frustrated starving artist in need of a steady income. There was a frequent staff turnover for art therapists.

Maya was recreational therapist. She was young, very private, and a very athletic Afro-American woman. Maya managed sports activities and the patient newspaper, the Scene. All of the staff liked Maya. Patients loved her. Her powerful ‘intuitive hands‘ were well suited for sports like football, soccer, and wrestling. Everyone thought Maya was gay, but that was nobody’s business.

I was a card-carrying member of a band of misfits in search of a fit. On the whole, I liked the rehab staff and felt like I was becoming part of a team. I looked forward to our working together and began to imagine that we might actually make a real difference…

i~Hermes

Posted on May 29, 2023 by markseltman

i~HERMES

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“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding.”

Alchemy is not transforming lead into gold. Hermes turned Saturn (Lead) into Sun (Gold) by building stable structures on solid foundations, being disciplined, and focusing on his metaphysical quest to prepare mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to connect to any and all others at any and all times. Alchemy is a set of magical formulas, tools, and esoteric instruction for becoming healthier, happier, and more fulfilled in life. Alchemy is the mastery of mental forces by transmuting one mental vibration into another. Our Sun passing through Gemini ~ May 21^st to June 21^st is a perfect time to share our selves on a soul level with anyone and everyone who is able!

Every thought is made up of individual cells; physically, mentally, and spiritually connected to all other cells on all other planes at the same time. Our brains are our cell communication hardware while our minds transmit and receive messages. Relationships between cells cause energy and matter to vibrate on different planes of reality at different times and places. Combining physical, mental, and spiritual planes, enables us to connect any with any and every being at any and every time and place. We can achieve wholeness by letting go of fear, taking a leap of faith, making connections, tuning our links, and creating nourishing environments.

“While ALL is in “The ALL”, it is equally true that “The ALL” is in ALL. “To him who truly understands this truth hath come great knowledge”. The inner nature of “The ALL” is unknowable and indefinable. That’s why humanity needs anthropomorphic gods and institutionalized religion. Spirit is the essence that embodies “ALL”. Spirituality requires the recognition, realization, and manifestation of Great Spirit within and without.

Hermes Seven Laws

“Law of Polarity”: “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”

“The Secret” is only a secret to the uninitiated. The ‘Laws of Attraction’ work best when you know what you desire, and your intentions are clear. Polarity is spiritual magnetism.

Anyone can turn negative thinking into positive circumstances by letting go of fear, having clear intent, choosing a worthy quest, and doing the work. See how the ‘Law of Polarity’ transformed trash into treasure!

GURU of GARBAGE (Click for short video ~ Good Day NY)

Opposites are extremes of the same basic substance with varying degrees between. Where does heat end and cold begin? Where does darkness leave off and light begin? What about positive and negative, hard and soft, sharp and dull, noisy and quiet, high and low? The same principle operates on a mental plane. Love and hate are simply degrees of the same thing. In the middle are shades of like and dislike. Vibrations of hate can be transmuted into vibrations of love through the art of polarization, a phase of alchemy known and practiced by ancient and modern masters.

Hermes other Six ‘Secrets’

Correspondence, Mentalism, Vibration, Rhythm, Cause, Effect, and Gender are Hermes other six Laws. Practicing metaphysical principles enabled Hermes and enables anyone to explore, examine, and explain the unexplained, and to execute any and all thoughts, ideas, and visions.

Having inner and outer wisdom has helped critical thinkers throughout history to unlock mysteries using Hermetic thought and principles. Hermetic masters possess knowledge of transcendental astronomy called astrology, transcendental chemistry called alchemy, and transcendental psychology called mystic psychology. Confucius, Galileo, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Nostradamus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell were all Grand Masters of Hermetic thought and principles.

Astrology is a symbolic system that compares and contrasts our heavens with affairs of man on earth. Astrology unlocks ancient and modern mysteries using Hermes second principle of correspondence “As Above, So Below, as below, so above”.

An infinite variety of characters, plots, and archetypal tales are mirrored in lots of dysfunctional humans, unable to see the forests from the trees. Too many lost souls are Idolizing gold-plated Calves on brass-plated pedestals and Worshiping Sacred Cows on the Altars of Nonsense. The human race has become a race against self-created bad shit happening. Our planet’s sixth extinction is nearing more quickly than we think.

Hermes was Greek god of wisdom, wealth, trade, luck, fertility, language, animal husbandry, thieves, travelers, sleep, and providing safe passage to death. Mercury was Hermes’ Roman version, messenger of gods and ruler of Gemini. Thoth, in ancient Egypt, was a lunar god and patron of science, literature, wisdom, and invention. Loki was the Norse god of mischief. In Tarot, Hermes, a Magician at a crossroads has crucial decisions to make and critical actions to take. Merlin, Gondolf, Harry Potter, and Dumbledore are modern Hermes. Having metaphysical tools and mystical knowledge enabled Hemes and enables ALL of us to choose our thoughts, feelings, what to do, and who to be.

Hermes was reputedly a real person who lived for 350 years in the flesh in ancient Egypt. Refusing to age, Hermes misspent much of his adolescence as a trickster and petty thief. He was ‘Puck’ in ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’. He’s Peter Pan, a Gemini, who never grows old.

A 76 year old Hermes, I’m no longer adolescent. Peter needs and depends on Wendy. My Wendy is Joanna, Aries with Taurus rising. She strongly disagrees with my assessment. I call her ‘Rambull’. I’m a Gemini with Scorpio rising. She calls me ‘a piece of work in progress’. Being born twelve years apart makes us ‘the bores’ at Chinese New Year’s parties. I’m a Pig on a Mountain. She’s a Pig in a Monastery.

Wendy is a Virgo type, a practical and responsible friend who darns Peter’s socks, sews his shadow back on, and patiently awaits his return as he flies away to Neverland whenever he chooses. Wendy brings an awareness that balances Peter’s ambiguous and ambivalent thoughts and feelings with clarity and good sense.

Michael Jackson actually lived in Neverland. Priscilla and Liz were his Wendys. Johnny Depp is Peter Pan who played Edward Scissorhands, Alice in Wonderland, Pirates of the Carribean, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, and many other child centered characters. Hermes & Aphrodite gave birth to Hermaphrodite. David Bowie has flourished and blossomed in musical creativity, originality, and androgynous performance art.

Know thyself. Common sense without good sense is nonsense. Cultivate clear vision. Make wise choices. Nourish real relationships. Choose right uses of will power. Act decisively. Maintain positive attitudes. Balance courage, strength, wisdom, and grace with critical thinking, real feelings, and right actions. Having solid faith creates strong structures on sound foundations. We can change our destiny and the destiny of our planet on a cellular level by raising our vibration, polarity, and rhythm.

PISCES & PSYCHE

Posted on March 6, 2023 by markseltman

Personal and Collective Psyche transforms as outer planets change signs and geometric relationships. Uranus was the only outer planet to pass through Pisces (1919–1928) in the 20th Century. Uranus’s eighty-four-year cycle was completed when he returned to Pisces from 2003–2011. Uranus (destroyer) in Pisces and Neptune (visionary) in Aquarius are masters of illusion and delusion. Pluto in Capricorn transforms religious, social, economic, and cultural paradigms. Uranus moved into Taurus in 2019. An unstable economy rattled collective psyche as it destabilized markets through fluctuating interest rates and sudden unpredictable changes.

Comparing and contrasting Ideologies from 1919 and 2003 are both alarming and enlightening. If hindsight is 2020, it’s 2023. What has happened and not happened?

1919 ~ Worst baseball scandal (Black Sox) in history occurred when a grand jury brought indictments against eight players from the White Sox who were accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. They were eventually found not guilty.

2003 ~ Complicit use of illicit steroids was the biggest scandal in modern baseball.

Bottle of bonded medicinal whiskey

“For Medical Purposes Only”

1919 ~ Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, which encouraged distilling, brewing, and bootlegging.

2003 ~ George W. Bush prohibited Medicare from negotiating drug prices. Black markets for pharmaceutical and illicit drugs from India, Canada, and Mexico thrived. Cannabis became medicinal.

1921 ~ Formal investigations into the Teapot Dome oil scandals were initiated.

2003 ~ USA invaded Iraq under false pretenses to secure oil resources.

1924 ~ Worst tornado in US history obliterated 35 towns in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, and Illinois.

2005 ~ Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Gaia needs us to turn bad intentions and habits into healthy strategies and actions.

1919 ~ World War I ended; consumerism, immigration, discrimination, extremism, and fundamentalism began and grew. Uranus in Pisces, Neptune in Leo, and Pluto in Cancer combined to impel four million steel workers and miners to walk off their job to protest “too many work hours” and “inhumane pay”.

2003 ~ Increased wage inequality between workers at the top, middle, and bottom resulted in less wages and compensation for workers. Despite increased productivity, real wages and compensation continue to stagnate. Haves have. Have nots have not.

Four conservative Republican Presidents (Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and George W Bush) held office with Uranus in Pisces. “Silent Cal” Coolidge, 30^th President (b. 7 / 4 1872) exclaimed, “Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend (Inferior Races of Asia).” Coolidge preached, “The business of America is business”.

Government and business were in bed together. Illicit affairs wielded temporary and absolute power over tightly woven webs of political, social, and cultural fabric. Plutocrats seduced, then betrayed us for profit. One embodiment of our addiction and dependence on credit and corporations is ‘Citizens United’, who has our permission to make decisions about us for us. Winning through Intimidation works, but Hubris has Karmic Consequences!

George W Bush began his ‘War on Terror’ when Uranus entered Pisces in 2003. By wrecking Iraqi culture and disabling their energy infrastructure, we pilfered and profited from Iraq’s resources. Dick Cheney’s Halliburton bought, sold, and traded Iraq as a proud sponsor of and powerful benefactor from the war in Iraq.

Security for airports and seaports was put in the hands of chosen special interest contractors. Public Health Care was sacrificed on the altars of Health Insurance Czars and Pharmaceutical CEO’s. Social Security, based in faith, truth, and justice, was nearly privatized. Abuse of power, greed, fear, apathy, loss of faith, and control are threats to our good health and the well-being of our constitution, democracy, and planet.

In 1929, loss of faith in our government and economy infected our psyche, catalyzing a devastating stock market crash! In 2008, President George W Bush demonstrated how to create out-of-control federal, domestic, and military spending by giving government bailouts to financial and auto industries and funding nebulous federal mandates like educational reforms that transformed substantial surpluses into huge deficits. Paradoxically, Democrats dominated the Senate and the House from 2007~ 09 during the banking and housing financial scandals.

Before the great Stock Market Crash, Uranus in Pisces transmuted traditional ideologies from thrift and austerity to mass consumerism, addiction, and unobstructed credit. Two out of three Americans had electricity, refrigerators, and washing machines. Henry Ford created green and maroon as well as black cars. Spending on recreation tripled. Mass tastes stimulated and cultivated markets for Rice Krispies, Lender’s Bagels, Mounds Bars, Betty Crocker, Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and many other super marketable products.

Credit and consumerism created the illusion of an easy and convenient life. Uranus in Pisces inspired movie audiences to out attend church audiences. Movie houses, chain stores, and radio advertising proliferated. ‘Modern Romance Magazine’ challenged moral codes. Critics believed consumerism was driving Americans into a soulless existence. Writer Sinclair Lewis highlighted humanity’s illusions and delusions while blaming mass production and consumption for “having created a bloodless, loveless, and standardized world”. “He who dies rich, dies disgraced” Andrew Carnegie.

In 1925, the KKK released 40,000 hooded members to invade Washington DC. Their resurgence targeted African Americans, Immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. New laws reduced the stream of migrants to a trickle while congress hindered immigrants based on quotas of 150,000 new immigrants yearly. The KKK endorsed Donald Trump for President in Nov of 2016. We did nothing but talk, blame, and continue scraping for pennies at the bottom of the barrel. Money talks. Bullshit walks. We need to build more and better bridges, not walls.

Creationism ignored modern science. The opposition between Uranus (science) and Neptune (religion) was clouded by Pisces. Tennessee legislators voted it unlawful for any teacher in a state supported school, “to teach any theory that denies the story of man’s creation as taught in the bible”. Man descending from apes was unacceptable. John Scopes, high school biology teacher, fought for Darwin’s ‘theory of evolution’. Science and truth lost to politics and religion in the “Scopes Monkey Trial”. Denial of Science is even worse now.

No rich child left behind. Poor folk are workers, soldiers, and followers. How many yachts and jets do our saviors and persecutors need before they’ll help humanity?

The German Bauhaus School of Architecture’s ‘less is more’ design philosophy influenced architecture and product design on a global scale. Religious culture manipulated school curriculum to cleanse obscenity, promote censorship, and discriminate against race and sexuality in literature and theater. In 1984, Intelligent Design became Creationism. ‘Intelligent Design’ was once about saving materials and money for manufacturers. As an industrial designer, waste was not a problem for me, because clean-up and disposal were someone else’s problem, usually disposed of thoughtlessly, hastily, and carelessly. I depleted more than my share of our planet’s natural resources for ego and fashion. It’s easy to rationalize and compartmentalize choices and actions and ignore consequences. I retired from polluting the planet and became the ‘Guru of Garbage’. Landfills are overflowing with award winning design! Few people realize how much ability each and every one of us has to affect and infect our future with Chronic Spiritual Cancer, which is caused by Humanity’s Lack of Foresight, Consumption, Waste, Greed, Ignorance, Hate, and Fear.

‘Intelligent design’ is not ‘smart design’. Smart designers create useful products and services using sustainable resources, efficient energy production, and fewer pollutants. More waste is recycled or reused in constructive projects that enhance nature and humanity. We must shift our paradigms from lying, denying, and hiding truth, to seeing, understanding, accepting, and embracing reality. Hate can be transformed into love by letting go of fear. The handwriting is on the wall and the time is now!

Common sense is not good sense. Denying science is not ‘intelligent Design’. We interpret fake news and decipher deceptive politics. All news taken in context and by degree is ideologically corrupt, philosophically bankrupt, and spiritually blind on one level or another. ‘It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters’.

PRACTICING WHAT THEY’RE PREACHING?

Real darkness is not funny. Pundits parody greed, prejudice, hate, and hypocrisy. Emperors think they know what’s best for the rest of us as they weave naked warps of ‘no love’ with gilded wefts of ‘tough love’. Where are our healthy role models? Being healthier, happier, more loving, and tolerant of ourselves, each other, and world is a mission and mandate that makes good sense. We must choose leaders who have courage, strength, wisdom, and grace to do what’s best for everyone and everything!

Much has happened since 1919. More than a Century has passed. Neptune returned to Pisces April 4, 2011 and will remain until April 1, 2025. Neptune blurs boundaries, distorts vision, creates illusion, and promotes delusion. Pisces embodies physical, mental, and emotional endings that can catalyze new beginnings. The dusk of denial is the dawn of truth. Bad behavior has become pandemic. Healthy behavior is the cure.

If hindsight is 2020, how come attitudes didn’t change. Why must we lose what we value to value what we had? History repeats in its desperate and disparate attempt to teach us to stop learning in hard ways. Neptune in Pisces embodies infinite shades of gray from the Brightest Spiritual White to the Blackest Death. Must we die to be reborn?

In 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn. With help from Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius, Pluto began transforming traditional ideologies and beliefs. Humanity needs to focus attention on harnessing and directing sustainable energy, cultivating values over money, refining communications, upgrading infrastructure, improving public and private transportation, providing healthcare for all, encouraging honest relationships, choosing healthy philosophies, practicing bi-partisan politics, having clear purpose, deciding our personal and collective destinies, encouraging creativity, and being more spiritual. Practicing Courage, Strength, Wisdom, and Grace will lead to the Palace of Good Health and Happiness.

2011. Uranus in Aries, Neptune in Pisces, and Pluto in Capricorn, symbolizes greed, wealth, power, and the illusion and delusion of Self Importance. Huge footprints do not mean huge hearts. The pathology of power fosters denial of truth. A sense of futility and apathy nourishes the disillusion of the free will of 99%. Fear and terror poisoned the Kool-Aid and too many naive and unsuspecting folk are mindlessly guzzling it.

EXPELIOSIS!

WARNING!!!

Unhealthy for 99% +

Nonsense trumps good sense. Money trumps values. Religion trumps spirituality. Climate denial trumps science. Health insurance companies trump healthcare. HMO’s, pharmaceutical companies, and medical profiteers trump everyone. Plutocrats trump politicians. Politicians trump circumstances that require habitual filling of partisan vacancies and attention to profits. Privatized prisons trump poor black prisoners. Prison hatcheries trump frantic followers who foster fundamentalist ideologies and favor fanatical behaviors. The human race has become a race against bad shit happening too predictably and often.

Absolute power corrupts! Choose your cause. Make your decisions. Take your actions. When you’re lucky, give back as much as you can. Make real differences! Hubris has taken down every demagogue in history. Karma manifests when outer and inner worlds collide and divide! If 2020 was the best year for ‘Hindsight’, what’s our responsibility now?

Get your LOCK HIM UP ex-Presidential Medal while supplies last!

How can humanity become mentally and emotionally stable? We can send electric cars into space, but can we transform mass transportation, build better bridges, create well planned tunnels, and less walls? What are the best ways to renew our topsoil, clean our water, freshen our air, and make the smartest uses of our energy resources?

Conceive the inconceivable. Healthy intent, well thought out plans, and right use of free will creates huge possibilities and probabilities. As we help ourselves, we help others. Can we plan what to do next to love and protect our personal and planetary health and well-being?

Love, truth, and justice come with moral obligations and ethical responsibilities. Physical and spiritual wealth is best spent planning and laying strong foundations for whole, healthy, and natural structures. Humanity needs guidance and governance from caring and nurturing leaders and managers who love their families, friends, others, and especially Gaia who sustains and nourishes all life.

AQUARIUS & PSYCHE

Posted on January 31, 2023 by markseltman

Aquarius & Psyche

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Personal & Collective Psyche transform as Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto change Sun signs and personal relationships. Uranus transits each of twelve signs for seven years. It takes eighty-four years for Uranus to pass through twelve signs.

Uranus surprises, revises, and revolutionizes. Uranus entered Aquarius twice in the 20^th Century. 1912 to 1919 brought sudden unexpected political and social upheaval, provocative philosophical & spiritual ideologies, loss of faith in humanity, and lack of trust in ourselves.

1912 ~ “The Unsinkable Titanic” sunk on its maiden voyage… karmic lesson in Hubris

1913 ~ Tornadoes & Floods devastated Middle America. 3,000 dead + $100,000,000 in damages… a painful and expensive lesson in preparedness

1914 ~ World War I ~ Greed, Hatred, Fear, and Terror levied a heavy toll on humanity

1915 ~ Jan. 25… Sun, Uranus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Lunar North Node, energized by Uranus and powered by Aquarius. Alexander Graham Bell began international mass communications through the first transcontinental phone call made Jan 25^th, 1915. A powerful concept’s time had come. The Dark Side: German submarine torpedoed the British Ocean Liner Lusitania

1916 ~ What kind of wall would have prevented Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary, from invading the USA? President Wilson retaliated by sending 6,000 troops into Mexico.

Official Gazette of London published the names of 80 United States firms suspected of trading with Germany. Prescott Bush (banker) was on the list.

1917 ~ USA declared war on Germany. Hitler’s enemies became our allies. Hatred & Bigotry was bountiful, catalyzing the worst race riot in American history in Illinois.

Congress amended laws that prohibited beer, wine, and liquor from being profitable

1918 ~ Spanish Flu was the worst pandemic since the Bubonic Plague that wiped out one quarter of Europe’s population in the 14^th century. Daylight Savings Time was born.

1919 ~ Prohibition was ratified as the 18^th amendment to our constitution. Congress failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. President Wilson disagreed and went on public tour to fight the decision. He died trying.

Uranus transited Aquarius again in 1996. The final leg of his journey marked the fall of the World Trade Centers. Had we chosen faith, love, and brotherhood over fear, selfishness, and convenience, we’d be building bridges instead of walls!

Neptune was in Aquarius from Nov 27, 1998, to Apr 4, 2011. Neptune eroticized and romanticized male vanity and virility. ‘Getting it up’ got popular when Pfizer introduced Viagra in 1998.

The stock market created a new form of gambling addiction called “internet day trading” where the present is more profitable than the future. DVDs were the fastest growing consumer electronics product in history. Bribes and drugs tarnished the Olympic Games. Innocence and civil liberties were transformed as our ideals, illusions, and delusions about private and social security and stability dissolved. What we think and how we feel about our past, present, and future is what matters most in the eternal here and now.

Neptune impelled illusion & fantasy to find reality when body piercing & tattoos became popular. President Clinton’s first political act of 1996 was to sign a welfare reform bill that made life harder for poor people. The downtrodden were deceived, divided, and demoralized by the powers that be. Madeline Albright became the first female Secretary of State. Ellen DeGeneres was the first gay star on an ABC sitcom. Taiwan’s first democratic election was held. Four major plane crashes happened.

Neptune rules vision, illusion, delusion, and confusion. In 1998, Neptune in Aquarius represented a House of Representatives who impeached Bill Clinton for giving “perjurious false and misleading” testimony in front of a grand jury. Bill’s Hands, Sun, Mercury, Saturn, and Pluto are ruled by LEO. Rest assured, Hillary mercilessly spanked Bill’s sorry butt after he got caught being careless and cocky. In Leo of 2005, the IRA announced an end to its armed campaign and committed to complete decommissioning of all its weapons. Catholic and Protestant believers, practitioners, and clergymen voted for peace in Ireland.

Outer planets rule the electronic (Uranus) ether (Neptune). The US government and twenty state attorney generals charged Microsoft with anti-trust practices for dominating the Internet access market. Bill Gates has a Scorpio Sun, Venus, and Saturn, with Leo hands. Bill fantasizes about being god, but has much to hide and too many secrets not to be humble. Bill is a god in the underworld.

Andrew Carnegie said, “He who dies rich, dies disgraced.” Imagine having enough power to make gigantic differences for all of humanity and our planet and not do anything of value? What’s the ethical, moral, and spiritual responsibility for knowing the difference? Many people give more time and money to charity than Bill Gates compared to their available time & money.

Neptune entered Pisces in 2012. 1/10 of 1% afflicted and infected the other 99.9% with physical, mental, emotional, ideological, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual pathogens and disease. Our illusions, delusions, and deceptions of becoming old, poor, sick, disabled, and/or unable to afford bad shit happening were dissolving. Individual and collective hatred, fear, and terror prevent us from transmuting our inequities into equities. We must learn to see clearly and take full responsibility for our behavior, values, thinking, feelings, health, relationships, creativity, philosophy, purpose, hopes, desires, fears, and spirituality.

Whether

Look / See ~ Listen / Hear

Haves rule. Neptune in Pisces symbolizes billions of individuals around the world seeking security, stability, and spiritual answers. Neptune is also revealing despair, fear, and terror. Historians will describe the 21^stCentury as an era of false prophets and false profits. Indentured folks are at the bottom of the barrel scraping for pennies. Plutocrats skim the cream as they bribe and extort the partisan help who permit them to deplete, pollute, and poison our planet, manage our healthcare, regulate our welfare, gamble with our social security, control our pensions, and manage our pretensions. The middle and lower classes are pawns, collateral damage, in a crooked game of chess. If freedom and slavery are white and black, what shades of gray are you?

Pluto enters Aquarius on March 23, 2023, and leaves in 2044. Pluto will expose our dirty little secret agendas and realign humanity’s ideals, hopes, and dreams. Pluto could also hammer the last rusty nail in the impatiently awaiting coffin of humanity’s sanity. It’s up to us…

The human race has become a race against bad shit happening. Never have so few been permitted to influence, manipulate, and control so many.

“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding.”

Hermes

“All is in THE ALL” “THE ALL is in All”

To him who truly understands this truth hath come great knowledge.

Hermes was the father of the ‘Cell Phone’. Everything is made of cells. Hermes taught that the brain is our hardware whose function is to connect inner with outer cells and fine tune our links.

In ancient Egypt, Hermes was the mystic teacher of Abraham. Hermes reputedly lived to be 350 years old in the flesh as a real person. @ 75, I’m ready to upgrade my operating system from Peter Pan (adolescence) to Hermes (adulthood). Joanna, my ‘Wendy’ (‘Artemis’), calls me “a piece of work in progress”. She says I’m still in my first childhood. Joanna has an Aries Sun with Taurus rising. I call her “RamBull”. Our friends remind us that “We deserve each other!”

“As Above, So Below” Hermes

SAGITTARIUS & PSYCHE

Posted on December 21, 2022 by markseltman

Collective psyche overrules personal psyche. Fate or Destiny? Nature or Nurture? Whatever your astrological symbolism says about you, a tsunami, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, drought, pandemic, war, or banana peel can transform your psyche.

Twelve basic character types are featured in astrology. Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto symbolize family, friends, and enemies and embodies a collective consciousness that includes beliefs, behaviors, and interpersonal relationships. Humanity’s patterns correspond to conditions and positions of inner and outer planets that embody ideologies and circumstances that seed and catalyze outer and inner change. We can choose to see, know, and be our behavior, values, thinking, feelings, will, health, relationships, creativity, philosophy, purpose, dreams and fears, and spirituality.

Astrology has endless permutations and combinations of details. Each and every detail means something, but until you’ve decided on basic character type and context, details are superficial. The meaning of any detail can change because of the question asked and the balance of elements, planets, signs, houses, and aspects. Adding stars, asteroids, and man-made points to a natal chart can make accurate interpretation impossible.

In my metaphysical practice, I examine every detail within the context of the whole picture and every other detail at the same time. Comparing and contrasting symbolic details and combinations of details is vital for observing, examining, and analyzing human behavior. One danger in interpreting isolated details out of context is in substituting one form of predetermination for another by reducing individuality to cookbook formulas. That’s what most readers do. It’s the primary reason I don’t make predictions. Free-will rules. We get to choose what we think and how we feel no matter what is happening. Canned readings may be a good place to start, but they’re no substitute for time and experience. Other people’s ideologies, opinions, and generalizations should not be taken literally or too seriously.

I’m writing this on 12/2/2022. Sun, Mercury, and Venus are comfortable in Sagittarius. A frustrated Mars is battling a lot of misinformation and dealing with too much Gemini bullshit. Mars is trying to communicate with siblings, but instead, he’s creating tension for everyone. Mars rules energy, sports, and military under Saturn’s decisions, missions, and guidance. Saturn in Aquarius is trying to choose healthy ideologies, values, and thinking.

Uranus transited Aries during the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and passed through Taurus 1935~1942. That period symbolized a destabilization of foundations, structures, economies, institutions, and values. Focusing on values forced many people to question materialism. The USA went off the gold standard. 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. Roosevelt defended the Four Essential Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. Having Real Faith might have prevented the human race from racing so randomly, recklessly, and desperately against and toward bad shit happening.

Neptune & Jupiter are happiest in Sagittarius & Pisces. Friendship thrives where and when imagination, vision, and spirit are openly shared. Jupiter is naturally generous. He also attracts excess and greed. Jupiter can make you believe anything. His voice is designed to persuade. Neptune can be a martyr, savior, or saint. He can also be a liar, crook, or master criminal. Together, Jupiter and Neptune can heal the widening gap between haves and havenots. Neptune must shed the veil of illusion and delusion while Jupiter takes the reigns of confusion, collusion, and irresolution, and redirects us to clarity, inclusion, and resolution. Haves must share wealth with havenots for the betterment of mankind and for our world. Pluto in Capricorn will expose secrets that need to be seen. Pluto can transform business in ways that bring humans together instead of irreconcilably dividing them through partisan Politics, Business, and Religion. How can we transform fear into courage and hate into love? Is it possible to truly balance our outer circumstances with our inner worlds?

Uranus transited Sagittarius from 1981-1988. Politics became more accessible to females. Sandra D. O’Connor became the first Woman elected to the Supreme Court. Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominated by the Democratic Party for Vice President. Benazir Bhutto became the first Muslim female prime minister in Pakistan’s first free election since 1977.

Uranus brings sudden and unexpected upheaval and disaster. The space shuttle Challenger exploded on takeoff in 1986, while millions watched in horror on their TV screens. Ronald Reagan created “Star Wars”, an absurd and overly expensive national defense idea. Greenpeace’s flagship, Rainbow Warrior, was bombed while protesting France’s nuclear testing. George Bush Sr. was the first sitting Vice President elected as president since 1836. IBM introduced personal PCs. AT&T’s communication monopoly ended via a powerful combo of Anti-Trust Laws & the Department of Justice in 1974.

In 2018, Donald Trump announced a sixth branch of our military services that organizes, trains, and equips space forces in order to protect US. and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force. Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, Uranus in Taurus, and Neptune in Pisces represent fundamental conflicts and issues like ‘money vs values’ and ‘religion vs spirituality’. We must find and embrace healthy resolutions and actions for all mankind and for our planet.

Neptune transited Sagittarius from 1970 to 1984. The idealism of the 60’s turned to pessimism with a marked lack of trust in national institutions. The war in Vietnam united masses of skeptical angry protesters, who were ready for confrontation. The Arab oil embargo created a major energy crisis in 1973 to finally ‘teach’ the USA not to take energy for granted. We keep forgetting to remember to observe the handwriting on our walls!

Gas is expensive, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the economic and social consequences of unbridled public and personal abuses of precious natural resources. Raising prices is essential to increasing profits. Fossil fuel profiteers have prevented energy independence by controlling and manipulating natural resources that no private individuals should own. Controversial pipelines are endangering our environment with long range consequences for our bodies, souls, and body and soul of our planet!

Sagittarius rules publishing and religion. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini sentenced Salman Rushdie to death after publishing The Satanic Verses. Rushdie’s tales of good and evil incited riots in India and book burnings in England. His literary success fueled an ocean of fear and stirred teeming cauldrons of Islamic hatred! After 23 years of threats, on August 12, 2022, a man stabbed novelist Salman Rushdie multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

Donald Trump attracted and motivated masses of Evangelicals, Holocaust deniers, White supremacists, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious fundamentalists who embraced the dark force. Having a bible in one hand and an AK in the other is not about GOD! It’s no surprise that Trump was inaugurated on Jan 20, 2017 while Uranus was in Aries.

Sun, Mercury, and Venus in Sagittarius opposing Gemini and Mars is a good time to shift our values and philosophies from profit over people to social justice and equality for all. It makes good sense to care for and nurture everyone and everything.

Neptune rules false prophets, illusion, delusion, deception, and victimization. Richard Nixon was the first President to announce his resignation while Neptune was in Scorpio in 1974. New York was the first city to be bailed out of bankruptcy by the federal government in 1975. Neptune can also be imaginary and visionary. A religious paradigm shifted when the Catholic Church elected its first non-Italian pope in four centuries. Mother Theresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in the name of the poor. In 1979, Televangelist Jerry Falwell founded the ‘Moral Majority’. It became an ‘Immoral Majority’ sometime prior to January 20^th of 2001. Pluto in Sag brought Donald Trump to politics. A natal Mercury (11^th house) square Neptune (2nd house) aspect can be interpreted as pretending to be your friend to get your money. Inwardly curved pinkie fingers confirm Donald lies. He doesn’t realize the difference. Don grifted us until Jan 6 2021 when Pluto in Capricorn, Neptune in Pisces, and Uranus in Taurus raised mass conscience, no longer permitting Don to piss on humanity.

Authors Note: Not everyone with curved pinkies is a liar. Many learned to behave in ways that worked in early childhood and are still trying to be themselves. Old habits die hard.

Neptune rules chemicals and drugs. The first test-tube baby was conceived without a womb when Neptune was in Leo in 1978. Genetic engineering generated new horrors for theologians, religious fundamentalists, and ideological extremists. Environmental activists protested industries creating “Acid Rain”. ‘Three Mile Island’ fiasco derailed several major nuclear energy projects in 1979. The World Health Organization announced an end to smallpox. Crack cocaine became popular. A deadly sexual epidemic was officially named AIDS in 1981. Fear of an eventual pandemic spread. Covid 19 was official on Mar 11 2020. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto were in Capricorn. Aggression and gun control dominated personal and collective psyche. A dark side of Uranus in Taurus & Neptune in Pisces is a constant flow of blame and denial from extremist ideologies that catalyzed an insurrection on Jan 6 2021.

Pluto transited Sagittarius from 1995 to 2008. Political extremism, corporate greed, religious fanaticism, white supremacy, Second amendment rights, fundamentalism, and terrorism germinated quickly in fertile soil, transforming politics, business, and religion. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing law student. Pluto was in Sag and Sun was in Scorpio. The Middle East peace process was disrupted. President Clinton resumed diplomatic relations with communist Vietnam. In July 1997, Great Britain let go of Hong Kong. Hundreds of thousands of Black Men flocked to Washington to march for freedom. It was the first time in 40 years Republicans controlled congress. Y2K was not end time. People woke up, brushed their teeth, and went to work.

Sex scandals rocked the Catholic Church in 1995. The House of Representatives impeached and later acquitted Bill Clinton for lying about his sex life. Two students killed themselves after murdering twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. The Unabomber was caught and sentenced to life in prison. Oklahoma City bombing established large-scale American terrorism on our soil. On 9/11, government power transformed, giving leaders permission to supersede human rights and civil liberties. Political machines preempted war without world consent. In 2022, lairs of corporate foxes tended hen houses while packs of political wolves herded sheep. Sacred cows gave birth to golden calves.

Saturn began his journey through Sagittarius on December 23, 2014. Pluto was visiting his siblings in eleven other homes for twenty-eight years prior to that. Astrologers predicted Saturn would wield a sobering influence on society as he transited Sagittarius to Capricorn. Saturn’s natural process is accepting responsibility, laying foundations, building structures, and being methodical, disciplined, and focused. Saturn rules bureaucracy, business, energy, transportation, education, communications, food, housing, healthcare, law, politics, and religion. Father Time asks us to remember, to be here now, and to plan as far into the future as possible.

Sagittarius rules transportation. He loves prestige, luxury, power, and status. He leaves racing for Aries and showing off for Leo. The Lords of the automobile industry must shift their paradigms of profit before people to people first. Transportation must be designed from a more spiritual perspective. Guzzling fossil fuels is unsustainable. Do we really need hundreds of horses galloping under our hoods?

Perpetuating illusions that overly expensive gas guzzling cars are glamorous, maintains delusions that it’s OK to deplete our planet’s natural resources and poison everyone and everything. Car companies pretend their products are healthy! We must rethink what healthy transportation will be for our future. Raising mass consciousness will profit humanity and our planet. We can no longer get away with substituting money for values and religion for spirituality.

Whether our planet warms, cools, floods, quakes, droughts, burns, or is blown by giant winds, fossil fuel prices still remain artificially repressed. Legislation and energy umbilical cords prevent sustainable energy minded competitors from building sound structures on solid foundations. Fuel efficient, non-polluting, practical, and economical mass transit is essential to creating a healthy world and economy. We must cut our energy demands and costs while thinking globally and acting locally. Transportation must reform and transform.

We go wherever and whenever we want in the comfort and safety of our cars. Our hidden costs are insidious, usurious, and deceitful as we guzzle gas, fight oil wars, deplete and squander finite resources, and poison Mom’s body, circulatory, and respiratory systems.

Too much carbon dioxide, monoxide, and toxic gases hover in space and time by degree. Smoke, smog, chemical, and human waste poison our oceans, reservoirs, rivers, streams, and faucets. A pandemic of pestilential pollution binds to the walls of our veins and coagulates in our arteries like cholesterol on its way to a coronary. Highways and roads are like varicose veins feeding bloated glands that nourish cancerous sores we call cities. It’s time to shift our usurious paradigms and steer ourselves clear from death and destruction toward a hopeful future characterized by clear intent, healthy values, critical thinking, honest feelings, right use of will, good physical health, honest relationships, freedom to explore and understand our fears, creativity, philosophy, purpose, dreams, and spirituality.

Greed and avarice are symptoms of poisonous partisan political philosophies, flawed fundamentalist faiths, extremist social ideologies, and too many desperate people. As we wander through barren deserts and toxic wastelands, too many unhealthy psyches with too many guns and second amendment rights are worshipping sacred cows and praying to golden calves. Why are we trading money for values and substituting religion for spirituality?

Why must we lose what we value to value what we had? Jupiter transited Sagittarius this year, shamelessly flaunting greed in capitalism and revealing present and future costs of climate change. Choosing healthy values and accepting full responsibility for being healthy and happy is Spiritual Alchemy! Our fate is unknown; however, our destiny is in our hands.

Uranus transits Taurus May 14, 2018 ~ Nov 7, 2025. Time for rebirth, to make sense, to accept responsibility, and to choose courage, strength, grace, and wisdom. Combining truth with nobility, dignity, integrity, ethics, and virtue will heal everyone and everything. How can we see the forest from the trees? Can we all become healthier in more sustainable ways? “The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding”. Hermes

GREENING OF THE PSYCHE

Posted on November 8, 2022 by markseltman

GREENING OF THE PSYCHE

“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding” Hermes

Hermes was father of alchemy, god of wisdom, mentor of Abraham, Roman scribe, Mercury, messenger for gods and ruler of Gemini. As Loki, Norse god of mischief, Hermes transforms looking into seeing, listening into hearing, and believing into knowing. Hermes was reputedly a real person who lived for 350 years in the flesh in ancient Egypt. In Tarot, Hermes is a magician at a crossroads who must choose a correct path, clear vision, and pure intent. A pragmatic philosophy enabled Hermes to offer us the tools, knowledge, and wisdom to be healthier and happier and to better maintain and nourish everyone and everything.

Hermes was the real father of the Cell phone. He taught his disciples that thought is made up of individual cells, physically, mentally, and spiritually connected to all other cells on all other planes at the same time. Physical, Mental, and Spiritual planes merge to form a metaphysical Cell tower. Making Connections and tuning our links is our work. Our brains are our communication hardware while our minds transmit and receive messages.

“While ALL is inTHE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in ALL. The inner nature of THE ALL is unknowable. Whoever understands this truth hath great knowledge”. An unknowable and indefinable spirit rules everyone and everything. Spirit is the essence that bonds body and soul with the whole.

Alchemy is not turning lead into gold. Alchemy is a set of magical formulas, tools, and esoteric instruction for becoming healthier, happier, and more fulfilled in life. By combining courage, strength, wisdom, and grace (gold) with patience, structure, discipline, and focus (lead), we can choose and have healthy goals, meaningful relationships, and fulfilling accomplishments. We can become more satisfied as our life choices and actions support our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual balance and growth. We can combine critical thinking, real feelings, and true faith to build sound structures on solid foundations.

Personal Spirit depends on the recognition, realization, and manifestation of Great Spirit. Focusing mental forces can transmute one mental vibration into another. Taking a leap of faith, establishing connections, and tuning our links enables us to be fully present in time and space. Focusing our minds on what we truly desire allows us to gather priceless value from thin air.

Polarity

The law of attraction works best when you know what you want and your intentions are clear. Polarity is spiritual magnetism. Opposition creates awareness, which sets destiny in motion. Negative thinking may be transformed into right actions by letting go of fear and choosing love. Vibrations of hate can be transformed into vibrations of love through the science and art of ‘Polarization’, a phase of mental alchemy known and practiced by ancient masters.

The Secret” is Hermes “Law of Polarity”. “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different by degree; all extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled”.

Where does heat end and cold begin? When does darkness stop and light begin? What about positive and negative, hard and soft, sharp and dull, noisy and quiet, high and low? The same principle operates on mental and emotional planes. Hate is black. Love is white. All thoughts, ideologies, feelings, and beliefs are varying shades of gray.

Correspondence, Mentalism, Vibration, Rhythm, Cause, Effect, and Gender are the other six laws Hermes used to visualize clearly. Transcendental astronomy became Astrology. Transcendental chemistry was Alchemy. Transcendental psychology was mystic psychology. Having inner and outer wisdom enabled critical thinkers throughout history to unlock ancient mysteries by combining old practices with new principles. Confucius, Galileo, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Nostradamus, Leonardo Da Vinci, George Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell were all Grand Masters of Metaphysical Thought.

Astrologers practice Hermes second principle of correspondence “As above, so below, as below, so above”. Astrology is a symbolic system that compares and contrasts our heavens with the characters and affairs of humans on earth. Astrology unlocks ancient and modern mysteries that reveal how every relationship changes every other relationship on a cellular level by raising or diminishing its vibration, polarity, and rhythm. A horoscope is a script. A diversity of astrological symbols embodies the cast, plots, and stories of a very disorganized and dysfunctional family we call humanity. That’s why we have anthropomorphic gods and formalized religions. Religious doctrines, rules, commandments, and laws are supposed to keep us sane, but instead are making us insane. Is it possible to be sane in an insane world?

The human race is a race against bad shit happening! An immoral and spiritually bankrupt society worships idols from amateur hours and applauds scripted survivors. Masses of meek minds are mesmerized by meaningless media. Captivated by TV courtroom melodramas, we’ve become critical and judgmental of the pettiest of behaviors. Cunning narcissists, warped exhibitionists, and pious perverts perniciously present their sleaziest selves to a desperate and depraved demand. A culture of winners and losers has become a world of more haves with more and many more have nots with less than ever.

Appallingly apparent apathy produces pandemic pathological paradigms. Where are our healthiest role models? Why do we mistake no love for tough love? We preach love and sympathy and practice hate and fear. We fixate on sex, death, violence, and disease, while fear, greed, mistrust, and shortsightedness sabotage our personal and collective psyches.

Pious philosophies, pointless partisan political paradigms, and pestilential pecuniary practices pollute higher purpose and poison our psyches. Faulty families feast frenzily on flawed feelings, vague values, and toxic thinking, copiously spiced with needless fear, desperation, and hatred. As we analyze, rationalize, and compartmentalize our insane ideologies and beliefs, we sacrifice our dignity, integrity, nobility, and virtue on the altars of nonsense.

‘Psychic Pollution’ is Mother of All Pollution. We must wake up and whiff the weirdness. There’s a huge difference between common sense and good sense. Why do we consume massive amounts of highly toxic chemicals every day in our wars with insects, rodents, weeds, dirt, stains, odors, germs, bacteria, viruses and other invisible enemies? Why are we marinating in chemicals that heat and cool us; power our transportation; provide us with products; color, flavor, and preserve our foods; and enable us to communicate on a grand scale? Why do we fight senseless energy wars? Why do we choose fossil fuel guzzling vehicles that deplete natural resources and pollute our planet? Why do we breathe, drink, wash, and apply risky substances to scalps, mouths, armpits, fingers, toes, and crotches. Must everything be bright white, squeaky clean, and lemon fresh?

Puzzlers puzzle while guzzlers guzzle. Pollution and depletion are profitable. We value our health and the health of our planet in dollars while we short-shortsightedly debate CLIMATE CHANGE. Energy, communications, transportation, pharmaceutical, apparel, and cosmetics industries are busy creating chemicals that protect us from their past, present, and future chemicals. Why do we have to screen ourselves from harmful rays from our sun? How soon will we ‘All’ need air and water purifiers? How soon will oxygen canisters be marketed like bottled water? When will designer oxygen masks and lemon scented oxygen become popular? Will we be purchasing a “breath of fresh air” at oxygen bars?

Industrialization has transformed cities and towns into malignant melanomas that fester and ooze like open sores joining veins and arteries that bleed through decaying spigots attached to our bodies and spirits. Roads and highways, shrouded in carbon monoxide and dioxide, pollute our planet’s respiratory and circulatory systems and body. Toxic streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and oceans of negative beliefs catalyze fear and terror that endangers our well-being and the well-being of our planet. Contagious viruses contaminate the microbes of our bodies, mycelium of our earth, mitochondria of our minds, and microbiomes of our souls! We must wake up and smell the Psychic Garbage. Spiritual Cancer is Mother of all Cancers.

Vengeance is not a solution to violence. Too many minds focusing on toxic thought can catalyze self-fulfilling prophecies. Lies deceive, walls divide, boundaries detach, behavior obscures, and censorship destroys. We preach love and faith and practice hate and fear. Our most difficult challenges, greatest obstacles, and worst impediments are clearly symptoms of ideological, philosophical, and spiritual dis-ease. We can close landfills, but what do we do with malignant mind-fills and toxic emotional-spills?

How many gilded towers, glitzy gambling casinos, graven images, shark tanks, beauty queens, celebrity idols, and fired apprentices do we need? Why must we bow before self-indulgent-self-appointed emperors on bullshit plated pedestals. Moral corruption and spiritual blindness are perilous paths to the rape of innocence, bankruptcy of values, and blindness for our collective soul.

By observing our plant world, we can learn how to green our psyches. To feed a healthy mind, we must first select healthy thoughts for planting. Having positive attitudes fertilizes favorable circumstances that enable new hope to sprout. Society must have healthy nutrients and supportive environments in which to create strong roots. We need to sow seeds of positive change in the fertile soils of our personal and collective minds, hearts, and psyches. We must weed out and prune destructive and unproductive thoughts. We must eradicate and eliminate unhealthy codes, doctrines, laws, ideas, and practices that make no sense. We must pull the weeds of greed and prune the branches of power to serve humanity in the best possible ways.

Envisioning humanity as a flourishing garden insures, assures, and ensures a bountiful harvest of good health, happiness, prosperity, and peace of mind for all. We can harvest love and unity by supporting all gardens and harvests. The time is now to nurture healthy relationships and nourish healthy conditions that fortify our world. Our gardens will bud and blossom after we fertilize our crops with caring, sharing, diversity, and tolerance. Many plant species can flourish together in a garden. Many types of people can blossom, flourish, and thrive together in our world. Love, truth, and your healthy vote will disinfect, heal, and nourish everyone and everything.

Gemini & Hands

Posted on May 24, 2021 by markseltman

Self Portrait

You don’t need a Gemini sun, moon, ascendant, planets, or house placements to be Gemini. Thinking Types have square palms and long fingers. No matter what your astrology says, pure Geminis have square palms, widely spread long fingers, flexible joints, supple thumbs, and dominant first phalanges on slightly knotty first phalanges with rounded tips. Gemini (mutable) is mentally and socially adaptable. Aquarius (fixed) is unique, eccentric, and innovative. Libra (cardinal) is strategic, balanced, and fair. Of course, there are dark sides…

When major lines in thinking hands split at their ends, that person is able to see many possibilities and outcomes. They often think or feel they have too many choices and decisions to make in order to get whatever done or go wherever they’re going. Mutable types are the most indecisive of the three modalities, especially air and water.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are water signs. Feelings must be balanced with Thinking. Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini are the opposing forces. Ambivalent feelings are incarnate in chains and islands on heart lines. Branches of feelings appear to be magnetically drawn to thinking. Parents who aren’t physically or emotionally present and / or don’t talk about their feelings are teaching their children to analyze, compartmentalize, and rationalize feelings. Rationalizing is safer than verbalizing feelings. A physically or emotionally absent parent as role model in the formative years is a recipe for struggling to learn to value ones’ thinking, feelings, and being. A short index finger often goes with a head ruled heart. Split lines are split for many reasons. Most people have challenging journeys.

Astrology reveals potentials. It’s impossible to accurately foretell a future. It’s hard to predict what we’ll do with potentials in our natal horoscope. Symbols may or may not reflect what you choose to integrate into your character and behavior.

Hands are topographical maps of character in past, present, and future. It’s easy to see the person’s corresponding strengths and weaknesses. While exercising our free will, changing our thinking, modifying our behavior, and re-scripting our story, we can observe the results, clearly etched and reflected in the morphology and topography of our hands over time.

Healthy Geminis have long straight pinkie fingers. They’re master bullshit detectors, acutely aware of their own bullshit, like knowingly being tactful and diplomatic when they’re much better off being frank and direct. Critical thinking, careful decision making, and crystal clear communication make good sense out of nonsense. What you see is what you get!

Dominant Gemini has square palms and long fingers, firm pink elastic skin with loop fingerprints. Long ring fingers with whorl prints add attractiveness, talent, salesmanship, risk taking, and luck. Knowing when to stop is the challenge. Gambling is a bad habit and horrible addiction. Dominant middle fingers, square tips, and developed first knots add technical, scientific, and pragmatic attributes. Powerful index fingers increase leadership potentials, speaking abilities, career potentials, partnerships, friendships, and goals.

Geminis make great lawyers, bankers, doctors, orators, writers, engineers, teachers, salesmen, accountants, and shopkeepers. Dominant pinkie types play small musical instruments that require physical and mental dexterity. Music makes great sense since hearing is Gemini’s physical sense. I’ve worked at special events with top magicians with dominant pinkies. They astound their audiences while deceiving their eyes and minds.

Cultivated Geminis are consummate communicators, social magnets, intuitive geniuses, and great judges of character. Most social of all signs, Gemini is often accused of being an impractical dreamer because he loves ideas so much. He can detach himself from mundane reality, still remaining objective about everyone and everything. He overvalues intellect and undervalues emotion. He feels threatened when his ideas and opinions are ignored without good reason. He can accept your viewpoint, even though he disagrees with you. He’s easily distracted and doesn’t want responsibility for making decisions that have consequences. Longing to be free and unrestricted, he actually needs most to stay focused, disciplined, and structured. Earning rewards requires doing whatever needs to be done with courage, strength, wisdom, and grace.

Hermes (Mercury) was the shortest god. The pinkie is the shortest finger. If the tip is longer than the crease between the first and second phalanx of the ring finger, it’s long. If shorter, it’s short. Dominant pinkie folk are often short in stature like Ed Harris (Sag) with slender body and face. Pure types are animated, with dark hair and penetrating eyes with crow’s feet in the corners. Gemini is the most youthful of all types, eternally childlike, they love children. Men often sport thin beards like Johnny Depp (Gemini). Michael Jackson (Virgo, ruled by Mercury) was a real life Peter Pan. He actually lived in ‘Neverland’. Brooke, Liza, and Liz were Michael’s Wendy’s.

Gemini is androgynous. In Greek myth, Hermes & Aphrodite (siblings) had an incestuous relationship that spawned Hermaphrodite. Dominance of Hermes in one’s psyche (known or unknown) creates bi-sexual tendencies. David Bowie was Capricorn with dominant Hermes. Mick Jagger is Hermes with strong Leo. Cate Blanchett is Hermes with a powerful Taurus sun. She played Bob Dylan, who is Gemini. Boy George is Gemini. Grace Jones, Taurus, has Mercury conjunct Uranus in Gemini. That’s a lot of uniqueness and eccentricity.

Our pinkie finger reveals our ability to communicate. It indicates truthfulness. Early family dynamic can be observed in how the pinkie is set and held. Very short or low set pinkies reveal lack of trust as a major issue. Many women with low set pinkies have told me they have trouble having orgasms. Their real challenge is in trusting someone enough to have real intimacy. Lengths and proportions of pinkie fingers symbolizes technical, language, sexual, financial, and family potentials.

Gemini rules hands and governs our nervous and respiratory systems. Health issues revolve around nervous and bronchial systems. Geminis have potential problems with headaches, thyroid glands, memory loss, and speech impediments. I’m Gemini. I’ve coped with Tinnitus (ringing in my head) for many years. It’s the worm in my apple.

Gold and diamond rings are normally found on the ring (marriage) finger. You’ll see rings on pinkie fingers of acquisitive people. Pinkie rings can symbolize sublimation of sexual energies to accomplish something that requires a lot of libido. I once examined a group of fifty young people born into powerful families in the 80’s. Considering the prosperity of the period, it seemed a paradox that every person I read had short phalanges on the bottom segment of their little fingers. Money will never be the motivation for their career choices. In the final analysis, their families, personal matters, and values will drive these individuals.

Would you buy a used car from this Gemini? Gemini’s liabilities are deceitfulness, trickiness, fickleness, nervousness, restlessness, and shallowness. People preaching on soapboxes, pickpockets, and most con artists have powerful pinkies (inwardly curving). Donald’s curve inward, confirmed in his natal astrology by a close Mercury Neptune square. It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters. Our trickster is not hiding his dark side. The streets are littered with conned contractors, jilted beauty queens, and fired apprentices. The Emperor grabs our pussies as he tortures our mother. If you believe mom (GAIA) is happy about her body, respiratory, circulatory systems, and spirit, we’re all in serious trouble!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many wonderful people have curved pinkies. They learned the hard way as little children to ‘act nice’. Their job was to avoid confrontation and keep the peace. Learning to say ‘NO’ is a lifelong challenge for them (especially with a large ball of thumb). It’s hard to straighten a curved pinkie, but it can be done. The person must stop trying to please and be whatever everyone else wants and needs them to be. If you’re pretending whatever is OK and it isn’t, check your pinkies.

SCORPIO & PSYCHE

Posted on November 1, 2020 by markseltman

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Personal and Collective Psyches transform as outer planets change zodiacal sign. It takes roughly twenty years for Pluto to change sign. Pluto nearly doubled speed in Scorpio on his relentless quest for power and control of everyone and everything from 1984~1995. Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune passed through Scorpio in the 20^th Century.

The eighth house of Scorpio and Pluto rule secrets, sexuality, death, and other people’s money in astrology. Greed and hubris defrocked televangelist Jim Bakker. Dismissed as minister of the Assemblies of God denomination in 1989, Bakker was convicted in federal court on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. By diverting millions of dollars to their greedy and grandiose lifestyle, Jimmy and his wife, Tammy, duped their naive followers out of 158 million dollars. Sex scandals busted Senator Gary Hart.

Jimmy’s back, angrily preaching Trumpism, Covid Cures, and End Times!

Homosexuals exited closets in masses in the late 70’s ~ 80’s to become a focus of daily conversation. HIV prevention and condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS. Faith healing was popular, but it didn’t heal AIDS.

Scorpio can be healthy and evolved or perverted by secret sexual fantasies, lust for money, hunger for power, and fear of loss of control. As Pluto transited Scorpio, unholy alliances with the Devil encouraged predatory preachers and poisonous politicians to physically and spiritually rape the innocent souls that they were entrusted to protect. While seduction turns Pluto on, betrayal gets him off!

Religion is bankrupt without morality and blind without spirituality. When Jupiter entered Scorpio in October 2017, greedy bigoted misogynists grabbed unsuspecting pussies while repressing women’s freedom of choice and reproductive rights. Have-nots were discouraged by haves from voting. Horrible sexual and business behaviors were excused and rewarded. The human race was a race against bad shit happening.

Christian hypocrites, poisonous partisan politicians, and insane ideologues had plenty to hate and preach about. ‘CHRISTIANS’ who can steer hurricanes and miraculously cure pandemics, don’t have a clue how not to hate Blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and all other Immigrants. Corrupt bigots promise good sense and deliver nonsense!

1980 put the first professional actor in the White House after the lowest voter turnout in history. Reagan had previously been spokesperson for ’20 Mule Team Borax’ and former host of ‘Death Valley Days’. He played his roles well, though he never helped the poor. ‘Reaganomics’ didn’t ‘Trickle Down’. When Oliver North exposed the Iran Contra scandal, Reagan performed his role, managing covertly and quietly while remaining relatively unscathed by political scandal.

Significant violence was caused as Police bombed the headquarters of the black radical group MOVE. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Laura. Terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 259 passengers and 11 innocent bystanders in Scotland.

Neptune regenerates and degenerates. Neptune (Pisces) passed through Scorpio from 1957 to 1970. Regenerative sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations juxtaposed degenerative race riots, terrorist bombings, and hijackings. Spiritual transformation was scarce. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by `her own bodyguards’. Racial tensions rose as Bernard Goetz, subway vigilante, became a folk hero after shooting four young black men in NYC. Goetz accused them of robbing him. They claimed they didn’t provoke him. A white washed justice system favored Goetz.

Neptune rules dreams, illusions, and delusions. Escapism, political unrest, and the assassinations of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. drove tens of thousands of desperate draftees and others into exile, rather than serve in Vietnam. Haves always had numerous acceptable excuses (like bone spurs) for not serving, while confused and fearful havenots consumed illicit drugs, indulged in pornography, and incited violence. Promiscuous sex was normal. Oral sex and contraceptives became popular.

Uranus (Aquarius) transited Scorpio from 1975 to 1982. The end of the Vietnam War for America was the beginning of terror for Cambodia. A senate committee revealed ‘assassination’ was a viable option in US foreign policy.

Irreverent political humor nourished hungry audiences as poisonous partisan politicians preached neo-Christianity, sparking a revival of satire and parody. Saturday Night Live flourished. Uranus (sudden change) blossomed in Taurus (values) as it opposed Scorpio (death and transformation). Irreversible transformations in personal and collective psyche, philosophy, and purpose will manifest in November 2020 if hindsight is truly 2020.

Our Founding Fathers saw us as their children. They wanted what was best for our future (despite their personal prejudices and programming). Our Constitution is still encouraging us to say what’s on our minds and share what’s in our hearts via our first amendment rights! We all need to feel appreciated, be celebrated, and given a helping hand in one way or another. Our democracy must never be taken for granted!

Scorpio symbolizes powerful females, sex, and death. Persephone, Helen of Troy, and the Queen of Cups are powerful Scorpio archetypes. The Episcopal Church ordained its first woman in 1974. Barbara Walters was the First Lady News anchor on ABC TV in 1976. Scorpio rules reproductive systems and functions. MIT scientists created the first synthetic gene in 1976. The first test tube baby was conceived outside of the womb in 1978. The first Death sentence in ten years was carried out when convicted murderer Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in 1977.

Scorpio rules garbage. Would you believe I used to be the Guru of Garbage? The notorious Garbage Barge ferried 3,100 tons of toxic waste 6,000 miles before returning to be incinerated. Fidel Castro’s “Freedom Flotilla” embarrassed the USA when we realized that Castro had unloaded his mentally ill, underworld criminals, and other misfits on us. Over 1,000 “No Nukes” protesters were arrested on Wall Street on the 50^th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. What will happen in nine years on the 100^th anniversary?

Uranus in Scorpio conjured an instant cult classic in 1975. The ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ encouraged the ideology that ‘anything goes’. Punk Rock was unconventional, rebellious, and nihilistic. Ultrasound was an alternative to x-ray radiation. Palimony suits became popular. IBM reintroduced personal PCs and transformed communications. Performance art was popular for all creative artists. Personal gender identity needed to become accepted or face a future of dire consequences rooted in fear and hatred. It’s still a partisan problem for everyone.

The only guarantee in life is Death. Scorpio rules Insurance. Taxes and Insurance reside in the eighth house. If we have something of value (2^nd house) to protect, we must pay to play (8^th house). Insurance guarantees that a party be paid for a specific loss. The insured can worry less about the costs and consequences of bad shit happening to family, health, home, car, property, or whatever is valuable and insurable. Insurance is legalized gambling. The insured shoots craps and always loses, even when they win. Your insurance agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is favored due to predetermined statistics, permutations, combinations, and probabilities. Expensive risks are wedded to high stakes. You can understand your odds by examining actuarial tables. See your prospects by observing your premiums.

Insuring is sometimes confused with ensuring or assuring. Life is not ensured or assured. Spraying crops with herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides ensures fewer weeds, bugs, and fungi. It assures (by degree) that we eat, drink, breathe, and apply toxic chemicals to our lungs, guts, hair, skin, mouths, nails, toes, and genitals. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market does not insure, ensure, or assure the market won’t collapse. Employees of Enron believed their pensions insured, ensured, and assured a secure retirement, but they didn’t. Conserving energy ensures we consume less energy, generate surplus energy, create less pollution, and endanger fewer natural resources. Drilling for oil in wilderness does not insure we’ll have enough oil. It does ensure and assure we’ll have other environmental, social, political, and planetary challenges. Vengeance as a remedy for violence assures more vengeance and violence.

Everyone dies. Life insurance protects the living. What’s the premium for a graceful and painless final exit? What are the last years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of your life worth? Read Final Exit by Derek Humphrey. Die with dignity. When it’s your time, having a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to a future of dependency, lack of awareness, loss of love, pain, poverty, or bad health in old age is a good idea.

Saturn and Pluto in Scorpio inspired this self-portrait.

Our 2nd Amendment arms anyone who is eligible, ready, and willing to participate and permits open season on perceived tyranny for many of too many reasons. Our laws enable us to own and use weapons of mass destruction. Blending politics, religion, and profit with Second Amendment rights is a horrible idea and will surely backfire on the NRA.

Gun laws are useless when angry desperate haters with semi-automatic weapons are driven to violence. Boundaries between sanity and insanity are blurred by bigotry, hate, and fear. A pacifist public must protect family and possessions from the poisonous hordes of deluded gun owners with a bible in one hand and an AK47 in the other.

ELECTION WEEK FORECAST

It’s time to evict Masta-Don and his Repuglican’t Kakistocracy. Nov. 3 2020 will be a new beginning or the ending of good health on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes. Partisan politics and religious hypocrisy are characterized by selfish ideas and senseless actions. Human chaos is catalyzing global destruction. As we destroy our planet, our individual and collective psyches are becoming immune compromised.

Mark Seltman's Real Palmistry Blog

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Category Archives: spirituality

HOW I LOST MY SANITY ~ Episode 4

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i~Hermes

PISCES & PSYCHE

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GREENING OF THE PSYCHE

Gemini & Hands

SCORPIO & PSYCHE

Homosexuals exited closets in masses in the late 70’s ~ 80’s to become a focus of daily conversation. HIV prevention and condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS. Faith healing was popular, but it didn’t heal AIDS.