Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Independence Day

It's America's birthday, "Happy Birthday America !"

But wait....is it really America's birthday? Isn't it, more accurately, the anniversary of America's (or even more accurately, the USA's) graduation? It's the anniversary of the time when the United States got rid of outsiders who were governing its life, and became independent - a kind of graduation!

America's true birthday was when the landbridge between it and Asia disappeared. No astrological chart for that exists. So when astrologers use one of several charts to represent the USA, putting its Sun in Cancer and using whichever ascendant they prefer, they're discussing the government, not the land.


I've lived in the USA for almost three years. I'll be sending in my application for citizenship later this month, confident enough that this country, where I'll spend the rest of my days, and whose government at present is going through a sickly phase in its history, will "get better soon". A new prescription will be provided in 2008.

Norman Rockwell's illustration entitled "Mending the Flag" seems somehow appropriate today.



My time here has brought some disappointment, some surprise, but also some great pleasure. I love the land, its diversity, its beauty and its grandeur. I love its history, particularly here, in what used to be the Wild West. You can almost, but not quite, see history happening. Oklahoma will have been a state for only 100 years this year. Within one elderly lifetime a person could have seen the empty parairies blossom into towns and cities with vast stretches of highway between, and oil wells, ranches, fields of cotton, corn, wheat. Not all development has been for its good, of course, but progress is largely unstoppable, except by Mother Nature.

Happy Anniversary, U.S.A.!

2 comments:

Michelle said...

I got your link via a squeeky Rat. Very interesting blog.

I've lived in Scotland four years and sent in my citizenship papers in April. See who gets theirs first? :-)

Twilight said...

Hi Michelle

Thank you kindly!

So you'll be a British citizen and I'll be an American one - a fair swap!

My money is on you beating me - the US authorities are VERY slow,
I'll be waiting until next spring at earliest, then it depends when an Oath Ceremony is available in my area.

Good luck!