Husband and I, sharing sorrowfully thoughts about the death of Robin Williams this week, considered the sad but inevitable truth that, as one ages the loss of long-appreciated, loved at a distance, fellow-travellers who've been with us for much of our adult life, is going to be a fact of elder life. Increasing numbers will leave us, some much too tragically soon, others at a time more to be expected.
In the last few weeks and months we've lost Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Garner, Tony Benn, and now Robin Williams, then in news quickly following, Lauren Bacall, among many others less known to us by their work. These, especially for us (or for me in the case of Tony Benn) leave gaps nobody else is likely to fill, even for us, let alone for their families whose loss is tremendous. We're simply minute parts, tiny part-pixels of the lost ones' vast international audiences.
Our antidote to these losses, if there is one, as well as keeping their work and attainments handy for re-viewing, re-considering, re-reading, has to be a cultivation of new favourites, new "heroes" who, though never filling the shoes of those gone before, will offer new and different talents, and perhaps different perspectives.
As the kaleidoscope of life shakes a little, the view changes.
"And, as always happens, and happens far too soon, the strange and wonderful becomes a memory and a memory becomes a dream. Tomorrow it's gone." ― Terry Pratchett, "Wintersmith".
The YouTube clip at the end of this post comes from Friday's edition of "Real Time" hosted by Bill Maher. His guests included Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent who describes himself as a democratic socialist. Glory be!! Another American politician to whom I can easily relate, and the only self-defined socialist in the US Senate. Along with the other two guests on Real Time this week, actor Ben Affleck, and multi-talented comedian Martin Short, conversation centered around socialism - the democratic type practiced in many European countries and Canada.
Socialism. The very word strikes fear in the hearts of too many Americans. However, if a politician is shrewd enough to call it Populism - then it sneaks in by the back door. Bernie Sanders is too straightford a character to mince his words in order to pander to his public.
Socialism. It's impossible to define it in a few words. Researching the internet on the subject only serves to confuse a simple mind like mine. In the smallest of nutshells, and slightly tongue-in-cheek, the "2 Cows Philosophy" defines it thus:
A SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. A REPUBLICAN: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So what?
Interestingly, the same list also defines:
A CHRISTIAN: You have two cows. You keep one and give one to your neighbor.
Compare "A Socialist" with "A Christian". It's odd, isn't it, that in a country so proud of its Christian values, socialism is derided and feared ?
Throughout the show on Friday evening Bernie Sanders' responses elicited enthusiastic cheers from the audience. Granted, it was a largely liberal audience, but the fact that a socialist's words were accepted by them so graciously was a baby step forward. In the United States socialism is more often than not equated with communism. It's a serious mistake which has been fed to the public by right-wing pundits.
A quick look at the natal chart of Bernie Sanders then. Perhaps he has the astrological patterning to make a brand of socialism palatable to Americans.
Is there some reflection of his political leanings here? Aquarius planets perhaps, or strong Uranus - both have connections with socialist thinking. Born 8 September 1941, New York NY. No birth time known, so this is a chart set for noon on his date of birth. Ascending sign and exact degree of Moon in Aries not shown.
Hmmmm....no Aquarius (unless it was the rising sign, which we can't know without a birth time). His Sun lay smack-dab in the middle of Virgo indicating a discerning and critical nature, one that can separate the wheat from the chaff with consummate ease.
Mercury (mental processes and communication) is found in an early degree of the more tactful and dipolimatic Libra, and trines Uranus at 00 Gemini - here's that socialist rebel mindset of his! And.... Saturn is conjunct Uranus, albeit in a very late degree of adjacent sign, Taurus. Saturn and Uranus are opposites in essence. Tradition versus the avant garde, the old versus the new, status quo versus change, capitalist versus socialist. Bernie Sanders has them well-blended in his personality blueprint! The signs the two planets occupy, Gemini and Taurus, could also be said to represent opposite ideas - free thinking, adaptable (Gemini) and the more traditional fixed mind-set (Taurus). He has an innate understanding of traditional values, but with a yearning to modernise and improve them to fit 21st century needs, and the unusual talent of being able to communicate on both levels. These characteristics have helped him to make his brand of socialism acceptable in Vermont, one of the first 13 states, steeped in tradition, yet willing to step into the 21st century with Senator Sanders.
"Yes, Aries is a reformer; the trouble is, his reforms seem so often to be aimed at making people more uncomfortable than they need be."
Until I read his piece I hadn't considered the sign of Aries in this light. As I read, Al Gore sprang to mind (Sun and midheaven in Aries), and Tony Benn former British member of parliament , socialist, and scourge of the rabid right wing - I love him (Sun and Venus in Aries). Both these men also have Leo ascending and some Leo planets in their first house, Pluto, Saturn and Mars for Gore; Neptune and Moon for Benn. They both therefore have Aquarius on the descendant, which, going back to yesterday's blog entry, fits! Both these men come across, to me, as quite Aquarian. This combination makes for two forces to be reckoned with, yet neither politician has been allowed to rise to heights of which he was more than capable.
There's still time for Al Gore, in spite of the fact that his proposed reforms may be very unpopular with the masses. Tony Benn, though was 82 this week - his time for reforming his country, or the world is well past, but we could still gain from his wisdom. He was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Several commentators in the US have been asking us recently to imagine what America would be like today had Al Gore been declared president in 2000. I've often wondered what today's Britain would be like had Tony Benn been Prime Minister instead of Margaret Thatcher. Those are two inspiring visions, the first far more likely to have come to pass that the second.
Perhaps the time for Aries-driven reformers is not yet at hand - but it soon will be - mark my words!
