There'll be another one along in a minute (a remake, that is).

As I've opined before, "a blindfolded person could go into any library, pick out four books at random and find four pretty good new plots for movies. Why are we so regularly subjected to remakes, sometimes even more than one remake?"

There is a reasonable argument to be made that many movie or TV remakes focus on true classics of fiction, stories which would be more easily accepted by new generations of viewers if produced using all benefits of modern technology, modern production values and modern sensibilities. Although....overlaying an original time-line's sensibilities, which must have played deeply into the stories is likely to skew results in ways never envisioned by the stories' authors, decades or centuries ago.

Each year brings another crop of remakes - or at least brings a new crop to the notice of this blogger. We've recently watched a mini-series remake of Anne of Green Gables, re-titled Anne with an E. The famous children's novels from 1908, by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery are source material. Never having read the original set of books, and never having seen any earlier film or TV versions, the stories were new to me. When something like this happens, I feel less annoyed about remakes, but only for a short time. When I recall that someone, not too long ago, had the nerve to re-make Ben Hur (again), my ultra critical mode returns.


I've read that a remake of the movie "Beaches" is in the works, "for a new generation". Sigh. My comment to husband - "If they dare to omit Wind Beneath My Wings the film will flop - and will richly deserve to do so! Also in the wings, or already airing somewhere on TV or streaming, are remakes of Dirty Dancing and The Handmaid's Tale.

Here on Earth, all things are cyclic. I ought not to be surprised, or annoyed about remakes. They will be as inevitable a part of life on Earth as the turning of the clock or the seasons, or the Moon's waxing and waning. Hollywood moguls probably don't realise exactly why, of course, all they care about are the $$$$$$$$.

Planetary cycles often bring with them a remake of our own life stories, especially in the case of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto cycles. Our own lifestyles can be remade, our life stories re-written with different cast, different setting, variations in plot, but with us in the starring role. I can attest to this, personally!

Saturday & Sundry Rambling Thoughts on Fourth Turnings, Cycles & suchlike

Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable
a piece by Paul Blumenthal at Huffington Post this week, begins:

In 2009, the historian David Kaiser, then a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, got a call from a guy named Steve Bannon.

Bannon wanted to interview Kaiser for a documentary he was making based on the work of the generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe. Kaiser, an expert on Strauss and Howe, didn’t know Bannon from Adam, but he agreed to participate. He went to the Washington headquarters of the conservative activist group Citizens United, where Bannon was then based, for a chat.

Kaiser was impressed by how much Bannon knew about Strauss and Howe, who argued that American history operates in four-stage cycles that move from major crisis to awakening to major crisis. These crises are called “Fourth Turnings” — and Bannon believed the U.S. had entered one on Sept. 18, 2008, when Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke went to Capitol Hill to ask for a bailout of the international banking system.............Bannon pressed Kaiser on one point during the interview. “He was talking about the wars of the Fourth Turnings,” Kaiser recalled. “You have the American Revolution, you have the Civil War, you have World War II; they’re getting bigger and bigger. Clearly, he was anticipating that in this Fourth Turning there would be one at least as big. And he really made an effort, I remember, to get me to say that on the air..........”

 "Take care my man! It might be awkward if you was to let 'em loose"

Hmmm. Uncomfortable thoughts! Anyway, I was immediately reminded of something I posted a couple of years ago, touching on a similar topic. I'm going to copy that post here - I found it an interesting one to prepare, though it does ramble on a bit. Long post! The rabbit hole was dark and deep! I shall add any commentary from 2014.


The Way of Things - Cycles and Generations

Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning wheel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnaval balloon
Like a carousell that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Hear Sting sing it HERE

A column titled "A New Breed, But Millennials Should Be OK" by a friend and in-law, who edits one local newspaper and writes a weekly column for another, sent me scurrying down one of the internet's numerous deep rabbit-holes, as well as into my own cavern of archives.
SNIP from his column:

We who’ve lived a few decades are told we must study and understand the Millennials; we must adapt to their unique needs.

What are those needs? Experts echo the theme Millennials are selfish and irresponsible (a generalization that’s insulting to them); and the answer to nurturing Millennials is to understand them better (a solution that’s insulting to us).

Every generation of “older folks” has the prerogative to become crotchety and play the sorrowful kids-are-going-to-Hades card. But what’s different this time is that we keep getting told we have to put up with the Millennials and their generational peccadilloes.

When the whole column becomes available at the newspaper's website I'll link to it here. I'm no expert on the fads and foibles of any generation, especially the younger ones. Even on my own, War Baby generation, I could lay no claim to expertise. We're now well past our best, sadly few and far between on the net these days...at least on that part of the net I frequent, there are some residing in corners where I refuse to wander, talking about stuff I prefer not to think about.

Any passing reader interested to see a few of my own words on generational matters: easy pickings - just click on "generations" in the cumulus that is
"Label Cloud" in the sidebar; there are several posts, 2008 on, touching on generations and generationalism.

The habit of pitching one generation against another, a game seen regularly around the internet, remains objectionable to me, another form of bigotry in fact, when taken to extremes. Stereotypes, though not without a tiny kernel of validity, can soon become toxic, like the stereotypical notions that women nag, men are henpecked, Americans are loud-mouthed egotists, Brits have bad teeth, French are cowards, Italians pinch women's bottoms...etc.etc.etc.

Vast arrays of variety exist within each generation, it's like millions of different melodies being played, but with a distinctive background "humm" going on, a "humm" peculiar and individual to each age-group - something which draws the group together, and at the same time sets them apart - yet it is only a subtle background "humm", not the melody, not the composition, not the lyrics.

Astrology understands this.

A serious study of what the generations actually do comprise is a different matter. A study either considering said "background humm", or not considering it at all, but studying how whatever the generations do comprise affects aspects of life for all of us. Even then, though, it depends which part of the world one is considering. The English speaking (or more properly English reading) internet is heavily weighted towards the USA in most things, the topic of generations follows this pattern. It's hard to find much that's specific about Britain, in this respect, though I did see a few articles on Australian generations - possibly inspired by some new book or TV programme there. How generations, say from the 18th century until now, have formed in the USA and how they have formed elsewhere in the world via background and experiences, even in the land of the USA's closest cousin, Britain, has to be so different as to possibly negate all attempts to classify. Having said that, keeping it in mind...

Studies and several books by William Strauss and Neil Howe, see Wikipedia , and Amazon are of interest.

For example, their Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 (1992) was described by former Vice President of the USA, Al Gore as "the most stimulating book on American history he'd ever read". He even sent a copy to each member of Congress. The book is described:

William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today.Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history -- a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises -- from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millennium.

In 1997 Strauss and Howe wrote The Fourth Turning. At Amazon it was described as having been heralded by reviewers as "a brilliant, if somewhat unsettling, reassessment of where America is heading".

Snip from comment at Amazon By 'Odysseus'

The basic insight in this book is a simple one: Instead of trying to build a theory of American history (as did Arthur Schlesinger) that is based on unexplained "cycles" and "swings" from liberal to conservative and back again, why not simply look at how American generations behave as they age? When you do that, as Strauss and Howe have found, you find that American generations behave with a certain consistency throughout their lives. If their formative experiences push them in a certain direction while young, they'll continue to act in that way as they get older. That is, if you understand that history is really the process of different generations moving through time, then the swings of American history no longer look so mysterious; they appear as predictable manifestations of the fact that different generations with different life experiences have risen to the foreground.

Of course, you don't want to take all of this too sweepingly, or else it starts to seem like astrology or historical biorhythms. Generations are diverse groups, and no two people within a generation are exactly alike. But there are clear trends of generational behavior, which Strauss/Howe substantiate quite well.

Of course we wouldn't want to bring astrology into it would we? Would We? TSK!

There are some long and interesting reader reviews at Amazon links. I shall press on without going into more detail about Strauss and Howe's theory; it is set out in detail and clearly enough at Wikipedia, here. Also there's a good run-down on the topic at Hub-pages HERE.

For now, keep in mind Strauss and Howe's theorised four generational cycles:
Prophet/Hero/Nomad/Artist.
Four generational archetypes that repeat sequentially, in rhythm with the cycle of Crises and Awakenings.
From the Wiki link:

....four generational archetypes that repeat sequentially, in rhythm with the cycle of Crises and Awakenings (High/Awakening/Unravelling/Crisis). In Generations, Strauss and Howe refer to these four archetypes as Idealist, Reactive, Civic, and Adaptive. In The Fourth Turning (1997) they update this terminology to Prophet, Nomad, Hero, and Artist. The generations in each archetype not only share a similar age-location in history, they also share some basic attitudes towards family, risk, culture and values, and civic engagement. In essence, generations shaped by similar early-life experiences develop similar collective personas and follow similar life-trajectories. To date, Strauss and Howe have identified 25 generations in Anglo-American history, each with a corresponding archetype

 Hat-tip Sacred Geometry Inc

Astrologers have long known some variation of Strauss and Howe's theories.

Searching for a book on this topic by an astrologer, I found Generational Patterns Using Astrology by Edwin Rose (2011), described at Amazon:

Generational Patterns Using Astrology will enable you to find your place in history. It will explain how your parent's generation is different than yours and even the differences between your parent's generational patterns. Once you see your generation's pattern in the flow of history, you will see what challenges we now face, and what part your generation's role is in all of it. Looking forward, you will see what years in the future will be key, and what opportunities (and difficulties) await us. If you have children, you will understand their generation and how it differs from yours.

I wasn't familiar with the author's name, but eventually found this at Dodona Books website:

Edwin Rose

The author taught and lectured on astrology for 35 years. During that time he studied how astrology influences people and history. He self published a 445 page book Planetary Music: Understanding Astrological Rhythms (1998) and has a website with astrological information and predictions that gets 300 hits a day -- it has been in continuous operation since 1996. For six years the author and his wife owned the metaphysical bookstore Guiding Star in Mill Valley (near San Francisco, CA) which has given him an appreciation of the astrological audience. He has worked as a software engineer and software manager for major corporations including Apple, Leapfrog, Cisco, and Autodesk -- most of his software career has been in animation, games, graphics, and TV. Edwin Rose died in 2010 shortly before his title Generational Patterns Using Astrology was published.

Three chapters of Mr Rose's book are available at Google Books - see HERE The last of the three is most relevant to this topic. I've taken the liberty of copying part of the chapter as a sample:

...The excerpt ends there.

Strauss and Howe's four cycles of generational archetypes: Prophet/Hero/Nomad/Artist have astrological cycles which could be seen as comparable. Edwin Rose mentioned the elemental cycle, and was comparing it as the excerpt ended. There's also a cycle on a more personal scale - related to the individual, the Saturn cycle of Saturn Returns which equate roughly to childhood/teenage/young adulthood/maturity. Cycles within cycles! The far outer planets, though, are the ones related to generational astrology. Mr Rose's book will explore their cycles.

Another book which touches on the generational theme astrologically, and one I already own, is Horoscope for the New Millennium by E. Alan Meece. I've mentioned it more than once in archived posts, and there's an excerpt from it relating to the generations at Wandering Star, HERE.

The burning question after stumbling through all of this has to be - "Well then, where are we now?"
It seems that using Strauss and Howe's theory we're in a period of Crisis, the most intense of the four periods. The last Crisis was World War 2, after which society underwent a drastic change. That was followed by a High period, with prosperity growing along with corporations and middle class contentment. An Awakening phase began in the 1960s, with the hippies, civil rights, etc. Then things began to unravel, slowly, during the 1980s, with the next turning point possibly being 9/11...and off we went into Crisis (again). Major change ought to be around the next corner (but, as the song goes "who knows where or when?")

Comments from 2014


anyjazz said...We saw circles within circles at the Salina River Festival. An old workmate of mine had a quip he would quote now and then: It's all the same circles, just different people going around in them. Now, I don't know what any of this has to do with that but it's what I though of as I was reading.

Twilight said...anyjazz ~ Yes we did - I ought to insert your photograph from Salina in the post [added]..
Your workmate was being polite...I think what he/she really meant was "same shit, different assholes". Sorry!) ;-)


mike said...In a bit of a twist, take anyjazz' comment from his workmate and add your poop comment, Twilight...look at the (very nice) photo of the sculpture and peer into the background at the port-a-potties...LOL.

The cyclic nature of astrology is all too often overlooked, except for the "returns" of Jupiter and Saturn...maybe the solar return, too. Our finite, flash-in-a-pan years on Earth limit the greater view. Most individuals want astrology to work for them within the limits of decades and, preferably, the immediate present, which typically doesn't allow much consideration toward repeating cycles. But, as your interesting post indicates, many cycles of the slower-moving planets correlate with generational qualities, particularly when considering Jupiter and Saturn aspects to each other and to Uranus-Neptune-Pluto.

Financial-economic astrology is all about short and long term cycles. The Mayan calendar is a superb example of maxi-mini cyclic timekeeping. The Earth may not have ended 12-21-2012, but something shifted!

Nick Anthony Fiorenza has an interesting site delving into synodic cycles:
http://www.lunarplanner.com/index.html

Twilight said...mike ~ LOL! I hadn't noticed that in the photo....well done Sherlock! :-)

Yes, you're exactly right about astrology. It is very annoying, too, how people who consider themselves intellectually bright and "in the know" about everything, but the minute astrology is mentioned they dismiss it out of hand, sometimes even ridicule it - and the person mentioning it. Yet - here is proof of some measure of correlation between findings of non-astrologers and of astrologers.

Astrology is often "a fool to itself" in many ways, because it survives (admittedly the only way it can) via the old "He's a Taurus and his Mercury is being hit by....whatever" kind of thing. That's all well and good, but it's not what astrology really ought to be about, well...not if for consumption of those intellectually disdainful mortals anyway. I could rant for a week on this - but shall desist. Thanks, yes -I think I've visited Mr Fiorenza's website before - it's a very good one!


mike (again) said..."Astrology Making Progress in Britain’s House of Commons"
http://astrologynewsservice.com/news/astrology-making-progress-in-britains-house-of-commons/

New cycles will start in six years, with interesting conjunctions of Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto-S Node happening in Capricorn, 2019-2020. Michael Lutin says:
"... At the same time, don't kid yourself, there's a war brewing.....greater what you see or read about in the news. It's a world wide revolution that will reveal itself more openly sometime around the moment Pluto reaches the third decant of Capricorn. IN America 2018-19 and beyond. The crucial national Elections will be In 2020, not 2016 . The situation is pretty much contained and under control of the control freaks who fear chaos, at this point, and what we are seeing is the smouldering of distracting local brush fires."
http://michaellutin.com/dailyfix.htm

Twilight said...mike ~ Well may the goddess of astrology (Urania) bless David
Tredinnick! A quick look at his birthday in my ephemeris - Jan 19 1950
Sun Capricorn/Moon possibly Aquarius, Venus and Jupiter in Aquarius - yep - Urania!

Michael Lutin thinks 2018/19 and onward for the start of the next "turning" then? I've always thought it to be likely around 2024/5, but that might be the culmination of something begun around 2018 I guess.

I still think 2016 election will be an important one though, and could make all the difference to how it all plays out - nothing is written in stone, not even astrologers' pronouncements or astrology itself. It's "blowin' in the wind"

Saturday & Sundry - Plus ça change-ily

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (“the more it changes, the more it's the same thing”).

Copy-typed from my copy (second printing, 1936) of
The People, Yes by Carl Sandburg

The people laugh, yes, the people laugh.
They have to in order to live and survive
under lying politicians, lying labor skates,
lying racketeers of business, lying newspapers, lying ads.
The people laugh even at lies that cost them toil
and bloody exactions.
For a long time the people may laugh,
until a day when the laughter changes key and tone
and has something it didn't have.
Then there is a scurrying and a noise of discussion
and an asking of the question
what is it the people want.
Then there is the pretense of
giving the people what they want,
with jokers, trick clauses, delays
and continuances, with lawyers and fixers,
playboys and ventriloquists, bigtime promises.
Time goes by and the gains are small for the years go slow,
the people go slow, yet the gains can be counted
and the laughter of the people foretokening revolt
carries fear to those who wonder how far it will go
and where to block it.

 From cover of Planets in Aspect - Robt. Pelletier

For fans of serious astrology the fact that history repeats, "rhymes" or unfolds in patterns is a given. Astrology tracks the movement of planets - cyclical movement. Differing orbits and time-spans eventually cause each planet to return around the same individual pathway, albeit making different interaction with other planets through each go-around. It makes sense then, to astrologers, that life and world patterns will repeat or rhyme, i.e. have similar flavours cyclically; this relates to patterns and flavours, not to exact events.

There are many different, concurrent, astrological cycles developing, which makes it difficult to accurately identify those most relevant to any individual, or to any national or other specific entity, at any given time. Hindsight can bring clarity, though even with hindsight the tightly interwoven medley of cycles still leaves accuracy in doubt. The exact medley detected at any single time is hardly likely to exactly repeat for aeons - that's where rhyming rather than repeating comes in.

There are several posts in the archives on this topic - most recent is from last year:HERE, others can be accessed by clicking on "cycles" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar.

Regarding the historic rhyming patterns suggested by the quote from Carl Sandburg (above): this highlights human nature's essential pattern, governed as it is by our Earth's ever cycling planets around our star, the Sun.

Have we learned where it is that we're continually going wrong, and tried to rectify? Painfully, far too slowly and with many retrograde steps, we as a species have tried. A faster rate of learning becomes ever more essential as we spin on. Our human ingenuity appears to have out-run our common sense, putting our own, and all other of Earth's species, in almost certain risk of danger during decades to come.

CYCLICAL & EPOCHAL

Astrology is all about the cycles, in the short and medium term, epochs in the long term. Simple cycles of each planet's orbit around the Sun, more complex cycles of aspects made and re-made between planets as they travel. Some cycles are easy to recognise, once the basics of astrology are understood. Saturn's 28-ish year cycle, punctuated by 4 x 7-year markers, is possibly the most frequently talked-about with regard to natal astrology. Uranus takes roughly 84 years to cycle the zodiac, these days that's near to matching a human life cycle. Longer astrological cycles can identify themselves in corresponence with mundane and historical events and themes.

For an expert's words see
this chapter on Astrological Cycles from Dane Rudhyar's book ASTROLOGICAL TIMING, The Transition to the New Age.


Some older posts of my own relate to cycles - some are definitely astrological, others could well be:


100 year cycle

75-year cycle

60-year cycle

560-year cycle

248-year cycle

Various

“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. What we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.”
~ Chuck Palahniuk, "Survivor".

2010 - 2030 - Yet another cycle?

Five years ago, Patrice Guinard of C.U.R.A. (The International Astrology Research Center), made a "true and wonderful" prediction for the twenty years 2010-2030 . It's brief, read it HERE. (I'm not able to access the noted "provisos" though.)

The prediction doesn't fill me with eager anticipation! It is based on Pluto - say no more!

SNIP

With its high latitude, Pluto cannot easily form aspects, especially the conjunction or opposition, with any planet. But when its latitude is lower, these aspects are possible.

What's this about latitude? I did once get into the declination thing in astrology, but discarded it as being either not useful or "a bridge too far" when combined with the many other variables available. Latitude is another way of describing declination in astrology (I think).

From astrologer Paul Newman's piece Declination for Beginners

In a nutshell, declination is a form of latitude rather than longitude. It is the measurement of planets north or south of the celestial equator, which is the Earth"s equator extended into space. It is worth remembering that when we talk of an exact conjunction of planets in a zodiac sign—for example the Moon and Saturn in Leo—these would not necessarily be conjunct in the sky. They would be conjunct by longitude (maybe appearing one above the other) but not necessarily conjunct by latitude or declination.* Similarly, the Moon and Saturn may be conjunct by declination (parallel to each other) but from different zodiac signs and therefore not conjunct by longitude. Separately either of these types of "conjunction" (longitude conjunction, declination parallel) has an equal force, but the strongest possible conjunction in astrology is when two planets are conjunct by longitude and parallel by declination at the same time. They would then appear to be conjunct in the sky. This may also help to explain why some transits seem stronger than others.

Here's what librarising.com has to say on astrological latitude

The ecliptic or Sun's apparent path is a belt of some 16 degrees thick(8° north and 8° south) where all the planets including our Earth orbit. Only Pluto and the dwarfs(as well as most stars) deviate from this belt. Wheareas east-west on the ecliptic is measured as LONGITUDE(in degrees), north-south of the ecliptic is measured as LATITUDE(in degrees). So planets in longitude and latitude in astrology refer to their position with respect to the sun's plane or ecliptic as seen from Earth. How this all translates to terrestial co-ordinates is another matter.

So then, taking Patrice Guinard's prediction into account, here's yet another potential cyclical pattern in astrology. Is it likely to be as significant as some other, better known cycles though? At least, it needs to be taken into account when considering them. When Pluto is involved in other cyclical patterns - aspect cycles such as the Uranus/Pluto squares we've experienced in the past few years, if any points in that Uranus/Pluto cycle coincided with Pluto's low latitude cycle (they all did), results could prove to be more intense, more clearly defined. What we need to be doing is looking for any other cyclical patterns involving Pluto, from now until around 2030, and marking 'em with an asterisk!


Staying on CURA's website, a piece titled Astrological Cycles in History by Palden Jenkins is well worth a good long read. There's a lot to digest there, but as a taster, maybe try starting part-way through the piece at the section headed Uranus-Pluto cycles and the storms of history.

Penultimate paragraphs of the piece (it was written in 2002 by the way):

At present, many prophecy buffs look toward the year 2012 as a time of drastic change. Though end-of-the-world type anticipations might turn out to be exaggerated, there nevertheless is a Uranus-Pluto square from 2012-15. At a square, new impulses arising from a conjunction are put to the test - there is a manifestation crisis. The astrologically-logical likelihood for 2012 is that the paradigm-shift issues of the 1960s will be forced by circumstance to deliver their goods: ecological ideas, women's power and techno-globalism, to name but three bundles of issues, will probably have to handle an emergency. War, institutions and boundaries (Aries-Capricorn) are predictable front-runners for likely trouble. Knowing how things are nowadays, this aspect is likely actually to bring a hailstorm of major issues.

But the choices now are fundamental. We need to realise, for example, that war no longer resolves conflicts as once it did. This is now a pragmatic issue, not solely a moral one or the domain of lettuce-eating pacifists. In the twelve years up to this aspect, we possess the choice to make major proactive forward-steps, or to continue delaying and avoiding such challenges as long as possible. As in 1930, on the previous square, when economic and social crisis demanded drastic action, so around 2012 we tread perilous paths along which the choices we make might have enormous and rapid outcomes. Ten years after 1930 the world was at war. What will the world be like in the decade following 2012?

Predictions of Gin Chow & The Sexagenary Cycles

In The Best of the Illustrated Astrological Journal (1933-35), an old volume I picked up in an antique store some time ago, a brief article Gin Chow, Chinese Prophet of Lompoc -by Thomas F. Collison, caught my interest.

Gin Chow, an immigrant from China, lived in Lompoc in the Santa Inez River valley, Santa Barbara county, California. He gathered the reputation of being a sage and prophet due to an ability to accurately predict the weather and timing of earthquakes.


The article tells that Gin Chow made no claim to be clairvoyant, and denied that he was a soothsayer, yet his fame spread. He used Chinese astrological doctrine, "The Yellow Road zodiac", ancient lore touching on the "fates of men and the fates of nations, and the way of the rains and the droughts and the hot spells and cold spells and earthquake phenomena", using cycles of 60 years.

Gin Chow correctly predicted that Yokohama would quake in 1923 and that Santa Barbara would fall in ruins in 1925. He believed that the destiny of China and United States "They tied up together....China is old man, Amelica is infant, but wise baby. China not been wise. She pay too much 'tention to ancestors, by Amelica she benefit much if she help China".

Other predictions by Chow cited by Thomas Stroke in his 1958 book California Editor include a a 1932 prediction of a United States war with Japan that would end in 1946 (World War II ended in 1945).

Wikipedia has a page on Gin Chow, and records that
Chow's last prediction came in 1932. He had been seriously gored by a bull and doctors believed him to be on his deathbed. Chow assured them that he would die one year later. He died in June 1933.

Chinese Astrology follows the cycles of the Moon. A complete cycle of sixty lunar years is made up of five twelve year cycles. The twelve-year cycle is sometimes called "The Yellow Road of the Sun".

I searched online for more information and found this. I suspect some astrologers might argue with the first sentence!

All astrology derives from ancient Chinese philosophy developed between 4000 and 2000 BC. At its heart is the concept of complementary opposites, and the interaction between elemental forces within a 60 year cycle dominated by the Moon. No one force or element dominates another, but each requires the others for its existence. As time progresses through the cycle, life forces change, but are always held in balance by an opposing force.
The present 60 year cycle started in 1984 – the year which George Orwell foresaw as a new world dominated by what he believed to be the dark forces of information technology in an age of fearsome new weaponry – and will end in 2044.
http://www.myqualities.com/astrology/Chinese-Astrology.asp

Hmm. Using that 12-year count we are currently in the span 2008 to 2020, the third of five 12-year segments since the previous cycle ended in 1983. I feel no affinity at all to Chinese astrology, so am drawing a blank here. There's more detail on the Sexagenery Cycle in Chinese astrology at Wikipedia

ERIS CYCLES

Something I read recently, on the subject of feudalism, set my mind, surprisingly, on a track marked "Eris", a track it hadn't followed before. Various astrologers "embraced" Eris (first known as UB313, then Xena) almost as soon as it was discovered in 2005. Even now, wandering warily down the Eris track to see what I can find, I remain doubtful about astrological interpretations so far put forward, based on the symbolism of the name Eris, given to this body by some committee or other. What follows, product of my own grey matter, could be equally questionable, of course - or more so! Still, I'll try it for size.

Cycles.

Whatever else we might consider astrology is all about, cycles are what drive the true astrology. Eris' cycles deserve a thought or two.

Here is what set me wondering about a planet whose orbit of the Sun takes around 560 years to complete - twice as long as that of Pluto. The pattern, or social construct of life on Earth, for those of us who live in what we laughingly call the civilised world - the most developed areas anyway, seems to me to be following a very wide cycle, one much wider than Pluto's orbit encompasses.

Next stop Eris!

Any cycle with a span as wide as 560 years (7 longish lifetimes) is going to have to somehow relate to vastly different factors and features each time it reaches a particular point in relation to planet Earth. I'm not going to suggest that when Earthlings reach a point on the Eris merry-go-round after one cycle is complete, the surroundings will seem much the same as it did for Earthlings when the cycle last hit that same point. But allowing for developments of various kinds, the general pattern, at the same point in the previous cycle, ought to be recognisable, under a new outer layer.

One big change, as Eris returns to a pre-designated point in its orbit, will be the positions of the other outer planets. These will be very different from the way they were configured last time around. For simplicity I'm going to put that issue to one side and concentrate only on Eris and the 560 years from point to point, and see where that goes.




In 2010 Eris sat at around 21 degrees of Aries, we must go back 560 years, to find it at a similar point in its orbit: 1450 AD. I'm going to ignore interpretation of the zodiac sign itself, and of Eris, andsimply look for patterns in a cycle.

A few stand-out events from around the period when Eris was in roughly the same position in its orbit as it was in 2010 are noted below. An idea of the "flavour" of the times ought to be discernible from these.

1450: Here began what we now call The Age of Discovery. That's one clear factor to note. We'll certainly be seeing a new set of previously unsought and undreamed-of discoveries begin to show up any time now, and continue to do so.

1455-1485

The Wars of the Roses in England - when civil wars for the throne of England took place, fought between supporters of two rival branches of the Royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York (the "red" and the "white" rose, respectively).

With their heavy casualties among the nobility, the wars are thought to have continued the changes in feudal English society caused by the effects of the Black Death, including a weakening of the feudal power of the nobles (see plan below) and a corresponding strengthening of the merchant classes, and the growth of a strong, centralized monarchy under the Tudors. It heralded the end of the medieval period in England and the movement towards the Renaissance.

On the other hand, it has also been suggested that the traumatic impact of the wars was exaggerated by Henry VII to magnify his achievement in quelling them and bringing peace. Certainly, the effect of the wars on the merchant and labouring classes was far less than in the long drawn-out wars of siege and pillage in France and elsewhere in Europe, which were carried out by mercenaries who profited from the prolonging of the war.

The Spanish Inquisition began in 1481 (and as now we all know "nobody expects the.....")

Feudal society and manorialism in England and Europe had started a very slow decline. A money economy had developed - land was no longer the only measure of wealth and political power. Towns had grown and a "middle-class" emerged, different from the serfs of previous centuries, though serfdom remained in rural areas for longer. Peasants began to "find their feet" and demand better conditions, legal structures were developed and tenancy agreements could be maintained without the landowners insistence on the servility of tenants.



There were peasant revolts, participants seeking better terms of tenure. Peasants were now free to leave the agricultural manor on which they were born, and they had the opportunity to rent, buy/sell land themselves....though not many had the necessary money. Many borrowed money, fell into debt and lost their land to money-lenders. Feudal taxes replaced by sometimes greater state taxes. (See here)

Recognise any loose, very slow-moving pattern of our recent past, present and, perhaps, immediate future?

These scenes are from England and Western Europe. The USA had its slightly different cycle starting around 1492, part of the Age of Discovery. Previous scenarios in the US cannot be likened easily to anything happening in Europe, other than in the common fact that strong winds of change were about to blow through the land.

What came next, as Eris moved painfully slowly around its cycle on from 21 Aries last time around?

The 16th, 17th and 18th centuries (using a very big picture format) saw increasing power from religious bodies, a renaissance in the arts, culture and philosophy. There came, still, no relief for the rural peasantry, but they continued to rebel at times. Their equivalent social class in urban areas became more and more slave-like as industrialisation took over in the 18th century. Conditions for ordinary working people became intolerable, especially in cities. Things reached boiling point: almost every country in Europe saw some level of revolution, The French Revolution most notorious of all. England avoided revolution by introducing some reforms, reflecting lessons learned from the French, even so they came near to disaster at times. (See here)

So, with revolution or reform in the past, the world entered the 20th century, with some new political and philosophical ideas being thrown around by figures such as Karl Marx. Still though, not much changed for the urban poor and rural underdogs. The class system had remained securely in place through all the trials and tribulations of four centuries. It took 2 World Wars to bring some true radical change.

Europe and Britain saw devastation, followed by re-growth and a new respect for "the man in the street" (though after World War 1 in particular there were not too many of those still alive in England and Europe!)

Then, after 1945, the bubble began to gradually fill again.

We find ourselves at the start of 2011 with Eris at around 21 Aries, where it was, at the point this ramble began: 1450 AD.

Consider the way things unfolded from 1450 forward, dress it up in 21st century clothing and technology - and what have we got? A very slowly-developing pattern of the future?

In a nutshell: new discoveries coming soon, internal war within nations, slight balance adjustments, minor social reforms to be made but things quickly reverting to same ol' same ol' class-ridden society based on wealth, but eventually spilling into all-out revolution and/or significant reform. All this over several hundred years however, according to the last go-around. Add climate change to the mix, new technology and our now devastating weapons of mass destruction and the pattern could take on a rather different shade of intensity, hard to define in detail. I do believe there will be a shadow of that previously laid pattern though, somewhere beneath all that is still to come, if this Eris cycle theory is anywhere near correct.

An ephemeris for the outer planets, including Eris HERE.

Movie Remakes, Evolution, Cycles.....

I can often be heard complaining, "Why do they produce so many movie remakes? A blindfolded person could go into any library, pick out four books at random and find four new plots for movies. Why are we subjected to remakes, sometimes even more than one remake?"

My most recent complaint came up as I looked at our cinema's current listings:

"3:10 to Yuma - For Pete's sake! That was a crusty old western. Why did they need to remake that one? And Russell Crowe is nobody's idea of a character from the old west....(grumble grumble).....His face is too podgy. The old west needs craggy, lean and mean, they didn't have McDonald's and high fructose corn syrup in those days!"

HeWhoKnows sighs patiently and says, "$$$$$$$."

"But.....but..."

I decided to ask Google, who landed me upon a site which had nothing to do with Hollywood.
Science Daily. Extract from "Life - the Remake".

"If the history of life were to play out again from the beginning, it would have a similar plot and outcomes, although with a different cast and timing, argues UC Davis paleontologist Geerat Vermeij in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Evolution at this level, like the rest of history, is predictable, perhaps more predictable than people want to imagine," Vermeij said. "Many traits are so advantageous under so many circumstances that you are likely to see the same things again and again..........Vermeij argues that some innovations, such as photosynthesis, plant seeds, mineralized bones and even human language are just such good ideas that they would reappear, although at different times and in somewhat different forms."

After reading this, I started thinking about astrology, then I managed to answer my own question.

We are made up of cycles, here on Earth. Everything is a cycle. I ought not to be surprised about remakes. They will be as inevitable a part of life on Earth as the turning of the clock or the seasons, or the Moon's waxing and waning. Hollywood moguls probably don't realise exactly why, of course, all they care about are the $$$$$.

Planetary cycles often bring with them a remake of our own life story, especially in the case of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto cycles. Our lifestyles can be remade, our life stories re-written - different cast, different setting, variations in plot, but with us always in the starring role.

To be fair, some movie remakes, like some planetary cycles, have been worth sitting through. Bringing a classic story such as "Ben Hur" up to date for a new generation, with modern technology, bigger screen, and technicolor was well worthwhile, back in the early 1960s. I'd feel pretty annoyed though if they tried to produce yet another version of it.

I'd be miffed to have to live through another Pluto to Venus transit, too!

Enough is enough, after all.