Pink Moon. & Another tragedy with a link to our town.

We stayed up binge-watching old episodes of Homeland so's we could go out and see the total lunar eclipse in the early hours of this morning. We saw the eclipse during its early stages then again when total and beautifully pink, in a clear sky, from our driveway, temperature around freezing. I've tended not to get excited about eclipses since a solar eclipse occurred slap bang on my natal Sun's degree some years ago -and nothing at all, nothing even vaguely interesting, happened. This one was a lovely sight, anyway.

The lunar eclipse, was in Libra. I read around the net, found this, part of a piece at About.com by David Emery:

As it happens, there's a total lunar eclipse on April 15, 2014, which means we'll experience not only a "Full Pink Moon" (any full moon that occurs in April, per Native American tradition) and a "Paschal Full Moon" (the first full moon after the vernal equinox, per Christian tradition), but also, thanks to the eclipse, a "Blood Moon."

Some Christians attribute a prophetic significance to the Blood Moon of April 15, because it will be the first of a lunar tetrad — four total lunar eclipses in a row — occurring in 2014 and 2015, and because each of those eclipses will fall on an important Jewish holiday, Passover or Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles).

Could it be a sign of the Apocalypse? Most Blood Moon prophecy advocates — Texas megachurch Pastor John Hagee, for one — won't commit to specifics, preferring instead to speak in terms of a "world-shaking event" or "the end of an age." Other Christians aren't so sure the Blood Moon tetrad has any biblical significance at all.

I doubt it - I'd say it's simply part of a pattern.

Yet another horrible shooting incident occurred on Sunday, in Kansas City. Dr W. Corporan, a family doctor in our SW Oklahoma town for many years, and my husband's family GP during that time, was one of the fatalities of the shooting, along with his grandson; a female, killed in a different location was the third victim. Dr Corporan and his grandson were, apparently, attending some auditions being held at the Jewish Center - though they were not themselves Jewish.

Sincere condolences to the families involved.

From Chicago Tribune

A man suspected of killing three people when he opened fire at two Kansas City-area Jewish centers on Sunday afternoon has been formally identified and is expected to face federal hate crimes charges as well as state charges, authorities said on Monday.

Jail records identified the suspect as Frazier Glenn Cross, 73 – a name also used by Frazier Glenn Miller, whom a major civil rights group on Sunday called a former grand dragon for the Ku Klux Klan with an extensive history of hate against Jews, among others.

Cross was arrested Sunday after a shooting spree that killed a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather outside a popular Jewish community center, and a third victim outside a nearby Jewish retirement home.

These recurring incidents are ugly and tragic symptoms of sickness pervading this country. Raw, senseless hatred against some other group based on ethnicity, colour, religion... whatever, flares up regularly. Maybe, though I hope not, it arises from something lodged permanently within the DNA of this nation, a DNA also containing old elements of my own native land, it has to be said. If only it could be bred out!

A BIT OF A RANT

Another tragedy, this time involving the deaths of many very young children as well as adults. My heartfelt condolences to anyone directly or indirectly involved in the shootings in Connecticut, who might, accidentally, stumble upon this page.

Rant :
Too many beloved "celebrities", actors, musicians, writers or speakers with a popular public voice, loyal listeners and fans, who could do a great deal of awareness raising and encouraging the holding of feet to fires remain silent or continue to ass-kiss the President and his party. They effetely cling to their precious Democrat label and loyalties, will avoid speaking up about the more than obvious shortcomings of their party and their President. There are numerous issues outstanding crying out for the "feet to fire" treatment - not least this latest tragedy when yet again a deranged person found easy access to powerful weapons, resulting in the cold-blooded murder of 20 small children and 6 adults, including, allegedly, the victim's mother. Tragic as these murders are, no less tragic are the continuing murders of children and innocents by US drones abroad....let us never forget that point!

I find those "limousine Democrats" who fail to speak out, who fail to criticise and fail to do what the President has, more than once, told citizens to do i.e. "make him do it" (whatever the "it"), to be thoroughly reprehensible. The need for raised voices increases almost by the hour on: gun control, against indiscriminate drone use, the serious measures needed to address climate change, all of these are far more important than gay marriage laws and abortion laws, even more important than that darned fiscal cliff - they really are; these are issues of life and death.

Ingredients of Tragedy

It's hard to know what to write about Friday's tragic news from Aurora, Colorado. So many families left devastated - for no apparent reason. Most that could possibly be said, from all angles and points of view, has already been written many times over, internet-wide.

I do not feel right talking about the astrology of James Holmes in current circumstances, but do understand why it is of interest to astrology fans. Lynn Hayes has investigated his natal chart HERE.

Placing blame on any one factor, including astrological indications, seems to me to be the wrong way to look at the tragedy. A lethal combination of factors contributed to it, some we can pinpoint now, others will become clear in the future, when further details on Holmes and his history are eventually released.

One obvious key factor is the easy availability of, not just "a gun" but several extremely powerful guns, and a ridiclous amount of ammunition, said to have been purchased online. If Americans must have a gun, because they believe it to be their right under the Constitution, then let it be "one gun" - no more than a single weapon, with limited access to ammunition. Without his AR-15 rifle, his 12-gauge shotgun, and his two .40 caliber handguns, and enough ammunition to start a small war, the scale of this tragedy would have been much reduced. More than 70 families would not be in shock today.

A second factor is the increasing amount and increasing depth of violence presented as entertainment. I know the old argument that people, and even children, have always been "entertained" by violence - in fairy tales, cowboy films and various comic books. When the violence is brought home in the form of interactive video games, or enlarged to massive screens with CGI enhanced images, violence is being ingrained into the psyches of viewers and gamers in a way comic books and fairy tales could never have achieved. In the case of this most recent deadly shooting news accounts suggest that Holmes had dyed his hair red and told the police he was the Joker, a character from the Batman series.

The killer's state of mind is a third factor - we cannot know his motive, or whether he had a motive other than to draw attention to himself. His mind must surely have been unbalanced though, either temporarily by drug use or chronically due to mental illness which had, so far, gone undetected.

A fourth key factor is the fact that people in general have become insensitised to violence, not only to mass murders on and by their own citizens at home, but also to what they allow their President and their government to do in their name.....drones are killing innocent bystanders, some children, on a regular basis and few in the USA seem to care.

A mix of all of the above coming together, not forgetting astrological pointers indicated by the astrologer's piece, linked above, brought this most recent tragedy to one of the US's most beautiful states, a state which has suffered badly, too, from destructive wildfire in recent weeks.

I still cannot understand, though, why young men - and it is almost always young men involved in these tragedies, unleash their rage on innocent people, with apparently no link to anything which might be the cause of such rage.

NOTE:
There have been 6 random mass-shootings in the US so far this year:
July 19, Aurora, Colo: Gunman shoots into a movie theater, killing 12 and injuring 50 others.
July 17, Tusaloosa, Ala: Gunman shoots into a bar, injuring 17.
May 30, Seattle, Wash: Gunman shoots into cafe and later carjacks a woman, killing five and injuring one others.
April 7, Tulsa, Okla: Two gunmen accused of shooting passersby in a north Tulsa neighborhood, killing three and injuring two others.
April 2, Oakland, Calif: Gunman opens fire on classroom at Oikos University, killing seven and injuring three others.
March 3, Pittsburgh, Pa.: A gunman opens fire on a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, killing one person and injuring seven more.
February 27, Chardon, Ohio: Teenager shoots into high school cafeteria, killing three and injuring three others.

When will enough be enough?