Mutable Newt (Gingrich, that is)

Newt Gingrich this week announced he will seek the Republican nomination to run in the 2012 presidential election. As a comparative newcomer to the USA and its political mores, I ought to block out the opinions of others, even of those with extensive knowledge and experience. It's hard to do though. The opinions of others, even the best of 'em, are coloured by their own prides and prejudices - as are mine. Astrology helps a bit, to reach conclusions. Facts from the past record of the person in question help a bit, and gut feeling helps a bit too.


NEWT GINGRICH:





When I asked my husband for his opinion, in a few words, of Newt Gingrich he said:
"He's a pompous ass, blow-hard, full of himself - this decade's equivalent of Joe McCarthy."

Well, Newt has a lot in common with many on both sides of politics these days then. Always supposing there are two sides, something it's getting ever more difficult to discern.

In March Think Progress, a left-leaning website, had a piece headed "Ten things Newt Gingrich doesn't want you to know about him"
The 10 headings, followed by brief details (see full piece) were:

1. DESPITE BATTLING THE “SECULAR SOCIALIST” AGENDA, GINGRICH CHEATED ON HIS WIVES SEVERAL TIMES

2. WHILE DEMONIZING GOVERNMENT LARGESS, GINGRICH POURED MORE FEDERAL MONEY INTO HIS DISTRICT THAN ALMOST ANY OTHER

3. IN 2007, GINGRICH BACKED CAP-AND-TRADE, THEN FLIP-FLOPPED TWO YEARS LATER

4. GINGRICH BLAMED THE MASSACRES AT COLUMBINE AND VIRGINIA TECH ON “LIBERALISM”

5. GINGRICH WANTED THE RICH TO DECIDE WHEN THEIR OWN TAX CUTS WOULD END

6. DESPITE RAILING AGAINST THE “PARTY OF FOOD STAMPS,” GINGRICH PROPOSED EXPANDING THEM

7. FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS, GINGRICH HAS FRONTED FOR THE HEALTH INDUSTRY

8. GINGRICH REFERRED TO JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR AS A “LATINA WOMAN RACIST”

9. GINGRICH FLIP-FLOPPED ON THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE

10. GINGRICH SAID WE SHOULD ALLOW SOME TERRORIST ATTACKS TO REMIND US OF THE DANGER

Throughout his career, Gingrich has devoted himself to constantly changing his views on a whim and trying to position himself relative to the political climate of the moment . While he claims to have changed, the facts haven’t.....

When I saw Gingrich's chart I had to smile.



Born in Harrisburg, PA on 17 june 1943. Astrodatabank gives a birth time of 11:45 PM, but with only a DD rating, so I'll take that Aquarius rising with a good pinch of salt. Astrodatabank offers the additional information regarding birth time

Frances McEvoy quotes "a telephone call to his office gave the information that he was born just before midnight according to his mom."

Eleanor Kimmel sends a clipping that reads, "Delivered in the middle of the night...after a labor of 24 hours."

Daniel Giamoria quotes the family for 3:00 AM (3/95)

From the headings listed above, one trait of this politician stood out: his tendency to flip-flop. Isn't that classic astro-mutable behaviour? He has Sun, Mercury, Saturn and Uranus in mutable Gemini and Moon in mutable Sagittarius - with Sun opposite Moon, so any balance which might have been brought about with Moon in, for example, Fixed Scorpio, is missing. This is one reason why I doubt that (Fixed) Aquarius rising with birth time as 11:45 pm. However, it would need to be a whole hour earlier for cardinal Capricorn to have been rising - which seems more appropriate to his conservative politics. His rising sign remains in doubt.

Saturn close to his Gemini Sun reflects his conservatism, while Uranus conjunct his natal Gemini Mercury (communications planet in its own sign) reflects his rather quirkily unexpected interest in space and programs for exploration of same. Bearing that in mind, perhaps Aquarius rising wouldn't be out of the question. From Wikipedia:

Another subject of interest to Gingrich is space exploration, originating in a fascination with the United States/Soviet Union space race during his teenage years. Gingrich has stated that he would like to see the U.S. aggressively pursue new achievements in space, such as sustaining civilizations beyond Earth, and he advocates relying more on the private sector and less on to drive progress. As of 2010 Gingrich serves on the National Space Society Board of Governors

Overall, it's the mutability in his chart which defines him.

I don't see anything current/future transits offering hints as to how his presidential bid might be received by the public this time around. Transiting Saturn will oppose his natal Mars in Aries, from Libra this September. That could put a spoke in the wheel of any progress he might have made by then.

This candidate doesn't appeal to me in the least. A simple rule of thumb I apply: if any politician, pundit or candidate offers the opinion that "Obama is a radical socialist" (or words to that effect), as Gingrich has, I know at once that the guy or gal is an idiot or a downright liar. If only Prez Obama lived up to their twisted rhetoric!

I almost always like Gemini-types and Sagittarius-types I meet, so it's odd that I can't dredge up a smidgin of approval for Newt Gingrich, in spite of his political leaning. Perhaps, for my taste, Gingrich suffers from having "too much of a good thing", as in Sarah Palin's case, bearing in mind her multi-Aquarius chart. A pinch of salt or sugar can be just the right thing make a dish delightful - an overdose of either renders it inedible.

Music Monday ~ FARCIAL IDOL: a ramble-cum-rant with a bit of astrology thrown in.

American Idol is rapidly turning into high farce. It has been teetering on the verge for a long time, but this week it tipped over the edge. My feelings about the show veer from love to hate more rapidly than is healthy for any mature individual who prizes common sense. Still, Idol offers a breathing space from giving too much attention to that other farce-filled area: the political stage.

Before I wade into the farce, I'll mention one astrological point arising from my post of 19 March noting the Uranus/Neptune conjunction linked to personal planets in some of the contestants' natal charts.

Of the four individuals highlighted there, Scotty, Casey, James and Lauren, two are still standing, Scotty and Lauren, two of the youngest. Casey was eliminated a couple of weeks ago, sadly in my view. His quirky style doesn't exactly match standard poppy-cum-country current American Idol requirements. James went out this week in a "surprise" elimination, surprising because he has been a judges' favourite all season.

(Final 4: left to right: Haley, Scotty, James, Lauren)

Joining Scotty and Lauren in the final 3 is Haley Reinhart. Something of a dark-horse contestant, who has improved a lot in recent weeks. She's bluesy, jazzy, and sassy. She was born born September 9, 1990 and comes from Wheeling, Illinois. Sun, Mercury Venus in Virgo (16, 13 and 2 degrees respectively) and Uranus, Neptune, Saturn in Capricorn (5, 11 18 degrees respectively). So she has that potentially magical link-up too - a trine from Uranus/Neptune to personal planets in her case.

On Wednesday we saw Lady GaGa acting as guest mentor. The week's two themes were: songs that inspire and songs by Lieber and Stoller. Each of the four remaining contestants sang one example of each.

Lady GaGa turned up wearing shoes with huge high heels in the shape of dildos, which the Fox TV PR people promptly censored - blurred out for the screen. There are two contestants "under age" and children watching, whose innocence must be protected. (Stifled splutters). In which case, Fox PR peeps, why did you choose to make the two gals, aged 16 and 20 perform a duet of Gunpowder and Lead on Thursday's results show, the song about domestic abuse? Ye gods!!! And
I've just read that judges' pick for Haley to sing this week (one of 3 songs) is Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know. It has a line that goes something like this: will SHE go down on YOU in a theatre?’ (asking the guy who dumped her what makes his new girl better), and another: Are you thinking of me when you f..k her? I suppose these lines will be by-passed, but surely there are thousands of songs more suitable for exposure on a TV channel whose representatives disliked Ms Ga-Ga's shoe heels. There's a smell of double standards here.

Lady G-G proceeded to give some not too bad advice to the remaining four contestants. The only one of the four who seemed pretty cool with the encounter with this strange 21st century musical icon was Haley Reinhart. The other three, each for their own reason felt well out of their comfort zones interacting with the Big G. Scotty felt the need to kiss his prominently displayed cross necklace (I hope this was ironic on his part, but I wouldn't bet on it). James admitted in interview later that he was very uncomfortable when Big G got close behind him to demonstrate how he should do sexy hip swings when performing Love Potion No. 9. I didn't see anything untoward in this - it seemed perfectly proper from our camera angle. The youngest contestant, Lauren, had chosen to sing Leiber & Stoller's Trouble, which contains a line "I'm evil, evil evil as can be...." which she coyly wondered about the wisdom of singing. I was on BigG's side here....."see the fun in it", she told Lauren. Lauren still seemed unsure and overly demure. My advice would be: Caahhme on girl! If you don't want to call yourself evil in song - sing another darn song - Leiber and Stoller wrote many other belters.

The night's flashpoint though was the criticism of Haley's rendition of a song she found inspiring: Michael Jackson's Earth Song. That song inspires me too - far more than any of the other three choices:
Scotty: Alan Jackson's Where Were You (a song about....yep 9/11 - maudlin and way past its sell-by date - but it mentions God and Jesus, so that's okay then).
James: Journey's Don't Stop Believin' which was not bad, but didn't inspire me much.
Lauren: Martina McBride's Anyway, which could have been a good song if the writer had avoided that "God is great" line. Idol's main body of viewers is said to be in the south of the US: the Bible Belt - a little pandering goes a long way huh?

Randy Jackson and Jennifer Lopez panned Haley's performance to the nth degree, while giving the other three great praise without a single criticism, and there was room for citicism in all cases. Only Steven Tyler supported Haley, with "Don't listen to them Haley - they're wrong!"

Randy and J-Lo told Haley she "screamed it". Well, when you're inspired by lines such as

What have we done to the world?
Look what we've done.
What about all the peace,
That you pledge your only son?

Did you ever stop to notice,
All the children dead from war?
Did you ever stop to notice,
This crying Earth its weeping shores?


What about the common man
(What about us).....
What about children dying
(What about us)....

And so on...... you'd tend to want to scream!

But wait, I'm forgetting something important.

American Idol is aired on FOX TV, owned by Rupert Murdoch. Tool of The Machine! It has been reported that he was in the audience on Wednesday evening too.

So it's fine to sing songs about 9/11 and God, Jesus and suchlike, but not about dead children, peace, the state of the Earth - that kind of "socialist tripe"????
A couple of the judges even said that Earth Song wasn't a hit song. It might not have been big in the USA (I wonder why) but it was HUGE in the UK and Europe.

Haley, however, came back in the second half with Leiber & Stoller's I Who Have Nothing and nailed it better than anyone since the UK's Shirley Bassey, long ago, and received a standing ovation from judges and audience.

There's yet another angle to this scenario.

It has become more and more clear as seasons go by how much audience manipulation is truly going on. Rather than the show's purported aim to find a singer who could become a musical idol in the USA, it has turned into a show to see how cleverly the audience can be led by the nose to vote for certain contestants (the ones most likely to be $$$$$$$$$$$$$-earners for the producers and their record company associates). Viewers' emotions are manipulated by a variety of means: polarising their likes/dislikes, being led by judges'comments, reverse psychology. These ploys have a dual purpose. They guarantee future ratings and steer the "right ones" to the winner's enclosure.

The consequence was, that if the producers were aiming to rake in millions of sympathy votes for Haley by using crafty reverse psychology, they succeeded.

American Idol itself has competition now, from NBC's new show The Voice. There's no bad publicity, so any publicity Idol can dredge up will ensure that people write about it and viewers will tune in to see what it's all about. They'd be saying "Gotcha!" to me, if they knew of my blog's existence.



Final 3 will sing on Wednesday, three songs each, to be chosen by judges, mentor and the singers themselves. So: two teenage country-style singers versus one 20-year old sassy blues/jazz gal. One contestant will be eliminated during a results show on Thursday; the Grand Finale will air a week later, not sure of the exact day. I don't dare to predict the winner. Idol producers and FOX TV in their current mood could even try to override the planets.

"My Own Love Song" ~ Olivier Dahan

I felt in need of seeing some more up-to-date movies than our usual diet of junkstore-bought old tapes and DVDs. However, having carefully perused the many yards of floor to ceiling shelves filled with DVDs at our local Hastings store I felt distinctly underwhelmed. Eventually I chose a documentary, a biopic, and an indie movie. The latter is affectionately fixed in my memory, in spite of its rather quirky, jerky yet still charmingly melodic feel.

"My Own Love Song".

Written and directed by Olivier Dahan who's better known for directing the acclaimed biopic of Edith Piaf, "La Vie en Rose". "My Own Love Song" is his first English language movie and stars Renee Zellweger and Forest Whitaker, with a carefully drawn cameo part for Nick Nolte. Music and songs by Bob Dylan. Written especially for the film, his "Life is Hard" becomes the core of the movie's theme.

With a line-up like that how could the movie fail?

Some critics have ruled it a definite fail - but they simply didn't "get it".

It's subtle - open to a variety of interpretations. The basic storyline is secondary to the character studies and general "feel" of the film. No reviewer whose opinion I've read so far has seen in the movie what I saw, though a couple were positive in different ways. That's the stamp of a good movie, a good piece of art, poem, song or novel. True talent lies in the ability to leave strands, or trails, open to readers/viewers to mentally and emotionally follow in a variety of directions, depending on life-experiences of viewer or reader.



One of my first impressions was that the movie must be an adaptation of a novel or short story. The theme reminded me of something Carson McCullers might have written. But it appears that it was written, as well as directed, by Olivier Dahan.

As I interpret the movie, it's a pastiche of characters, all victims of "the strings and arrows of outrageous fortune". They're ordinary, yet extraordinary. They have little in the way of worldly goods. When the movie pans to a scenario filled with run-of-the-mill middle-class-ish folk I began to feel irritated, and wanted to return immediately to these strugglers and stragglers, battling both their pasts and their presents in the best ways they could, and helping one another in ways big and small.

The aforementioned "slings and arrows", not always fully revealed at first, include car wreck resulting in devastation of a family and successful career; horrendous fire resulting in loss of family support system; the after effects of losing everything in the floods after Katrina struck; the knowledge that a loved one is dying; and the angst of experiencing the unexplained disappearance of a partner.

That's enough to put anyone off this movie - but it shouldn't. That's the bottom line, the foundation, the soil from which beauty arises, and thanks to the talent of the actors and director involved, what might otherwise have come across as a schmaltzy, self-indulgent mush turned out to be, for me, an inspired piece of movie-making. Not perfect by any means - but the best things never are. It's the imprefections which give anything its character.

A look at Olivier Dahan's natal chart:

Other than the fact that Dahan was born on 26 June 1967 in La Ciotat, France, and in 1991 received a diploma in art at the Art school of Marseille, I found no further biographical information online.

When asked in interview what interests him most about filmmaking he replied:

I don’t think it’s an interest in one thing or another. It’s my way of talking; it’s just a question of communication. I don’t like to talk so much in life, I’m more comfortable with pictures. When I’m on the set I don’t feel like I’m working, I just feel natural

Time of birth is unknown so a 12 noon chart is shown. Moon position isn't reliable, as here, but Moon would have been in Aquarius to around 5pm, if born later, Moon in Pisces.

Sun and Mercury in gentle, ultra-sensitive Cancer matches well the feel of the movie I've featured here - and probably his earlier well-received biopic of Edith Piaf (which I have yet to see).

Moon in either Aquarius or Pisces would fit what we can see of him through this movie equally well - quirky and out of the ordinary (Aquarius) imaginative, dreamy (Pisces).

His Sun and Mercury are flanked to the left by semi-sextiles to Jupiter and Venus.
semi-sextile (30*) isn't an aspect much vaunted by astrologers, but I've noticed often that, when Sun, Mecury or Venus are closely involved there's a definite blending which modifies both signs. Here bright, shiny, show-bizzy Leo modifies gentle, shy Cancer and vice versa.

Neptune trines Mercury in Cancer from Scorpio, adding Neptune's creative force to the mix. Neptune is often found closely linked to personal planets in the charts of film-makers.

It'll be interesting to see what this young director/screenwriter comes up with next.

Here's a snip from the movie showing Renee Zellweger singing (who knew she could?) Woody Guthrie's great song "This Land is Your Land" (PS: We should never forget that, whichever land we relate it to !!!)

SNAFU?

In case any non-Blogger blog readers are wondering why Thursday's post (12 May) titled "ASTROLOGY ~ How?" and the 5 comments which had gathered on Thursday morning have all disappeared, along with comments on earlier posts which were awaiting moderation:

Blogger encountered a major difficulty while doing maintenance and had to put all Blogger blogs in reader mode only from late morning on Thursday. They then backed up Thursday's posts and comments, and restored their system to the way it was on 11 May. They say they are in the process of restoring posts and comments from 12 May, but it's a big job, I guess, and could take some time.....and it IS Friday 13th after all.

I'll re-publish the lost post myself if it fails to appear in the next few days. But otherwise things SEEM to be normal for new posts....testing testing.

ASTROLOGY - HOW?

Blogger has reported that posts have been restored -it doesn't seem to want to reinstate my own 12 May post so I've done it myself, along with copies of the comments received up to the time Blogger went south. Comments now appear in the body of the post.

Thanks and appreciation to the 5 commenters for their kind thoughts.

This was my first ever post, dated 11 August 2006. I seriously doubt that anybody read it then. After almost 5 years blogging on astrological matters I haven't changed my mind about the "how?"



I don't know how astrology works. Nobody does. Most astrologers find some way of explaining it. Some are unacceptable, even to me. This is how I see it:

The Universe is full of energies, forces, elements of which we know very little, if anything. More and more is being discovered as the years pass. I believe there are "energies" for want of a better word, or perhaps a better description would be "a kind of atmospheric soup", to which our human bodies react, starting with our first breath after birth, as a separate entity from our mothers. With that first breath we are "imprinted" (again for want of a better word) with a pattern or blueprint based on the mix of energies at that very minute, in that particular place. This imprint blends with the genetically inherited flesh and blood from which we are formed. From centuries of observation, it would appear that these "energies" have some connection with the planets and lights (Sun & Moon) in our solar system, and their movements around the ecliptic. The planets themselves could be acting, to our eyes, in a way akin to the hands of a clock, indicators of cycles of time, overlapping cycles, repeating cycles - a complex network of cycles.

As we grow, the planets and their movement - transits - continue to have relevance, because our imprinted circuitry is sensitive to them, especially as the planets pass over certain areas. From my own experience, this occurs on a much lesser scale than the text books indicate. The outer, slow moving planets can affect our lives to varying degrees at a few specific points in any life span...but not every day, every week, or even every year. Most of the time we are free-wheeling, following an inborn blueprint, living our lives using free will, making our own mistakes, enjoying our own triumphs. A few times in a life, though, the Cosmos steps in and a particular configuration of planets trigger the imprint and re-direct matters. Even then it remains in our hands as to how we react to this re-direction. These especially sensitive configurations occur cyclically.

Astrology has a long, long history, reaching back further even than we can know. Knowledge passed down through centuries might well have become mangled, mis-translated, or politically censored and manipulated from time to time, a similar fate will have applied to the Bible and other holy books.

In ancient times people tried to understand the unknowable in the best way they could. They used fables, deities, archetypes, and strange symbolic glyphs to describe ideas which could not otherwise be explained. Generations of astrologers have updated these ancient concepts using modern expression, but the unwritten core of astrological knowledge remains within its modern understanding.

The notion that planets, and various accurately measured points on an astrological chart can affect our lives may seem incredible, yet there ARE patterns. Just as the planets move in regular defineable cycles, there are rhythms and patterns in all our lives. There are patterns of personality which can be seen to emerge based on positions of the planets and the angles they make with one another at the time of birth. There are patterns in the stages of our lives. There is a rhythm, in time to the slow dance of our planets.


COMMENTS

Wisewebwoman
I agree, T, what we know amounts to a head of a pin in the scale of the universe.
XO
WWW

Gian Paul This post of yours, Twilight, merits to be published not only once every 5 years, but every year. Make it a habit!

A personal reflection: it's all larger than just human destiny. Admittedly our own life/life experiences are the best ground for observation, but many other entities (states, corporations, associations, even conspiracies etc.) obey astrological patterns. What's created has by definition an hour of birth, hours of peaking or bottoming out, of death and renovation. So it's not only us little human individuals who are concerned.

mary beth
this is, by far, the very best articulation of my own position on astrology and its gratifying to see it out here in print. may many see it.

Hieronimuss

This is how I missed my subway stop last night. There was a voice in my screaming: Astrology really works! I was reading the article in the Mountain Astrologer on the Wikileak founder Assange and was looking at the transits when he supposedly "raped". Huh, Venus Mars conjoined his natal Uranus/Pluto and much more... It does work, but there are no two same ways of how we'll accept it, because it's not just mental, it's emotional, archetypal, social...

James Higham
I don't know how astrology works. Nobody does. Most astrologers find some way of explaining it. Some are unacceptable, even to me.

You seem to have a fair grasp of it now though.

USA's Slide ~ JFK ~ Astrology of THAT Moment ~ Catch 22

A brief exchange between two commenters at Common Dreams at the weekend got my astrological juices flowing. The exchange was part of a conversation on a piece about the parlous state of the American electoral/political system, its downward slide, virtually hijacked by corporate financing, made even worse by the Supreme Court's decision on the Citizens United case, and how the "progressives" of the USA seem unable to do anything to turn the tide. Here

Contrary to some opinion I've heard and read (that it was during Ronald Reagan's reign when things started to go south for ordinary working folks in the US, and the slide hasn't stopped since) there's another, wider, perspective worth thinking about.

Clip from exchange between commenters "the puffin" and "Michael Desautels":

..because of the Citizens' United decision, the electoral process is no longer a viable option, much the same as pulling a ripcord at 60 feet.
It would have worked, if we'd pulled it when freefall began, like maybe after JFK was iced."

MD responded:
In my opinion, 1963 was a de-facto coup d'etat, and we have never recovered.

I haven't ever looked at the chart of the exact time of John F. Kennedy's assasination, though in common with all who recall that day, I do remember where I was at the time the killing was announced on radio in the UK.



Here's the chart for 22 November 1963 at 12:30PM, Dallas, Texas.



Was there, embedded in this moment - the moment described astrologically by the chart above - the seed of defeat for all future attempts to swing American politics more in the direction of respect and support for working people, a compassionate approach, provision of a national healthcare system, and a safety net for those who fall on hard times?

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John F. Kennedy

These thoughts are simply thoughts, wonderings.....about a single moment in time. We are not absolutely certain when the political slide began. Some say it has been in place since the USA was constituted in the 18th century. I choose not to bring any of the standard USA charts into play though. There are too many of them - too many variables.

So back to the assassination chart.

Anything relating to progressive politics must link to Uranus and/or Aquarius. Destruction or the aim to destroy - human being or ideology - links to what the ancients called "the malefics" - Saturn, Mars, and in modern times we look on Pluto as malefic, or at best transformational, too.

Uranus and Pluto were within a few degrees of one another that day, but had been so for some time previously and would remain so for long after. So although that seems to be a "flag", it's not specific to the moment. The Yod (Finger of Fate) was specific to that moment though. Moon and Saturn were close together in Aquarius (Uranus's ruling sign) and close to the ascendant angle (horizon), Jupiter was in sextile to Moon/Saturn from Aries. Jupiter has often been noted as emphasised in charts connected with death, oddly enough (something that makes me wonder if its interpretation needs a do-over!) Those sextiled planets link via 150* angles to Uranus/Pluto. I can't give a definitive interpretation of this particular formation but it's spookily appropriate that the signs and planets I mentioned above as relating to progressive politics and death/transformation would turn out to be a part of it.

One more sidelight, which may or may not be significant: Fixed Star Zosma (about which I wrote a post HERE), is not known as being much of a benefic, and was conjunct Uranus at the time of the assassination.

Without getting into the hairy question of "who done it", or the motive involved, it seems that, as well as losing a president in that moment, America also lost all hope of ever attaining a balanced and just electoral and political system, fair for all of the nation's citizens, not weighted towards a favoured 1%?

The USA is in a bind. Corporate funding of electoral candidates, and corporate power over virtually all US media make it extremely difficult, impossible now, for a third party to arise and prosper. Or even for a brave Democrat or Republican to step forward and challenge status quo. They would be ignored, discredited - or worse (see above). To eliminate corporate money from elections would call for legislation. Those who make the laws are bought by the corporations. Isn't that Catch 22 - or something near to it?

Music Monday ~ ERIC BURDON of The Animals, 70 this week.

This week sees Eric Burdon's 70th birthday. He was born on 11 May 1941, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. He's a War Baby (me too.) He now lives in California, he says the very dry climate there helps his asthma.

I can't, with hand on heart, profess to having been a fan of his, or of his band, The Animals, back in the 1960s and 70s. I was familiar with their biggest hits - anyone who listened to the radio in the mornings before heading out to work couldn't miss them: House of the Rising Sun, Tobacco Road, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, Don't Bring Me Down.....etc.



Regarding Don't Bring Me Down, written by Carol King and Gerry Goffin, in an interview Burdon surprisingly admitted:

I didn't realize that it was a Goffin, King song until I was in a doctor's office in Beverly Hills and Ms. King came in and sat next to me. I didn't know it was her, I was just reading a magazine and she turned to me and said, "You know, I hated what you did to my song." I didn't know what to say, so all I said was, "well, sorry." and then as she got up to go into the doctor's office, she turned around and said, "but I got used to it."

How a performer can possibly sing a song in public without finding out who wrote it seems very odd to me!

The Animals, 1964.


Burdon with the band WAR 1969.


Burdon aimed for a blues-oriented sound, rather darker and less pop-friendly than that of The Beatles, The Kinks and others of that so-called British Invasion. From a few videos at YouTube it's clear that his style, as he has matured, reflects his interest in jazz. He claims that a love of blues and jazz stems from listening in his youth to American records brought for him, from the USA by a neighbour of his who was a merchant seaman.

He has continued to sing, tour and record through the decades, 1960s to the present, solo or fronting a variety of bands. Though he retains a loyal brigade of fans, he has never managed to match his early successes. Few who survived the 1960s have managed to do so - even icons like McCartney. I bet Lennon would still be making himself felt though.

Speaking of Lennon, another War Baby, brings to mind anti-war songs. I wondered how Burdon feels about war, and peace, and politics, so read through a few interviews. Just last month, when asked about what inspires him he replied:

I draw inspiration from everything around me. For instance, at this very moment, I’m drawing inspiration from the revolution that is happening. Finally, the word revolution means something again.

And in an interview last year, when asked about his hopes for world peace:

Peace of mind is, for sure, a possibility and I am a long way from that. I found in my life, which is just a drop in a large pool of humanity, that the democratic system enemy in order to ‘keep order.’ I was born in a world at war…It hasn’t changed…but for me, I’ve survived without encountering personally very much violence. Not that I haven’t been a witness to violence. So, where does that leave me? Believing everything is an illusion. Does this mean I’m deluded or just lucky? I know where to find it; I know how to avoid it. To be able to debate peace is probably as close as we can get in today’s world. Every “ism” in the world needs an enemy to exist. The need to argue this is an imperative. More civilians are killed today than combatants. I survived the war and somehow managed to survive the peace. Two of my closest friends did not.”

It's a pity Burdon hasn't written more songs on this theme. His Sky Pilot is the only one I can find. ~ Link to video SKY PILOT



NATAL CHART


Wow! He has a whole lot of Taurus goin' on! Six planets between 18 and 26 degrees of Taurus! Moon opposing some of them from Scorpio, depending on his exact time of birth. Unless he was born after 10 PM Moon would be mid to late Scorpio, if later than 10PM, Moon would be in the first degrees of Sagittarius.

UPDATECommenter Louise (see below) has kindly let me know that Astrodatabank has a time of birth for Eric Burdon: 12 midnight. See Astrodatabank page and chart:
http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Burdon,_Eric. This birth time gives Moon at 15 Scorpio and Sagittarius rising - Sagittarius brings in a welcome Mutable sign to balance his Fixedness.

So - is he a poster-boy for Taurus, I wonder? Stubborn to the nth degree? That we cannot know, but I'd bet on it. Earthy, gritty - from his music style, definitely!
Venus, planet of the arts, including music, is ruler of Taurus, and Venus sits in the midst of that stellium (cluster of planets). Anyone with this much Taurus in their chart would simply have to be involved in, or at least inspired by, and interested in, one of the arts - painting, dance, music, writing.

Taurus is alleged to connect to love of possessions and property. From what I've read about Burdon this isn't too good a fit, but I don't know enough to be sure.

The only personal planet, other than Moon, not in Taurus is Mars in Aquarius....and it's squaring (challenging) that huge stellium of Taurus planets, as well as his Moon, forming what astrologers term a T-Square. This reflects a constant state of tension, and here, because the signs involved are Fixed signs, excessive obstinacy - a person unlikely to let things go, one who would never give up but keep fighting whatever the dispute. In this chart the T-Square seems extra potent because of the large number of planets involved at one point - the Taurus point.

There's one very good harmonious aspect as well, a trine linking Neptune in Virgo to that Taurus stellium - Neptune represents, among other things, creativity.

Sun and Uranus (planet of the rebel)are conjoined within the Taurus stellium, and square to Mars in the sign ruled by Uranus : Aquarius. This link, though between Fixed signs, tends to lend a looser, more free and open-minded feel. Had Uranus and Mars been elsewhere, I suspect Eric Burdon might not have coped so well, and for so long, with the vagaries and challenges of a music star's life.

Tobacco Road from the 1960s

Embedding is disabled on most videos of recent performances - here's a link to a good live 2006 version of him with House of the Rising Sun:

House of the Rising Sun 2006

Eugenics ~ Designer Babies ~ Astrology

I recall a conversation on an astrology message board, some years ago, touching on the question of whether it'd be wise for a couple to use astrology to try to plan a birth date/time which might produce the type of characteristics they'd prefer to see in their proposed child. My immediate feeling was that it'd be an unwise thing to try. I believe that nature knows best, and that there's an inbuilt heredity factor that will come into play, irrespective of attempts to displace it, or parts of it. Something from that conversation remains etched in memory: from a professional astrologer - well known one too, regularly commented and helped astrology students on the board. He told us that he and his wife had tried to astrologically design their child, and had done so successfully - a beautiful child was the result. But the child died at a young age.

An article in an old book, mentioned before in these posts "The Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933 - 1934" prodded me into a little research into the controversial topic of eugenics, which has to be said is loosely linked to the idea of astrologically designing a baby.

The article, An Astrologer Looks at Eugenics, was a report of an interview with one Robert De Luce, an astrologer and mathematician. The interview took place in the early 1930s. It's important to realise that at that time eugenics, as a general concept, had not attracted the dark, evil connotations gathered from the use of it by Hitler's Nazi regime a few years later. It's also important to realise that the theory of eugenics arose in early 20th century England, not Germany, and flowed (as things usually do, one way or another) across the Atlantic to the USA. The original purpose was not ethnic cleansing, but a desire to rid the human race of what proponents of eugenics saw as defective beings, and thus improve the species, and possibly avoid over-population as a side effect. Among what these elitists saw as defective beings, of course, were ordinary folk like thee and me who didn't measure up to their own supposed brilliant intellectual height. Oddly, although these eugenics peddlars were the progressives of their day, what they were proposing was fascistic in tone. Strange how things turn around!

I found what Robert De Luce had to say to be somewhat unpleasant. Comments such as these:

Worrying about "the existing sociological situation" and the then remedies (prisons, asylums, reformatories, public financial offerings etc...) he wrote

..They may for a time gloss over the cataclysm but they cannot permanently cure or avoid its recurrence.....

If the public will accept on faith the findings of astrological scientists, sufficiently to give them a fair test, we can readily assist the development of this new race of supermen.

And

Then again eugenists have a fear that the masses of lower intelligence, such as the moron and imbecile, will overpower and destroy, by their greater numbers, those who are intellectually endowed. There is nothing to it. No form of society has yet ever existed where the imbeciles and morons are the controlling factor.

That last sentence is a perfect straight line for some comedian to take up - I shall be good and resist!

Back in the early 1930s perhaps the pervading astrological atmosphere was encouraging such perfection-seeking attitudes.



August 1932 to September 1933 saw a transit of Jupiter through Virgo, with Neptune already in that sign - a sign which has the reputation of a need for perfection in everything. The relatively innocent motives of De Luce were overshadowed when Hitler's Nazi regime set about its aim to produce the "master race" and "cleanse" Europe to produce an imagined Utopia. We all know of the ensuing horrors!

As a broad definition eugenics means people being bred like cattle or dogs, cats etc to produce the most desirable genetic traits. Genetic engineering in the 21st century could be used to produce "a designer baby". That might well be the case, but astrology buffs would argue that unless the position of the planets at the time of the designer baby's birth are compatible with the traits desired, results might well be disappointing.

There's a limit to how much "designing" can be done astrologically, of course. It'd be next to impossible to ascertain the exact minute of birth - or even exact hour and day of birth (unless birth was by C-section, performed by accommodating medics).

I found this, of astrological relevance, at librarising.com during my searches - extract only, full piece is at link below:

According to studies and trials done by Russian cosmobiologist Eugene Jonas, a woman can only conceive when the transiting Sun and Moon are in the same angular relationship(by sign) as the woman's natal Sun and Moon.

In other words, if the woman has the Sun in Leo and the Moon in Sagittarius, she has what is known as a trine(120 degree) relationship between her luminaries. Whenever the Sun and Moon are in trine(by sign) in the sky, this is the best time for her to conceive or become pregnant.

The trine is a harmonious relationship. Other harmonious Sun/Moon relationships(by sign), such as the sextile(60 degrees), Conjunction(0 degrees), or opposition(180 degrees), can also be fertile periods for her...... Note: a period of up to twelve hours should be allowed for the sperm to reach the ovum and cause conception.....
The sex of the child is determined by the gender of the sign the Moon is in at the time of conception.........

According to the ancient Trutine of Hermes formula, the Moon sign at conception, becomes the Ascendant sign at birth, and the Ascendant sign at conception becomes the Moon sign at birth. The time from conception to birth is usually 273 days or ten lunar months and nine solar months.

In other words, you can pretty much select the Moon and Ascendant signs of your child(as well as the other planets) and therefore have a very good idea of the characterstics of the child you are bringing into the world.

http://www.librarising.com/astrology/fwa/bcontrol.html

Whether eugenics were to be used to "better" the human race generally, or a variation of it were used to astrologically design offspring, I'm not in favour. Messing with nature can have enormous unexpected consequences for which the species would NOT be prepared.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (self-portrait, left) was born on 5 April 1732 in Grasse, Provence, France. He became one of the last of the Rococo artists to make a mark in the artworld before the French Revolution deprived them of aristocratic, wealthy patrons. His work was neglected and forgotten by the time of his death in 1806.

He had travelled, studied and painted throughout France and Italy, his work had embraced religious, classical and other subject matter. The demand from wealthy art lovers of Louis XV's pleasure-oriented court led him to paint what have become his best known works. Scenes of playful love, light-hearted voluptuousness, mildly erotic, but delicate and beautifully detailed.

Rococo art portrayed a world of artificiality, make-believe, and game-playing - an art of the indulgent lifestyles of the aristocracy rather than piety, morality, self-discipline, reason, and heroism all of which was found in the earlier baroque style

Whereas in the cases of some painters it would seem they'd been "born too soon" into a world hardly ready for their style, in Fragonard's case it could be said that he was born a little too late.

Possibly Fragonard's best known painting is The Swing




(A little about its history and content)

The identity of the patron is unknown................ The picture was depersonalized and, due to Fragonard's extremely sensuous imagination, became a universal image of joyous, carefree sexuality.


The theme is that of love and the rising tide of passion, as intimated by the sculptural group in the lower centre of the picture. (Dolphins driven by cupids drawing the water-chariot of Venus symbolize the impatient surge of love).

Beneath the girl on the swing, lying in a great bush, a tangle of flowers and foliage, is the young lover, gasping with anticipation. The bush is, evidently, a private place as it is enclosed by little fences. But the youth has found his way to it. Thrilling to the sight now offered him, the youth reaches out with hat in hand. (A hat in eighteenth-century erotic imagery covered not only the head but also another part of the male body when inadvertently exposed.)

The feminine counterpart to the hat was the shoe and in The Swing the girl's show flies off her pretty foot to be lost in the undergrowth......... in French paintings of the period a naked foot and lost shoe often accompany the more familiar broken pitcher as a symbol of lost virginity.

However, all these erotic symbols would lie inert on the canvas had not Fragonard charged the whole painting with the amorous ebullience and joy of an impetuous surrender to love. In a shimmer of leaves and rose petals, lit up by a sparkling beam of sunshine, the girl, in a frothy dress of cream and juicy pink, rides the swing with happy, thoughtless abandon. Her legs parted, her skirts open; the youth in the rose-bush, hat off, arm erect, lunges towards her. Suddenly, as she reaches the peak of her ride, her shoe flies off.
http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/ARTH200/gender/fragonard_swing.html

A quick look at Fragonard's natal chart reveals that he had Sun/Mercury/Saturn close together in Aries. Venus, planet of the arts was in Taurus, it's home sign (a placement often found in the charts of artists). There's a configuration astrologers call a "Mystic Rectangle" here - I've highlighted it in the chart illustration because it does include planets which, together, reflect his chosen style.




The Sun/Mercury/Saturn group in Aries representing the essence of his "self" -an energetic go-getter, rather keen businessman too, links harmoniously via trines or sextiles to the three outer planets Neptune (creativity/imagination), Pluto (passion, sex), Uranus (the unexpected, rebelliousness). The two oppositions which form part of the Mystic Rectangle involve the Aries cluster in opposition to Pluto in Libra, and Neptune in Gemini opposite Uranus in Sagittarius. What this configuration could be said to represent is a largely free-flowing "energy" its details relating to the planets involved, with elements of difficulty arising from the two oppositions. It could be that while his skills in portraying such frivolous lightheartedness was fine for a while (the trines/sextiles) he found real life opposition to his style when the ruling regime changed after the French Revolution.

Other examples of his work:

Bathers



Blind Man's Buff



The Stolen Kiss

Belloc's "fleas that tease" prompt a look at the hard-nosed poet

Clawing at my still itchy insect bites, collected during our abbreviated trip to the High Country, the opening lines of a poem learned in school, long ago and far away, sprang into my mind:

Tarantella by Hilaire Belloc:

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?

Full text at http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tarantella/

Allegedly (sources conflict) Miranda was not the beautiful black-haired young woman we schoolgirls had envisaged, but a more prosaic Duke of Miranda in a scenario during the Peninsular War. As for the poem's title, performing the tarantella, a lively Italian dance, was thought to minimise the effects of poisonous spider bites -possibly folk fable. The poem's rhythm is certainly lively enough to reflect the dance.

I haven't, so far, looked into Belloc's natal chart. I shall take a peek in a mo.

Belloc, writer, orator, poet, satirist and political activist was born in France but lived much of his life in England, becme a British citizen in 1902 .

A little background from Comic Verse, Serious Man,
John Gross's review of Joseph Pearce's book Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc. Link:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4728375/Comic-verse-serious-man.html


I've highlighted some significant observations.

Pearce has his naive moments, but he gives a clear and generally fair account of Belloc's career from his French background (on his father's side) and his early Oxford triumphs to his long decline into semi-senility. He steers a judicious course through the choppy waters of the Marconi Affair (which came close to rocking Asquith's government) and Belloc's long acrimonious dispute with H. G. Wells (over Wells's Outline of History). ..............
......... Belloc's life revolved around his Catholicism, but it was Catholicism of a hard, unaccommodating kind that you seldom encounter nowadays. He preached the Church Militant or, in his case, you might say, the Church Truculent. And to an outsider, at least, he rarely seems to touch any great spiritual depths. You don't have to be a Catholic or a believer of any sort to be stirred by Newman or Hopkins (or even, I would say, Chesterton). With Belloc, it is more a simple question of whether or not you belong to the club.

He was someone it can be equally hard to come to terms with at more mundane levels. He was aggressive by nature; he could be brutal and coarse. That doesn't mean that he didn't also have his charm (he commanded the affection of friends as civilised as Max Beerbohm and Maurice Baring), or that his faults aren't often interesting to read about. But he can seem tiresome, too - in his pontifications as amateur military expert during the First World War, for instance, or in his boisterous goings-on about beer. (Punch once called him - not the worst joke it ever printed - "The Man Who Was Thirsty".) ...................

As for the unpleasant but inescapable question of Belloc's anti-Semitism, Pearce plays it down. What he says in mitigation is true enough - that Belloc distanced himself from extreme anti-Semites, that he was never in any danger of falling for Hitler. But his prejudice was deeper and more inveterate than Pearce suggests; and his claim that he wrote his book "The Jews" to do the Jews a favour - to warn them how unpopular they were - is downright creepy.

Born 27 July 1870 in St Cloud, France, at (according to Astrotheme) 4:00 PM



So....Belloc doesn't strike me as a pleasant guy! His four sensitive Cancer planets, including Moon Mars and Venus must have been pretty much eclipsed by his ebullient Leo Sun conjunct Mercury and Sagittarius rising. He sounds to have been anything but a shy sensitive soul!

Sagittarius rising clearly reflects his religiosity, and with Saturn in Sagittarius in first house of self we have an indication of the reputed "hardness" of his take on religion.
There's a Yod (Finger of Fate) with Saturn in Sagittarius at its apex, linked by two quincunx (150*) aspects to the Moon/Uranus conjunction and Pluto in Taurus. Such a configuration is said to relate to the way the "energies" of the linked sextiled planets will manifest through the planet at the apex. Again, we have emphasis on Saturn, here funelling a softer Cancerian Moon with a rather rebellious Uranus and a darkish Pluto via Saturn at the apex in religious (or at least spiritual)Sagittarius. Sagittarius's ruler Jupiter, however, is in sociable Gemini, which could account for Belloc's occasional rather more charming side, as mentioned in the extract above.

Some of his books:





He was right about one thing though:



Even his books for children have a hard-nosed air about them!

BACK EARLY

We're back - and much sooner than planned. I should know better than to risk taking a trip with transiting Mars and Jupiter conjoining my natal Moon and transiting Saturn opposing natal Saturn. But I'm obtuse, so will not allow astrology to rule our comings and goings.

We had planned to travel, via the Texas panhandle into New Mexico, head north and west to see the Four Corners Area, where four states meet: New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah. We then hoped to travel on northward into Utah to see some of the dramatic coppery red rock formations and scenery in the state's south-eastern section.

During our first overnighter in Dumas, Texas we didn't see any sign of the "Ding-Dong Daddies From Dumas" once made famous by a songwriter who stayed in the city for a few weeks in the 1920s. We can reliably confirm that, in 2011, Dumas has lost any Ding-Dong it ever had!

On reaching New Mexico we chose to take Highway 64 from the eastern border at Clayton through the mountains and across to Farmington in the west, not far from the 4 Corners Monument. This scenic road is at around 8,000 feet in most places, passes through some small villages, Jiccarilla Apache Indian lands and reservations. Highway 64 is a favourite of motor cycle enthusiasts for its stunning scenery.




Just outside of Taos we noticed some peculiar-looking buildings in a large roadside field. We couldn't easily stop, but I remembered the name on a billboard as we passed the entrance: "Earthship Center". The photos are not ours, but lifted from the web. Wikipedia tells me:

An Earthship is a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials. Designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico, the homes are primarily constructed to work autonomously and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special natural ventilation system. Earthships are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the Sun.

There's more information online.


One particular little village on Highway 64, Dulce, was going to fascinate yours truly because of stories of UFOs, aliens and a massive 7-layered underground government facility said to be nearby - under a huge mesa (pictured left). There are also stories/legends of a UFO crash near Aztec village in this area. Again, there's a ton of information, comment from locals and researchers online. Some, if even half-true would be hair-raising. It involves bio-tech experiments (which I can believe), mutilated cattle found regularly around the area (documented), alien cooperation following a firefight between government troops and aliens or "grays" (which I can't believe).

I'd guess that there really is, or was, some kind of underground facility in this area dating from 1950s through 1970s. The fear of nuclear war was fierce then. The US government, paranoia-filled as usual, could easily have decided to experiment, attempting to plan for all eventualities: mutations, radiation effects, etc. etc. Where better than this wilderness area with plentiful natural underground caverns, easily extended and modified, for use without much chance of discovery? That part of the stories isn't hard to believe, given the atmosphere of those times.

We didn't reach Dulce though. We stayed overnight in Chama, a village 25 miles to the east. The temperature was frigid up there in the mountains, some of what we'd assumed was remnants of the winter's snow remained in the fields and forests over the highest parts of the route.




Chama's local restaurant/pub was warm and friendly with, surprisingly for such an out-of-the-way place, a pianist playing in the bar. The floor was littered with peanut shells, from the amply filled big buckets of nuts decorating each table as a complimentary snack. We were able to celebrate our 7th anniversary there happily enough.



Neither of us slept a wink that night though. The altitude was probably getting to us both. My husband, restless, decided to get up and play on the laptop. I experienced a severe attack of allergic sneezing which brought on a sharp sinus headache and it simply wouldn't let up. In addition I had developed a troublesome sore on my ankle. We both wondered aloud whether to carry on west or head back to Oklahoma next morning. When we looked outside at about 7 AM we decided at once! Snow had coated the car, and it was still snowing. Probably not at all a surprising find to the locals but a bit disconcerting to southerners like us, spoiled by an unusually warm spring. I hadn't packed any warm clothes. We had to layer up with what we had. It was Sunday, no shops were open to buy warmer clothing -there were no shops around anyway! I'd also managed, somehow, to get myself multi-bitten by an insect (goodness knows what insect would be around in those temps!) I still have 3 itchy bites on my left earlobe, several down the left side of my neck and a cluster of bites on my chest. And they ain't love bites!!




We headed back then, Sunday morning. We popped into the town of Los Alamos, famous for its connection with a secret, centralized facility which coordinated the scientific research of the Manhattan Project during World War 2. It was still snowing. We tried but were unable to find the museum, which was supposed to be open 7 days a week; gave it up as a lost cause and carried on south-eastward, stopping overnight in Las Vegas, New Mexico (not at all like the famous one). We realised that Las Vegas NM is nothing like its namesake in Nevada when my husband asked a gal at the counter of the only cafe we could find open, "Which way is the downtown area, please?" She looked puzzled. "Downtown? Do you mean where Walmart is?" Then we knew the town couldn't be anything like its namesake!

Last overnight stop was in Canyon, Texas, then back home yesterday afternoon. My allergies and ankle are still troublesome, but nothing seems nearly as bad when at home.

Better luck next time! That experience might (underline might) teach me to take note of astrology when planning our trips.

Thankfully we avoided completely the Royal Wedding razamataz on TV, and most of the Osama bin Laden rejoicings too. It's hard to say which I'd have been most disgusted by - I don't even want to think about it. I'd rather wonder about the goings-on under the mesa in Dulce NM.