A Diary, Some Thoughts, and Some Astrology

Art: Narcissus (Waterhouse, 1903)

A diary, some thoughts, and some astrology. - An Essay of now.

I have moved through the last month, in a mostly stunned fashion.

As I have deep ties to the land and the people, it's been hard to know what to make of all that I am seeing.

Of course, I have my natural, ingrained stance on this issue. AND, through my work over the years with a Peace Think Tank, this stance has always included a big enough tent for all of us.

However, what we are seeing now is new. It’s not what we have seen before. So I find myself in the midst of an impossible sense making project. One that has proven absolutely futile.

Tumbling into an abyss could lightly describe some of how I am orienting to the situation. Coupled with my husband being present in the country of the conflict when this all began, I’ve had trouble landing anywhere.

At first I thought my ability to finally ground would arrive when the wheels of his plane did. But that has not happened.

What I have arrived at though, is this sense of not being able to “make sense”, this inability to grasp at reason, the inability to calm my nervous system, or find an absolute anywhere, has absolutely been a gift.

I am someone oriented towards distillation. “What is happening here? What evolutionary purpose does it serve? & “What wisdom can be distilled here?”

Only this time, those aren't even part of the equation because they cannot be answered. Unless of course one believes that devolution serves evolution. And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.

We are seeing the absolute worst humanity has to offer play out on the big screen. Group narcissism abounds when we inspect the competing ideologies. There is zero “rightness”, or “righteousness”.

Only savagery trying to dress itself up as Justness. I see the dangerous move to intellectualize the catastrophe.

I see hate and dehumanization being rationalized.

It is, as I’ve said in my last transmission, a Tower Moment. That is the best lens I can put on the primacy, and high tech, well planned out, savagery.

And of course, As above, So below, applies even here.

This cocktail of Swirling events, feels like the Nodes, in Aries/Libra,

-War and Peace,

-Aggression vs Diplomacy

-Othering.

-The Mirroring effect playing out in glaring fashion.

-The actions, all rooted in ridiculous projections.

Add to this Nodal (evolutionary) recipe, we have an underworld Mars in Catalytic Scorpio, disconnected from his source of authentic power. Which means he has to conjure power up through inorganic external sources, ego, and the idea that “might makes right”. Mars in Scorpio is opposing the Promethean impulse of Uranus in Taurus, who every 80-84 years, begins a massive war for LIBERATION

World War II 1939 exactly 84 years before this

Civil War 1861

Revolutionary War 1776

For much of the latter part of this year, Pluto has been squaring our evolutionary nodes. My belief is that Pluto will continue to pull us into the Underworld again and again, until we finally learn a lesson. This is why the conflict we see now, is a flare up of a lesson we refuse to learn.

And wala, here we are.

But let’s go back to the mirroring function for a moment…In Cirlot Dictionary of Symbols, it says this about the mirror “In legend and folklore, it is frequently invested with a magic quality– a mere hypertrophic version of its fundamental meaning. In this way it serves to invoke apparitions by conjuring up again the images which it has received at some time in the past”

Let’s break this down a bit. I have frequently noted the mirroring effect of this conflict in times past. In the sense that the two sides unwittingly mirror each other with extraordinary accuracy. And this, to me, has felt like a magic trick to keep the conflict locked in place. Which is exactly why a tower moment is necessary.

MAGIC: Beyond this magic trick of causing stasis, or stagnancy. Could we also be in the midst of some other form of magic, some slight of hand, some ritual? It certainly all feels familiar to me from a “magical” perspective.

This magical perspective, it goes on to say, is “a mere hypertrophic version of its fundamental meaning”. Hypertrophic means enlarged, or exaggerated. What this is saying is that the fundamental meaning that we *think we are acting on, is being outsized to a RADICAL degree. I can certainly see that playing out.

And lastly, “In this way it serves to invoke apparitions by conjuring up again the images which it has received at some time in the past”. In Jungian terms, “Images” are archetypal in nature. Archetypes are preloaded images. And all of these boogey man archetypes are certainly being evoked. The Nazi, The Terrorist, and the Evil, Colonizing, Imperialist Westerner.

Now, everyone on all sides, has their villain, and we have found our justification for war, death, and destruction, so that the bad guy doesn’t get us.

However, there is no organic good or bad guy here. We are most certainly in an inversion. The inorganic drivers of reality have conjured these images to serve their purpose. And the inciting stimulation we are all feeling isn’t anything other than the mirror activating the distorted ideologies and their inherent images, that we’ve invested in.

There is no rationality when I listen into the quasi justifications on either side. They are all rooted in fears about a future that hasn’t quite materialized and a past that is gone and buried. Therefore, these are, like all ideologies, based in fantasies. Albeit they are fantasies that more resemble nightmares. Either way, they don’t live in a rational thought process. The only thing they serve is to whip up (a very real) frenzy and activate the nervous systems of those with very similar historical trauma. In fact, the historical trauma is weaponized inside of both ideologies. THE MIRROR.

From a disengaged perspective this looks like mass hysteria rooted in group narcissism. I say this as someone intimate with both of the horn locked ideologies, and how they feed and play off of each other.

Wait, did I say group narcissism? Let’s look at narcissus relationship to the mirror.

Part of why ideologies stick to us, and we become identified with them, is because we fall in love with our role, or our “image” inside of the ideology and how we benefit from it. The archetypal role we will play in it. Whether it is the savior, the victim, the martyr. All ideologies have a constellation of archetypal roles that we get to inhabit when we are engaged with the ideology. That’s why they feel so stimulating to interact with, and take on as our own.

Narcissus, in Greek mythology, was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was distinguished for his beauty. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book III, Narcissus’s mother was told by the blind seer Tiresias that he would have a long life, provided he never recognized himself.

When we first meet Narcissus, we meet a character who is just discovering the changeable, vulnerable, nascent emergence, of the capacity to feel. We meet him on a stroll in which he notices the flowers, appreciates the birds, and seems to be admiring the beauty all around him. He is in a state of splendor.

As he continues walking the thespian countryside, Narcissus came upon a pool. This pool was fed by a spring, the water clear as silver had not been disrupted and lay smooth. As Narcissus cast himself down, exhausted, he leaned over and caught his image, and immediately fell in love.

At first totally enraptured by the sight before him, he tried to embrace his image, but in realizing the image was his own, he lay adoringly gazing at himself for more than an hour. After he left the pond, in time he came to meet many suitors, none quite as pleasing as his own image. Feeling eternal frustration in never meeting one so perfect as himself, his vanity stealing any possibility of love for another, he plunged a dagger into his heart.

This theme of ideology stealing any possibility of love for another, is very clear in our conflict here. It does not allow us a tent, big enough for all of us. Only those in the ideology.

This morning, I did some writing on ideology in my Instagram stories. In which I talked about how all ideologies start as “movements’. Movements necessarily contain movement. There is room for a diversity of opinion, and thoughts haven’t yet been siloed into narrow constructs to constitute an ideology.

Just like when we first meet Narcissus, Movements contain their own nascent innocent beginnings, in which we are often, for the first time, being offered an permission and expression to feel something new and a method to act on it in a place of belonging. However, over time, if movements narrow their focus, and cease to welcome diversity of opinion, they morph into ideologies through this siloing effect.

Ideologies are a conglomeration of crystalized thought forms, that by nature of their rigidity, do not allow evolution. In this vein, those who belong to the ideological group are “in”, and those who do not belong are “out”. This is how they stay in their Narcissistic form. No one is allowed to threaten the beloved “image” that has been conjured through the ideology.

In the case of our current conflict, we had a beginning ideology, which spurred an anti-ideological movement that sprang up to counter it. Just like we mentioned above, the thoughts in the counter movement got siloed into crystalized thought forms, and now we have two competing quasi religious ideologies that are diametrically opposed to each other.

Oppositions are of the nature of Libra, the 7th House, that of Open Enemies.

So how then, do we solve a conflict in the framework of two competing, devolutionary, ideologies?

The answer is, we don’t. I have often wondered if the work of unhooking from deeply entrenched ideologies and group narcissism is similar to the work of coming out of a cult? I don’t know the answer, it’s just a wondering. I prefer to work with stories.

Ideologies are always warped. They can never be true, because they are based in fantasy, and require a ton of human effort to establish. They rely on propaganda and alternative facts to advance their aims. And have an energy of “punishment’ towards those who don’t belong and challenge them.

This expression that flows through ideologies is not “of God” even though they evoke God. They evoke god to advance their human aims. When it serves them. They are not themselves servants of God's will. They put God in service to their will. Like I said, an inversion.

Perhaps we begin this work of asking people to unhook from their ideologies…But in my experience with this approach, when people are so locked in, and whole information ecologies have been erected to inculcate the members from learning anything that bursts the bubble that protects the psyche this is another futile task.

No, what we must do is find actors outside of the diseased ideologies. People who are not committed to manifesting the tenets of the ideology.

But rather are in service to shared values, and virtues. People vomited to human thriving. These people do exist. I’ve heard them speak.

Unfortunately, the two ideologies in power have been in power for almost two decades, and have injected the extreme ends of their population with their ideology. Making them into ideological foot soldiers, who very much are in love with their own reflection.

These people need to be sidestepped altogether, because without that, we are on a highly destructive trajectory. One side may be able to get what they want here, but not without a gigantic stain on their name, massive collective resentment, and definitely a move towards even more ideological extremism. Not to mention a one sided win of this nature, would invoke a massive karmic burden for the people they represent. Remember, this is applicable to both sides as they mirror each other. An outcome like this is not healthy, nor is it in alignment, and would lead to ruin and decay down the road regardless of the “winner”.

So no, I don’t really have any wisdom. I have what I can see. And I come with an invitation that I myself am engaged in.

It goes like this: if we are invested here, and truly care about outcomes that involve mutual thriving, that we inspect where we are along the ideological spectrum. How invested are we? How hooked? How much movement is there inside our investment? Have we fully taken on the ideology of our side? Or are we able to question it, work outside and independent of it?

If we find that we can unhook from our sides ideology. We are the ones who need to dream and speak of a vision for the future. We need to speak this future into existence. Even if we don’t agree with what that vision is. Who cares. The fact is that we need to break up the ossifications in global discourse around the conflict. Play the Joker’s role. At this point, the peace maker is the Heyoka.

Please know, in all of my studies, ideologies always get sick, stagnate, and putrefy. That is exactly what this conflict is, the decay of two ideologies that have gotten sick. And is now making the whole world sick with it.

Art: Narcissus (Waterhouse, 1903)