I love this time of year. The winter’s cold and snow are gone (for good, I hope) and the signs of spring have sprung. Especially precious is the growth of buds on the trees, a reminder that life resurrects after death and decay.
Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the boidies is The boid is on the wing, But that’s absoid From what I hoid The wing is on the boid!
The Brooklyn National Anthem (1940)
Pop and Ma Larkin and their many children take joy in nature, each other’s company, and almost constant feasts. Their only income is through selling scrap, picking strawberries, and selling farm animals or previous purchases that they’ve tired of. Nevertheless, they joyfully spend money on horses, cars, perfume, fine furniture, and holidays abroad. Pop Larkin opposes taxes and any barriers to free enterprise.
Pop and Ma Larkin celebrate sex, youth, and vitality. In each novella in the series, Pop Larkin kisses, caresses, and pinches most of the women that he encounters. Ma Larkin expects this behaviour and approves of it. When told that Pop has kissed the middle-aged Miss Pilchester, she responds, “Do her good. Make her sleep all the sweeter.”
In the first novella, Pop, Ma, and Mariette Larkin attempt to beguile Cedric Charlton, a timid and naive tax inspector, into abandoning his investigation of their finances. Their ultimate goal is for Mariette, who is secretly pregnant at the age of seventeen, to marry “Charley” and thus provide a father for her baby. Ultimately Mariette develops true feelings for Charley and they do become engaged. Charley is never told of the pregnancy, which turns out to be a false alarm.
This illustration has an image from the animated film, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, which seems appropriate, somehow.
It’s the child’s equivalent of last year’s “Don’t Look Up”. But I digress.
In a world searching for the next ‘thing’, we are constantly bombarded with images, messages and dire predictions from the main stream media (MSM). Their purpose is to keep us distracted while everything goes to ‘hell in a handcart.’ But some of those things have started to unravel, such as how to react to the war between Ukraine and Russia. You can almost feel the ‘hidden hand’ trying to push the West into the conflict in a direct way. In the meantime, people are dying by the thousands, and families are displaced by the tens of thousands. It’s been 10 weeks, and yet it feels like forever, like the Vietnam War on a loop.
Then there’s the issue of ‘abortion rights’. If ever I saw a way to divide people, this is it. Even within some family units, there is conflict as people who regard the sanctity of life are willing to fight others to the death to protect it. (And, as one commentator noted this past week, the rights of the ‘unborn’ are considered more important that the rights of any other minority group!) Roe v. Wade? More like Cain and Abel all over again.
And what about inflation? This appears to be a self-inflicted wound. Closing down the world two years ago was going to make the post-COVID-19 recovery a very delicate balancing act. Everyone wants it to get back to normal, but what the hell is normal anymore? Supply chain interruptions due to backlogs at shipping ports, and the increased costs for petroleum (due to the Russia embargo) are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. In reality, the world economy was built like a house of cards, ready to topple if anyone stepped out of turn. (Mixed metaphor…)
And now North Korea is back in the news. It’s the threat of nuclear war that everyone is afraid of. Why? If they drop the bomb, you won’t know anyway, you’ll be dead and gone, like a player in the Matrix. (And isn’t it interesting that the Matrix is being resurrected?)
Finally, COVID-19 is still with us, but the mutations are reducing its effect on the human population. And the newscasts are still reporting statistics about it. Evidently, the W.H.O. have decided that the ‘real’ death toll was more than three times the ‘official’ one. Seriously… The under-reporting seems to involve countries like India, and continents like Africa. But can we even count the numbers from Russia and China? China’s ‘zero tolerance’ attitude is now being called ‘draconian’ by the West, and yet that’s how we dealt with it in the early days, before there were vaccines to ‘help protect us’. And, as usual, those that can afford to get inoculated are the ones that will eventually survive this pandemic. Was this planned that way, right from the beginning? I still wonder…
“Land Of Confusion”
I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams Been haunted by a million screams But I can hear the marching feet They’re moving into the street
Now did you read the news today They say the danger’s gone away But I can see the fire’s still alight There burning into the night
There’s too many men Too many people Making too many problems And not much love to go round Can’t you see This is a land of confusion
This is the world we live in And these are the hands we’re given Use them and let’s start trying To make it a place worth living in
Ooh Superman where are you now When everything’s gone wrong somehow The men of steel, the men of power Are losing control by the hour
This is the time This is the place So we look for the future But there’s not much love to go round Tell me why, this is a land of confusion
This is the world we live in And these are the hands we’re given Use them and let’s start trying To make it a place worth living in
I remember long ago Ooh when the sun was shining Yes and the stars were bright All through the night And the sound of your laughter As I held you tight So long ago
I won’t be coming home tonight My generation will put it right We’re not just making promises That we know, we’ll never keep
Too many men There’s too many people Making too many problems And not much love to go round Can’t you see This is a land of confusion
Now this is the world we live in And these are the hands we’re given Use them and let’s start trying To make it a place worth fighting for
This is the world we live in And these are the names we’re given Stand up and let’s start showing Just where our lives are going to
I finally have to admit that I cannot proceed any further, with my present line of enquiries, until I fully understand how the Draconic chart works. And as always, I have to start with myself, first.
So, I have enlisted the assistance of an astrologer I know and trust, She will be sending me a report of my Draconic chart and how it compares with my natal chart, one week from today, so I now have something to look forward to.
The Alpha/Omega Point (0° Aries)
In trying to apply my spiritual knowledge to the purpose of the Draconic chart, I am reminded of this extended quote:
Who stretched the line on it On what were its bases sunk Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy
Honestly, it blows my mind, sometimes, how these things intersect. I have referenced Job 38:7 before here. But this full quote opens up a whole universe of thought which I never previously considered.
The Lord, in this line of questioning, seems to be referencing His role as the Architect of the world. But, if you wanted to be especially astute, you might see the connection to the Draconic chart (or not, as the case may be). The Alpha/Omega Point is our beginning (as souls) and our end (if that is what’s intended).
And because my natal North Node is within 10° of this point, I have always had the suspicion that my turn of the Cosmic Wheel will bring me back to where I was before I started this adventure as a soul.
“Little Gidding” by T.S. Eliot (courtesy of Julian Peters comics)
I’m not trying to be clever here, but I may come across as a wiseacre (as they used to call it). Passwords have become the bane of everyone’s existence. Do you remember them all, or do you have a hidden cheat sheet to recall them (like Sam in “Ghost”)? When I used to work in a bank, you were never meant to write your computer passwords down, anywhere, and safe combinations had to be sealed in an envelop and kept under lock and key by the branch manager, in case of emergency.
They say the strongest passwords contain numbers, letters and at least one special character, with one of those letters in upper case. They suggest that it shouldn’t be based on the name of your family pet, or a birthday, or even your Social Insurance Number (and especially not your Social Insurance Number).
I have a series of numbers that are based on a British Rail ticket I once had in the UK. Those numbers have stayed with me now for slightly more than 35 years. But I never use them in passwords, because, as a number sequence, they aren’t random anymore (at least to my mind).
The examples shown above demonstrate how you can set up passwords and which ones are strong and which ones are weak. The “**” in each case can have variations on a theme, like up to 100 different digits to finish the password. This allows you to change them often and keep the original format intact. And where you have to have a great number of passwords, you can assign the variations to follow your own logic, known only to you.
The scenario I suggested with this post’s title is one that cannot be helped, but if you need to, write the passwords down and keep the list where you won’t forget them, but where no one else would find them. Now, that’s your challenge for today:
I look for interesting things to write about, every day. I came across this image while Googling for ‘ley lines lit up’. It was totally unexpected. (The owner of this image is stated as peterchampoux 2002.)
Now I feel like I’ve stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone.
If you have followed my serialization of “The Star of Bethlehem” on these pages, you will be well aware of the significance of a five-pointed star: the Goddess. Is this why I’m back living within its boundary? Wonders never cease.
It was an image that I couldn’t get out of my head. Taken on April 28th, this shot of the night sky over Perth, Western Australia, caused me to want to see how it looked on an astrology chart.
The question of timing was going to be a bit tricky, since the person who shared this image online did not explain what time of day it was shot. So I experimented a little and came up with 5:00 am, local time. The planets in the description were listed as Saturn, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon. (And lately, I had noticed two of these same planets in the night sky, and the brightest one surprised me.) Venus is actually exactly conjunct Neptune here, and Pluto is out of the camera’s range.
So, there you have it…more than half the usual suspects are visible to the naked (camera) eye… Wow!
OK. This is a loaded question: should we tolerate differences in society, or should we draw a line in the sand and dare others to cross it at their peril? That seems to be the ethos of this year (2022).
As we have seen time and time again, ‘the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ In reality, those of the other sex want to wrest it from their gentle (but strong) hands to raise the next generation!
Three things come to mind: 1) opinions are tolerated, until they disagree with your own; 2) children follow their parents’ lead until adolescence; and 3) the world wide web has created a global village.
We are a bundle of contradictions. But how do we reconcile these opposing sides?
By being tolerant, honestly.
When we love our neighbour as our self, we begin to understand where they are coming from.
This is a binary world, after all else is said and done.
Bless you all on your journey around the sun for another year.
Susan bought me a book for our 12th wedding anniversary. Any guesses? Too easy, eh?
We watched this film a year or so ago. Now I’m reading the book that the film was based on. The Prologue chronicles her execution on February 8, 1587, including some timings. As I had already erected a chart for this event, but didn’t use it at the time, I now feel more comfortable with its accuracy.
There are two inconjuncts, closely aligned.
Sun Inconjunct Neptune
You are very sensitive to your environment and to the people around you. On one level of your being, you feel what is going on very acutely. Unfortunately your understanding often comes in terms that are very difficult to communicate to others, because their meaning is not clear in your own mind. Your greatest danger is in being exposed to negative people who are full of anger or depression or who act very harshly toward you and undermine your self-confidence. Your self-confidence has to be boosted at every conceivable opportunity, and it would be very destructive for you to be criticized sharply, unless the person has made it very clear that he or she loves you.
If you do develop a bad self-image because of such negative influences, you will assert yourself in unhealthy ways. Instead of standing up for your own rights, you will give in to another’s will, but in such a way as to make that person feel guilty. Often you will refuse to tell someone what you really want, thereby allowing him or her to hurt you without meaning to. You may begin to see yourself as a helpless victim of circumstances.
On the other hand, you can develop into a compassionate and understanding person who instinctively knows what others need and how to serve them. True selfless service to others, giving of yourself voluntarily rather than because you feel there is no choice, will make you feel good, just as the negative behavior described above will make you and everyone else feel bad.
Mercury Inconjunct Jupiter
You like to think big, and you have great ambitions, but you don’t always make sure that your thinking is clear or careful. When you make any kind of plan, be careful. Don’t try to take on more than you can handle and make sure not to overlook details, for that could hurt what you are trying to do. Careful planning will help you develop disciplined habits in other areas as well. This aspect can mean that you are sloppy in your personal appearance and in your work habits.
On the other hand, if you do learn careful mental habits, you can have creative ability with this aspect, because you are able to see and understand all the elements of a situation. You take a broad and far-seeing view of a situation, which is unusual for someone your age. Most of the time you are willing to let other people think what they choose, as long as they leave your ideas alone. However, you may be inclined to preach about morality, because you enjoy being right and letting others know that they do not live up to your “high” standards. But sometimes you fake it; you aren’t as “good” as you pretend to be. Be careful of this, for you could be known as a hypocrite. It’s fine to set high standards and live up to them, but do not pretend to be better than you are. And let others decide on their own moral standards.
I’m not entirely sure if I saw the original “Benji” from 1974, which this latest film is based on, so I have no way of comparing them. The dog featured in this recent one is very well-trained to do tricks, like putting a key in a lock and turning it to open a locked door. He even turns lights on and off with a pull cord. And he moves furniture around. Otherwise this is a plucky pup turned into a stunt hero.
Everyone’s favorite pawsome hero is coming home to Netflix in this brand new family film! Join Benji as he proves to the world that with love and determination in his heart, no obstacle is too big. Bad guys don’t stand a chance.
YouTube
At any rate, whichever version you watch, this dog is cute. And if rumours are true, he was plucked from obscurity as a flea-infested mutt, and is now a shining dog star (and yes, I’m Sirius about that).
Her birth time is unknown, and yet, when some astrology sites erect her birth chart, this is what they show us. I have rectified her chart to show the age she married (33) with the position of Mars. It fits.
Notice the Yod, pointing at the Sun, formed from inconjuncts with Neptune and Pluto. Seems right.
Sun Inconjunct Neptune
You are very sensitive to your environment and to the people around you. On one level of your being, you feel what is going on very acutely. Unfortunately your understanding often comes in terms that are very difficult to communicate to others, because their meaning is not clear in your own mind. Your greatest danger is in being exposed to negative people who are full of anger or depression or who act very harshly toward you and undermine your self-confidence. Your self-confidence has to be boosted at every conceivable opportunity, and it would be very destructive for you to be criticized sharply, unless the person has made it very clear that he or she loves you.
Sun Inconjunct Pluto
There will be many changes in your life, and you will be affected by deep psychological forces that may be difficult to understand at times, as well as confusing to the people around you. You approach people with great intensity, and your emotional involvements are seldom casual. Either you like people very much or you dislike them intensely. Possibly your attitudes on other matters will be extreme also. One of the most important lessons that you will have to learn is to be more moderate.
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Isn’t it funny how she gets to be a nurse in both series? Venus in the 1st House? Neptune in the 10th?
