The world seems busy, rushing madly,
Trying to succeed in killing time
By beating it to the knockout punch,
Or forcing it to stand still, tranquil.
.
But all attempts turn out so badly,
That any form of caring is a crime;
So, when death comes at the final crunch,
It’ll count that we had a loving will.
(Written in 1972)
This is my second attempt to write this post. I’m not sure what happened to the first one. Maybe if I went back in time, I could see what I did wrong. (See what I did there?)
Most of us regular folk don’t have a DeLorean, so travelling back through that one-way road (time) isn’t very likely, at the present moment. But a person can dream…
And did you notice how the DeLorean Motor Company badge on the front grill is facing two ways: to the past, and to the future? A bit like Janus, the Roman god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions.
So, some of us are now looking back on the recent past, before the novel coronavirus, wishing we could go there again. The rest of us are looking toward whatever the future might bring, with all of its possibilities. How appropriate.
Like the words (slightly changed for this post) of the song:
“I wish I could McFly away…”
So, if you have a spare 90 minutes or so, take a look at this documentary from 2015 (the 30th anniversary of the first movie).
This is Groundhog Day meets Back to the Future. And the soldier being sent into a domestic (terrorist) battlefield is being kept alive after losing most of his body in war.
It is also a metaphor for a returning soul working through his karma by reincarnating.
Army Captain Colter Stevens finds himself working on a special program where his consciousness can be inserted into another human being. The only catch is [he] can only be there for 8 minutes at any given time. That morning, a bomb exploded on a commuter train just outside Chicago. He occupies the body of teacher going to work on that train and is confused as to what he is doing or why he is there as his last memory is of flying his helicopter on a combat mission in Afghanistan. Those in charge of the program explain to him that there is a bomb on the train, and that he must locate it. More importantly, he must identify the bomber as another bombing is expected later that day. He is also told however that he cannot change the past and can only gather information. As he develops a liking for his traveling companion Christina, he sets out to test that theory.
Now that’s a storyline!
The eight minute train journey gives the movie its built-in tension. Stevens works through the bombing scenario repeatedly, gaining more and more information, until he confronts the terrorist directly. And then he proves to himself that he can actually change the past, but it turns out that when he does, it is in an alternative version.
So what’s a fellow to do?
Since the program is using his neural pathways to make him think he’s jumping into the teacher’s body, he experiences everything directly, as if it were happening to him personally. But something of his ‘reality’ keeps sneaking into his consciousness, and he begins to suspect that something is not as it seems.
Finally he persuades one of the program assistants to shut his life support machine off. He may have twigged on to the fact that his soul was actually doing the experiencing, and not just his mental pathways. And he thinks(!) that the end of the journey (when the machine stops) will just freeze the image forever in his mind.
[Look away now if you don’t want to see what happens…]
So, even though the body dies, the adventure continues.
End of lesson.
During our usual Friday Zoom meeting this morning, Heather gave us a mini lecture and demonstration on Tarot decks. She pulled three cards from the Rider Waite deck and got:
So now we know…
This aspect indicates that you are very sensitive and that you pick up feelings from the people around you very easily. The danger is that many of these feelings will be difficult to cope with; they may make you afraid of the world and reluctant to go out into it, as you must do when you get older. As a result, you prefer to be alone with your thoughts and let your fancies wander wherever they want to go. When you are older, this may help you use your imagination very creatively, but it won’t help you work out your everyday problems. You must learn to stand on your own and not depend on others. You also have to learn that you are worth as much as anyone else, for you may tend to withdraw when someone acts aggressive. But the adults who help you learn these lessons must be gentle and understanding. Otherwise you will shrink back into yourself. Above all, you must not be made to feel incompetent or inadequate, or you will think of yourself as a loser all your life.
People with this aspect often hide their real feelings and make sacrifices for others that they do not really want to make. Then they resent the person who asked for the sacrifice. You must learn to tell people how you really feel; if you do not, you have only yourself to blame for what happens. You must learn to accept that you are responsible for your own life. Do not act as if you are the victim of strong forces that you can’t control, because you can control them.
She was just 20 years old when Canada’s favourite singer took the whole world by storm.
But she couldn’t compete as a Canadian, since Canada isn’t a member of the Eurovision family of nations [which makes me wonder how Israel is]. I don’t believe I watched the contest that year, but I certainly remember who won the year before: Johnny Logan singing “Hold Me Now”.
Here’s a video of Céline’s performance:
(English translation: “Don’t Leave Without Me”.)
She stood alone on that big stage, and belted her heart out. This is now a signature move.
(One wag wrote: [the costume shows] what happens when you study to be a lawyer and practice ballet at the same time.)
The timing of her birth has an “A” rating, meaning that it might be a faulty memory, but seems good enough to be true. I have no opinion, except to say that a couple of aspects fit her to a “T”.
Notice that there are no inconjuncts, so no impediments to her success. Her Sun is in Aries, conjunct to Saturn and the Midheaven. That’s a lot of fire. (And having a father figure, who later became your husband, didn’t hurt your career.)
But the kicker for me is the Leo Rising. Her mane/main purpose is to be a leader in her field of entertainment. This, coupled with Jupiter in the same sign, but in the 2nd House, shows that she was destined to become very rich ‘showing off’ her talents on the world stage. You can’t make this stuff up.
Do you want to view the chart for her Eurovision win? Just remember that she won by only one vote.
I chose 10 pm for the local time, but in fact it may have been a couple of hours earlier, since Europe would have been the main television market for the event. So, this could be the moment when the enormity of her win may have finally sunk in.
There are two inconjuncts, both dependent on the timing of the chart.
You often feel that you haven’t any right to ask much of those whom you love. You feel that you must do favors for them instead of asking for their help. For you, love is an act of service, not self-gratification. Also, through relationships with others, you try to learn more about your own and other people’s inner workings. For this reason your relationships are more deep and profound than most people’s. But they are somewhat difficult, too. Your close friends and loved ones discover that you are quite different in a close relationship than you appear at first. It is not that you are dishonest, but that you show a side of yourself to your friends that you usually keep hidden, often because you are not entirely confident in that role. You may feel unsure that others will like you or accept your affection. This is one reason why you express your love by doing nice things for people. You are trying to win them over.
This aspect can mean that you have mixed feelings about all authority figures, including your parents. You may feel that you have to violate the rules laid down by your parents in order to get your way. This is a significant problem, because if it continues into adulthood, you will have great difficulties with employers. Therefore it is very important that your parents teach you how to express your self-assertive drives without going against their teachings. Unfortunately it is impossible to state how that should be done, because the conflict between self-will, on one hand, and self-denial and work, on the other, is different for each person.
It looks like she and her manager René Angélil were already involved romantically by this time. So, her ‘long-time crush’ (from the age of 12) was solved by marrying her ‘boss’.
Isn’t astrology fun?
You wouldn’t think that Wikileaks would be interested in Canadian politics, would you?
Well, that’s what I thought when I was trolling through some of the files from last week’s Wikileaks dump. But one title caught my eye: it was a recording of a CBC report.
What made this recording so interesting was the fact that I don’t remember hearing about it at the time (2015). The content suggested that a Conservative candidate. running for election in Ontario, had recruited some conservative college groups to organize protests against Liberal candidates and especially Justin Trudeau. The Conservative Party ‘operative’ named in the story verbally expressed regret for his choice of words, when instructing the student groups as to what they should do.
This image from Macleans Magazine at the time illustrates the background “noise”.
The interference didn’t work in 2015, so the existence of a Wikileaks file might have been to embarrass the Conservative Party of Canada if they had won the election.
Now it’s just very old news.
The image I found on the internet is not the same one from the Wikileaks dump from a week ago, so let’s be perfectly clear about that. The Wikileaks image showed the same Valley of Megiddo but with two concentric circles, radiating outward from the centre.
Does this mean that the area in the centre of Israel is a nuclear target?
The implications are horrendous to consider.
This is probably old hat to conspiracy theorists. The American Dream is that any old schmuck can grow up to be President of the United States. But only if you’re backed by the descendants on some of the world’s richest men.
In terms of American politics, the Rockefeller family is the most influential of all, and it’s all because of Standard Oil (what we call ESSO, today).
Do you get the picture, now?
Maybe GOP really stands for the Grand Oil Party.
Enough said…
It’s been six weeks! How’s it going? Are you totally bored, yet? I’m not. It’s the same as it’s been for the last five years since I retired, except we seem to have more money in the bank because my wife isn’t shopping everyday. Hence the title of this post.
I’m going to share a very old Jewish story that may illustrate the point.
Once, an old man relied on his strong son to support them both. One day, a magnificent, wild stallion unexpectedly trotted into their stable. The son closed the gate quickly. Neighbors stopped to see the horse and said, “What a blessing has come to you! You can sell the horse for a high price.” The old man confounded his neighbors when he said, “Perhaps it’s a blessing. Perhaps it’s a curse. Only time will tell.”
Three days later, the horse jumped over the fence and was gone. Neighbors came again to comfort the old man for losing such a valuable horse. The old man said, “Perhaps it’s a blessing. Perhaps it’s a curse. Only time will tell.” A week later, the stallion returned with a herd of wild horses and led them into the corral. Neighbors came again to congratulate the old man for such a wonderful turn of fortune. Again the old man said, “Perhaps it’s a blessing. Perhaps it’s a curse. Only time will tell.”
The next day, the son was trying to break in one of the new horses and was thrown. His leg was shattered in two places. The village doctor, who fitted a tight brace around the son’s leg, was hopeful that the young man would walk again. “But,” he said, “it will require many months of healing and rest.” This was, of course, bad news for the old man. Without his son’s help, what would he be able to do? The neighbors came by to comfort the father. Again he said, “Perhaps it’s a blessing. Perhaps it’s a curse. Only time will tell.”
Later, soldiers rode into the village. They were conscripting every young man to fight but the invalid son was not taken. Not one of those young men returned alive from the war. The son eventually regained his health and was able again to help his father.
The wise father often said to his son, “We never know whether a thing is a blessing or a curse until the story is finished.”
You can read the whole lesson here.
COVID-19 seems to be a curse at the moment. Our rights and freedoms are being curtailed. People are even dying. And no one can give anyone else a physical hug.
But there seems to be a silver lining:
Images courtesy of the Daily Mail
Man-made pollution is lifting. That’s one way to reduce CO2 emissions. But at such a cost!
In the end, when all of this is over, the world will breathe a collective (and clean) sigh of relief. But until then, don’t curse this disease, give it a divine blessing. Amen.
Well, that’s alright then. It’s over. And now we have an answer to the question: what’s this all about?
As always, I won’t give the ending away, but I always suspected that this was the real point of the whole series’ trajectory. Wasn’t it obvious, week after week? Of course it was.
Miles Finer lost his faith after his mother dies. He became an atheist. Now he’s the Millennial Prophet. It’s too silly for words, but there you have it.
Every week, we have watched this young man do God’s bidding while questioning why this should even be happening. And every week, God’s friend suggestion seems to be exactly timed for when help is needed. Miles and his faithful God Squad answer the call and provide assistance where they can. But the implication, week after week, is that there is some body doing the suggesting, and that is why they spent so much time trying to track down who that somebody is.
