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Tuesday,
March 28
2008
Election Candidate Horoscopes
This
blog will focus mainly on the dynamics of political candidates
and only peripherally on astrology, but I think it is important
to have a realistic view of the political playing field when
discussing the astrology of the 2008
U.S.
elections. ABC News has come out with the
first installment of the 2008 Invisible Primary Ratings.
The Invisible Primary, according to ABC News, is the “jockeying
for supremacy in the contests to be positioned to be the major
party presidential nominees between now and start of the actual
caucus and primary voting.”
These
ratings try to rank the potential 2008 primary candidates in
each party according to 19 different qualities—everything
from support staff to money potential. ABC News boasts that
the initial 2004 Invisible Primary rankings had John Kerry in
first and John Edwards in second. They ended up being the top
and bottom of the Democratic ticket.
The
ABC News Invisible Primary rankings puts two senators, John
McCain (a Virgo Sun) and Hillary Clinton (a Scorpio), firmly
in first place of their respective parties. LBJ was our most
recent Virgo president. Scorpio presidents include Teddy Roosevelt--and
Warren Harding. Senator George Allen is second behind McCain.
Allen, a former governor, is a Pisces; we have to go back to
Grover Cleveland in the late 19th Century for the
last Pisces president. Gemini John Edwards is second behind
Clinton.
ABC News notes the fact that no senator has been elected president
since John Kennedy in 1960. The only Southern governor with
any chance—according to ABC News—is Virginian Mark
Warner (a Sagittarius, like John Kerry), and he is not really
a governor any more, having been term-limited out of office
last year.
A
senator has a good chance of getting elected president in 2008
because national security and the Iraq War will be dominant
issues. Senators deal with foreign policy, whereas governors
do not. The problem for any Democratic senator will be explaining
why they voted to authorize the Iraq War.
You
can see horoscopes for Clinton, McCain, Edwards, Allen, and
Warner by clicking here. Birth times
are only available for McCain and Edwards. Clinton’s
birth time is conflicting and unverified. Allen’s and
Warner’s horoscopes are set for noon. I will be discussing
these candidates horoscopes in detail in my newsletter. Using
individual horoscopes, composite horoscopes (with the U.S),
and analysis of what the nation is looking for in a leader,
I will be making some forecasts about what’s in store
for 2008.
With
the two front runners so firmly in place two years before a
primary or caucus vote is even cast, the rest of the pack is
simply waiting for the front runner to stumble so badly they
get knocked out of the race. Gary Hart was the prohibitive Democratic
favorite in 1988 until an extra-marital liaison surfaced and
he quit the race, allowing Michael Dukakis to win the nomination.
Edmund Muskie was the favorite in 1972 until he broke down in
tears in New Hampshire
over a scurrilous news story. He was soon out of the race, allowing
George McGovern to be the eventual nominee.
Monday,
March 27
Will
Rogers
Last
weekend, my wife and I went to the re-opening of the Will Rogers
House in Pacific Palisades, California. The house had been closed
for three years for extensive restoration. The residence, with
30+ rooms, was rustic and had lots of cowboy and Native American
artifacts. The
rooms were small—there was no such thing as an entertainment
center in those days. I guess Will Rogers himself, who along
with Charles Lindbergh was the greatest celebrity of his day,
was the real entertainment center.
Will
Rogers was a triple
water humorist: Moon and Ascendant in Cancer, Sun in Scorpio.
Rogers’
Moon exactly conjoined his Ascendant. His jokes were always
gentle, never unkind or personal. He once said, “I
never met a man I didn’t like.” He also loved horses
and once wrote that a beloved horse never did a mean thing in
its life, adding that such was an accomplishment of which few
humans could boast. His Sun opposed Neptune,
while his Mercury was opposite Pluto and Mars and closely sextiled
Venus. He could not keep his hands still and was very restless.
He had a tremendous amount of nervous energy and was said to
have got by on just 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night.
Sunday,
March 26
Distressed
Denim and the Nation's Psyche
In looking
at the horoscope of President Bush, we should not think, “Oh,
a winning presidential candidates needs a bundle pattern, a
Sun-Moon square, or a Mercury-Pluto conjunction.” These
helped the current president get elected. They were sources
of strength which served Bush well in close elections. But other
candidates have different strengths. In coming blogs, I will
explore some of the horoscope strengths (and weaknesses) of
other potential candidates’ for president in 2008. But
before doing that, let’s take a look at the nation
as a whole. A president gets elected because the nation is looking
for a leader in a particular time. What are the times in which
we live?
Fashion
is one way of gauging the zeitgeist of a nation. Just think
of 60’s fashions and what they represented in terms of
the counter-culture movement and sexual freedom. Or 50’s
fashions and post-war conformity. As noted in an earlier astrology
blog on March 11, fashion today is trending towards a darker,
more apocalyptic vision. This may be related to the forming
Saturn-Neptune opposition. Neptune
is fashion and Saturn darkens or casts a shadow. The late 1980’s
conjunction of these two planets gave us Batman-mania,
safety pin jewelry, and the first stirrings of the heavy goth
look. So in 1992, the nation elected a sunny Leo, Bill Clinton—riding
to victory to Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop
(Thinking About Tomorrow)”-- to counter all the downbeat
realia. What we are seeing now, circa 2006, is “distressed”
denim (a fabric inextricably bound with the fabric of the nation),
skulls, Megadeath and Harley-Davidson logos, shaved heads, rips,
tears, and punkish fashion attitudes that cost a whole lot of
money to maintain (see
an interesting denim fashion review in the L.A. Times).
A lot of this surely has to do with the distressed psyche of
the United States.
Anyone
running for president in 2008 will be throwing his or her hat
or bonnet into this ring. The winner will either address the
nation’s distressed psyche by pulling at the threads and
unraveling it further or trying to patch the rips and tears.
FDR's first election victory in hard times 1932 was a triumph
of optimism. On the other hand, scowling Richard Nixon defeated
the upbeat Hubert Humphrey in 1968, one of the most tumultuous
years for the U.S. in the 20th Century. It can go either way.
It all depends on the candidate's bond with the nation.
Saturday,
March 25
More
on Bush's Horoscope
Bush’s
Sun-Moon square (see previous blog on March 24) is one window
into his presidential leadership. Marc Edmund Jones, a famous
astrologer, wrote in his classic Essentials
of Astrological Analysis that the
Sun and Moon in square aspect (as they are in Bush’s
horoscope) gives “an excessive
appetite for experience.” Jones noted that the dynamic
tension of the Sun-Moon square could be “a highly profitable
gift of industry.” Someone with this configuration “can
go far if he selects or creates his own channels through which
to put it to work.” Jones goes on to cite Winston Churchill
as an exemplary leader with a Sun-Moon square.
What
are some other chart factors which gave Bush the strength to
get elected president twice? (The 2000 election victory is debatable:
Bush lost the popular vote, which makes his winning the
presidency all the more remarkable).
Bush
has Pluto in the first house. He operates from positions of
personal power. He always has, going back to his birth as the
eldest son in a powerful Republican family. Mercury closely
conjuncts Pluto, one of the closest aspects in his horoscope
(see
my article on “Bush’s Closest Aspect”).
This conjunction intensifies his mental power. Bush is often
criticized for being a bit dim. Academically, that may be true,
but he is anything but dim when it comes to power politics.
As president, he ended up being a total surprise to Democrats
in his ability to wield power. When he ran for president, both
in 2000 and 2004, he was an expert at spotting and exploiting
opponents’ weaknesses. He has exhibited strong political
nerve, another Mercury-Pluto trait.
I’m
not trying to write a defense of Bush here—I do not like
him at all—but simply examine some of the chart factors
that got him elected so that when we look at potential 2008
candidates, we’ll have some idea of what it takes to get
elected president.
Bush’s
planets are in a bundle chart pattern. That is, all of his planets
are within a 120° trine. This gives him incredible focus. Getting
elected president requires staying focused on the goal. In his
presidency, Bush has shown himself to be incredibly able to
stay “on message,” at least up until recently when
transiting Saturn started crossing over his Ascendant and 1st
house. Here is what Marc Edmund Jones wrote about the bundle
pattern:
“…the
bundle temperament identifies the most concentrated rather than
the broadest spread of self-realization…a tendency to
self-fulfillment in an unusually selective ordering of his own
affairs…this individual always or at least potentially
is the creator or proponent of an exclusive and well-integrated
world within which his own competence or superiority may have
a constant manifestation of its powers. When such an exceptionally
personal world is created by a person of real stature, it may
have an enduring impact on the whole course of history.”
Bush’s
bundle pattern is on the Eastern hemisphere of his horoscope,
putting him in the driver’s seat of his own destiny.
Friday,
March 24
Looking
at Bush's Horoscope
I’d
like to continue with the astrology of election politics by
looking first at some basic chart dynamics. There is a temptation
to want to jump right in and start looking at transits, progressions,
composites (with the U.S.),
and eclipses in the horoscopes of potential candidates. But
the strengths or weaknesses of the individual chart come first.
Does a candidate’s horoscope contain the potential to
be elected president?
If
we look at the chart
of President Bush, his12th
house Sun initially made me think: That’s not a very strong
place for the Sun if you want to be president. Sure, it might
work fine for Madonna. Her 12th house Sun gives her
a Neptunian image on stage and in her music, but we don’t
want a Neptunian president, do we, somebody who has a lot of
costume changes and gets everybody dancing around a mirrored
disco ball by repeating the same chorus set to a synthesizer
beat?
Bush’s
Cancer Sun is ruled by his 3rd house Libra Moon.
Because these two luminaries happen to be square one another,
the core security needs of Bush’s Cancer Sun are in a
state of tension with the social needs of his Libra Moon. Bush
is very much into Libran social interaction, hence his habit
of comfortably nicknaming all he meets. In a press conference
a few days ago, he addressed a reporter as “Stretch.”
And yet he has an enormous need to be that private Cancer Sun,
safe and secure in his shell. For all his joshing with reporters,
Bush has conducted fewer press conferences than any other modern
president.
Security
in conflict with social needs sounds an awful lot like the times
we live in. Just
look at the current debate about immigration.
The president truly does come to exemplify the nation he or
she leads, for better or worse. We need to look closely at the
horoscopes of potential presidential candidates, therefore,
because a majority of the nation will bond with one candidate
in a national election and that candidate’s horoscope
will become bound with the nation’s.
Next:
More on Bush’s horoscope as an indicator of potential
strength and power necessary to get elected president, followed
by similar analyses of leading candidates for the 2008 election
and where each might take the nation.
Wednesday,
March 22
Pluto
in Leo Parents
An
article
in The Washington Post
notes the unprecedented involvement of some parents in the
lives of their children right up into and through college.
When I first encountered this phenomenon, known as “helicopter
parenting,” I assumed it had something to do with the
Pluto in Scorpio generation, but I could never figure out
exactly what that might be. The Gen
Y Pluto in Scorpio generation is
beginning to be stereotyped as a generation that’s not
too good at independent, critical thinking. It’s probably
too early to tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Certainly in the minds of their parents, it’s a bad
thing: “My kid can’t think for him/herself, so
I’ll do the independent thinking for him/her.”
The Pluto in Scorpio kids share resources, including opinions,
thoughts, and ideas. They do not, however, get the same thrill
out of total individuality as the Pluto in Leo cohort.
The
Washington Post article points out that
this parental hovering is evident as early as kindergarten,
which means that the Pluto
in Sagittarius generation ( children
born since 1996) is also affected. I am beginning to think,
therefore, that this is more about the Pluto in Leo generation
and its obsession with childhood. Leo is a zodiac sign very
much concerned with children, the inner child, being childlike—or
just being plain childish.
So we have a generation that has been obsessed with their
own kids’ lives to the point where they can’t
let go.
As
a side note to this generational discussion: Balding, graying,
paunchy Pluto in Leo males are sometimes spotted wearing t-shirts
that read, “Old guys rule.” How Pluto in Leo is
that?
Tuesday,
March 21
Running
for President
In
future blogs and in my newsletter,
I will be analyzing different presidential candidate horoscopes.
Right now, however, I would like to briefly look at the overall
political context of a U.S.
presidential election and its recent history.
As
I noted in my
astrology article on the 2006 and 2008 elections,
U.S.
senators usually do not go straight from the Senate to become
the president. Governors do. The last politician to go straight
from the Senate to the White House was John Kennedy in 1960.
Lyndon Johnson, also a senator, was selected as Kennedy’s
vice-president; he then became president when Kennedy was
assassinated in 1963.
Right
now, senators are able to command the political spotlight
because they are on the national stage. John McCain and Hillary
Clinton are both senators, as are Bill Frist, Russell Feingold,
and Chuck Hagel—all potential candidates. All of these
senators have been in the news a great deal. It is only when
the primaries start in 2008 that we will begin to see a strong
surge by a governor. Right now, it is virtually impossible
for a governor—other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
can’t run for president—to have a national voice
and be widely known by voters outside his or her own state.
Both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were governors who became
“surprise” candidates when they surged quickly
to national prominence through primary victories. Bush was
a governor, too, but he had strong name recognition because
his father had been president. Just because a governor does
not currently seem to have much of a national following is
therefore meaningless.
The
one thing that might make the 2008 election an exception to
these precedents is the Iraq War and U.S.
policy regarding foreign terrorism. These issues are extremely
important to voters, and governors do not have any opportunity
to deal with foreign affairs. Will voters trust someone with
no foreign policy experience to run the country in 2008? Pluto
will be entering Capricorn for the first time in February,
2008, just as the election primaries heat up, and issues of
national security will probably dominate the election.
As
we look at potential presidential candidates, therefore, we
need to keep in mind historical precedent, as well as reasons
why it might not be applicable in the 2008 election. Astrology
forecasts are much more effective when they are grounded in
realistic possibility and awareness of context.
Tuesday,
March 20, 2006
CSI
and PTSD of the United States
As
noted in my previous blog on March 19, specific solar arc
progressions of the U.S.
horoscope are indicatative of current national trauma
and post-trauma. Cultural
trends also reflect the symptoms of national Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD). One of the cultural trends
which illustrates this is the popularity of the television
show CSI. CSI is evidence of the PTSD traits of emotional
detachment and numbing. It premiered in the fall of 2000,
but CSI's popularity has soared since 9/11.
It is now the most-watched program in the U.S.
CSI is about using the tools of modern
criminal investigation to solve crimes. What makes it different
from the usual run-of-the-mill cop shows is the violently
graphic aftermath of crime portrayed in CSI.
Crime scenes are laid out just as, supposedly, they would
be in real life. If a victim is strangled, the camera gives
us a close-up of the neck with ligature marks. A torn eye
socket? There it is. Cigarette burns on skin? Here. These
scenes are often coupled with plot lines patently designed
to arouse prurient interest. However, the tone of this presentation
is forensic and Dragnet-like.
Yes, the criminal investigators have emotions—just not
about the violence all around them. And there can be no doubt
in viewers' minds that violent acts have occurred.
This
reminds me of how the nation seems to be "viewing" the Iraq
War.
More
on the U.S. and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The
United States is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD). The original trauma was the 9/11 terrorist attack
on U.S. soil. In my blog post on March 13, I mentioned how
this might be seen in the transiting outer planets. There
is also another important way of seeing PTSD in the United
States horoscope.
Solar arc progressions is a method of looking at past, present,
and future events in a horoscope. In solar arc theory, each
planet in the natal horoscope is advanced one degree for
each year—the same as the Sun would be in secondary
progressions. This maintains the central solar identity
of the horoscope through progressions. When a solar arc
progressed planet hits one of the four main angles (Ascendant,
Descendant, Midheaven, or IC) of a horoscope, it is especially
significant. This creates problems when dealing with the
U.S. horoscope since there is wide disagreement on the correct
“birth” time—and thus the house cusps—for
the United States. However, leaving aside for a moment the
angles of the U.S. horoscope, solar arcs can also be significant
when a solar arc progressed planet hits a natal planet.
In the U.S. chart, here are two important current or forming
solar arc (SA) progressions:
1. SA Moon just hit the U.S. Saturn, a signature for
depression.
2. SA Uranus will exactly conjunct the U.S. Pluto in about
six months, which may point to the triggering of the
emotional wounds of 9/11 and (to borrow from Noel Tyl's
book Synthesis
and Counseling in Astrology)
may indicate an overturning of the status quo. This progression
also happens to be occuring around the time of the
2006 Midterm elections.
Here are two solar arc progressions that occurred around
the time of 9/11:
1. SA Sun conjuncted the U.S. Moon a little over four years
ago.
2. SA Mercury squared the U.S. Uranus about four years ago,
also around the time of 9/11.
IF one chooses to use the U.S. Sibly chart, which has a
12° Ascendant, then Mercury is now squaring that Ascendant-Descendant
angle and Pluto squared it about three years ago when the
U.S. invaded Iraq.
These solar arc “hits” add up to a lot of traumatic
and post-traumatic stress in the U.S. horoscope.
Robots
An
article I wrote for Llewellyn’s
2006 Starview Almanac
predicted that this would be the year that robots begin
to have wider availability, largely due to affordable prices.
Part of this has to do with the positions of Uranus and
Neptune right now. Uranus in Pisces, for example, signifies
technology that seeps into many areas of modern life. Uranus
is also squaring Uranus in the U.S.
“birth” chart
of July 4, 1776. Here’s an excerpt from a recent NY
Times article titled “The Shape of Robots
to Come”:
“As robots increasingly migrate
from heavy industrial tasks, like welding automobile chassis
on assembly lines, to home uses as restless toys and venturesome
vacuum cleaners, a fetching personality and appealing appearance
become critically important. A flashy show called "Robots:
The Interactive Exhibition" is touring museums and science
centers in the United States through 2012 with the aim of
demystifying robotics, especially their harder edges…
“But robotics makers and
experts say marvelous mechanics and electronic intelligence
are not enough to lure consumers. Robotic novelties that
could command steep prices from some early adopters are
giving way to lower-priced products (though still rather
expensive for toys) that offer personality, utility or both.
“IRobot's popular consumer
robots are shaped like overfed Frisbees and roll inconspicuously
on tiny wheels performing their tasks. Mr. Angle [chief
executive of consumer robot company iRobot] said there was
little efficiency in building highly functioning robots
in anthropomorphic form. 'It's wildly impractical to do
so in any real sense,' he said of organic-looking robots.
“Yet, many Roomba owners
say they discern endearing traces of a personality in the
artificially intelligent discs, prompting some users, Mr.
Angle said, to name their robots. It was such emotional
attachments that led the company to base its new television
advertising campaign on the phrase ‘I love robots.’
"
United
States and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Is
the United States suffering from post traumatic stress disorder
since 9/11? I heard an interesting speaker yesterday (at
the Bodhi Tree bookstore in West Hollywood) who claimed
that indeed we are. The speaker, Dr.
Lucia Capacchione, was speaking
on the subject of art therapy and not astrology. I decided
to look at the astrology behind this idea.
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the set of psychological
consequences arising from exposure to stress that an individual
experiences as highly traumatic. If we simply substitute
“nation” for “individual,” we have
a definition for national PTSD. This makes sense if one
considers 9/11 as the traumatic stressor. Symptoms of PTSD
are emotional detachment or numbing of feelings, avoidance
of reminders and extreme distress when exposed to the reminders
("triggers"), irritability, hyper-vigilance, memory loss,
and excessive startle response (according to Wikipedia,
which references the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders).
Many of these—especially hyper-vigilance and emotional
detachment—are national symptoms since 9/11. Rarely
has the U.S. been so hyper-vigilant about outside threats
and at the same time so emotionally detached from its own
actions. In Iraq, it’s almost like it’s not
us that’s over there dying in the sand and the streets
of Baghdad.
Emotional trauma is often indicated in a horoscope by Pluto,
either natally or by transit. The Saturn-Pluto opposition
at the time of 9/11 was certainly a cosmic signature for
trauma. If one uses the
Sibly chart for the United States,
this opposition was right on the U.S. Ascendant-Descendant
axis. Now we have the Saturn-Neptune opposition (coming
up to an exact alignment later this year). That is certainly
a numbing configuration. Neptune is associated with anesthesia
and Saturn with loneliness and boundaries. When the Saturn-Neptune
opposition is exact in August, 2006, Saturn will be at the
exact midpoint of the Sun and Neptune in the U.S. horoscope.
According to Noel Tyl in Synthesis
and Counseling in Astrology,
Saturn at the Sun-Neptune midpoint means emotional struggle
or pain, concerns about the blood, and bereavement about
separation--which sounds very much like the effects of war.
With Neptune opposing Saturn, however, these painful emotions
are numbed.
GOP
Pres. Wannabes
I
read with great interest stories
coming out of the Memphis, Tennessee GOP straw poll
hoopla (a fairly meaningless exrcise
won by Bill Frist). I am convinced that whoever secures
the eventual GOP presidential nomination in 2008 will have
a mighty Neptune. The GOP standard bearer must somehow retain
President Bush's incredibly loyal conservative voters and
at the same time gather some support from the rest of the
electorate that has come to greatly dislike the President.
That's a feat only a strong Neptune--the planet of merging
and images--could perform. Senator John McCain is giving
it his all: He asked his supporters in the just-concluded
straw poll not to vote for him but rather to write in their
votes for...President Bush. McCain has a Saturn-Neptune
opposition, which gives his Neptune strength and structure,
and he is trying to establish his Bush-man bona fides with
conservative GOP stalwarts. See
McCain's horoscope. He's
not the only candidate with a strong Neptune, but he's out
in front in early national preference polls.
Saturday,
March 11
Neptune and Fashion
Clothing
fashions are ruled by Neptune.
A recent review of fashion trends which are just barely visible
on the horizon notes their dark mood. Read
the story here. Of course, this story
in the L.A. Times
was about Paris
fashion previews and it is questionable today how much influence
French fashion actually has. The real fashion movers and shakers
are movie and music stars. The article notes, however, that
“Fashion
is clearly moving in a darker direction, and the season's
strongest collections conveyed a thoughtfulness and melancholy
that occasionally intensified into rage.” John Galliano’s
dark U.S. Civil War Confederate-style army caps, for instance,
bespeak torn inner psyches as well as the state of our modern
world.
This could easily be the influence of the Saturn-Neptune opposition
(see
my article on the astrology of the bird flu for more on the
Saturn-Neptune opposition and its history).
Saturn darkens and since Neptune
is fashion, Saturn is darkening modern fashion trends.
Monday,
March 6
Van
Morrison Concert Report
I
went to see Van Morrison at the Wiltern Theater in L.A.
last night. It was a brilliant performance. You can read
a concert review here. Van Morrison
is a Virgo and really showed the mutable part of the sign.
He segued from country to soul to Memphis
horns to romantic ballad. Sometimes, he accomplished this
all in the same song. He had an amazingly tight thirteen piece
band, with instruments ranging from a steel guitar to a flugelhorn.
Van Morrison’s voice is still remarkably clear and strong
and he sang with little of the gravelly timbre he displays
on some of his recorded music. He is able to do tongue-tripping
jazzy scat singing in some of his songs that seemed very Mercurial
and Virgoan. The highlight, I felt, was his singing of “Burning
Ground,” from a 1997 CD. I ran his horoscope without
a birth time. Van Morrison has all his planets in a very tight
bundle pattern, less than a trine. Very powerful and focused.
Self-contained. That’s how he came across in concert--short
and stocky, wearing a black suit, black fedora, and semi-dark
glasses (through which his eyes were still visible) while
his stubby fingers resting on the mike stand tapped to
the rhythm as he sang. Much of the time, his eyes were closed
(we had good seats and also brought binoculars). The audience
was nothing short of electrified. His Sun is the only
planet in an earth sign. His Moon is most likely in Gemini,
adding to the mutability of his music.
Sunday,
March 5
Cosmic
Virgo
I'm
going to see Van Morrison in concert this evening. He's a Virgo.
Seems an unlikely sign for such a prodigious musical roots mystic.
I'm also two-thirds of the ways through War and Peace (I
don't seem to have as much free time on my hands as I did back
in my early twenties when I read it the first time!). Leo Tolstoy
is also a Virgo. One guy has been producing an album a year
for forty years; the other wrote a 1,500 page novel (page number
varies by edition) and it was only one work in a great
long writing career. Romantic mystical yearning haunts the work
of both these artists. Maybe it is the obsessiveness of Virgo
or the need to establish an organic identity--to continually
harvest the inner growth, then stack, tie, and count it. Virgo
is an earth sign and Leo Tolstoy had his own roots deep in the
soil of Russian tradition and national culture. Part of his
aim in War and Peace was to show not just Russian victory
in the Napoleonic War but also Russian daily life--the Christmas
traditions, family life, a hunt. Van Morrison's new CD, Pay
the Devil, will be featured in his concert and it is pure
American country music. What could be more Virgoan than
that, an Irish Belfast cowboy going to his own musical roots?
Saturday,
March 3
Movie
Oscars
The movie Academy awards will be handed out tomorrow night.
I'll be at a Van Morrison concert (which I hope will be worth
blogging about, looking at the horoscope of Mr Astral Weeks)
during the Oscar telecast. But I'd like to comment briefly on
two of the movies which have been nominated. Movies are still
ruled by Neptune and have a very Piscean quality. One of the
best things a movie can do, in my opinion, is show deep, underlying
Piscean connections through visual imagery. I saw Tsotsi, nominated
for Best Foreign Language film, at the Santa Barbara Film Festival
last month. The director was at the screening and spoke at length
about the movie and what it shows about South Africa--but, more
importantly, what it shows about the possibility of human transformation
and how we, sitting in our comfortable movie seats, can intimately
connect with a shanty town thug. Likewise, the movie Crash
shows the Neptunian connections which bind us to one another
in ways we don't always recognize. We do need to see beyond
our differences and movies can sometimes connect us. I loved
both these films.
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