It is interesting to note that the Sun and Moon, for this New Moon in Aquarius, are not making any major aspects to any major planets. All of the aspects in this New Moon chart are coming from other aspected planets. The sign that represents the collective, is highlighting energies other than the New Moon itself.

The New Moon is a natural time to quiet yourself and look within. This is an appropriate time to decide how you can impact the collective in a positive way. Aquarius is the sign that promotes ideas for the future and ways to help humanity. This is a great time to ask your guides what is the best way for you to serve in your community and help impact the political issues in your state and the common good.

Fear and anger are at an all time high. The massive governmental machine is daunting. We cannot shrink and hide, but move forward with purpose and energy. Ask yourself, “What can I do to maximize and send peace and love energy into the collective?”

These are the current aspects surrounding this New Moon: Venus in Pisces squares Saturn in Sagittarius. This can feel like a restriction surrounding the things you love. This is not a happy aspect for Venus. As we look all around us we see how big government and big business (Saturn) is overtly encroaching on our cherished values. Venus and Pisces are compatible with love and compassion, but Saturn in Sagittarius doesn’t considers the feelings of others, and focuses on governmental and business structure, self-righteous belief systems, acquiring money, and “my way or the highway” practices.

There is increasing tension between the people and the government in the US and abroad. This is also a part of the continuing energy of Uranus (need for independence) square Pluto (evolution). Fast moving Mercury (communication) conjunct Pluto, triggers this square. This is shakeup breakup time and consistent with Mercury, we are hearing all about it. How it will end up will depend on the cohesiveness of the masses, standing up against corruption and oppression.

Written by Wendy Cicchetti

PLAN YOUR OWN NEW MOON CEREMONY. Give yourself some quiet time in meditation to see where you need to seed new ways of becoming. List these areas within your life you want to change. What areas do you want to break free from the norm and become more productive and discerning? The NEW MOON is the time to manifest the personal attributes you want to cultivate as well as the tangible things you want to bring to you. Possible phrasing: I now manifest ____ into my life. I am now _______ . Remember, think, envision and feel with as much emotion as possible, as though you already have what you want. Thoughts are things and the brain manifests exactly what you show it in the form of thoughts, visuals and emotions. The Buddha said, and I am paraphrasing, “We are the sum total of our thoughts up to today. ” If we want to be different then we must change our thoughts. “If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” CONSCIOUS CHANGE is the key.

Someone bought alternativefacts.com and redirected it. Go ahead, click on it…. 😀

https://brightside.me/article/what-you-should-think-about-before-you-judge-others-10155/

priv·i·lege
ˈpriv(ə)lij/Submit
noun
1.
a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.
“education is a right, not a privilege”
synonyms: advantage, benefit; More
verbformal
1.
grant a privilege or privileges to.
“English inheritance law privileged the eldest son”

In this anti-fascist film produced by US Military in the wake of WWII, the producers deconstructs the politically motivated social engineering of Germany by the Nazi regime.

Its argument is just as timely and relevant today.

See more at: http://www.weirdovideo.com

“Lanza points to the structure of the universe itself, and that the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be fine-tuned for life, implying intelligence existed prior to matter. He also claims that space and time are not objects or things, but rather tools of our animal understanding. Lanza says that we carry space and time around with us “like turtles with shells.” meaning that when the shell comes off (space and time), we still exist.

The theory implies that death of consciousness simply does not exist. It only exists as a thought because people identify themselves with their body. They believe that the body is going to perish, sooner or later, thinking their consciousness will disappear too. If the body generates consciousness, then consciousness dies when the body dies. But if the body receives consciousness in the same way that a cable box receives satellite signals, then of course consciousness does not end at the death of the physical vehicle. In fact, consciousness exists outside of constraints of time and space. It is able to be anywhere: in the human body and outside of it. In other words, it is non-local in the same sense that quantum objects are non-local.”

~ Science and Nonduality Conference

I sometimes get criticized for expressing what some people consider as negative feelings and imply that such feelings are not consistent with Radical Forgiveness. In the video that follows, I address this issue head on. But first, let me say this to put it in context.

I believe that life on the planet is meant to be an emotional experience. That’s why we chose to take on a body. To deny one’s feelings is to deny the reason for being here. There is no such thing as a negative feeling. Feelings only become toxic if they are suppressed and denied and that stunts our spiritual growth.
We purposefully set ourselves up to have experiences that make us feel separate so we can feel what that is like. That’s what our soul wants. Once we have experimented enough with separation and have realized that it is just an illusion, we wake up to the reality that we are in fact all one. But that shift doesn’t happen in the head. It occurs in the heart and is felt as Love. Without we feel compassion for each other in our everyday interactions with each other along the way, we’ll never get there. We need to open our hearts and let ourselves be vulnerable. There’s nothing to lose but our pain.

Many say that Donald Trump is a fascist, Fox News has repeatedly referred to Barack Obama as a socialist, and, if you read the comments below my articles on Facebook, it won’t take long to find some dingbat claiming that I’m a liberal hack (usually with all-caps, too). All of these political labels, however, are wrong. On most days of the week, Trump preaches nationalism & laissez-faire capitalism (not fascism), Obama promoted neoliberal policies (not socialist  ones), & I am an anarcho-syndicalist hack, not a liberal one. It’s clear what people mean to say, of course — most who say Trump is a “fascist” are really trying to express their concern that he may abuse his presidential powers and, by “socialist,” Fox News was saying they were upset that a Black man was regulating business, which was always Bill O’Reilly’s greatest fear…

Political Labels

In these examples, political labels are used in ways that distort their meaning. This is important because, if you & I have different meanings for words like left, right, conservative, liberal, & socialist, it’s hard to communicate our ideas to each other. No one ought to feel bad or be made fun of for mixing up terms or labels and it’s fine to not know the meaning of a word — it happens to all of us and it’s an opportunity to learn! Now, let’s look at the most commonly misunderstood, misapplied, & mixed up political labels….

Left vs. Right

Left versus right — the great political divide! This pair of political labels first reared their ugly heads during the French Revolution — in the national assembly, supporters of the king sat on the right side & supporters of the revolution, many of them revolutionary socialists, sat on the left side. Newspapers began to describe the assembly in the terms left & right and it all sort of snowballed from there. By the beginning of the 20th century, those who wanted social reform or greater equality, like socialists & communists, were described as being to the left, while reactionaries & defenders of the current establishments & constitutions were described as being to the right.

Generally speaking, leftists want to reform how power & wealth is distributed by a society through social, democratic, economic, or revolutionary means and the right defends society’s institutions from idealistic reforms or tries to get rid of previous reforms.

Liberal & Conservative

The words, “liberal” (from Latin liber, “free”) & “conservative” (con “together” + servare “to save” = “to keep together” ), can be used to describe the ideas of keeping things as they are & being free to change them. In that sense, they can work similarly to left & right — the word “liberal,” however, is only applied to leftists in the United States. Outside of the US, a liberal is someone who promotes the ideas of liberalism, a political philosophy that emerged during the Enlightenment, influencing the uprisings against the European monarchies.

As the name suggests, liberalism promoted free speech, freedom of (& from) religion, freedom of the press, & free markets. To achieve this, liberals opposed the absolute power of monarchies, which allowed rulers & noble classes to take away the people’s freedom & property. The liberal solution was that everybody should have rights & equality before the law— meaning that kings & beggars ought to be equally accountable to written laws (like a constitution), instead of the pope or a jerk wearing a crown. When the word is used this way, republicans & democrats are both liberals because both want more-or-less free markets & a constitutional government to protect certain rights.

This can be confusing for some in the US because a right-wing republican is a liberal, while a leftist advocate of socialism (like me) is not a liberal.

Fascist vs. Authoritarian

I’ve heard many people on both the left & right hurl “fascist” at each other — in fact, the word has been mostly used negatively from the time of World War II. The word itself came from the Italian “Fascismo,” derived from the verb “to bundle or bind,” from the Latin “fasces.” A fasces was a bundle of wooden rods, often with an ax included, and a symbol of rulership & collective power in Rome — a single rod can easily be broken but many rods bundled together are impossible to snap. Benito Mussolini & his fascist party used the symbol for their ideology, which promised a return to the glory of the Rome by binding the industrial & social forces together into a militarized, central government, led by a strong leader.

Scholars are still arguing about the best definition but virtually all of them agree that the fascists were both anti-liberal & anti-socialist — which means that Donald Trump, in particular, is not a fascist. Anti-liberal means anti-capitalist and the fascists had a mostly planned economy, which would horrify the capitalist Trump! The word most people are looking for is “authoritarian.” An authoritarian leader or government demands & enforces the obedience of those below and pretty much any system of government can be authoritarian, including socialist & capitalist ones. The opposite of authoritarian is “libertarian.”

Words are Important
& Knowledge is Power

Words are important — using the right ones can empower us to clearly present our thoughts & ideas for others and, unfortunately, choosing the wrong ones can be the cause of endless arguments over nothing. For example, advocating for “democratic control of the means of production” almost never starts a heated debate, in my experience — talking about “socialism,” however, is pretty much guaranteed to start a heated debate! The amazing part is that these two things are the same! It’s not that people are unwilling to discuss different ideas — it’s just that we sometimes don’t have the same understanding of a word or concept.

With that in mind, I hope this article can help at least a few of you transform some arguments into good discussions — thanks for reading.

In solidarity,
John Laurits
(JohnLaurits.com)