― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Alexander Pope (May 21, 1688 – May 30, 1844) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. Wikipedia
 | Astro Butterfly Nov 30, 2022 |
In December 2022 the energy shifts from mutable (Sagittarius season, Jupiter in Pisces) to cardinal (Capricorn season, Jupiter in Aries).
The shift will be quite noticeable!
If, after the turbulent eclipse season we have taken some time to unwind and regroup, in December we are ready for action. This is a time to rewrite your priorities.
With so much cardinal fuel in the air, you may want to write your New Year’s resolutions a bit earlier… preferably before December 29th, when Mercury goes retrograde.
But let’s take a look at the most important transits of the month:
December 4th, 2022 – Neptune Goes Direct
On December 4th, 2022 Neptune goes direct at 22° Pisces. I don’t get particularly excited about Neptune changes in direction, however this time Neptune direct is a big hooray. Why?
The Mars retrograde-Neptune retrograde square has been messing with us for weeks now.
Mars is still retrograde, but out of the square orb, and now that Neptune goes direct, the fog will finally lift and we will be able to see the world more clearly. Things will finally start to make sense again.
On December 6th, 2022 Mercury enters Capricorn.
If in the last weeks you’ve got all excited about the future and came up with new ideas, now that Mercury has entered Capricorn, it’s time for action. What concrete steps can you take to turn these rather abstract ideas into actionable todo lists?
Capricorn is the most strategic sign of the zodiac, and when Mercury is in Capricorn, our mind will automatically become more goal-oriented. Now it’s time to connect the dots and take practical steps towards reaching your goals.
On December 8th, 2022 we have a Full Moon at 16° Gemini. The Full Moon is exactly conjunct Mars retrograde so this is a rather “angry” Full Moon. “Angry” not necessarily in a literal sense, because we all have a choice around the way we express our Mars energy.
Most likely, since the Full Moon is in Gemini, it’s our communication that will be influenced by Mars. We may become straightforward and more assertive in our interactions with others.
Even if Mars is retrograde, there is a feeling of impatience. We have a strong drive to express ourselves and our point of view. The ruler of the Full Moon, Mercury, is now in the early degrees of Capricorn so it has an appetite for action.
However, keep in mind that the Full Moon squares Neptune, so there may be some overlooked elements to consider.
Thankfully, the Full Moon is also trine Saturn, giving us a much needed dose of discipline and discernment.
All these ingredients suggest an action packed full Moon where we will take concrete steps towards changing those aspects of our life that are bothering us (Full Moon conjunct Mars retrograde) so we can build a more sustainable foundation for our future (Mercury in Capricorn, Full Moon trine Saturn).
On December 10th, 2022 Venus enters Capricorn. Venus is what we like and what we value. Venus is how we feel about things and people.
When Venus enters Capricorn, we become more intentional and more strategic about what we want. Our standards rise.
Capricorn is a sign that likes clarity, so if you are a bit unsure about what your motivations and priorities are, Venus in Capricorn will help you clarify that. And once you know what you want, there’s nothing that is going to stop you from attracting it and manifesting it into your life.
On December 20th, 2022 Jupiter enters Aries. Jupiter has already spent a few months in Aries, so this energy is not completely new. However, this time Jupiter is in Aries to stay and to fulfill its mission.
Jupiter in Aries is bold and courageous. He’s convinced he’s right, and there’s nothing that’s going to stop Jupiter in Aries from going for what he believes in. Jupiter in Aries invites you to be bold and courageous in the area of your life ruled by Aries.
This energy will influence you until May 2023, so you have a good 4 and half months to take purposeful action. Pay attention to the day of the ingress (and the week after) when you should get more clues about the concrete areas of life that require a Jupiter intervention.
On December 21st, 2022, the Sun enters Capricorn. Happy birthday to all Capricorns out there!
Sun in Capricorn also means that we have the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
0° of Cardinal signs give us a tremendous energy and sense of direction. We now feel we can move mountains. This is a great time to be clear about what it is that you want to achieve.
On December 23rd, 2022 we have a New Moon at 1° Capricorn. If you want to get a taste of Jupiter in Aries, the New Moon in Capricorn will give you a rather intense introduction to it.
The New Moon in Capricorn is exactly square Jupiter in Aries, so there’s no time to pack your gear or reflect on your journey ahead.
You’re now climbing the mountain and rushing to get to the summit! Sometimes the best way to take action is to jump straight into it.
On December 23rd, 2022 Chiron goes direct at 11° Aries. As with any slow-moving ‘planet’, changes in direction are more important than the retrogrades per se, and even more important than most transits.
So when Chiron goes stationary retrograde (once a year) and stationary direct (also just once a year, i.e. now) we feel its energy more strongly than ever.
If you’re Chiron-sensitive (and if you’re into astrology, you probably are) Chiron stationary direct will reveal something very personal and vulnerable about yourself. Something you don’t feel easy about. But something that if you choose to explore and embrace, will eventually heal you.
On December 29th, 2022 Mercury goes retrograde at 24° Capricorn.
Mercury retrograde points to what needs to be reviewed, reassessed, and reinvented in your life. Pay attention to the Capricorn sector of your chart to get more hints about what needs a revision in your life.
Mercury turns direct on January 19th, 2023 at 8° Capricorn. If you have planets or angles between 8-24° of Capricorn you will be particularly influenced by this transit.
On December 29th, 2022 Mercury retrograde and Venus meet at 24° Capricorn.
Within hours of turning retrograde, Mercury conjuncts Venus (also at 24° Capricorn). This Mercury-Venus conjunction will pretty much set the tone for the entire Mercury retrograde cycle.
In the following weeks, we are invited to explore not only our thoughts, but also the emotional imprints attached to those thoughts. Capricorn rules “systems” so this transit is an opportunity to reset mental models that are deeply ingrained in our psyche.
When we understand how our thoughts influence our feelings and the other way around, we can get to the root cause of our motivations, and we’re able to reframe those mental and emotional models that no longer serve our growth.
The Astrology Podcast Nov 29, 2022 In episode 378 we look ahead at the astrological forecast for December 2022, with astrologers Chris Brennan, Austin Coppock, and Aerin Fogel. The astrology of December features the second half of the Mars retrograde in Gemini commencing, Jupiter departing from Pisces and moving into Aries, and Mercury stationing retrograde conjunct Venus and Pluto in Capricorn. At the top of the show we talk about the astrology of some recent events in the news, such as the chaos surrounding Twitter that coincided with the recent eclipse and Mars retrograde station, as well as the sudden collapse of the bitcoin exchange FTX that fell right on the Taurus eclipse.
November 29, 2022 Schwartzreport (info@schwartzreport.net)
on Nov 29, 2022 02:33 am
Phoebe Weston, – Reader Supported News / The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Here is an excellent essay giving the timeline showing how we got to where we are today. well worth your time to click through and read all of it. The only way we are going to end this trend is by changing our cultural worldview, and making fostering wellbeing at every level the first priority. and we have every little time to make this change.
An abandoned farm in the dust bowl near Dalhart, Texas, June 1938.
Credit: Dorothea Lange / FSA / OWI Collection / Courtesy of Library of Congress
The story of the biodiversity crisis starts with a cold-case murder mystery that is tens of thousands of years old. When humans started spreading across the globe they discovered a world full of huge, mythical-sounding mammals called “megafauna”, but by the end of the Pleistocene, one by one, these large animals had disappeared. There is no smoking gun and evidence from ancient crime scenes is – unsurprisingly – patchy. But what investigators have learned suggests a prime suspect: humans.
Take the case of Genyornis, one of the world’s heaviest birds, which was more than 2 metres tall and weighed in excess of 200kg. It lived in Australia until, along with many other megafauna, it went extinct 50,000 years ago. In North America, giant beavers weighing the same as a fridge and an armadillo-like creature …
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on Nov 29, 2022 02:32 am
Stephen Bezruchka, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Health Systems & Population Health and of Global Health at the School of Public Health, University of Washington. – Salon
Stephan: Here is evidence validating my assertion that wealth inequality is destructive of social wellbeing. This isn’t going to change until Citizens United is either reversed or Congress passes an act to publicly fund elections and make it a felony for an individual or any corporate form to transfer money to an individual in public office. That should be followed by an act changing the tax code to what it was back in the 1950s when the middle class was being created.
Patients rest in a hallway in the overloaded Emergency Room area at Providence St. Mary Medical Center on January 27, 2021 in Apple Valley, California. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty
In 1992, a publication appeared in the British Medical Journal written by Richard Wilkinson, featuring a simple graph of life expectancy in 1981 among nine rich nations, along with the percentage of income received by the poorest 70% of families for each country. It showed how greater inequality in a country was associated with lower life expectancy, with only a weak link between national incomes and mortality rates. Richer countries were not necessarily healthier than less rich ones, at least among developed nations. Increases in income inequality over time were linked to higher death rates. But were the results valid?
Depending on a single study as definitive evidence is a shaky way to stake a claim. Knowledge progresses by conjectures, critical commentary, discussions, and either general acceptance or rejection. Yet five previous studies, beginning in 1979, demonstrate similar findings. …
The art is The First Supper by Susan Dorothea White
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When the divine feminine, the goddess, is no longer revered, social and psychic structures become overmechanized, overpoliticized, overmilitarized.
Thinking, judgment and rationality become the ruling factors. The needs for relatedness, feeling, caring or attending to nature go unheeded. There is no balance, no harmony, neither within oneself nor in the external world.
With the disregard of the archetypal image so related to passionate love, a splitting off of values, a one-sidedness, occurs in the psyche. As a result, we are sadly crippled in our search for wholeness and health.
—Nancy Qiualis-Corbett, The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine
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poem by Lauren Brazzle Zuniga at https://www.laurenbrazzle.com/
(Contributed by Rob Brezsny)
The person represented by the Prince of Wands will be an active, energetic person, with a warm and generous heart, and a good sense of humour. He will have a natural and infectious optimism about him, tackling every aspect of his life with enthusiasm and vigour.
He will be friendly, gregarious and open in his attitudes, possessed with a very healthy sense of his own value, but also supportive and encouraging to others. You’ll often come across him in working areas where healing, encouragement and development are involved.
The apparently easy-going happy-go lucky exterior conceals a deeply rooted moral sense. At his best he typifies the ‘shining white knight’ principle – always ready to stand up for what is right, and good; willing to fight to protect those who are more vulnerable than himself.
If the card comes up to indicate an inner response, rather than an actual person, it will signify rising confidence levels, and a positive attitude to life. This card is often the result of overcoming fears and surmounting obstacles which have previously hindered us, or held us back.
(via angelpaths.com and Alan Blackman)
New Thinking Allow Nov 29, 2022 Jude Currivan, PhD, has advanced degrees in both physics and archeology. She is author of several books, including The Wave, The Eighth Chakra, The Thirteenth Step, CosMos (with Ervin Laszlo), The Cosmic Hologram, and most recently The Story of Gaia: The Big Breath and the Evolutionary Journey of Our Conscious Planet. Here she reviews the 13.8 billion year history of our universe, two thirds of which occurred prior to the birth of our own planet Earth, which she refers to as Gaia. She maintains that universal principles, such as the golden mean and the fibonacci sequence, can be seen in operation throughout the entire process – contradicting the notion that life is the result of random or chaotic processes. She offers a vision in which the entire universe can be seen as alive and conscious. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. (Recorded on November 3, 2022)
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky (November 11, 1821 – February 9, 1881), was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Wikipedia
After decades of military secrecy, Chinese officials opened their desert rocket launch center to a handful of visitors and called for international cooperation in space.
Keith Bradsher reported from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China.
Nov. 29, 2022Updated 12:16 p.m. ET (NYTimes.com)
Tall as a 20-story building, a rocket carrying the Shenzhou 15 mission roared into the night sky of the Gobi Desert on Tuesday, carrying three astronauts toward a rendezvous with China’s just-completed space station.
The rocket launch was a split-screen event for China, the latest in a long series of technological achievements for the country, even as many of its citizens have been angrily lashing out in the streets against stringent pandemic controls.The air shook as the huge white rocket leaped into a starry, bitterly cold night sky shortly before the setting of a waxing crescent moon. The expedition to the new space station is a milestone for China’s rapidly advancing space program. It is the first time a team of three astronauts already aboard the Tiangong outpost will be met by a crew arriving from Earth. The Chinese space station will now be continuously occupied, like the International Space Station, another marker laid down by China in its race to catch up with the United States and surpass it as the dominant power in space.
With a sustained presence in low-Earth orbit aboard Tiangong, Chinese space officials are preparing to put astronauts on the moon, which NASA also intends to revisit before the end of the decade as part of its Artemis program.
“It will not take a long time; we can achieve the goal of manned moon landing,” Zhou Jianping, chief designer of China’s crewed space program, said in an interview at the launch center. China has been developing a lunar lander, he added, without giving a date when it might be used.
The launch of Shenzhou 15 comes less than two weeks after NASA finally launched its Artemis I mission following many delays. That flight has put its uncrewed Orion capsule into orbit around the moon.
At the same time, Beijing has engaged in a charm offensive since the Group of 20 summit in Bali earlier this month, wooing European nations and developing countries in particular. That includes space exploration. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, emphasized that point in a letter on Nov. 21 to a United Nations symposium.
“China is willing to work with other countries to strengthen exchanges and cooperation, jointly explore the mysteries of the universe, make peaceful use of outer space, and promote space technology to better benefit the people of all countries in the world,” Mr. Xi wrote.
ImageA worker on Monday in front of the launch tower where the Shenzhou 15 rocket was being prepared for the launch on Tuesday. The Jiuquan site is a military base long involved in China’s ballistic missile programs.Credit…Keith Bradsher/The New York Times
While European nations are working with the United States on the Artemis missions and the International Space Station, they so far have not expressed much interest in Tiangong. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said in a written reply to questions that Germany had no bilateral projects with China for its space station.
And while Germany and Italy each sent an astronaut four years ago to China’s Shandong Province for training to fly aboard a Shenzhou rocket, neither country has announced plans to send astronauts on a Chinese rocket. Some European researchers are involved in scientific experiments that will be carried to Tiangong, however, including a proposed high-energy cosmic radiation detector. Researchers from India, Peru, Mexico and Saudi Arabia have also received research opportunities on the Chinese space station through a United Nations program.
Officials in Europe have been wary of closer cooperation in space at a time of rising frictions over China’s human rights record and military buildup. They have asked China to share highly detailed information about its space operations, partly to ensure the safety of astronauts. But China’s space program has grown out of the country’s military, like the early American space program decades ago, and has been wary of extensive sharing.
That military connection was on display at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the desert. Camouflaged vehicles were visible in and around the base, and some signage referred not to Shenzhou civilian space rockets but to Dongfeng, the ballistic missiles used in China’s nuclear weapon arsenal.
Visitors approaching the launch center received a succession of short, automated warning messages on their mobile phones, starting about 50 miles away. The warnings stated that they had entered a military management zone where photography was strictly prohibited and violators of national security would be executed.
The first of these messages, in Chinese, provided a mobile phone number for reporting any sightings of foreigners or of suspicious activity, and concluded with a warning: “Those stealing secrets will surely be caught, and will be decapitated once caught! Everyone catch enemy spies, and make great contributions by seizing them!”
Ji Qiming, assistant director general of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, said at a news conference on Monday ahead of the Shenzhou 15 launch that China was preserving the heritage of the “two bombs one satellite” vision articulated by Mao. That program aimed to create an atomic bomb, an intercontinental ballistic missile to carry the bomb and a satellite from which to view the world below.
ImageThe Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China on Monday, where the Shenzhou 15 rocket was being prepared for a launch scheduled for Tuesday.Credit…Li You/The New York Times
ImageAstronauts live and train before launch inside this fancifully decorated area at the Jiuquan site.Credit…Keith Bradsher/The New York Times
On Tuesday, foreign journalists were given uncommon access to the launch center, which began construction in 1958 and is usually out of bounds even for Chinese citizens.
Two journalists for The New York Times and a photographer from Kyodo News of Japan were allowed to attend the launch, as were a small group of journalists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Visitors from Beijing and other cities were required to spend a week first in quarantine at a village hotel about 50 miles away, and to pass daily PCR tests. Foreign journalists paid for their travel, accommodation and quarantine.
The quarantine was part of elaborate precautions to prevent the Covid-19 virus from reaching the space center again. An outbreak last year briefly interrupted work at the site.
The base is 150 miles into the Gobi Desert from the nearest city, Jiayuguan in northern Gansu Province. On the highway from the city, an older China was still visible as a farmer’s small herd of Bactrian camels loped along, their double humps shaggy with dark-brown fur as winter approaches.
The region around the launch center has some of the world’s tallest stationary sand dunes, rising to a height of over 1,000 feet. Flat, gray gravel surrounds the base itself, which is home to an architectural mélange.
An immense vertical assembly building for rockets and modern administrative high-rises stand at the front of the base. Behind them are considerably older, low-rise brick buildings with prominent Communist Party insignia, and then rows of three-story apartment buildings with peeling white paint. The astronaut living and training quarters used before launches have been built in a fanciful Art Deco style with a curious resemblance to Tomorrowland at Disneyland.
The newer buildings at the site signal how fast China has been catching up with the West in space. Charles Bolden, who led NASA during the Obama administration, said that China’s ample budgets and long-term planning had given it an advantage over the United States, where Congress has been divided on space expenditures.
China, he said, moved as fast as “anybody would do if they had unlimited resources and didn’t have to go back” repeatedly to politicians for approval of expenditures.
ImageAstronauts waved to the crowd while a brass band played on Tuesday.Credit…Keith Bradsher/The New York Times
ImageHuang Weifen, chief designer of the astronaut system for the China Manned Space Program, said on Monday that fresh fruits and vegetables would be sent to the Tiangong space station.Credit…Li You/The New York Times
Mr. Zhou of the crewed space agency said that China had spent money efficiently on its space program, and that its space station had cost not much more than $8 billion. Pay and the cost of living are low for the large community of rocket scientists living and working mostly in isolation at Jiuquan launch center, with even their internet communications with the rest of China restricted for national security reasons.
By contrast, NASA will spend $3 billion just this year on the International Space Station, which has cost more than $100 billion to build and maintain over the course of its life.
Three men were aboard the Shenzhou 15 when it lifted off: Fei Junlong, Deng Qingming and Zhang Lu. China has sent women into orbit on previous trips, but chose its oldest and most experienced team of astronauts to get the just-completed space station up and running in the next six months.
The trio stood at attention when introduced at a news conference, and delivered crisp military salutes. Mr. Fei, the spaceflight commander, first went into space in 2005 and is 57 years old.
“I am very proud and excited to be able to go to space again for my country,” he said.
Huang Weifen, chief designer of astronaut systems, said in an interview that China had added resistance exercise equipment and a broader menu for recent spaceflights, even including fresh fruits and vegetables.
Herbal treatments based on traditional Chinese medicine are carried aboard the space station and also used for medicated baths given to astronauts after their return to Earth, in an attempt to limit medical harm from prolonged stays in space, she added.
Mr. Zhou Jianping said that experiments to be done by the crew would involve using an extremely accurate atomic clock for gravity research and deploying a space telescope for ultraviolet studies of distant reaches of the universe.
“China’s aerospace industry is developing rapidly,” he said. “China is already a major aerospace power.”
Li You contributed research from Jiuquan.
(Contributed by William P. Chiles)