The political unknown

I got an email from a reader this week, asking, "Who do you think will win 2012 election?" Here is the response I just sent:

I'm not a political astrologer, so I don't usually offer predictions such as this. A lot of variables need to be researched -- not only the candidates' charts, but the chart for the U.S., and several other variables.

That being said, I have looked at both Obama's and Romney's personal charts. Both appear to have some challenges this fall, which is likely to play out in a very close election.

Obama is finishing up a two-year-long Chiron Return, which has corresponded with a loss of popular approval. This transit is still in effect throughout this fall, so a lot depends on how well he moves through the personal and spiritual challenges offered by this transit. If he is successful in achieving the personal growth required by a Chiron Return, I think his chances are good for also achieving re-election. The outer reflects the inner.

Still, if you had asked me a year ago, before we knew who would be the Republican candidate, if I thought it was likely that Obama could win re-election while going through a Chiron Return, I would have had to answer no.

But that was before I had a chance to look at the challenger's chart.

As fate would have it, Romney is also coming into a challenging aspect this fall -- Saturn square his Midheaven -- which usually corresponds with a time of frustrated goals and a lot of hard work for limited external reward. So he also has some hurdles to overcome if he is to pull this out. We may get some hints about how that transit will affect his campaign once Saturn goes into Scorpio (on October 5).

As an added factor to complicate this election, Mercury goes Retrograde on election day. The last time Mercury changed direction on election day, we had the whole fiasco with the Bush-Gore election and the ballot issues in Florida. So it's possible we may not know right away who is the actual winner -- it may be three weeks afterward, when Mercury goes direct, or longer, when Mercury is beyond the shadow period. At the very least, there is likely to be confusion about the election process or the outcome.

That's what I can share at the moment -- perhaps not the clear-cut answer you wanted! But this election in particular has a lot of variables that will probably make this one a nail-biter.

Blessings, Pam

Direct link to "Release" by Janosh

Hi all,

I found a direct link to a larger image of "Release" by Janosh, which I used in today's Journal. Here's the link:
http://www.janosh.com/en/work/artpage/26
And, just to make this post pretty, here's the image again -- Enjoy!

Vertigo

The spinning sensation started sometime early this morning. I was lying in bed, awake, and suddenly became aware of vertigo. It's still going on now, some three hours or more later. It does seem tied into something going on energetically, based on how things felt during meditation a while ago. Perhaps it is the effect of the Mercury interaction with Pluto and Uranus today, which is dismantling and rewiring our logical brains in some respect.

Anyone else having similar symptoms?

Pam

A flicker of hope?

If I were to tell you I had a flicker in my woodstove today, you would assume I meant a small fire, wouldn't you? Ah, but you would be incorrect!

Sometime yesterday, a real live flicker, like this one:

somehow made its way into my stovepipe and down into my woodstove. No small feat. Clearly the screen at the top of the pipe has decayed, to allow this fairly large bird to enter.

All last night, I heard scratching inside the stovepipe -- bird? mouse? I didn't know what to think, and couldn't imagine how it had gotten inside.

This morning I threw a blanket over the window on the front of the stove and had to leave for the day. My hope was that if it were feathered, it would fly up toward the light during the day. And, that if it were furry, it would somehow find its way back the same way it had gotten in.

This afternoon, on arriving home, all was quiet. But, when I opened the top of the stove, something moved. I screamed. Dogs barked. My first thought was that it was a big gray rat. Ugh.

I shone a flashlight in the front, and saw the unmistakeable black crescent that marks a flicker's chest. Relief that it wasn't a rat, but concern now. How do I get it out? Is it hurt? What to do.

Online, I found the phone number for a wildlife rescue organization in the area, and called for ideas. The answer was, that if the flicker wasn't hurt, the best thing to do was open one door or window, black out all the rest, and open the woodstove for the flicker to fly out on its own.

Long story short -- it worked, after the bird didn't move at all for several minutes (no doubt frozen in fear after all it had been through), and then after a few frantic moments of the poor bird flying up to the window I hadn't been able to reach to cover. But then I opened the double doors off my upstairs bedroom, encouraged the bird to leave the window where there was no opening, and he flew out through the open doors. Hooray.

Now that the adrenalin rush has subsided, I'm curious about the symbolism of the event. This flicker had to work VERY hard to get my attention, and put in a very difficult almost-24 hours. It makes me think there's something important here.

Online again, this time to search for "flicker symbolism." Here's one I found:

"The bright red markings of flickers are associated with fire, and in the Native American legends, Flicker sometimes features as a medicine character with powers over fire. Like other members of the woodpecker family, flickers are considered lucky birds and are associated with friendship and happiness. In particular, yellow-shafted flickers or yellowhammers are believed to bring good luck and healing; hearing their cries means that you will soon receive a visitor, and in some Northern California tribes, dreaming of a yellowhammer is the sign that a person will become a traditional healer."

And, Ted Andrews, in his book Animal Speak, tells us that the flicker represents spiritual, emotional, and creative change. That part I know is true. As I emerge from the two-year passage of Saturn through my 12 house, much has changed in my life and many things are still finding their way into new reality.

I find it interesting that the Native American legend gives flicker the power over fire -- and here was this flicker, in my woodstove.

I need to give my various levels of consciousness more time to consider all that the flicker was trying to communicate to me. But I especially like thinking that one of its purposes was, as the subject line of this post says, to remind us of the "flicker of hope" that can light our way during these powerful times of change.

And, oh yes -- I've scheduled a chimney cleaning and replacement of the screen at the top of the stovepipe. Don't want to put any more flickers, or myself or my dogs, through that experience again!

Synchronicity and Shakespeare

An interesting coincidence to share...

If you read this week's NorthPoint Journal, you know that I began with a quote from Shakespeare's King Richard III, the play that begins with the words "Now is the winter of our discontent..."

The synchronicity revealed itself today, when I opened my Yahoo email account, and saw a teaser headline about a "medieval church discovered beneath a parking lot." That got my attention, so I clicked.

The news story began, "The hunt for King Richard III's grave is heating up, with archaeologists announcing Sept. 5 that they have located the church where the king was buried in 1485."

Having written the journal on Sunday the 2nd, I could not have read that announcement somewhere and had it trigger my use of the quote from the play. And, to be honest, although I consider myself somewhat familiar with classic literature, I am no expert on Shakespearean plays, and did not know what play the quote was from.

I had formatted the new week's issue of the journal, as I sometimes do, on Saturday night -- entering the highlighted aspects for the week and finding a suitable photo for the masthead, and hoping that my unconscious would work on the information overnight and guide me in the writing on Sunday morning. And, as I also sometimes do, I wrote a first paragraph, then turned off the computer and went to bed.

It was early the next morning (or in the middle of the night?) when the "Now is the winter of our discontent" line came tumbling into my awareness, and with it the beginning lines of the journal entry for the week. When I turned on the computer Sunday morning, I erased the paragraph I had written Saturday night, and began to write the issue using Shakespeare's quote. (I then had to Google the quote so that I knew what play it was from...)

So, to read that news article today, referencing King Richard III -- well, it got my attention, as synchronicities are meant to do. Always fun. (If you're interested in reading rest of the news article, click here.)

Hope your week is going well!

Pam