Kurt Vonnegut 1922--2007

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut's fall two weeks ago in his Manhattan apartment resulted in brain injuries and he gave up the fight Wednesday, April 11.

In honor of a master I'm posting his natal chart the birth time of which is in question. But some transits aren't affected by birth time as long as the date is correct so I've marked Saturn outside the chart as The Old Man been visiting Vonnegut's natal Neptune of late. This is a difficult transit when you're 84 years old with its visions of The Grim Reaper and all.

Jupiter tends to be active at times of death and so we see Jupiter in first house along with Pluto. In a spree of blatant neglect, I did not write in the supposed planetary hour of his birth--a Jupiter hour, if born at 8:00 am CST (this looks like a rounded off time--once very commonly done.)

Custodians of Chaos is an excerpt from his memoir, Man Without A Country and is well worth a read if you haven't. It puts Bush and Cheney in their sorry places.

The Image for his natal Sun Sco/Moon Leo blend:

A Samaritan mirrors sunshine into the depth of a dark pit bringing hope to those who live there.
Puts me in mind of the slaughterhouse in Dresden and his use of his war experiences in writing Slaughterhouse Five.

This Sun/Moon blend is shared by poet Ezra Pound who said, "The difference between a gun and a tree...is a difference of tempo. The tree explodes every spring."

Your work, Mr. Vonnegut, is well done. RIP where guns can hurt no more.

I hear Rummy's at loose ends

Bush Seeks Overseer For Iraq, Afghanistan --3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar' 11 Apr 2007:

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation. At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said.

LegitGov.org


Apparently George is tired of moving soldiers around the board.

Actually they're looking for a way to tamp down some measure of the criticism he's now getting so the war won't be interfered with and the agenda may proceed like a greased monkey instead of the constipated one George has on his back.

2007 Jefferson Muzzle Award a shoo-in!

Yes, congrats go out to George Bush for being recipient of a 2007 Jefferson Muzzle Award...and so richly deserved!

Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has an Archive List which can take you back to the Muzzles of 1999. But this year, George and his main crew are scorching and breaking records over at the Muzzles.

Shooing in Bush now for a Muzzie is a lot easier than wielding the industrial shoe horn that shoveled him into the back door of the White House in 2000-2001, with tossed eggs aflyin' and seemingly ignored.

Were they appropriately rotten? One may hope.

With Easter 2007, I have fondly reflected upon those limo-eggs as Mrs. Bush forced little children to laboriously spoon Eastery eggs across the manicured White House lawn while pretending that the memorable ghosts of those anti-Bush eggs of years past were not fresh as a daisy inside her pretty mind.

The People: the buck stops here

"Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America's official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them." Mark Hertzgaard

We've fallen down on our oversight duties the last several years, haven't we?

We've been coup'd because of our inattentions. We need to correct past mistakes with clear statements and by taking direct action. Shadows must be faced in order to fight the many dragons we face yet the inner dragon is the most voracious of all.

Take one version of the U.S. natal chart--Sibly (5:10 pm lmt), the Scorpio Rising chart, Cornwallis' Surrender to Washington, Jefferson's supposed chart, all for July 4, 1776 (with the exception of the Cornwallis' Surrender chart) and read each placement for its Illumination Point--the opposite degree of the natal position.
Perhaps it's a tiny peek at the inner dragon of the American ego (Sun.)

Ex: US natal Sun "14 Cancer" as it's usually considered in the Sabian Symbols...read "14 Capricorn" for the nation's Essence, True Purpose, and the Ego drive to be important--the Sun (using the "rounding up" method of determination.)

(These Symbols also apply to George Bush's natal Sun (July 6, 1946.)

My preference: to use the one that applies in a fundamental way yet remembering that all is process--the degree before and the degree after (in this case, "13 Can/Cap" --"15 Can/Cap" would be what has just passed "14Can/Cap" and what is upcoming--in an evolutionary sense--is the next degree.)

Here's a personal example from my own Secondary Progressed chart: in the mundane world, I was given the opportunity to move professional locations to a business named, ReVive--when my Sec MC (Career) progressed to "10 Leo": "Early morning dew"...Keyword: REJUVENATION.

Rather descriptive.

So here's the Symbol for "14Cap" from Dr.Marc Edmund Jones' The Sabian Symbols in Astrology:

"An ancient bas-relief carved in granite"...FOUNDATION:

pos: a gift for bringing all things in to a pattern of convenience;

neg/shadow side: meaningless limitation.


Or would you prefer "13Cap"?


"A fire worshiper"...MAGIC:

pos: extraordinary skill in enlisting every resource of the world for the exaltation of self and the consummation of its ambitions;

neg: consistent overestimation of personal capacity.


Somehow "13Cap" sounds more like that Bush fellow. But how about America?