#ITS ABOUT MANIFESTING INTEGRITY IN CHAOS AND FREE WILL IN ORDER

[cosmicangel888]

The Importance of All Lifetimes; It is all NOW; Celebrate - transcend* evolution is everything

In every lifetime, as we prepare for a lifetime, regardless of form, religions, colour, sexuality, the minute to grand details we choose in a life cycle; those that we choose manifest and attract, cross so that we evolve and grow beyond limitation, separation; every lifetime, all is about transcending limitation and separation

We live in limitation due to our beliefs, our practices, and what we have been shown, told, and how to transcend it, is to align within and connect with spirit, connect our bodies, fields, and chakra's and higher knowing and only through the Higher Self, merkabah, and all that is spirit - all matter is spirit and when wounded, acting in wounding, and living in such states; allows us to breathe into any one situation and be anew; choose love, choose peace, choose simplicity, choose alignment and choose the integrity - moral high ground and peace; ©

Victory is not a title

Success is not a number in your account

Leadership is not political - is above all should be humanitarian and unity

Victory is not a power trap and trip into false sense of self; the immaturity of false stories, what you were shown, told as important; superficial, materialistic favour means nothing in the Heavens; the Heavens is your heart space and if you aren't making choices from here; there will be continued breaking until you do - this is evolution - and evolution will only transcend to new cycles on the spiral of Creation through spirit, through alignment, through love; PERIOD!

What you cause for another is a perspective you may want to take on for your next lifetime; for that is if one is not awakening to true inner value and importance and sacredness, may be how the soul awakens and expands beyond abuse, trauma, to an open loving and compassionate level of oneness and unity - we are shifting and so celebrate - what do you value - who are you? You are divine, sacred and important - anything outside of this is a reflection to see, taste, know of creation in all its forms to show you how you vibrate and co-create with spirit

And why, any level of corruption that our social leaders, in any level of our social outlets; judicial, health, political, education; at what level do you turn a blind eye to what is unjust; all will carry that equal karma - be it the payor or doing, spell caster, or corrupt group scheming to hide and blind the innocence - imbalance and corruption will not stand - as the foundations are faulty and will break unto itself due to the deceit, density, and fabricated stories, and illusions - you must truly understand energy and the environments of our new galactic bedding; 5D fields and light, life, will not support the density through which was behind closed doors and underground - what is underground will be brought forth; it is a mirror to our own collective subconscious ~

Thus healing will be brought forth - to heal the most dastardly of our warp thoughts of what was important as innocent children are being enslaved and used and negotiated like a commodity - what leader, what political arena is this ok? What and how has this been normal and conformed to be 'ok'

Who are you-you are created your next timeline - what are you creating -

When there is much chaos, smoke and mirrors, the piercing of order is truth; simplicity and seeing through illusions of deceit, manipulation, warped magic and stories of illusions - truth, compassion, rebalancing of what had been corrupt will be the parting of what was to anew;

Celebrate the breaking; for all is meant to bring forth new light, life, and potentials and all have free will, choice, to do what is right, be anew; for any lifetime you choose next, will be what you left off in; the limitation, beliefs, nothing is more important than to transcend the wounding that brings through the triggers, the blessed triggers of our shadow, the inner child, the DF/DM energies to heal and bring anew & evolve; when you pass on from this physical world, the discussions you have with spirit, angelic, God, is that of your evolution - were you in presence of yourself; mind, body, heart and soul of all that is and make anew; how did you choose love, compassion, offer peace, offer forgiveness, in whatever way you are faced with challenge, strife, negativity, or corruption - in any way at any level; truth, peace, compassion, forgiveness is the way

The way will always be shown, and it is always simple; this is our healing ~

All that ever matters; it will never be the superfluous, it will never be the money, or title, or fame, or whatever anyone thinks or believes in importance of false conformity and illusions of power;

Self reflection; what is truly important to you - what and how will you value you, your life, others - what they reflect to you - all importance is held within how much you loved, how you showed love and truth and honour to your own life, standing in your own truth with love and compassion for what is key for your own expression, experience, and exploration - to be the catalyst for sanity, humanity, oneness, unity;

What is valued and important to you? If it is not your health, your inner realm - then best be sure your life will be shaken until it is; that is the role of spirit in our most grandest time of evolution and progression from subjugation and separation - your life literally depends on it - so celebrate what is breaking - surrender to truth, light, love - this your soul breaking through the illusions of out-dated importance and separation - love is the only truth©

Accept all before you - it is your expansion - even in the breaking - accept it, make peace with it - embrace all it has shown you about how powerful you are to choose anew, create new realities -

Inner = outer = how may you love and design anew;

Reclaim your power and choice and energy - it is meant for a new Heaven on earth -

Peace be with you - love is

Joanna

Donations are greatly appreciated

DONATIONS - see our PayPal link here; paypal.me/JoannaLRoss

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[paper-lilypie]

Thinking about Loki and Mobius again

[wisdomrays]

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Are Muslims Guilty of Imperialism?

This charge continues to be leveled against the Muslim world. I would like to counter it by asking the following questions:

Given the existing circumstances of 1,400 years ago, how would any one living in Makka or Madina go about exploiting his own clan and tribe? If the supposedly exploited lands and people were those of the Hijaz, which were poor, unfruitful, and barren, who would have wished to invade or exploit them? It is ludicrous to level the charge of imperialist colonialism against the most noble-minded Muslims, who risked their lives to spread the message of Islam; who spent the greater part of their lives far from their children, families, homes, and native lands fighting armies ten or twenty times their size; and who felt deeply grieved when they did not die on the battlefield and join the earlier martyrs for Islam. We ask ourselves what worldly gain they obtained in return for such struggle, deprivation, and sacrifice!

Those who invaded, occupied, and exploited others with the worst intentions (and results) of imperialism are power-hungry individuals or nations. To mention a few: Alexander the "Great" and Napoleon, the Roman empire and Nazi Germany, the Mongol armies unleashed by Genghis Khan and the colonizing armies unleashed by western Europe, Russian dictatorship (whether czarist or communist) and the American empire (whether "manifest destiny" or "making the world safe for democracy"). Wherever such conquests came and went, they corrupted the morality of the conquerors and the conquered, causing chaos, conflict, tears, bloodshed, and devastation. Today their heirs, like bold thieves who bluff property owners to conceal their theft of that very property, turn to besmirching Islam, its Prophet, and his Companions.

True Muslims have never sought to exploit others. Nor have they let others do so where Muslim government had jurisdiction. At a time when Muslim armies were running from triumph to triumph, Caliph 'Umar said: "What befits me is to live at the level of the poorest Muslims," and he really did so. As he took only a few olives a day for his own sustenance, who was he exploiting?

After one battle, when a Muslim was asked to take the belongings of an enemy soldier whom he had fought and killed, he said: "I did not participate in the battle to take spoils." Pointing to his throat, he continued: "What I seek is an arrow here and to fall as a martyr." (His wish was granted.) While burning with the desire for martyrdom, who was he exploiting?

In another battle, a Muslim soldier fought and killed a leading enemy who had killed many Muslims. The Muslim commander saw him pass by his dead enemy. The commander went to the head of the dead soldier and asked who had killed him. The Muslim did not want to reply, but the commander called him back in the name of God. The Muslim felt himself obliged to do so, but concealed his face with a piece of cloth. The following conversation took place:

-Did you kill him for the sake of God?

-Yes.

-All right. But take this 1,000 dinar piece.

-But I did it for the sake of God!

-What is your name?

-What is my name to you? Perhaps you will tell this to everyone and cause me to lose the reward for this in the afterlife.

How could such people exploit others and establish colonies all over the world? To speak frankly, those who hate Islam and Muslims are blind to the historical truth of how Islam spread.

Let's look at what exploitation and imperialism are. Imperialism or colonization is a system of rule by which a rich and a powerful country controls other countries, their trade and policies, to enrich itself and gain more power at the other's expense. There are many kinds of exploitation. In today's world, they may take the following forms:

• Absolute sovereignty by dispossessing indigenous people in order to establish the invader's direct rule and sovereignty. Examples are western Europe's conquest of North and South America, as well as Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Zionists' conquest of Palestine.

• Military occupation so that the invaders can control the conquered nation's land and resources. One example is British colonial rule in India.

• Open or secret interference and intervention in a country's internal and foreign affairs, economy, and defense. Examples are those Third World countries who are manipulated and controlled by various developed countries.

• The transfer of intellectuals, which is currently the most common and dangerous type of imperialism. Young, intelligent, and gifted people of the countries to be exploited are chosen, given stipends, and educated abroad. There they are introduced to and made members of different groups. When they return to their country, they are given influential administrative and other posts so that they can influence their country's destiny. When native or foreign people linked to exploiters abroad are placed in crucial positions in the state mechanism, the country is conquered from inside. This immensely successful technique has enabled Western imperialists to achieve many of their goals smoothly and without overtly rousing the enmity of the people they wish to subjugate. Today, the Muslim world is caught in this trap and thus continues to suffer exploitation and abuse.

Whatever kind of imperialism they are subjected to, countries suffer a number of consequences:

• Various methods of assimilation alienate people from their own values, culture, and history. As a result, they suffer crises of identity and purpose, do not know their own past, and cannot freely imagine their own future.

• Any enthusiasm, effort, and zeal to support and develop their country is quenched. Industry is rendered dependent upon the (former) imperial masters, science and knowledge are not allowed to become productive and primary, and imitation is established firmly so that freedom of study and new research will gain no foothold.

• People remain in limbo, totally dependent upon foreigners. They are silenced and deluded by such empty phrases as progress, Westernization, civilization, and the like.

• All state institutions are penetrated by foreign aid, which is in reality no more than massive financial and cultural debt. Imports, exports, and development are wholly controlled by or conducted according to the exploiter's interests.

• While no effort is spared to keep the masses in poverty, the ruling classes become used to extravagant spending and luxury. The resulting communal dissatisfaction causes people to fight with each other, making them even more vulnerable to outside influence and intervention.

• Mental and spiritual activity is stifled, and so educational institutions tend to imitate foreign ways, ideas, and subjects. Industry is reduced to assembling prefabricated parts. The army tends to become a dumping ground for imperialist countries, for its purchases of expensive hardware ensure the continued well-being of the latter's industries.

We wonder if it is really rational to liken the Islamic conquest to imperialism, which brought disastrous consequences wherever it went.

The victory of Muslim armies never caused a great exodus of people from their homes and countries, nor has it prevented people from working by putting chains on their hands and feet. Muslims left the indigenous people free to follow their own way and beliefs, and protected them in exactly the same way it protected Muslims. Muslim governors and rulers were loved and respected for their justice and integrity. Equality, peace, and security were established between different communities.

If it had been otherwise, would the Christians of Damascus have gathered in their church and prayed for a Muslim victory against Christian Byzantium, which was seeking to regain control of the city? If Muslims had not been so respectful of non-Muslims' rights, could they have maintained security for centuries in a state so vast that it took more than 6 months to travel from one end to another?

One cannot help but admire those Muslim rulers and the dynamic energy that made them so, when we compare them to present-day rulers. Despite every modern means of transportation, telecommunications, and military back-up, they cannot maintain peace and security in even a small area of land.

Today, many scholars and intellectuals who realize the value of Islam's dynamics, which brought about Islam's global sovereignty and which will form the basis of our eternal existence in the Hereafter, expressly tell us that Muslims should reconsider and regain them. While conquering lands, the Muslims also were conquering their inhabitants' hearts. They were received with love, respect, and obedience. No people who accepted Islam ever complained that they were culturally prevented or ruined by the arrival of Muslims. The contrast with the reality of Christian Europe's conquests is stark and obvious.

Early Muslims evaluated the potential of knowledge and art in the conquered lands. They prepared and provided every opportunity for local scholars and scientists to pursue their work. Regardless of their religion, Muslims held the people in high regard and honored them in the community. They never did what the descendants of the British colonialists in America did to the American Indians or in Australia to the Aborigines, the French to the Algerians, or the Dutch to the Indonesians. On the contrary, they treated the conquered people as if they were from their own people and religion, as if they were brothers and sisters.

Caliph 'Umar once told a Coptic Egyptian who had been beaten by a Makkan noble to beat him just as he had been beaten. When 'Umar heard that 'Amr ibn al-'As had hurt the feelings of a native Egyptian, he rebuked him: "Human beings were born free. Why do you enslave them?" As he went to receive the keys to Masjid al-Aqsa, 'Umar visited and talked to priests in different churches in Palestine. Once he was in a church when it was time to pray. The priest repeatedly asked him to pray inside the church, but 'Umar refused, saying: "You may be harassed by other Christians later on because you let me pray in the church." He left the church's premises and prayed outside on the ground.

These are but a few examples to indicate how Muslims were sensitive, tolerant, just, and humane toward other people. Such an attitude of genuine tolerance has not been reached by any other people or society.

[zukkacore]

Whitewashing in AtlaLok: the Western & Christian Influence on s2 of LoK

Ok, so i’m not a big brained expert on all things indigenous or even all things asian but I do think bryke's christian & western worldview seeps so far into season 2 of LoK that i think out of every season it’s by far the most unsalvageable out of everything they’ve ever done in the Atlaverse and is a very insidious kind of whitewashing. I know that sounds hefty but here’s what I mean

For the record, I’m a mixed filipino person & while there is religious diversity among filipinos, more than i think ppl realize or that the catholic majority is willing to let on, when we were colonized a large percent of the population was indeed forced to convert to catholicism so that’s my background, & i don’t know everything about taoism or the what the tai chi symbol represents but the way Bryke westernize the concept of Yin and Yang is honestly… kinda bewildering. They get so many details about yin & yang wrong?? & Yes, it’s possible they could’ve been trying to create their own lore that differentiates itself from the traditional depictions of Yin & Yang, but in the end i think it doesn’t matter b/c the lore they invent is a very obviously western interpretation of the concept of “balance”.

The most important and honestly worst change they make is that concepts of “light” and “dark” are completely oversimplified and flattened to represent basically “good” and “evil” (which, the light and dark side are a bit more complex than representing just “peace/order vs. Chaos” like the show might imply but we don’t even have time for that, but is funny how they get the genders wrong. Like. Traditionally, light is usually coded masculine and dark is usually coded feminine, but never mind that, that’s just a tangent). This really simplifies the nuance of the s2 conflict and makes it a lot less interesting, not to mention just—misrepresents a very real religious philosophy?

And for the record, a piece of media going out of its way to do "the show, don’t tell" thing of stating in the text that “oh, light and dark are not the same thing as good vs. evil” without actually displaying that difference through the writing is just lip service, and its poor writing. A lot of pieces of media do this, but i think s2 of LoK is particularly egregious. The point of this philosophy of balance is that you aren’t supposed to moralize about which side is “good” or “bad”, or even really which one is “better” or “worse”. Even if the show states the concepts are not interchangeable, if the media in question continually frames one side (and almost always its “chaos/darkness”) as the “evil” side, then the supposed distinction between “light vs. dark” and “good vs. evil” is made moot. And besides the occasional offhand remark that implies more nuance without actually delivering, Vaatu is basically stock evil incarnate.

This depiction of conflict as “defeating a singular representation of total evil” isn’t solely christian, but it is definitely present in christian beliefs. And I think those kinds of stories can be done well, but in this case, in a world filled entirely of asian, Pacific Islander & inuit poc, to me it feels like a form of subtle whitewashing? B/c you’re taking characters that probably wouldn’t have christian beliefs, and imposing a christian worldview onto them. Not to mention removes what could have been an interesting conflict of any nuance and intrigue… and honestly, sucks, because I do think s2 has the bones of an interesting idea, mostly b/c there are potential themes that could’ve been explored—I know this b/c they were already explored in a movie that exists, and it’s name is Princess Mononoke! It has a lot of the same elements—tension between spirits and humanity, destruction of nature in the face of rapid industrialization, moral ambiguity where there are no easy or fast answers and both sides have sympathetic and understandable points of view. (Unsurprising b/c Miyazaki is Japanese & Japanese culture has a lot of influence from Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism, etc)

Bryke’s western & christian worldview also totally seeps into the characterization of Unalaq, the antagonist of the season which is a real problem. I’m in the middle of rewatching s2 right now and what struck me is that….. Unalaq comes across kinda ecofash AND fundamentalist which is 1) seems like an odd combination but maybe it really isn’t? 2) i think is a really tacky choice considering that the water tribes take the majority of its inspiration from inuit and polynesian indigenous cultures.

I honestly forgot abt this but Unalaq gives this whole lame speech abt how the SWT & humans as a whole suck b/c of their lack of spiritual connection & it was really eerie to me b/c "humans are morally bankrupt and they must be wiped out/punished for their destruction of the environment" is total ecofash logic bc it blames all of humanity for damage caused by those in power—be they capitalists or whoever. It’s a worldview that blames the poor and powerless for something they have no say in, and has real eugenics undertones bc with every implication of culling, there has to be someone who appoints themself the job of culling—of who is and isn’t worthy of death.

This belief also struck me as......... kinda christian in it's logic as well which is WEIRD b/c once again........ their cultural inspirations are DEFINITELY not christian...... The whole "man is inherently evil and must spend their whole lifetime repenting/must face punishment for it’s wickedness" thing and the way that christianity treats humanity as born with original sin or inherently corrupt—as well as above or separate from nature are really stronger undertones in Unalaqs worldview....... which isn't really an indigenous way or thinking.

I'm generalizing of course but from what I have seen from the indigenous people who speak on this is that (feel free to point out or correct me if i’m mostly generalizing abt Native Americans and not other indigenous cultures & there are some differences here) is that while native tribes are not monolithic and do vary wildly, there are a lot of common threads and that reverence and respect toward nature and your surroundings is an important tenant of indigenous beliefs. (I specifically remember the hosts on All My Relations saying essentially that we humans are a part of nature, we are not separate from it, and humans are not superior to animals—I’m paraphrasing but that is the gist of it)

So, yeah, I think it’s just really distasteful to write an indigenous character who is characterized in a way that’s way more in line with a christian fundamentalist & wants to bring about a ragnarok style apocalypse end of the world when that isn’t really a tenant of our beliefs? (btw, the way the end of the world is framed is also kinda fucked up? If i were being charitable, I could say that maybe s2’s storyline is a corruption of the hindu depiction of the end of the world, but even that sounds mildly insulting for reasons I won’t get into b/c i am Not The Expert On Hinduism. I will say that once again, the framing of the concept is all wrong, the show views the idea of apocalypse through a very western lense)

To wrap this up, I think the depiction of Unalaq could *maybe* work b/c he is the antagonist, so someone who strays from the NWT cultural tradition in a way that makes his view of morality more black and white wouldn’t be a *horrible* idea for the bad guy of the season. Especially because the introduction of capitalism to the A:TLA universe could probably cause a substantial shifts to… idk, everything i guess, b/c capitalism is so corrosive. Like. Sometimes people are just traitors. I do think it would be interesting to portray the way capitalism manifests in a society without white christians. Like… I do think there are a lot of ways secular christianity and capitalism are interlinked. But Unalaq is not portrayed as an outsider, he’s portrayed as hyper-traditionalist in a way that’s vilified? I guess rightly so, he does suck, but it’s just hard to conceptualize how a person like Unalaq comes to exist in the first place. In the end, I don’t really think it makes sense, in a world without white people, I don’t really know where this introduction of black and white christian morality would even come from in the avatar world?

TL;DR, Bryke applying western christian morality & world views to non-white characters in a world where white people have NEVER existed to affect our beliefs is a subtle form of white-washing. It imposes simplified “good vs. evil” world-views & cultural beliefs onto its characters. Any attempt to represent or even just integrate our actual beliefs into the A:tla lore are twisted and misrepresented is a way that is disrespectful and saps out any nuance or intrigue from the story, and alienates the people its supposed to represent from recognizing themselves within the final product. And Finally, on a more superficial story level, these writing choices clashe with the already existing world of ATLA--and is honestly just poor world-building.

[theculturedmarxist]

By Anis Shivani, whose recent political books include Why Did Trump Win?, Confronting American Fascism, and A Radical Human Rights Solution to the Immigration Problem. He is the author of many critically-acclaimed books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, including, most recently, A History of the Cat in Nine Chapters or Less

Forcing the March 17 primaries in Florida, Arizona and Illinois to go forward, despite reports of exceedingly low turnout throughout the day (which miraculously and quite expectedly turned into higher turnouts than 2016 in both Florida and Arizona by the time the final reporting came in), was the last straw. This farce occurred despite the Ohio governor postponing their primary on the same day. This slap in the face of voters was then compounded by the even worse parody of the April 7 Wisconsin primary being allowed to go ahead at the peak of the pandemic, with polling stations vastly reduced (from 180 to just 5 in Milwaukee alone) and absentee ballots often not received or recorded, while maintaining the pretense that somehow all of this constituted a legitimate election.

In the middle of the pandemic, with the entire nation considering a de facto lockdown and many communities already there, the DNC was hell-bent on driving the final nail in the coffin of the youth movement, even though the Sanders campaign had suspended GOTV efforts, for obvious reasons, and even if Biden never really had a presence in any of the latest round of states.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, where many polling stations were shut down, in-person turnout was reportedly higher by 10,000 people than in 2016! And that’s just one representative example from the March 17 primary states. Furthermore, the DNC threatened the remaining primary states against postponing their elections for health reasons, preempting moves similar to those made by Louisiana, Georgia and others. The stage is being set for a virtual convention, followed by the possible resurgence of the illness in the fall to orchestrate a virtual general election. Social distancing has come in handily as the most convenient antidote to political solidarity. Biden has already made it clear that he’s not the least bit interested in making any real overtures toward bereft progressives, just as Hillary wasn’t after her forceful seizure of the nomination in 2016.

When they stopped counting the vote in Iowa, depriving the leading candidate of essential momentum, it was a clear indication that once again the party establishment would do everything to manipulate results in favor of yet another neoliberal avatar bound to lose to Trump in an ignominious landslide—which is actually what the Democratic party establishment wants, four more years of their demonized opponent rather than the tiniest return toward social decency. Nothing about the coronavirus changes this essential dynamic.

That’s how bad the Democratic party has become, blatantly tipping the scales toward their favored outcome in order to maintain oligarchic control, and they expect us to Vote Blue No Matter Who?

We’re asked to believe that the candidate who supported ordinary people at the grassroots level all across the country, by lending crucial support to strikesand direct action, spawning innumerable viable candidacies at the local and state levels, and regularly summoning many thousands of people to populist rallies calling for basic human decency, was easily defeated by a cognitively challenged Wall Street shill who has backed every economic and foreign policy barbarity of the last 50 years, and who cannot be put in a small gym with a few dozen people without descending into furious spittles of verbal aggression.

We’re supposed to trust that the candidate with a pervasive national presence for the last five years was suddenly, in a matter of 72 hours, annihilated by the geezer who had zero volunteers, staff or advertising in any of the states he miraculously turned around by 20, 30 or 40 points.

It’s time to put an end to this sham, because we can’t accede to this level of duplicity without ourselves becoming complicit in the madness. Trump essentially terminated the neoliberal Republican party in one election cycle, but because the Democratic party establishment is more entrenched and dangerous, the prime carrier of the neoliberal virus to which the Republicans are just accessories, it is the more difficult enemy to beat.

To recap some of what we have seen from the great minds trying to herd us all into submission toward Hillary 2.0, the dementia version:

·        Herd 29 Trojan horses into the race, all pretending to be some version of or alternative to the clear ideological victor from 2016, and all of them unmasking themselves at appropriate stages of the race (three of them at the last moment before South Carolina) in order to maximize damage to one candidate alone.

·        Insist on a series of parodic debates orchestrating various degrees of hostility toward the lone populist, and focusing outlandish attention on marginal candidates rather than giving the front-runner his due.

·        Engineer the Iowa vote-counting catastrophe without anyone taking responsibility, and DNC chair Tom Perez not only not resigning but feeling empowered to engender further chaos.

·        Repeat all the instances of voter suppression in close simulation of all the 2016 states, as if to thumb their noses at any semblance of voting integrity.

·        Be part of closely coordinated media campaigns harping on electability, centrism and moderation, to the point where the liberal media (the Times, CNN, MSNBC) become indistinguishable from campaign opponents and the party apparatus. For the first three months of the year, the New York Times turned into a chorus of single-minded “Never Bernie” propaganda, exceeding even their “Never Trump” loathing of four years ago.

·        Recruit Barack Obama to save Biden’s hide when he remained the last one standing, with the same ominous figures from 2016 (Jim “there will be no free education” Clyburn, Harry “get the culinary workers to caucus for Hillary” Reid, and others) reprising to the finest detail the same walk-on bits they played last time.

·        Keep changing debate rules, by permitting entry to a last-minute white knight in the form of Michael Bloomberg, and the more recent rule change to prevent Tulsi Gabbard the opportunity of taking down Biden.

·        Keep the option of cheating the delegate leader at the convention alive throughout the campaign, rather than stamping it out as a no-go in order to preserve the credibility of primary voting.

·        Express no displeasure at clear voter suppression in Texas and California, or curiosity about strange exit poll versus final results in Virginia, Massachusetts, Maine and Minnesota, which showed unprecedented swings toward Biden.

Is this enough manipulation for you?

Sanders more than abided by party decorum for the last four years. Ever since he endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later yielded to Chuck Schumer’s request to join the senate leadership, he has been the most faithful of team players, observing every nicety and going along with the party line to the extent that there is no direct contradiction with his principles. The least he could have expected in return was a token amount of fair play, to let his social welfare philosophy compete on equal grounds with neoliberalism, yet this was vehemently denied.

At this point, is he obligated to play by the rules? Are we, if we are to draw obvious conclusions from the evidence at hand?

The Democratic party would much rather see Trump reelected by nominating a flawed neoliberal candidate with as much baggage and who is as associated with the recent Clinton failure as is Biden. Think about it: the party we’re supposed to get behind actually prefers fascism over the mildest concessions to social democracy, in order that the entire power structure might persist unchanged. For the sake of denying the slightest help to poor, debt-burdened, sick and unemployed people, this party would rather have untrammeled white nationalism, immigrants in concentration camps, and accelerated income inequality, as though we could sustain any more of it than we already have.

To defeat a handful of broadly popular proposals to address economic inequality, the Democratic party facilitated the entry of a former Republican mayor who administered the harassment of Muslims and minorities after 9/11, who gave over his city to unaccountable developers and oligarchs, and who happens to be the world’s ninth-richest person—not just a billionaire, of the kind Sanders is railing against, but one 60 times over.

And when that didn’t fly, because of said plutocrat’s manifest misogyny, racism and class privilege, they went back to their original choice, the freewheeling politico Wall Street loves to love, the senator from MBNA, the secret manipulator behind every bad trade deal and Wall Street giveaway and incarceration mania and war of choice of the last 50 years. The party Sanders has chosen to be loyal to knows that either of those candidates, the Manhattan multi-billionaire or the Delaware political enabler, would handily lose to Trump, but the idea is to keep playing the game, to engage us all in a performance that pretends to be even-handed. We wait patiently for health care and public education and a living wage, while we die in the meantime.

The party of death has demonstrated again and again in this primary campaign that its sole objective is to discredit left populism, even if it means abetting the growing dominance of fascist populism. The party we’re supposed to fall behind is the real facilitator, not the Republican party, because it is actively preventing an electable alternative to Trump, as shown in all the polls of the last five years.

The “woke” wing of the Democratic party—which is identical to the neoliberal wing in acting all high-and-mighty toward working-class folks, otherwise known as deplorables—precisely duplicated its machinations from 2016, when Hillary Clinton was said to be the victim of the angry Bernie Bros, a more ridiculous myth than which was never heard in a presidential campaign.

The woke crowd, who universally refused to support Sanders (whose campaign is a sincere homage to the Poor People’s Campaign run by Martin Luther King, Jr., or FDR’s economic bill of rights, or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program), got behind a series of identity politics-driven candidates, culminating in the last one to leave the race, who immediately got busy gaslighting the Sanders movement for its alleged misogyny. The woke wing was a fraud all along, they never did care to help actual working people with actual debilities. We knew it in 2016 and we know it even better now.

All the fallacies the Democratic party has exploited over five decades reached an extreme form of hypocrisy in the 2020 campaign. The least electable candidates were professionally sold as the most electable ones. Extremism on behalf of inequality and deprivation of basic human rights was packaged as moderate centrism. Sustained media campaigns were run against anyone questioning these straitjackets of thought, labeling us enemies of the people for wanting to help the people.

Emerging from his year-long sloth, Biden made it his mission to trash every element of Sanders’s “political revolution,” even in its most benign demands for a level playing field, which was the sum of the political gangsterism he so adeptly deployed at the March 15 debate, knowing he had the full backing of the party in shunning any move toward the kind of universal programs young voters demand.

Would Sanders supporters not be justified in abandoning this zombie party once and for all, if we do not end up with a fair electoral outcome, as it looks like we’re not going to while this primary fizzles out to an uncertain close? Are we not morally obligated to look for an alternative beyond, past and around this failed shell of a party?

In 2004 and again in 2016 they ran empty, fake, invisible campaigns once the primaries were over, with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton literally disappearing from the campaign trail for weeks at a time. They’d rather have Bush reelected then, and Trump reelected now, than raise the minimum wage to $15, make public college free again, or do something to save the planet from its runaway environmental crisis. While Sanders was responding like FDR II to address the public health emergency, Biden was nowhere to be seen.

We learned during this campaign that the all-time great woke candidate beloved of the wine cave class, namely the president upon whose nostalgic fumes we wish to resurrect a ghostly figure, is more willing than anyone else to stop the first stirrings of social democracy and do everything he can to maintain the chokehold of neoliberalism or neofascism.

The clarion call issued by the “Democratic” president of surveillance, wars, deportation and budget cuts appealed to the lowest instincts of career politicians in South Carolina and across the country as they  forcefully jerked us back to where we were supposed to stay. This former president, like the recent troop of candidates, is explicitly against Medicare for All, and every other basic demand this moment of social distress cries out for. Biden and his cronies in the party are willing to go no further than trying to add a public option to the Affordable Care Act; even after the virus escalation, universal programs of the kind Sanders’s movement calls for are nowhere within range of their consideration.

The Democratic party wants to crush the joy and life out of youth, pretending that they don’t come out to vote, and that the entire machinery of politics should be aimed at keeping the country delicately balanced between one half meritocrats and one half deplorables, appealing to a minute number of antiquated voters in Ohio and Florida in order to maintain policy stasis. They gaslight us into thinking that actual social justice aspirants of diverse races and backgrounds, rather than the fake white woke influencers, are the real problem because of our hostility. They impose “party unity” and discipline in the service of continuing the very power structure that has given us unsustainable debt and unaffordability of basic human conveniences. When confronted by enthusiastic participation in Democratic primaries, mainly the responsibility of one Bernard Sanders of Vermont, they counter with the embodiment of the darkest hells of plutocracy, namely Michael Bloomberg. As expected, they have already used the coronavirus crisis to shut down any remaining trace of political idealism, because in this moment of emergency we cannot expect anything better than to bow down to the former president’s faithful old lapdog.

The Democratic party of 2020, after more than 50 years of succumbing to a murderous form of capitalism, is not just a flawed vehicle for any sort of political renaissance. Why should we legitimize them by leaping around their phantom carousel, wearing colorful costumes and clown hats on the fairgrounds, when they won’t give us a ticket, when they tear it up if we do have one, and when there’s always a guard hanging around to bash our skulls in case we utter a cry of joy at some little win?

They are all but compelling us to leave the party. Will we have the imagination to do so at last in a mass exodus?

[kasumiyoshizawas]

What To Play While You wait For The Next Persona Game

Posted this on r/PERSoNA earlier today. Enjoy!

So it's going to be a while for the next Persona game to drop, and while you could spend all your time replaying Persona 5 or its predecessors and their spinoffs, you could try something else as well. Here are a few games that really help me scratch that Persona itch.

Also reblog with your favorite games to get through the Persona hiatuses.

What Do You Like Most About Persona?

"Everything!"

You Should Play: Blue Reflection

Genre: JRPG

Most Accessible Game: Blue Reflection

Platform: PS4, Steam

Price: $59.99 + Costume DLC ($89.99 Season Pass)

Blue Reflection stars a high school girl, Hinako, who used to do ballet, but was forced to quit after a leg injury. She soon finds herself recruited by two sisters, Yuzu and Lime to travel to another world and fight the manifestations of people's out-of-control emotions.

Sound familiar?

While the tone isn't exactly the same, as BR is more down-to-earth than Persona, the story-telling and flow of the game very much matches Persona's. The combat may not be as in-depth as Persona's, but it's still turn-based JRPG combat. The world itself is also gorgeously rendered and lovingly designed. And who knows? You may fall in love with these girls in the very same way you fell in love with the cast of your favorite Persona game.

"The Combat!"

You Should Play: Atelier

Genre: Crafting JPRG

Most Accessible Game: Atelier Rorona DX

Platform: Switch and PS4

Price: $39.99 OR 3 game bundle with the next two games in the Arland Trilogy for $89.99

The Atelier series is very popular in Japan, and has existed for about as long as Persona. Your main character is an Alchemist, a person who can create items from other items. You spend most of your time going out to harvest ingredients and create items for your lovable group of clients, and usually solve a mystery along the way. Ever wanted to be the shopkeeper who shows up at the end of the super-hard dungeon? Now's your chance.

Like Persona, your party member's abilities are limited. Instead, to be effective in combat, you must create weapons and healing items to use in dungeons against your foes. You can be a super buff healer, or you can rain cannon fire down on the arena, it all depends on what you want to create.

Atelier Rorona is about Rorona, a young girl who is suddenly put in charge of her teacher's alchemy shop just as the kingdom was about to shut it down. It's your job to prove that alchemy is still worth something in an era of technology.

Also, some of the characters may sound familiar to fans of Persona 3 and 4...

"The Characters!"

You Should Play: Fire Emblem

Genre: Tactical JRPG

Most Accessible Game: Fire Emblem Awakening

Platform: 3DS

Price: $39.99 + Map DLC ($6 to $6.50 per pack)

Fire Emblem is a series of tactical JRPGs for Nintendo Systems that started in the mid-nineties. Despite their deep combat mechanics and interesting storytelling, their sales declined until 2012, with the release of Fire Emblem Awakening.

Awakening is a story about family, time, and fate. It has its own twists carried on the backs of its lovable and memorable cast of characters. As the Tactician of the Shepherds, you can get to know everyone, from the crown prince Chrom and his spunky sister Lissa, to studious and hyperfocused Miriel, to the sweet-talking thief Gaius, to the strong Panne, last of her kind...I could go on really. Each of the characters stands out in their own way, and like Persona, romance is on the table.

"The Aesthetics!"

You Should Play: Danganronpa

Genre: Murder Mystery Visual Novel

Most Accessible Game: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Platform: Steam

Price: $19.99

Danganronpa is a divisive franchise. You either love it or you hate it. However, one thing can be agreed on: the games themselves look crazy cool.

Each character has a memorable design and quirky personality, and the more you hang out with them, the more you learn what's underneath their surface. It almost makes you forget that you're all supposed to kill each other.

You're trapped in this school/island/town until you kill someone else...and get away with it. After a body is discovered, the whole class is put on trial. If you're found out, you're executed, in a brutally ironic way.

Have fun!

Now I know that not everyone is super on board with complete genre or tone swaps, so if you answer this question, I can help you out even more.

What's Your Favorite Spinoff?

"I Hate The Spinoffs!"

You Should Play: Shin Megami Tensei

Genre: RPG

Most Accessible Game: Shin Megami Tensei IV

Platform: 3DS

Price: $39.99 + DLC ($1.00-$2.99)

Persona games themselves are a spinoff of this franchise, one of the original JRPG franchises and the original "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" game. Nowadays, while Persona is more popular, SMT has quietly been improving its mechanics and storytelling, to weave a tale of a bleak world where human survivors must fight back against demons, with demons of their own.

And at the end of the day, will you bring Order to this lawless world? Or will you let it descend into Chaos? The choice is yours.

"Persona 4 Arena!"

You Should Play: BlazBlue

Genre: Fighting

Most Accessible Game: BlazBlue Crosstag Battle

Platform: Switch, Steam

Price: $59.99 + Character DLC (All-In-One Season Pass is $19.99, additional colors packs are $2.99 each)

Story may not be your thing, but quirky characters and fun designs and weapons may be right up your alley. If so, let me introduce you to BlazBlue by Arc System Works, who helped create Persona 4's Arena games.

The writing is laugh-out-loud funny, and all the characters (mostly) hate each other after years and years of lore and generations of feuds. What better dynamic for a 2D fighting game?

And if you're still not on board with the mainline games, try Crosstag Battle, which features characters from BlazBlue, UnderNight In-Birth, Persona, and RWBY, along with the recently joined Arcana Heart! It's easy to pick up, even for fighting game beginners, and you're sure to find someone you like.

"Persona Q!"

You Should Play: Etrian Odyssey

Genre: Dungeon-crawling JPRG

Most Accessible Game: Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan

Platform: 3DS

Price: $59.99

This is unfortunately the only series on my list I have not played. However, I would be remiss to not mention it at all.

If you loved the dungeon-crawling shenanigans of Persona Q, you'll be happy to find that it was created as a spinoff of Etrian Odyssey, which deploys very similar mechanics combat-wise.

"Persona Dancing!"

You Should Play: Project DIVA

Genre: Rhythm

Most Accessible Game: Project DIVA Future Tone Prelude

Platform: PS4

Price: Free (2 song demo) + DLC (Future Tone Bundle gives 220 songs for $39.99, Future Tone Season Pass gives the rest of DLC for $19.99)

Say what you will about the Persona Dancing games, but nothing feels better than getting a Full Combo on a song you've spent hours on.

Project DIVA looks are your P5D King Crazy's and scoffs. It laughs at your supposed "skill". It wants you to put your skills to the true test in its true series.

Make no mistake, it may be a game about Vocaloid...but its beatmaps get CRAZY hard. However, it's also crazy addictive. With hundreds of songs, outfits, and accessories, everything can be changed and feel brand new. And you'll need that change in monotony, because you'll play songs over and over again just to chase that 100%.

"I just want Persona 5 Scramble already!"

You Should Play: Warriors Spinoffs

Genre: Action Combat

Most Accessible Game: Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition

Platform: Switch

Price: $59.99

So you're waiting for Scramble? You want to rip through Shadows like butter?

Then pick up a Warriors game and get swinging!

I'm recommending the spinoffs over the originals because, if you know how their home games (Hyrule and Fire Emblem) play, you'll be able to grasp how integrated the mechanics of their originals and the mechanics of Warriors fully mesh together. Also, Hyrule Definitive comes with all DLC, so definite bonus points there.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Insurgent Ferocity: The Playful Violence of Rebellion

“We don’t just talk about violence; it is our element, our everyday fate...the conditions we are forced to live in...”

Os Cangacieros

Social control is impossible without violence. Society produces systems of rationaized violence to socialize individuals — to make them into useful resources for society, while some of these systems, such as the military, the plolice and the penal system can still be viewed separately due to the blatant harshness of their violence, for the most part these systems have become so interconnected and so pervasive that they act as a single totality — the totality which is the society in which we live.

This systemic violence exists mostly as a constant underlying threat — a subtle, even boring, everyday terrorism which incuces a fear of stepping out of line. The signs and orders from “superiors” which threaten us with punishment or poverty, the armed, uniformed thugs who are there to “protect and serve” (huh!?!), the barrage of headlines about wars, torture, serial killers and streeet gangs, all immerse us in an atmosphere of subtle, underlying, rationalized social violence which causes us to fear and repress our own violent passions.

In light of the systematic social violence that surrounds us, it’s no surprise that people are fooled into viewing all violence as a single, monolithic entity rather than as specific acts or ways of relating. The system of violence produced by society does become a monolith which acts to perpetuate itself.

In reaction to this monolithic system of violence, the “pathology of pacifism” develops. Unable to see beyond social catagories, the pacifist creates a false dichotomy, limiting the question of violence to the ethical/intellectual choice between as acceptance of violence as a monolithic system or the total rejection of violence. But this choice exists only in the realm of worthless abstactions, because in the world in which we actually live, pacifism and systematic violence depend upon each other. Pacifism is an ideaology which demands total social peace as its ultimate goal. But total social peace would require the complete suppression of the individual passions that create individual incidences of violence — and that would require total social control. Total social control is only possible through the use of the constant threat of the police, prison, therapy, social censure, scarcity or war. So the pacifist ideal requires a monolithic system of violence and reflects the social contradiction inherent in the necessity that authority strive to maintain peace in order to maintain a smoothly running social system, but can only do so by maintaining a rationalized system of violence.

The rational system of violence not only perpetuates itself, but also evokes responses, often in the form of blind lashings out by enraged individuals, which the system then manipulates into justifications for its own continual existence, and occasionally in the form of consciously rebellious violence. The passionate violence that is suppressed turns in on the one feeling it, becoming the the slow-killing, underlying violence of stress and anxiety. It is evident in the millions of little pinpricks of humiliation that pass between people on the streets and in the public places of every city — looks of disgust and hostility between strangers, and the verbal battle of wits exchanging guilt and blame between supposed friends. This is the subtlest and most total form of rationalised violence; everyone conforms out of fear of each others’ disgust. This is the subtle form of violence practiced by pacifists.

“I do not dream of a gentle revolution. My passion runs to the violence of supersession, the ferocity of a life that renounces nothing.” —Raoul Vaneigem

Those of us who are fighting for the freedom to create our lives for ourselves need to reject both sides of the choice society offers between pacifism and systematic violence, because this choice is an attempt to socialize our rebellion. Instead we can create our own options, developing a playful and passionate chaos of action and relating which may express itself at times with intense and ferocious violence, at times with the gentlest tenderness, or whatever way our passions and whims move us in the particular moment. Both the rejection of violence and the systemization of violence are an attack on our passions and uniqueness.

Violence is an aspect of animal interaction and observation of violence among animals belies several generalizations. Violence among animals does not fit into the formula of social darwinism; there is no perpetual war of all against all. Rather at specific moments under particular circumstances, individual acts of violence flare up and then fade when the moments pass. There is no systematic violence in the wild, but, instead, momentary expressions of specific passions. This exposes one of the major fallacies of pacifist ideology. Violence, in itself, does not perpetuate violence. The social system of rationalized violence, of which pacifism is an integral part, perpetuates itself as a system.

Against the system of violence, a non-systematized, passionate, playful violence is the appropriate response. Violent play is very common among animals and children. Chasing, wrestling and pouncing upon a playmate, breaking, smashing and tearing apart things are all aspects of play that is free of rules. The conscious insurgent plays this way as well, but with real targets and with the intention of causing real damage. The targets of this ferocious play in the present society would mainly be institutions, commodities, social roles and cultural icons, but the human representatives of these institutions can also be targets — especially where they present an immediate threat to anyone’s freedom to create their life as they desire.

Rebellion has never been merely a matter of self-defense. In itself, self-defense is probably best achieved by accepting the status quo of its reform. Rebellion is the aggressive, dangerous, playful attack by free-spirited individuals against society. Refusing a system of violence, refusing an organized, militarized form of armed struggle, allows the violence of insurgents to retain a high level of invisibility. It cannot be readily understood by the authorities and brought under their control. Its insurgent nature may even go undetected by the authorities as it eats away at the foundations of social control. From the rationalized perspective of authority, this playful violence will often appear utterly random, but actually is in harmony with the desires of the insurgent. This playful violence of rebellion kills “inadvertently as (one) strides out happily without looking back.”

The playful violence of insurgence has no room for regret. Regret weakens the force of blows and makes us cautious and timid. But regret only comes in when violence is dealt with as a moral question, and for insurgents who are fighting for the freedom to live their desires; morality is just another form of social control. Wherever rebel violence has manifested playfully, regret seems absurd. In riots (other than police riots) and spontaneous uprisings — as well as in small-scale vandalism — a festive attitude seems to be evident. There is an intense joy, even euphoria, in the release of violent passions that have been pent up for so long. Bashing in the skull of society as we experience it on a daily basis is an intense pleasure, and one to be savored, not repudiated in shame, guilt or regret. Some may object that such an attitude could cause our violence to get out of hand, but an excess of insurgent violence is not something that we need to fear. As we break down our repression and begin to free our passions, certainly our gestures, our actions and our entire way of being are bound to become increasingly expansive and all we do we will seem to do to excess. our generosity will seem excessive and our violence will seem excessive. Unrepressed, expansive individuals squander in all things. Riots and insurrections have failed to get beyond temporary release, not because of excess, but because people hold themselves back. People have not trusted their passions. They have feared the expansiveness, the squandering excess of their own dreams and desires. So they have given up or turned their fight over to new authorities, new systemizers of violence. But how can insurgent violence ever be truly excessive when there is no institution of social control, no aspect of authority, no icon of culture that should not be smashed to powder — and that geefully?

If what we want is a world in which each of us can create our own lives free of constraints, relating with each other as we desire rather than in accordance with socially defined roles, we have to recognize that, at times, violence will flare and that there is nothing wrong with that. Fullness of the passions includes full and expansive expressions of hatred and rage — and these are violent emotions. Though this violence can be used tactically it will not be systematic. Though it can be intelligent, it will not be rationalized. And under no circumstances is it self-perpetuating, because it is individual and temporary, spending itself fully in its free, passionate expression. Neither moralistic non-violence nor the systematic violence of military struggle can break down authority since both require some form of authority. Only the expansive and passionate violence of insurgent individuals playing alone or with each other has any chance of destroying this society...

Forward everyone!

And with arms and hearts,

Speech and pen, Dagger and rifle,

Irony and blasphemy,

Theft, poisoning and fire,

Let us make...war on society.

-- Dejaque

[felicia-cat-hardy]

How The May 2021 Full Moon Will Affect Each Zodiac Sign

If April showers bring May flowers, then the May 2021 full moon (also known fittingly as this year’s Flower Moon) is sure to inspire all sorts of blossoming changes in our lives. Rising on the morning of May 26, this lunation is both a supermoon and the first eclipse of the year — meaning it has the power to affect major turning points, revelations, and shifts in our paths. The chaotic eclipse energy is buzzing with unpredictability, so you’ll want to get in the know about exactly how the May 2021 full moon eclipse will affect your zodiac sign.

This lunar eclipse takes place in the fiery and free-spirited zodiac sign of Sagittarius, which sparks our desire for adventure, travel, and spiritual expansion. It asks us to step back and assess our lives from a wider angle instead of getting so lost in the details that we lose sight of the big picture. Eclipses can be turbulent astrological periods, throwing sudden twists and turns into our lives — so having a broader perspective can help us integrate whatever the universe sends our way. Thankfully, as the mutable fire sign of the bunch, Sagittarius’ energy will encourage an optimistic approach and help us to embrace this fresh sense of direction.

This supermoon is also forming a tough T-square aspect with expansive planet Jupiter, which gives us a “go big or go home” attitude and makes us want to push the limits. However, given the unsteadiness brought on by the eclipse cycle, we’re better off leaning toward moderation instead of excess — no matter how tempted we are to go over the top with our emotions, decisions, or reactions to things.

Here’s how the May 2021 full supermoon will affect you, based on your zodiac sign, so you know what to expect when the year’s first eclipse finally hits.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Aries (March 21 - April 19)

Look out for sudden endings or revelations when it comes to anything related to a higher-minded journey, Aries — whether that’s related to school, travel, or even a spiritual quest. You may find yourself connecting with a new mentor or perhaps breaking away from a field of interest you thought you wanted to pursue. The changes may feel destabilizing, but trust that you know what’s best for you.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Taurus (April 20 - May 20)

As an earth sign, you’re naturally focused on tangible matters, Taurus — but this eclipse is asking you to pay equally close attention to your energetic belongings. Are there promises you’ve made but haven’t kept, or debts you’ve been putting off paying? These imbalances within our relationship may be invisible, but they’re still as heavy as steel, so free yourself of the burden.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Gemini (May 21 - June 20)

Partnerships in your life are changing right now, Gemini, so be ready show up authentically and have some open-minded conversations with the people close to you. Relationships often require us to step outside of our comfort zones, even if we feel like staying in one place — so be willing to go with the flow and challenge yourself in order to maintain your closest connections.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Cancer (June 21 - July 22)

You’ve been in a spiritual haze lately, Cancer, putting more focus on your subconscious fantasies than your daily tasks. But this eclipse is shaking up your productivity levels and restructuring your priority list, so be ready to get real with your responsibilities. Taking care of yourself means striking a balance between your dreams and your reality, so save some time and energy for both.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Leo (July 23 - Aug. 22)

This eclipse is hitting the most romantic sector of your chart, Leo, so don’t be surprised if a hot date suddenly pops up on your radar or if you hit a turning point within a steamy fling. A friend could turn into a lover now, or a lover could turn into a partner — but either way, the influx of exciting energy in your love life will leave you flooded with inspiration that’ll shine through into other areas of your life, too.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Virgo (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22)

Your home life is calling for your attention now, Virgo, so it’ll be important to take a step back from work so you can address these private matters with your full attention. Whether it’s roommate drama, a change in your living situation, or a family feud, these close-to-home issues could make you feel unsteady and emotional. Be gentle with yourself and trust what’s in your heart.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Libra (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22)

The fiery and outgoing energy of this full moon is inspiring you to connect with friends, family, and colleagues now, Libra — but all this socializing isn’t without some unexpected eclipse drama. Be cautious of taking gossip to an extreme or overbooking yourself with social plans, as tensions will be high and tempers will be hot for everyone, so things schedules and conversations might not flow as easily as usual.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Scorpio (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21)

Step away from the whirlpool of emotions happening in your heart, Scorpio, and distract yourself with the comforts of measurable money matters during this eclipse. It’s likely to bring some sudden changes within your financial life — you might get a raise, run into an unforeseen expense, or decide to drop a side gig so you can have some extra free time. However it manifests, use these changes to your advantage. There’s a silver lining to every cloud.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21)

Happy full moon in your sign, Sag! With this year’s eclipses taking place on your relationship axis, this is a time to deeply examine your desires without any attachment. Relationship dynamics are changing, but you’re changing, too — so be willing to look clearly at your own reflection while also understanding that what you see is destined to transform into something new over time.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Capricorn (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19)

This full moon is a spiritual one for you, Capricorn. And despite the reputation that eclipses hold for bringing chaos and change, this lunation is likely to hit you in a more subtle and quiet way, so you’ll have to pay attention in order to align with its vibrations. Your subconscious desires are shifting, so get in touch with your mystical side — it’s a great time for a witchy new moon ritual or crystal meditation session.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Aquarius (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18)

Look out for drama among your social squad now, Aquarius, because this feisty eclipse is hitting the friendship sector of your chart and stirring the gossip pot. Sudden changes in the group dynamic could shake up the status quo within your crew, but don’t get sucked into the game. It’s up to you to rise above the squabbles and try to see the big picture so you can help restore some harmony and diffuse the drama.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Pisces (Feb. 19 - March 20)

Things are shaking up and breaking up in your career right now, Pisces, so bring your A-game and be ready to roll with the changes. Whether it’s a job change, some sudden news at work, or some unexpected but welcome recognition for all of your professional efforts, there are big things happening. Stand tall and be confident in your talents and skills — this eclipse is aligning you with a new and better path.

Get Relationship Advice Here

[theoveldsman]

DESIGNING FUTURE-PROOF, FIT-FOR-PURPOSE ORGANISATIONS (3) Basic Vocabulary and Language of Organisational Design

The previous article aimed to provide the right set of lenses to put on when looking at Organisational Design (OD) as a mission-critical organisational discipline, in this way hopefully giving us a 20/20 vision of OD. As elucidated there, the delivery logic of the organisation – its Operating Model as manifested in its Design - is made up of three, interdependent modes (=strands) forming an indivisible, holistic whole (=rope) that have to be jointly optimised: the Technical, Social and Virtuous strands. In short, the TSV Delivery Logic.

The overall purpose of OD is to architect fit-for-purpose organisations. Four OD objectives, related to this overall purpose, can be distinguished. Design for: (1) the more productive deployment and use of resources; 2: enhanced organisational effectiveness; 3: minimal social impact and/ or enhanced sustainability; and 4: enabling greater value unlocking and wealth creation for all stakeholders  

The purpose of this third article in my series of articles - entitled Designing Future-Proof, Fit-for-Purpose Organisations – is to address the basic vocabulary and language of OD, the ‘What’ of OD. It provides the conceptual tools to inform and shape the OD discourse in the organisation.   Without proper and agreed upon OD language and vocabulary, confusion and misunderstandings will rule that will undermine the organisation’s OD narrative. The basic OD vocabulary and language need to be jargon free, user friendly, clear, distinct, simple, relevant, complete, and well-substantiated.

It must cover at least the following: provide an appropriate Organisational Model as thinking framework; specify the OD Levels and Dimensions; list the essential OD Building Blocks; and map the basic, generic OD Process.    

Appropriate Organisational Model as thinking framework

The OD process must be informed by an appropriate thinking framework of the organisation to direct and guide the process. Without such a model, it is difficult to engage properly with the Design of the organisation because Design forms part thereof. The chosen model must be based on sound assumptions, be simple but complete, user friendly, relevant, and jargon free.  

However, before presenting a suggested model of the organisation as phenomenon, the contrast between the conventional vs. new mind sets about the organisation as phenomenon must be explicated. The table below provides this contrast. The Organisational Landscape as model of the organisation presented below, is an example of the new mind set given on the right hand side of the table.  

 The chosen model of the organisation as phenomenon - informing my series of articles - is entitled ‘Organisational Landscape’. The Model is depicted in the figure below. Design - as a component of the Landscape - is indicated by an arrow.  

        According to the above figure the organisation is a dynamically, interconnected, systemic whole: a living, social ecosystem. This view of the Organisational Landscape is based on the Complexity/ Chaos view of reality. According this reality view, the Organisational Landscape must be seen as an interconnected whole of reciprocally influencing, interacting components (e.g., Identity, Design, Leadership in the figure) where everything is related to, and affects everything else.

The Landscape is characterised by the ongoing, emergent, non-linear resolution of dynamic, opposing tensions through ‘And’ fusions, manifesting themselves in self-organising and self-designing patterns. A pattern refers to the way in which the Organisational Landscape functions. A pattern functions in terms of a limited number of underlying organising rules. Patterns can either form constructive, virtuous or destructive, vicious cycles as the interconnected whole moves through successive states of chaos – no pattern in place - and order – a pattern in place.

The congruence (or alignment) of Design with the other components within the Organisational Landscape therefore is of the utmost importance if overall organisational synergy is to be attained through the establishment and maintenance of a constructive, virtuous pattern by sustaining the chosen Design in a re-inforcing manner through the other components making up the Organisational Landscape. Importantly, the criticality of: (i) the crafted Design fitting the Context, as well as (ii) the Design supporting and driving Identity, are recurrent themes and heavily stressed in the literature.  

The Organisational Landscape presented in the above figure, puts finally to rest the OD Myth 5 – given in the previous article - that propagates that Design can be done in isolation without considering its embeddedness in the Organisational Landscape.    

Levels and Dimensions of Organisational Design  

OD as process and outcome is made up of certain Levels and Dimensions – as informed by the TSV delivery logic - as illustrated in the figure below.  

According to the above figure, OD can be differentiated into Strategic, Tactical and Operational Design Levels, each framed by the TSV delivery logic:

Strategic Design encompasses the design of the organisation as a total operating entity with its Work Units (i.e., its operating, enabling and support units, corporate centre) configured into an Organisational Shape (e.g. a Functional, Front-Back, or Matrix Shape); its requisite Levels of Work; Work Roles, as well as integration mechanisms and governance model. 

Tactical Design deals with the Design of the respective Work Units making up the Strategic Design. 

Operational Design addresses how the organisation will operate on a daily basis in terms of Work Teams and Work Roles. 

To my mind the metaphor of a ‘House’ best represents OD as the architecting of the organisation’s delivery logic. Hence the terms ‘Organisational Design’ and ‘Organisational Architecture’ are used frequently as synonyms in the literature:   

the House Plan represents the overall Design of the organisation, mapping the make-up of the House with its respective rooms, and their placement relative to one another (= its Strategic Design as configured into a certain Organisational Shape);  

the respective Rooms making up the House (= its Tactical Design as found in the Design  of its respective Work Units); and 

the Furniture contained within each room, reflecting how people will live in the Rooms and House (= its Operational Design made up of Work Teams and Roles as constituent elements of Work Units).      

By implication, a ‘higher’ Design Level serves as the framework for a ‘lower’ Design Level. So translating a higher Design Level into a lower Design Level, and its consequential congruence. It is for this reason that is critically important to have a comprehensive, integrated route map in designing a congruent delivery logic for the organisation as a whole.  

In my experience and observations over many years of OD work, organisations are strong in addressing the respective Design Levels in isolation. For example, doing a good Strategic Design. However, being poor in seeing interdependencies, and hence the need to translate the higher Design Level into the next lower Design Level(s). In terms of the House analogy: given a new strategic Design (=House Plan), the Rooms in the House are not properly reconfigured; and particular not the newly required furniture that must populate the room, Work Team and Roles.  

In turn, each Design Level contains three Design Dimensions:

Horizontal Dimension: demarcating Work Units in terms of the work processes required by the organisation to deliver its work, and configuring the demarcated work units into an overall Organisational Shape.  As differentiating process, Horizontal Design pertains to the division of labour in the organisation as expressed in the Work Units of an organisation. 

Vertical Dimension: the allocation of requisite Levels of Work, and identifying the critical Work Roles with respect to Work Units and overall Organisational Shape. 

Lateral Dimension: the integration mechanisms to make all of the above work together in a synergistic manner to prevent silo’s from forming. Also, the commensurately, required governance structures and processes for the organisation, including decision-making rights/ delegation and decision-making style. 

Again in my experience and observation of OD in practice, organisations are relatively strong in addressing their Horizontal and Vertical Designs, the differentiating part of OD. However, they are particularly weak in deliberately thinking through the Lateral Design - the integration of the differentiated dimensions - especially if they are merely re-arranging boxes and reporting relationships on an organigram. 

It is spontaneously assumed that the hierarchy (= reporting relationships) will ensure adequate organisational co-ordination, integration and synergy. The more complex the organisation, - e.g., multiple work units distributed over a wide and different geographical locations - the more critical the Lateral Design dimension becomes.  

Basic Building Blocks of Organisational Design  

To architect the Design of an organisation, certain building materials are required. The figure below depicts the basic OD Building Blocks, needed for a complete OD process. If one of these Building Blocks is missing, the OD process is severely compromised in its ability to produce a completely, fit-for-purpose Design.

                                               According the above figure, a complete OD process is made up of the following Basic Building blocks:

the Context in which the organisation has to function. I.e., matching the Design to the characteristics of the organisation’s Operating Arena; the Identity (including strategic intent) of the organisation; its stakeholders; and available external resources. 

the Design Givens which set constraints on the organisation’s Design. E.g., geography, technology, legislation, the scope of and variety within the organisation. These Givens need to be incorporated into the Design. In the case of a geographically dispersed organisation, for example a regionalised Design may have to be adopted. 

the conditions that the organisation’s Design must facilitate, enable, encourage, provide for - its Design Criteria. E.g., capacity to act, focused competencies, customer centricity, teamwork. 

the Core, Enabling and Support Work Processes required by the organisation representing the work of the organisation, all of which must all be Housed somewhere in the Design. 

the systemic grouping of work processes into Work Units, Teams and Roles, and organising them into a basic organisational shape: Horizontal Design. 

the requisite Levels of Work for the Organisation, Work Units and Work Roles:  Vertical Design. 

setting up the necessary Integration Mechanisms reflective of the interdependencies of Work Units, Teams and Roles with the associated governance in terms of decision making rights and styles in order to focus and direct people, resources, markets/clients, and products/services. In this way the organisation as a totality is enabled to work synergistically together: Lateral Design. 

the identification of all of the required organisational alignments within the Organisational Landscape which are be affected, and must be changed to support and re-inforce the new Design, for example leadership, people, culture, systems.

Generic Organisational Design Process

Although already hinting at an OD process, given the sequence in which the Building Blocks have been mapped, the Building Blocks depicted in the above figure present a static picture. The figure below presents a full blown, generic OD process, incorporating the building blocks given in the previous figure.  The overall process depicted here are at a high level, but will be elucidated greater detail in subsequent articles.  

The picture of the OD process reflected in the figure implodes instantaneously a number of OD myths referred to in my previous article. Myth 3: OD can be done on the back of a cigarette box, or on a serviette over a good bottle of wine. Myth 4: OD is only about redrawing organigrams. And, Myth 9: OD needs no supporting, enabling change navigation.     

The overall OD process presented in the figure above forms the backbone of the comprehensive, integrated route map for OD, covering Strategic, Vertical and Operational Designs - Horizontally, Vertically and Laterally - in a seamless whole within the framework of a TSV delivery logic. Such a comprehensive, integrated route map is at present missing in the existing OD literature and practice.

At least the following points are important to highlight regarding the OD process given in the above figure:

This process is generic in nature, and applicable to all types of organisations in all types of industries/ sectors. 

OD is a process, not an event; a verb and not a noun.  In the emerging, new world sketched in the first article, Design becomes an everyday, ongoing organisational action. 

proper OD necessitates an integrated, comprehensive and systemic Design process, informed by leading OD practices - like the process of building a House - to bring robustness, rigour and discipline to the architecting of well-thought through, congruent OD solutions. The quality of the OD process affects directly the quality of the solutions architected, and the chances of a fit-for-purpose Design. 

though the process is made up of a series of set steps, it is, firstly, open ended in being content neutral: any fit-for-purpose, Design solution can be architected through the process. And, secondly, although it appears linear the process is applied iteratively in practice by moving forward and backward between respective steps as the creative juices flow in designing an appropriate solution. 

to make the ‘To-Be’ Design as work-in-progress real, it is most helpful to visualize the solution being architected in as many ways as possible visually as the process unfolds. E.g., through post-it notes, maps, flip charts, metaphors, simulated prototyping, industrial theatre, system diagrams, gamification, story-telling, and/ or a picture of the ‘House Plan’.  

the OD process needs to be enabled through sound project management and change navigation processes. The former process is needed in particular if the OD intervention covers the total organisation and/ or the organisation is complex. The latter process is necessary because without any exception OD triggers widespread insecurities, challenges empires, disrupts relationships, upsets career paths, invokes destructive organisational politics, turf wars; personality conflicts, and raising the specter of retrenchments.

TAKE-AWAYS

The basic vocabulary and language of OD, the ‘What’ of OD, provides the conceptual tools to inform and shape the OD discourse in the organisation.   Without the proper and agreed upon OD language and vocabulary, confusion and misunderstandings will rule, undermining the organisation’s OD narrative. 

The basic OD vocabulary and language must be made up of at least the following: provide an Organisational Model as thinking framework; specify the OD Levels and Dimensions; list the essential OD Building Blocks; and map the basic, generic OD Process.  

Organisational Model: The OD process needs to be informed by an appropriate model of the organisation to direct and guide the Design process as thinking Framework. Without such a model, it is impossible to conceive and engage with the organisation because Design forms part thereof. Based on a Complexity/ Chaos view of reality, the Organisational Landscape was presented depicting the organisation as a dynamically, interconnected, systemic whole: a living, social ecosystem. 

OD Dimensions and Levels: OD can be differentiated into three Strategic (=overall House Plan), Tactical (= Rooms making House) and Operational (= Furniture in Rooms) Design Levels. In turn, each of the Design Levels consists of three Design Dimension: Horizontal, Vertical; and Lateral.  All of the Dimensions and Levels must be framed by the TSV Design logic.   

OD Building Blocks: To architect the Design of an organisation, certain basic Building Blocks are required to make up the OD process. If one of these Building Blocks is missing, the OD process is severely compromised in its ability to produce a completely, fit-for-purpose Design.

OD Process: The OD Building Blocks must be converted into a full blown, generic OD process that is comprehensive and integrated.  The use of such a process brings robustness, rigour and discipline to the architecting of well-thought through, well aligned OD solutions. The quality of the OD process affects directly the quality of the solutions architected, and the chances of a fit-for-purpose Design.  

 NEXT TOPIC:  The Life Cycle of Organisational Design  Interventions

Source

The article is extracted from my book, entitled Designing Fit-for-Purpose Organisations. A comprehensive, integrated route map. The book was published first week of June 2019 by Knowledge Resources. Go to www.kr.co.za  

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#LunarEclipse

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In this edition:

Eclipse Season: If you’d like some help navigating Monday’s lunar eclipse, Eclipse Season Part 1 is now half price and includes a meditation for the eclipse, altar suggestions and an astrological reading on how the eclipse will impact your sign Your Moon: Join me for Your Moon: Understanding The Moon in Your Chart to learn about how to work with your moon so that it can be an ally to you, helping you to fulfill your life goals and find healing in the process Lunar Eclipse and Mercury Retrograde Horoscopes for the week of August 7th

Now 50% off - Eclipse Season Part 1

On August 7th, there will be a full moon and lunar eclipse in Aquarius. 

Eclipse season is a time where we are presented with growth opportunities at a rapid rate. Each eclipse has its own quality, lessons and opportunities that we will investigate through this course and the next.

During this lunar cycle Uranus will station retrograde, Jupiter in Libra will make its 3rd and final square to Pluto in Capricorn, and Mercury will station retrograde.

If you would like help making the most of eclipse season, please join me for this month’s new moon course where we’ll use ritual, guided meditation and astrological reflection to navigate the next lunar cycle.

This course will: 

Explain the significance of the new moon in Leo and the lunar eclipse in Aquarius for your sign; Help you integrate its lessons and make the most of eclipse season; Offer altar suggestions for the new moon in Leo; Provide rituals for the new moon in Leo and the lunar eclipse in Aquarius specific to each sign; and Provide each sign with a detailed exploration of the astrology of the next lunar cycle that begins on July 23rd and ends on August 20th, including Mercury’s next retrograde journey. 

This course will be emailed to you within 2 hours of your purchase. When ordering after 8pm PST or on the weekend, please allow at least 12 hours for delivery. This course will be delivered via Dropbox. You do not have to have a Dropbox account to participate, but you will need access to the internet to download the recordings.

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YOUR MOON: Understanding the moon in your chart

In astrology the moon represents our physical, emotional and psychological needs. 

The moon in our chart tells us about the ways in which we experienced our childhood, the ways in which we developed emotionally and the ways in which we individually long to be cared for, fed and nurtured. 

The moon in our chart illustrates the ways in which we need to construct our days so that we can effectively live out our life’s purpose. Bit by bit. Moment by moment. Day by day. 

Giving our moon what it needs makes life all the more manageable, enjoyable and meaningful.

In this course you’ll learn:

The significance of the sign your moon is in The importance of the house your moon is in The meaning of any aspects from other planets to your moon The area of your life that is ruled by the moon The significance of the phase of the moon that you were born under  The importance of following the phase of your progressed moon How to make an altar for the moon  Healing rituals and guided meditations to help embody the moon in your chart

Please have your time of birth ready for this course. If you do not know your time of birth and you want to take this course, please note that while you will still learn a lot about yourself, you will not be able to personally put to use all of the information made available. Feel free to email us if you have questions regarding this. 

This course will be taught in a series of videos that will be delivered to you via a Dropbox link. You will not need Dropbox to take part in the course but you will need access to the internet to download the videos from Dropbox. Printable slides will also be provided with each lesson. 

The first instalment of this course will be delivered to you within 2 hours of your purchase. If ordering after 8pm PST or on the weekend, please allow at least 12 hours for delivery. A link to new recordings will be emailed to you every Monday thereafter for a total of 6 weeks. 

IF THIS IS A GIFT FOR SOMEONE ELSE, please email sales@chaninicholas.com and let us know the gift recipient’s (1) name and (2) email address. We will send the course directly to them. 

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Lunar Eclipse Horoscopes for the Week of August 7th

Collage by Chani

#AstroProTips

Monday, August 7th

11:11 AM PT – Lunar eclipse at 15° of Aquarius

Thursday, August 10th

Mercury in Virgo sextile Venus in Cancer, both at 11°

Sun in Leo sextile Jupiter in Libra, both at 18°

Friday, August 11th

Venus in Cancer trine Neptune in Pisces, both at 13°

Saturday, August 12th

Mercury stations retrograde at 11° of Virgo

Sunday, August 13th

Sun in Leo trine Saturn in Sagittarius, both at 21°

Monday’s lunar eclipse sheds light on what lives in the shadows. The excess baggage we carry around. The invisible weight of what brings us down. The things that we know we need to put down, but are afraid to.

Monday’s lunar eclipse unpacks what has been bundled up inside of us. The emotions underneath the behavior. The fear underneath the anger. The issues in our lives that act like energetic vampires.

Monday’s lunar eclipse is here to help us empty out. To release the clutter. To be reflective. To remember that we need to clear our space in order for future spells to be effective.

Try not to rush to replace what is leaving. Try not to jump to conclusions about what to do with the new room. Try not to assume too much just because being in the unknown is uncomfortable.

Eclipse season is a time of transition. A time when our issues rise to the surface with great speed. The energy in certain areas of our life is increased. Sped up. Those of us who were born during eclipses will notice their impact more specifically. Those of us with planets or points close to 15° of Aquarius will feel this more intensely. The rest of us will notice the effects to varying degrees.

How we deal with what occurs during eclipse season effects our lives for years to come, making this a good time to incredibly mindful of where we are placing ourselves and what we are doing with the lessons that we are learning. This is the first of two eclipses. The second will be a total solar eclipse in Leo on August 21st at 28° of Leo, which looks to be one that will ignite much both personally and collectively.

Towards the end of the week, on Saturday, while the effects of the eclipse are still lingering, Mercury stations retrograde. This too will be coloring the week. With some confusion. With some reason for caution. With some opportunities to edit our messages.

Mercury in Virgo is strong, making this retrograde one that will focus on what gets in the way of our ability to be effective, skillful, and precise. Mercury will end up retrograding all the way back to 28° of Leo come September. The same degree that the total solar eclipse on August 21st is occurring on. This Mercury retrograde cycle ties into one of the most intense, dramatic and important astrological events of the year, letting us know that whatever we are needing to unlearn and relearn will be incredibly significant for a long time to come. Letting us know that whatever occurs around August 21st will be revisited around September 5th.

Interwoven through the chaos and the intensity of the week are very helpful and affirming transits.

The sun moves from a mood-lifting sextile to Jupiter to a stabilizing trine to Saturn. This aspect can help us to recalibrate post-eclipse and mid-Mercury stationing retrograde. Venus also sweetens the skies by spending the week moving from a socially supportive sextile to Mercury to a dreamy and inspirational trine to Neptune. These little goodies might get lost in the shuffle or might lighten the burden of becoming that this eclipse season is asking us to take on.

However it lands for you and yours, take good care.

*Horoscopes are meant to be read as inspiration. If you know both your rising sign and sun sign, please read both horoscopes. They both contain important information. You’ll know which resonates more for you from week to week. Take what works for you, leave the rest. If you find inspiration here we love and appreciate donations. If you want to share this work you must quote it and link it to this post and website. Thank you for your support and for spreading the work around, we really appreciate it and you!

  Aries & Aries Rising

We are all made better, stronger and more resilient by the connections that we create. Nurture. Sustain. Our hopes and dreams for the future are fertilized by our ability to find as much good ground between each other as possible. Our potential is activated by the right connections, collaborations and social conditions.

Monday’s lunar eclipse lights up your 11th house, a place in your chart that holds your future aspirations. A place in your chart that holds information about the folks that can help you make them manifest. A place in your chart that connects you to all those that broke your understanding of what is possible.

This eclipse asks you what your hopes and dreams for the future are. Wonders what you are working towards. Wonders who is there alongside you. Wonders who holds you up when others try to hold you back. Wonders if there are relationships that are currently hindering your movement forward.

Aries is a sign that functions autonomously, but this eclipse is encouraging you to ask for help instead of trying figuring it all out yourself. It is asking you to tidy up some relationship dynamics, organize the social clutter and sort out any friendship issues that are hanging around unaddressed. 

Mercury’s retrograde will be encouraging you to review the ways in which you go about your work life. It wants you to return to the stacks of paper piled high that are marked “will do later.” Now is later. Time is ticking. Clear out your desk. Clear our your inboxes. Clear out the clutter from your work day. Back up your files. Get a good phone case, laptop cover and get things in the mail early.

  Taurus & Taurus Rising

Once in a while we get to witness a part of our lives with clarity. With certainty. Without our expectations getting in the way of our reality.

Once in a while we are presented with the opportunity to acknowledge our efforts. To stand back and take in the importance of all the little steps. To admire the impact of accumulation.

Once in a while we get a chance to fine-tune the alignment of our outer life with our inner one. To make choices that are in our best interest. To bypass fear so that we can choose adventures that make us feel more alive and that deepen our connection to our lives. 

Monday’s lunar eclipse lights up your career path. Illuminates the journey you’ve been on. The efforts that you have made. The opportunities that you have seized. This eclipse wants you to consider which ideas you have about your career that might need to be released.

So that it can grow into itself.  So that it can show you what it is capable of. So that it can become it’s own being. Sometimes we get so committed to what we think needs to happen, that we get in the way of allowing what wants to happen.

Allow your career to teach you how to hold it. Listen to it. Show up for it. Co-create with it.

As Mercury stations retrograde, it asks you to review the ways in which you are using your creative energy. Asks you to review the dynamics of your romantic relationships. Asks you to review the ways in which you are working with the opportunities that you attract into your life. Take a moment to appreciate what you are able to draw to you, then see if you can’t refine your magnetism to bring more specific and resonant experiences your way.

  Gemini & Gemini Rising

Big plans take big faith. Big heart. Big leaps into the unknown.

Big plans take us into big learning opportunities. Big growth opportunities. Big shoes to learn how to fill.

We can’t play it safe and play our hand in the game of life. We can’t refuse a chance to expand our horizons and then complain that life won’t throw us a bone. Risking our reputation, risking our place in line, risking a sure-bet for a chance to bet on ourselves takes a certain amount of belief in ourselves. It takes courage to be calculated. A righteousness to feel like we have the right to set out on our own path. 

Monday’s lunar eclipse wants you to assess the lengths that you are wiling to go to in order to get to your desired destination. It’s asking you to take a look at the routes you plan to take. The pitstops you’ll need to make. The journey as you can see it from this point of view. Does it still excite you? Do parts of it need to be rerouted? Do you need to edit some part of the journey? Don’t be afraid to let some goals go if they no longer pull you towards them. As you grow, heal and change, so too does your journey.

Taking a look back at your roots can be helpful. Mercury begins its retrograde review through your 4th house of foundations. It’s impossible to end up in a good place without thoroughly investigating where we are coming from. This week wants you to pay attention to both. Your beginnings and your becoming.

  Cancer & Cancer Rising

Being thoughtful about who you partner with will help you to create more thoughtfully. Being deliberate about your collaborations will make them more effective. Being conscious of how your insecurities and your need to please can get in the way of protecting your energy is a game-changer.

You can’t take every partnership up on its offer. You can’t pour your energy into every vessel that has room for you. You can’t make good on your promises when you over-extend yourself. 

Monday’s lunar eclipse illuminates the importance of these lessons. It will make clear the collaborations that are the most profitable, energetically and monetarily, as well as the ones that aren’t. Protect your assets. Protect your talent. Protect your time, energy and creativity. This eclipse asks you to get focused. To get specific. To get strategic. If that’s not your strong suit, get help getting yourself together.

This eclipse also has the propensity to stir up your anxieties. Your insecurities. The root of the issues that you are working through. Help yourself by sticking to the routines that support you. That ground you. That help you to contextualize the emotions that tend to knock you off center.

Mercury’s next retrograde is demanding that you do so.

It will be taking you on a review of your daily schedule. Asking you to answer for the way in which you spend the hours of your days. Asking you to make the moments count. Asking you to make a list of all the things that get in the way of your ability to finish what you’ve started. And then figure out a way to do them less. Practice harm-reduction daily and witness how impactful it can be on your productivity.

  Leo & Leo Rising

We need many ways to witness ourselves. To experience ourselves. To understand ourselves.

We need many influences. Ways to understand the world. Perspectives to view the events of our life through.

We need each other.

Need all manner of relationships. Need honest commitments to one another in order to process and make use of the painful and the profound. Ways to move through all that comes up in our committed partnerships. The heartache. The growing pains. The reflections that sometimes feel hard to face. Being committed to the process of partnering can bring us the most joyful of journeys. The most insightful experiences. The most healing we could ever hope for.

We need containers sturdy enough to withstand the impact that these transformations make.   

Monday’s lunar eclipse sheds its light on the quality of your unions. It helps you to become more intimate with your intimacy issues. It wants you to be accountable for your part in the partnerships you are in. It wants you to be honest about which are resonant and which you aren’t interested in putting the effort into. Because this week offers you excellent opportunities to consolidate your skills and feel expansively in tune with life, the relationship lessons that arrive do so at a time where you are ready to deal with them.

Mercury’s station retrograde reviews your resources. How you work your money magic. How you handle the resources that you were born with. What to do to be able to clean up and curate more success on a material plane. It is asking you to review what you think you have the right to do. Buy. Sell. Be mindful of your impact, of how you are impacting the world, but also be aware of how you might use those very concerns to cut yourself off from expanding your world in ways that you desperately need. 

  Virgo & Virgo Rising

Monday’s lunar eclipse wants to help you reorganize your work life. It wants to help you sort through your tool-kit. Repair what’s rusty. Replace what is damaged beyond use. Consider how decluttering this area of your life might help you to have more free time. More time for self-care. More time to spend building with others.

Consider what part of your work might be delegated, divested from or done in a different way. Monday’s lunar eclipse is signaling a change in the way you prioritize your projects. How you do or don’t get the help that you need. How you hold onto resentments about what hasn’t come to pass or what you think “should” have by now. Use Monday’s eclipse to clear out the emotional debris that has accumulated in this area of your life. Doing so will help your health as you’ll be holding onto less.

With Mercury stationing retrograde in Virgo, you are being asked to review your communication style. How you get your message across. How you get your needs met. How well you express yourself and how that ends up impacting you and your relationships. Mercury’s retrograde through Virgo will help you to realign yourself with a clearer understanding of who you are becoming, how you are presenting that process and which parts of it to keep for yourself.

  Libra & Libra Rising

This week be on the lookout for inspiring conversations, connections and insights that impact your career. Look for the opportunities that might come through your social networks, friends and colleagues. Look for opportunities to create connections with those in your professional and energetic fields. These little pockets of promise will help you make use of the rest of the week’s more intense aspects.

Like Monday’s lunar eclipse in Aquarius.

Monday’s eclipse wants you to remember the impact that your creative energy has on the rest of your life. You creativity gives you a voice. It gives your anxiety something useful to do with itself. It can become a channel for your doubts, fears and future dreams. As earthly beings, we need to turn our energy into something tangible, effective and generative.

This eclipse season is helping you become a little more familiar with your creative process. It is encouraging you to interrupt any excuses you make that inhibit you from it. What we choose to do with our energy during eclipse season has a lasting effect on our lives. Use this week to reset your relationship to creating your life as you need to.

As Mercury stations retrograde, it reviews some of the attitudes and beliefs that tend to get in your way. Self-sabotaging attitudes. Hidden doubts and fears. This Mercury retrograde will be useful to you when you find ways to appreciate these discoveries. Knowing what gets in our way is the first step to learning how to navigate around it, through it and with it. 

  Scorpio & Scorpio Rising

Monday’s eclipse impacts the most sensitive part of your chart. Reaching down to the roots of your life, this eclipse aims to clear out some emotional patterns that you inherited along the way. It can help you to clarify a need that you have in regards to your living situation. It can help you cleanse an aspect of your relationship to a parent or family member. It can help you let go of the desire to have you home or family situation be any way but what it is.

Monday’s lunar eclipse will help you heal.

Whatever issues are in need of it. Whatever dynamics need dealing with. When you find that you need help letting something from your past go, ask for guidance. Ask for help. Ask for what you need to move forward in peace. 

Mercury’s retrograde will be asking you to review your social roles, commitments and communications. It may increase the odds of messages going missing between you and friends, community members and colleagues. This is a good time to polish up your interpersonal skills. Learn how to deal with the folks that aren’t on the same page as you. Review the groups that keep you energized, supported and feeling seen and recognize the ones that don’t. This might be a time to divest a little energy from the latter.

  Sagittarius & Sagittarius Rising

We can’t control how others take in our message. We can’t control what others make out of our memos. We can’t control the impact that our movements in the world will have.

Monday’s lunar eclipse gives you some important feedback about the ways in which your message is being received. You might have to restructure your ideas. Some folks will be receptive to negotiations and clarifications and some won’t be able to take in what you are putting out. Do what you can to keep on track when folks try to derail your efforts for clarity.

Monday’s lunar eclipse will also help clarify the aspects of your schedule that aren’t getting you to where you need to go. Monday’s lunar eclipse will realign the ways in which you are moving through your day. Monday’s lunar eclipse will help you to prioritize the parts of your schedule that not only need you the most, but that also give you back the most.

There is some loss that you might experience but that loss creates space for new projects. For you, eclipse season will shuffle around your schedule. Removing what blocks the flow of your creative energy. Removing what blocks you from fuller self-expression. Removing what interrupts your ability to make use of your more innovative ideas.

As Mercury stations retrograde, it asks you to review key concepts of your career. Review the skills that you are able to make use of. Review the skills that you need to sharpen. Review the skills that you need use in another way than you have been.

Mercury’s retrograde will demand that you deal with any professional confusions that have occurred, any misunderstandings that hold you back, any philosophical reviews that need to be made so that your career can run more smoothly. Mercury’s retrograde will help you to go over the professional connections that you have made over the past year so that you can reach out to those that you haven’t had time to make contact with. Notice who is circling back around for your reacquaintance. Notice what old ideas resurface. Notice what you are returning to in order to refurbish, reuse or repurpose it professionally.

  Capricorn & Capricorn Rising

In order to grow, we must be willing to part ways with what isn’t working. We have to know what has served its purpose. We have to know where our energy would be better repurposed.

Monday’s eclipse makes that clear in regards to the ways in which you are utilizing your resources.

What might you need to reconsider, rework or take a new approach to in regards to the way you are supporting yourself? What issues about compensation need to be handled, healed, or held? 

How you have done business up until this point, and how you do business beyond this point are decidedly different. How different is up to you. How you innovate what you are creating is entirely your call, but it is clear that you are being called to.

Notice what financial fears come up for you around this time. What feelings about your self-worth. What feelings about your capacity to make use of what you have to work with.

Mercury’s retrograde will scour the plans that you have made, checking to see if there are important revisions that your itinerary needs. Go over your long-term goals with a fine-toothed comb. Review the routes to success that you might have outlined for yourself. If you can view your journey in the coming weeks as more of an adventure than a test to get right, you’ll get much more out of Mercury retrograde’s process.

  Aquarius & Aquarius Rising

We need both the struggle and the triumph of life in order to have a deep relationship with it. In order to feel fulfilled at the end of it. In order to understand what we are capable of while we are living it.

We need both the knowledge attained from living our lives as well as the feelings that living it evokes. We need both our strength and our softness. We need both our willingness to steer as well as to be lead. 

Monday’s lunar eclipse will push you to empty out some aspect of yourself. Monday’s eclipse will ask you to receive the blessings of your accomplishments. Monday’s eclipse will be much more beneficial to you when you balance both the offerings that you make and the blessings that you receive. You can’t do it all on your own, this eclipse makes that clear. But it also makes clear the importance of doing your part with as much integrity and self respect as possible. This eclipse will call you to answer for your actions, but it will also celebrate the highroads you’ve taken. All eyes are on you, so make sure you display what you need others to know about you and conceal what you need to keep for yourself.

As Mercury begins its retrograde, it will have you spending the next couple of weeks clearing up any miscommunications within your collaborations. Some of the time this will be about you figuring out which partners are the best fit for you, and some of the time this will be about figuring out how to better communicate with the ones that you have.

  Pisces & Pisces Rising

We must continually cast off the doubt that confines us. That keeps us stagnant. That keeps us hiding out in fear.

We must continually give ourselves permission to feel. To understand where we are coiled inward. To understand how we succumb to the effects of the wounds embedded deep within the tissues of our being.

We must continually remind ourselves that we aren’t failing when living our best life is about making it through the day. Making it through the memories. Making what we can out of the life circumstances that we are in.

It’s just as dangerous to pathologize difficulty as it is to succumb to despair.

Monday’s lunar eclipse makes this point poignantly. Monday’s eclipse happens in a part of your chart that asks you to rest, return to yourself, and reckon with the losses that have left you lingering and ungrounded. Monday’s lunar eclipse is asking you to retrieve the parts of yourself that feel lost, left or disconnected from the rest of you. Monday’s lunar eclipse is asking you to surrender to the needs of your body. The needs of your soul. The needs of your neglected parts.

Take good care of what needs caring for.

As Mercury stations retrograde in your 7th house of committed partnerships, it draws attention to the ways in which you are communicating in your most important partnerships. It pulls focus on the skills that you have to work through the issues that arise. It pulls focus on the skills that you need to acquire to do so with more finesse. It pulls focus on the skills that you could learn to help your relationships out in incredibly important ways. Stay schoolable for your sweethearts and business babes. 

SOURCE,CHANI NICHOLSS.COM

Copyright © 2017 Chani Nicholas, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at my website.

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[justfinishedreading]

Part 1 – Historical Background

The most important thing to know about Felizmente há luar! is that it was a product of its time; this play was written in 1961 during the rule of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, and it is now studied in Portuguese secondary schools because of its themes on politics, corruption and censorship. In researching the historical background of this work I’ve… ended up writing an essay on Salazar and in the process learnt quite a bit about my country. The following is information I found interesting from Wikipedia and which I’ve copy and pasted, and reworded and condensed:

The End of the Portuguese Monarchy

After the revolution in 1910 when the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, the country fell into chaos with continual anarchy, government corruption, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution. The next 18 years saw the inauguration of 8 presidents, 44 cabinet re-organisations and 21 revolutions. According to official police figures, 325 bombs burst in the streets of Lisbon between 1920 and 1925. The public began to view political parties as elements of division and become more tolerant to the idea of being governed by an authoritarian regime.

António de Oliveira Salazar

Salazar became Minister of Finance in 1928, before that others had tried to persuade him to enter politics, but he found the state of parliament so chaotic that he refused. He finally agreed when the state of Portugal become too dire to be ignored. He agreed under the condition that he would have a free hand to veto expenditure in all government departments, not only his own. Within a year Salazar balanced the budget and stabilised Portugal's currency.

In 1932 he became Prime Minster. Now Salazar is quite an interesting figure to study, he did a lot of good for Portugal, but every good sentence written about him can be countered with something bad. He brought order to a country in chaos, but he did not believe in democracy, he used censorship and a secret police to crush opposition and ensure that he continued to be Prime Minister from 1932 until 1968.

World War II

Salazar had lived through the hard times of World War I, in which Portugal participated, so when it came to World War II Salazar kept Portugal neutral. From the very beginning Salazar was convinced that Britain would suffer in the war but remain undefeated and that the United States would step in and the Allies would win. However because Portugal was neutral, the country was forced to supply materials used for military purposes to both the Allies AND the Axis. In May 1943, the USA wanted to take control of Portuguese islands for strategic military use, the British responded that forceful measures weren’t necessary, Salazar would honour the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. In August of that year when the British requested military use of those islands, Portugal allowed it.

Salazar’s upbringing was religious, he studied at a seminary for eight years and considered becoming a priest. He was a devote catholic and nationalist but argued that Portuguese nationalism did not glorify a single race because such a notion was pagan and anti-human. In 1938, he sent a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin, ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and that therefore, Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against. On 26 June 1940, four days after France's surrender to Germany, Salazar authorised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Paris to transfer its main office to Lisbon.

In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar was evacuated due to imminent attacks expected from Nazi Germany. At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly women and children, who remained there until the end of the war. Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the USA and a few hundred thousand to one million refugees found shelter in Portugal and escaped through there.

Portuguese Colonial Rule

Portugal can be proud of its action during the Second World War, but not so much of its colonial rule (…can any country ever be proud of colonialism?). Portugal had an extensive colonial empire that included Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola (including Cabinda), Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique in Africa, Portuguese India in South Asia, and Macau and Timor in the Far East.

In 1947, Captain Henrique Galvão, a Portuguese parliamentarian, submitted a report disclosing the situation of forced labour and precarious health services in the Portuguese colonies of Africa. The natives, it said, were simply regarded as beasts of burden. All African men had to pay a tax in Portuguese currency, the government created a situation in which a large percentage of men in any given year could only earn the amount needed to pay the tax by going to work for a colonial employer. In practice, this enabled settlers to use forced labour on a massive scale, frequently leading to horrific abuses. Galvão's courageous report eventually led to his downfall, and in 1952, he was arrested for subversive activities.

Following the Second World War, the colonial system was subject to growing dissatisfaction, and in the early 1950s the United Kingdom launched a process of decolonization. Belgium and France followed suit. Unlike the other European colonial powers, Salazar attempted to resist this tide and maintain the integrity of the empire. In order to justify it and Portugal's alleged civilising mission, Salazar ended up adopting Gilberto Freyre's theories of Lusotropicalism, which propose that the Portuguese were better colonizers than other European nations because they had a special talent for adapting to environments, cultures and the peoples who lived in the tropics, this talent helped them build harmonious multiracial societies and promote pro-miscegenation.

Side note, we Portuguese are very proud of our history during the 15th century, the age of discovery, when we set out to map the world, many consider it our golden age. Less talked about is our involvement in the slave trade, the first European to actually buy enslaves was Antão Gonçalves, a Portuguese explorer in 1441 AD. The Spanish were the first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World. I’ve just done a little googling to try to find out how many slaves the Portuguese took from Africa, it’s not easy finding a straight answer, about 20 websites later I find three that agree that officially the total number of Africans shipped by the Portuguese is conservatively put at 4.2 million. However this excludes the millions that died crossing land to get to the Portuguese slave ships or during the horrible Atlantic passage. Just to be clear these facts are regarding Trans-Atlantic Slavery, unfortunately the concept of slavery has existed in all societies long before that.

Anyway that’s a bit of a digression from the main topic of Salazar, moving forward to 1960-1, armed revolutionaries and scattered guerrillas were starting to become active in Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. The Portuguese just about managed to keep control in some parts but the Portuguese military warned the government that this was not a long term solution, the military would not be able to keep order for long.

1961

And now finally I’ve reached 1961, the year Felizmente há luar! was written. For the western world the 60s were the decade of cultural revolution: ‘Make Love, Not War’, just like the American hippies were protesting against the Vietnam war, the Portuguese were protesting against colonial wars they could not win and which were wrong to begin with. This was an age of liberalism, of drug and sexual experimentation, of artistic creativity. And yet those liberals and free thinkers were being governed by a 72-year-old Salazar, a conservative, nationalist and catholic whose motto was "Deus, Pátria e Familia" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family"). There was no free speech, anyone opposing the dictatorship was imprisoned and tortured. Portuguese laws and government procedures were changed to enable those in power to stay in power. Felizmente há luar! was written by Luís de Sttau Monteiro and censored, prohibited from ever being performed. That is until 1975, the year after the government was overthrown.

Wrapping Up Part 1

Phew, I haven’t even started reviewing Felizmente há luar! yet, I could have just written “the play was written during a time of great oppression of freedom of speech and during a reign of political dictatorship” and left it at that. But, it’s curious to know how things came about, extreme political movements don’t just suddenly manifest, they are born out of circumstance, and it is important to understand what gives raise to the systems that change our lives.

In Part 2, I’ll actually review Felizmente há luar! By the way it’s actually set in 1817, when real life general Gomes Freire de Andrade was accused of leading a revolt against the Portuguese government – so... yay even more history XS 

Most of this text on Salazar was taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar

Review by Book Hamster

[postapocalypse13]

Manifesting Destiny #46

Moon in Gemini I admit I am a big picture kind of gal. I lose the trees in that magnificent forest. I say, let the Devil have the details; I want to revel in the grand plan. Celia likes order. I enjoy the thrill of chaos. Though I do understand the need for some kind of order, framing, limitations, to be able to make sense of the picture at all. I do go back over the history to make salient connections, divine the pattern. In my analyses, I also understand the need to allow room for the patterns to shift, to open to less obvious possible connections, to reframe, refocus, move boundaries when they get in the way of progress or collaboration. A permeable box of flexible, stretchy material able to cross dimensions without reticence is my model. Permeable, transparent, barely a box at all, yet with enough integrity to keep disparate definitions in useful dynamic tension appropriate to concrete concepts, communication, building creatively inviting structures on reliable, if often unorthodox, foundations, I spin out metaphorically while keeping contact with a securing base. Society may apply definitions of psychosis to minor deviations from what everybody knows, everybody does. Such defining really says nothing beyond "us" and "them" -- the perennial disconnect. Psychosis, being lost in a world one has made without sufficient lifeline to the common world to function, is a different proposition. I joke, ironically as befits my sense of humor, about my psychotic disassociations from the norm. Yet, I clearly see the norm and choose to disagree. This is not the situation of my unfortunate brethren? fellows? is there a unisex word for this? co-humans? who become identified as mentally ill, sucked through the system that denies their internal experience and insists "conform or you are in essence dead to us." There are social constructs that still insist homosexuality, attraction to those we say aren't in the allowable pool of attractants, is a mental illness. Yet now we have a huge demographic and movement saying Gay is good. I see no logical or philosophical problem with accepting each individual's self-experience as valid. Take people where you find them, where they are, and work from there to discover commonalities on which to base communication. Yeah, it's like bureaucracy and money -- we don't want to communicate. We want to upstage in our power games, use any articulable difference as a vulnerability to exploit. We who write the book make the rules. You didn't read the book? That just compounds your criminality. Off with your head; away with your freedom to be you. Millions of people incarcerated for the daring crimes of unsanctioned self-expression. No, you "conservatives" practiced in the art of doublespeak, I don't mean we must not protect ourselves from violent opposition, "terrorism," street crime. I mean that a sane society keeps its definition of the criminal to the sensible bounds of minimizing violent conflict and unwarranted destruction. Just who are the terrorists when people's lives are commonly violated, their freedom denied for all kinds of petty disagreements with the holy sanctified social norm? To my mind, law ought to protect the people from the government, or protect people from each other, not protect the government from the people or people from ourselves. Ideally law enforcement acts as a champion to help defend the less powerful from those who would harmfully overpower them. The Koran never insisted on veiling or denigrating women. My understanding is that Mohammed believed in social equality. His message from Allah was about building equitable community, bringing His people together under rational laws for their interactive benefit. Likewise, Christ was not homophobic or hierarchical by gender or monetary wealth. I don't know why the self-called pious make up these rules, except their obvious will to power over. Why can't we uppity female polytheistic self-determination types find our own will to power and make our own rules that put us in charge? First order of business: send those holier-than-thou propagandists out on the streets naked for our delight and ridicule. Then give them some comfortable clothing, nutritious soup and organize them into a game of charades. While they are thus occupied, we'll free the political prisoners and enjoy a rousing celebration.

[lati-will]

The Full Moon & Lunar Eclipse In Leo – Shining Light On A Darkened World

The first Lunar Eclipse of 2017 will take place overnight this Friday and Saturday, Feb. 10 and 11, as the Full Moon in Leo passes through the shadow of the Earth. This powerful alignment marks our entry into a new pattern of awareness that will heavily influence humanity’s new direction through 2017 and beyond. Reflected by several key astrological alignments, we are entering a new stage of personal and collective development — a time in which we will truly begin to know ourselves, learning to free ourselves of past conditioning and patterns, and bringing new light to a dark and seemingly broken world.

Let’s look at the energy patterns that will shape and reflect our evolution of consciousness during this lunar cycle.

Saturn in Sagittarius Trine Uranus in Aries Trine the Full Moon in Leo.

When we look into the outside world today, we see reflections of devastating and disturbing things, with so much confusion and heavy-heartedness being felt in so many lives. Although it may be painful, we are in a vital process of deep ego deconstruction — a process of breaking down illusions and awakening to the truth of our co-created reality.

The current evolutionary path for us right now, and indeed since 2012, has been directing us toward finding more space and freedom, and to liberate ourselves from the illusions that bind us to this needless cycle of human suffering. Marked by the onset of the powerful vibration that Pluto and Uranus have reflected since 2012, we have progressively witnessed and experienced the breakdown of social conditioning and outdated systems. Now, the trine alignments Saturn and Uranus are forming with the Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse reflect a new energy signature — one that breathes fire and life into the expression that is our own personal destiny.

These theme will continue throughout 2017, as global crises reflect the collective shadow for all to see, forcing each of us to decondition ourselves of the ‘old ways’ of being and create new ways that align with our own personal version of reality. As a smaller cycle within the bigger cycles, this is the point where we begin tipping the scales into our own hands. Illusions will continue to collapse and the truth keep finding its way to the surface, and so, as lightwarriors, we must each stand in our personal power and sovereignty. The collective heart has broken, and now, the healing process can begin. This is a time when we will truly begin to bring new light to this broken world.

Jupiter in Libra and the Full Moon in Leo quincunx Chiron in Pisces

Combined with the energy of tonight’s Lunar Eclipse, this alignment promotes a very profound shift in our attention; for the first time, we are collectively beginning to recognize the necessary process of integrating and healing the shadow, if we are to reclaim the future direction of humanity and the planet we call home. The very nature of our times is offering a deep healing opportunity. Recent events are making the shadow increasingly more visible, and we are realizing that, on the path toward wholeness, we must first recognize, acknowledge and confront the collective shadow, in order that we may heal it.

However, as the chaos and collapse of the outside world becomes increasing more apparent, our times can feel very dis-heartening. The awakening of the spiritual heart is a profound opportunity we get to experience but we find ourselves having to always guard against the outer world and all its distortions. As we choose to find uplifting, self-validating experiences we are met in equal measure with resistance of old patterns of conditions that do not (and never did) support the healthy, happy and harmonious ways we are now choosing for ourselves. That is the paradox of this awakening process: our enlightenment at all levels is intrinsically linked to the deep pain we carry, and one cannot exist without the other; the light and dark, co-existing in duality, inevitably revealing themselves (and each other) by their escalating interplay.

Now, the alignment of Chiron in Pisces is offering us an energetic opportunity to recognize and let go of any and all illusions and falsehoods we still accept in our lives; of the patterns and beliefs that leave us feeling empty, while the alignment of Jupiter and the Full Moon encourages us to see that our destiny lies in our own knowing of who we really are; that our shadow is our path to wholeness, and that, if we reject it, we cannot know empathy for others on their path to wholeness, nor work toward healing the world from a truly integrated space.

In synchronicity, the energy of this alignment offers us an holistic reflection of ourselves, creating heart-opening experiences and helping us to break-down the amour and defenses we have developed against both conscious and unconscious trauma.

Jupiter in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn oppose Uranus in Aries

Finding the right rhythm; that’s a perfect description for how we will continue to experience the energy of these outer planets as they continue to play out their year-long alignment with each other. In particular, Jupiter in Libra will help with questions; about which relationships offer us true reflections of who and what we are, and which trigger our unconscious conditioning, and therefore, influence our life and our choices. While Pluto’s movement in Capricorn will promote the development of our new individual and collective roles and identities, Jupiter will also help us to find our next individual step within the changing whole, and answer questions such as: Which social context do we want to align to? What will be my contribution toward creating the future? What role will help us be more in the rhythm that we hear and feel? Through this interplay, Jupiter will also promote more focus on social equality and uplift, and show us ways in which sharing and inclusion can actually be ways of supporting ourselves, and each other, and resolving some of the big challenges humanity faces today. Meanwhile, Uranus continue to add fuel to the fire, drawing focus on our sense of freedom and helping us to break-down the expectations and limitations that have for so long constrained us from transforming those challenges into change.

The manifestation of these energies can express themselves in different layers, and in the outer world (and most particularly in the mainstream media) it may appear far more extreme and totally lost in the trauma of anger, hate, persecution and pain. But remember: This is all part of a collective awakening. Mass shifts in awareness are causing the collective body to break down, and while the new energies are clearly manifesting, this process is simultaneously as destructive as it is constructive/creative. This is a phase that we all must experience if we are to re-adjust our selves and our society in alignment with our truest nature. Individually, our calling now is to align to our own unique rhythmic nature, to act from that place of truth, and to inspire and guide others who awaken.

The Full Moon Message: A Total Eclipse of the Heart

In the spectrum of our consciousness, it is in the shadow that we see the light, and in our light, we are reminded of the shadow. So let’s take a torch and shine it on our pain. Let’s highlight the areas both within us and without us that are void of love. Let’s visit the places that we have closed off to others, and ourselves, because they hurt too much to be present with. We cannot go any further now without acknowledging and integrating those parts of ourselves and our journey, both individual and collective, and taking steps to heal the trauma and lack they present.

Go inside and find that place: observe and reflect on where you seek to compensate, where you feel uncomfortable, or constrained, and where you put on a brave face while inwardly feeling pain.  Maybe you experience these wounds through your interactions with others, where other people seem insensitive and unkind. Most often our pain is expressed through anger. So, what makes you angry? Maybe you can’t connect to the pain, or you don’t even notice it anymore, as you have built such strong walls around it. Go deeper…

When we seek to embody our true potential and live a life that is fulfilling to our soul, our wounds are experienced as the things that stand in our way. Our lack of confidence, our sense of limitation, our lack of support from others; it is all a reflection of our inability to prioritise our own happiness and integrity. But we are here to experience consciousness through the self: by learning who and what we are, and walking the path of our own heartfelt destiny.

The heart is breaking open. We are transforming our dynamic with each moment, giving ourselves the chance for deep self-love and acceptance of who we are. Until now, we have searched for happiness outside of ourselves because we were (and are) shown that in the outer world, the answers to life’s questions lie without. But in truth, what we seek shines from inside the essence within, the beingness we cultivate when we patiently pursue our heart’s deepest wishes. When we open our perceptions to what life brings us instead of chasing the life we are supposed, we begin to see opportunities for experience growth in every moment, and only then do we find the beauty and depth of our spirit, own unique expression of inspiration and love for life. Going inside, we find the right rhythm to groove to.

Ascension is an organic experience, and following our bliss instinct is our truest way to navigate through these times. So, during today’s Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse, and the rest of the lunar cycle, shift your attention and awareness inward. Do the things that awaken your heart. Go deep inside and learn who you are, as an individual, and find acceptance and balance in that knowing. Heal the dark and follow your light. And, when you find what makes you happy, fulfilled, empowered and purposeful, bring it out into the world. Build it. Share it. Create it. Make it real — and shine your light into the dark.

By: Simon & Jennifer

[nuevorealidad]

(2019) plot.plan.time

$$ MONEY $$ The only economy that matters,  that can actually put money in your purse, wallet, or the cracks of your sofa, is the economy created by your thoughts, words, and actions. Every day, someone new, near you, becomes a millionaire. The Universe

Most people believe they must “earn” money through hard work and this is why it’s so challenging for them to manifest more money. With this belief, the Law of Attraction must continue to bring money only as the result of hard work. When we can start to expect money to come in unexpected, easy ways, it will.

It's time to give everyone the big fuck you and bloom how you choose. You get to be whatever kind of fucking flower you want to be. You inherit yourself.

This is where we make a choice, punks. What is the story you are going to choose to tell? Are you going to keep telling the same old fucking story, or are you going to take what you want? Are you the master of your own fate, or will you allow the illusion to suck you back in?

It tells us that we are finally shedding the bullshit, letting the hail storm knock away all that isn't fastened securely to the truth.

‘’ Tess Mahal Ko , 1 way to defeat invisible, limiting beliefs, even ones you may not know you have, is to simply ‘’dream*think*create’’  a life so grand, that they couldn’t possibly make sense. And then start living that life today, however humbly at first. Make a decision of what you truly desire, want.. give your attention there ..  find the feeling place of it — and *bam* you are there instantly. ‘’ 😍 ‘’ ~ JS

****** OUR NEW GAME Commences November 2018  ***********

!!!!!! ^ - ^ !!!!! En Garde 😍 Get Ready For It  !!!!! ^ - ^ !!!!!!

‘’He’ll always be there for her. Standing in the shadows to keep her safe. Laughing with her in the light. Watching through her eyes all those who get close. He’ll always be there. She will be fine.

T.E.S.S. (the.eternal.spontaneous.spin#master) ~

*T*F*S* a #baddass mf gangsta/goddess in cahoots w/ CIA (cosmic intelligence agency) @undisclosed no.extradition.treaty.lat/long.domain in the  A.I.R. (alternate intelligence realm)

““  That’s My Girl  ““  

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

Rewriting my story- Update 3/2018

Free at last/ free at last/ free to live my life the way I really choose it to be. I am Fearless & I am not afraid. I am sovereign/ I own my authority . No one/nadie/nada can impose itself on me. I am my own Higher Guidance Council how will I know.. if what I hear resonate or feel right to me then it is.. if not its kicked to the curb. I am not here to confirm or follow. I create my own reality / my own sets of beliefs it's my way or the highway .. everything always goes my way .. everything is always working out for me .. good shits are always lining up for me /awesome ideas /brilliant options flows to me in groves/ synchronocities leads to serendipities all the time. And why shouldn't it be.. I am worthy / I am integrity / I am a Privilege Being & a Pampered Soul.

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

December 26, 2017 ·

in the flow ~ I AM FREE <3 I AM FUCKING FREE :) FREE AT LAST FREE AT LAST :*

2018

Become self-reliant, self supporting. Prioritise your own highest interests - highest being the key word. Cut away anyone or anything that drains or feeds on your precious life force. From now on your mission is to engage only with creators, those who have already woken up Get real and be real. Stop curating your life. Become inner not outer directed. Find what you're really good at and do it all time. Do a personal resources inventory. What do you know or what skills you have that are valuable to others? You have physical, emotional and spiritual resources all around, lying neglected and unacknowledged in your psyche or hidden away in your very own dustbin of history. Now is the moment to excavate all of them – your finances, time investment, skills, talents, possessions, qualities – and release them into the light of day to form and reform into more authentic ways of self-expression and making a living.

Be strongly steadily directed from within. there is no outer, THERE IS NOTHING TO DO INSTEAD YOU CENTER URSELF AND ALIGN W/ WHO U TRULY ARE AND ADAMENTLY REMAIN IN THE PLACE OF AUTHORITY AND POWER AND INWARD TRUTH as your statement and the only thing you know.”

It is all about FEELING EMPOWERED OF YOUR OWN POWER, (UR OWN MC/AUTHORITY) your own soverignity. NOTHING TO DO .. ALL ABBOUT BEING ALL THAT U ARE . So instead of thinking what is there to do...FEEL WHAT U FEEL LIKE DOING and doing preceeds the being...here i rule my life to the fullest as i await my instant death w/out pain without knowing ... there;s really nothing else ofcourse xcept for the receiving of alot of abundance, cash, money , gifts, bonus, opps stuf jup sco. all about attaining desire for personal sovereignty.independence and detaching anything less of my being. i am and will always be a priviiledge being and pampered soul.

Just do the next right thing Walk your talk Redraw your boundaries SHIFT TO LIVING AT CAUSE, NOT AT EFFECT. Identify the one thing you’re afraid to say about your life and what you’re going to do about it.

Take concrete steps to becoming self-supporting and self-sustaining Make financial independence your priority, what would you do differently starting now? How can you deliberately live between structure and surprise; between safety and experimentation Recognise that the deeper mind is always on 24/7, not only does it have your back, it’s part of who you are - when you lose sight of it it’s because you’ve gone back to thinking you have to handle this life thing on your own.

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

"Now I know better, I do better". It's time to commit to your own preferred reality Time to stop trying to fit into friendships, jobs and realities that have nothing to do with who you are. you no longer need to try to "save" or "heal" anyone nor urself because there is nothing to be working on urself anymore there are so few people to connect to who get your reality - as it should be..dont want otras cramping my space solitude santuary

This is what it feels like to be brilliantly alive. Alive and active not reactive on the good or bad

no choice but to find higher level solutions. As Einstein’ said: 'We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them'. But remember when such collective shifts happen, first comes confusion and chaos.

In your own life, this is a fertile moment to think out of the box or even to jump up and down on the box. Ask:” How have I been underestimating myself? What have I been settling for? What is my wildly impossible goal?” Doing new things is good. Going outside our comfort zones is what we are all about. We are not among those who are playing it safe. But we too can get stuck. So things happen to move stuck energies. They may come in the form of hurricanes, storms, celestial events, getting sick, losing a relationship or a job.This embodiment process is the most difficult thing a human being could ever do. You are being asked to do the impossible, or so if feels.

Pursuing what is desired and nothing else. Waiting, stalking, strategically watching for openings. One-pointedly intent upon grabbing and holding what you lost somewhere and must find again. Going for reminders, facsimiles, totems. Hungry for proof that it is there, that it is possible. Alone forever. You are deeply seeking the other side of yourself, the inner partner, the true motivating spark. You have got lost in the dark, identified with the one who needs and lacks, the one who is broken into fragments of experience. You search everywhere and come up empty. The one inside will be there, when the outer versions cannot sate your hunger,and as a last resort you feel into your own solitary spaces, willing to meet whoever is there and love them with all your heart."

the old world feels so dark eecky sucky that you're willing to let it go AS IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DELETED. Choice is not an option -the 3D time-lines are deleted. MAKE UR SHIFT QUICKLY AND PERMANENTLY so ur transition thru 2018 will go smooth effortless MASTERY OR BUST I am immensely powerful and deeply hidden. I work between the lines and the worlds. But I am good at what I do.

"What we take to be true is our reality " This is start of the Return Home via a solo journey of ground breaking proportions. It is living in Free Fall without a Safety Net ..TO LIVE AND THRIVE IN MY OWN PREFERRED DESIRED ALTERNATIVE the edge between order and chaos -

<3 Become self reliant, self supporting. Prioritise your own highest interests - highest being the key word. Cut away anyone who drains or feeds on your precious life force. Get real and be real. Stop curating your life. Become inner not outer directed. Find what you're really good at and do more of it. Upgrade the quality of your thinking -the codes which determine the results you're getting . If you believe your own random thoughts, you're living in the feeling of your thinking, in a self -created matrix.

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

Visionary Activist principles -

0. Believe nothing, entertain possibilities. Therefore everything hereafter is offered playfully.

1. Imagination lays the tracks for reality to follow. 2. Better to create prophecy than live prediction. What makes us passive is toxic. Predictions make us passive, but prophecy is active co-creation with the Divine. 3. The invisible world would like to help, but spiritual etiquette requires that we ask. Help is always available; operators are standing by. (WELL THIS IS ME TO T, IN MY CASE I DEMAND :D ) 4. The only way that the gods know we're asking for help is through ritual. 5. If something is a problem, make it bigger. If you cook rage into outrage, it takes it from personal tantrum yoga into the realm of useful action. 6. We only possess the power of an insight when we give it expression. 7. Creativity comes from paradox. We aspire to be disciplined wild people who are radical traditionalists. 8. Stay Strong, FOCUSED INTENT TO CREATE & STAY IN UR OWN WORLD WITHIN THE WORLD .

"There are no right answers. But there is a right question. It's the one that whispers "Why the f* not?"

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

Transition is itself transformation. So in this frequency shift from 3D to wherever, reading Facebook posts about "taking back your power" or "moving out of victim mode" as you have thousands of times before then "liking" them because it appeals to the need to feel special without actually changing , is a dead end. It is just another go-around of working on yourself by using willpower to get to somewhere new/different/more exciting than here and now. It is a deadly psychic shortcut avoidance of the alchemy that needs to incubate in the dark to carry you across from personality level living to your emerging higher time-line.

in 5D perspective, frame it as an opportunity to master the arcane art of becoming your own Source - of life, of energy, of feedback and validation, of generative creator consciousness.This will prove a crucial skill to help you navigate 2018's radically different astrology.

In your own life, you need to ask yourself some hard questions – about what you really want and what is truly good for you. About how specifically you're underestimating yourself and about which victory is now available for you to claim.

Make two lists: what you want to resolve or eliminate and what you want to create.

EASY BREEZY 4 ME... RESOLVE / ELIMINATE all if any 3D REALITY dat doesnt support me. WHAT TO CREATE ...TO CREATE MY VERY OWN DESIRED PREFERRED REALITY.

You are now in a moment where you get to review, rethink and recreate just about anything you want.

:are you channeling this insistent 5D wavelength consistently enough to expand your 3D paradigms and constructs so far out that they refract the whole, not just the parts?

We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.” Joseph Campbell.

The single most radical decision to make now is is refusing 3D ways of operating -not swallowing the bait of making New Year's resolutions or buying into programs to reset you for 2018,or calibrating your 12th DNA strand (!)- and instead tracking your unique emergence as it is happening.

This is a Gateway aligning you to your High heart, your crystalline DNA and switching up your time-lines, your bandwidths of experience. Don't even try to shape it to your 3D desires-

As I keep saying: nothing is working because the 3D time-lines have been deleted. No modality, no matter how temporarily uplifting, can change you or rescue you. Look around you right now -the current chaos-climate, political, financial -is elemental,energetic and profoundly personal and collective all at the same time. I've been writing for ages about events arriving right at your front door and this will escalate in 2018 and the crunch year of 2020. You have to make hard choices based on your highest values, not on comfort or expediency. The time for superficiality of any kind is gone - life is being stripped down to essentials and you need to collaborate with it.

If you have never been called an incorrigible, defiant, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time" Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

You don't need to fight to make life happen in the way you'd planned, in the way you had thought it would be. Instead, see where the hours, the days are inviting you to go and try to participate in the dance. Don't fight your flow, put your energy where doors are opening" Sophie Gregoire The Writing Wand.

When you suddenly just " know" that none of the old ways work anymore and you stop. Even those things that seemed like a spiritual safety net- such as must-follow rules of meditation, clean eating, entire New Age belief systems- are revealed as just masks and defences against the dark.

All dressed up as spiritual but in reality more never ending pressure to work on yourself. F* DAT AM DONE W/ WKG ON MY SELF! There is no more working on yourself- there never was.(DAMN STRAIGHT) Drop that and feel your animal body exhale in relief and release. There is only and utterly your dance with life as it unfolds moment by moment. And it's a solo journey of sacred proportions . 2018 will be a giant stair step on the way through the Connected Universe into the Age of Aquarius when Pluto enters the sign of the Futurist in 2023. 😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

{Onyx Radcliffe} oh awww. thank you! wow. that's validating. i needed that lol. phew. Tess, I have been thru the ringer with humans, and been so ashamed to share a bloodline, to the point of no return. I guess now I only realize that we all have our own perspectives and lives, and our purpose is only to be what/when/where we are, whatever that is. You just go shine all over the place, roll around in the sand or the grass. You dont have to be a human, a human is just a word. You're a child of God, of the sun, of the stars. You're an inspiration to all of us with all of your posts. You are a kind, warm heart in a brutal, wintery world. We need people to stop being humans, and start being themselves. Shine as bright as you can. You're not a starseed anymore. You're the real thing, the star blossom, the star fruit, the star itself♥

😍🌾⚘🌸🐱🐥🌻🍀🍂⚘ 🌷☘🌺🌳🌻🍀🐬🐺 🔥🌀🌷☘😍🌾⚘🌸🐱

So  This is what 2019 Goin 2b  ALL ABOUT* A F*  CULMINATION OF EVERYTHING U LEARNT/MUSTER OF BEING A MASTER

Next Stop Wonderland march 2018 (update) --- I AM AT AGE STAGE IN MY LIFE WHERE I JUST WANT TO LIVE THIS LIFE FEELING COMPLETELY ALIVE  CADA f* MOMENTO  IN WAY I PREFER/DESIRE IT TO BE . TO LIVE IN THE NOW CUZ DATS WHERE MAGIC IS  WHERE SYNCHRONIZED./SERENDIPITIES & MANIFESTATION OCCURS.. where EVERYTHING’S ALWAYS WORKING OUT FOR ME & EVERYTHING GOES MY WAY <3

Ultimate F* Goal ~ 2 B ..

[hoynovoy]

How The May 2021 Full Moon Will Affect Each Zodiac Sign

If April showers bring May flowers, then the May 2021 full moon (also known fittingly as this year’s Flower Moon) is sure to inspire all sorts of blossoming changes in our lives. Rising on the morning of May 26, this lunation is both a supermoon and the first eclipse of the year — meaning it has the power to affect major turning points, revelations, and shifts in our paths. The chaotic eclipse energy is buzzing with unpredictability, so you’ll want to get in the know about exactly how the May 2021 full moon eclipse will affect your zodiac sign.

This lunar eclipse takes place in the fiery and free-spirited zodiac sign of Sagittarius, which sparks our desire for adventure, travel, and spiritual expansion. It asks us to step back and assess our lives from a wider angle instead of getting so lost in the details that we lose sight of the big picture. Eclipses can be turbulent astrological periods, throwing sudden twists and turns into our lives — so having a broader perspective can help us integrate whatever the universe sends our way. Thankfully, as the mutable fire sign of the bunch, Sagittarius’ energy will encourage an optimistic approach and help us to embrace this fresh sense of direction.

This supermoon is also forming a tough T-square aspect with expansive planet Jupiter, which gives us a “go big or go home” attitude and makes us want to push the limits. However, given the unsteadiness brought on by the eclipse cycle, we’re better off leaning toward moderation instead of excess — no matter how tempted we are to go over the top with our emotions, decisions, or reactions to things.

Here’s how the May 2021 full supermoon will affect you, based on your zodiac sign, so you know what to expect when the year’s first eclipse finally hits.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Aries (March 21 - April 19)

Look out for sudden endings or revelations when it comes to anything related to a higher-minded journey, Aries — whether that’s related to school, travel, or even a spiritual quest. You may find yourself connecting with a new mentor or perhaps breaking away from a field of interest you thought you wanted to pursue. The changes may feel destabilizing, but trust that you know what’s best for you.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Taurus (April 20 - May 20)

As an earth sign, you’re naturally focused on tangible matters, Taurus — but this eclipse is asking you to pay equally close attention to your energetic belongings. Are there promises you’ve made but haven’t kept, or debts you’ve been putting off paying? These imbalances within our relationship may be invisible, but they’re still as heavy as steel, so free yourself of the burden.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Gemini (May 21 - June 20)

Partnerships in your life are changing right now, Gemini, so be ready show up authentically and have some open-minded conversations with the people close to you. Relationships often require us to step outside of our comfort zones, even if we feel like staying in one place — so be willing to go with the flow and challenge yourself in order to maintain your closest connections.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Cancer (June 21 - July 22)

You’ve been in a spiritual haze lately, Cancer, putting more focus on your subconscious fantasies than your daily tasks. But this eclipse is shaking up your productivity levels and restructuring your priority list, so be ready to get real with your responsibilities. Taking care of yourself means striking a balance between your dreams and your reality, so save some time and energy for both.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Leo (July 23 - Aug. 22)

This eclipse is hitting the most romantic sector of your chart, Leo, so don’t be surprised if a hot date suddenly pops up on your radar or if you hit a turning point within a steamy fling. A friend could turn into a lover now, or a lover could turn into a partner — but either way, the influx of exciting energy in your love life will leave you flooded with inspiration that’ll shine through into other areas of your life, too.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Virgo (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22)

Your home life is calling for your attention now, Virgo, so it’ll be important to take a step back from work so you can address these private matters with your full attention. Whether it’s roommate drama, a change in your living situation, or a family feud, these close-to-home issues could make you feel unsteady and emotional. Be gentle with yourself and trust what’s in your heart.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Libra (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22)

The fiery and outgoing energy of this full moon is inspiring you to connect with friends, family, and colleagues now, Libra — but all this socializing isn’t without some unexpected eclipse drama. Be cautious of taking gossip to an extreme or overbooking yourself with social plans, as tensions will be high and tempers will be hot for everyone, so things schedules and conversations might not flow as easily as usual.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Scorpio (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21)

Step away from the whirlpool of emotions happening in your heart, Scorpio, and distract yourself with the comforts of measurable money matters during this eclipse. It’s likely to bring some sudden changes within your financial life — you might get a raise, run into an unforeseen expense, or decide to drop a side gig so you can have some extra free time. However it manifests, use these changes to your advantage. There’s a silver lining to every cloud.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21)

Happy full moon in your sign, Sag! With this year’s eclipses taking place on your relationship axis, this is a time to deeply examine your desires without any attachment. Relationship dynamics are changing, but you’re changing, too — so be willing to look clearly at your own reflection while also understanding that what you see is destined to transform into something new over time.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Capricorn (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19)

This full moon is a spiritual one for you, Capricorn. And despite the reputation that eclipses hold for bringing chaos and change, this lunation is likely to hit you in a more subtle and quiet way, so you’ll have to pay attention in order to align with its vibrations. Your subconscious desires are shifting, so get in touch with your mystical side — it’s a great time for a witchy new moon ritual or crystal meditation session.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Aquarius (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18)

Look out for drama among your social squad now, Aquarius, because this feisty eclipse is hitting the friendship sector of your chart and stirring the gossip pot. Sudden changes in the group dynamic could shake up the status quo within your crew, but don’t get sucked into the game. It’s up to you to rise above the squabbles and try to see the big picture so you can help restore some harmony and diffuse the drama.

If Your Zodiac Sign Is Pisces (Feb. 19 - March 20)

Things are shaking up and breaking up in your career right now, Pisces, so bring your A-game and be ready to roll with the changes. Whether it’s a job change, some sudden news at work, or some unexpected but welcome recognition for all of your professional efforts, there are big things happening. Stand tall and be confident in your talents and skills — this eclipse is aligning you with a new and better path.

Get More Dating Advice Here

[georgiasreserchproject]

The social logic of space by Hiller and Hanson

This book outlines theories of spatial components in society, and how spatial patterns and social patters are interconnected. An important aspect if this work is how different types of society create unique spatial forms and how design plays a role in the future of the built environment.

The understanding of society and space is explored, and “for the first time, we have the problem of a ‘designed’ environment that does not ‘work’ socially, or even one that generates social problems that in other circumstances might not exist: problems in isolation, physical danger, Community decay, and ghettoisation. The manifest existence of this pathology has called into question all the assumptions on which the new urban transformation was based: assumptions that separation was good for the community, that hierarchization of space was good for relations between groups, and that space could only be important to society by virtue of being identified with particular, preferably small group, who would prefer to keep the domain free of strangers.” (Hiller and Hanson 28,29) this is primarily a western culture or infrastructure, the industrial revolution, and urbanization created a hierarchy in a much more identifiable way; larger industries and businesses started to congregate and in turn meant that the workers were close by, building cities and urban infrastructure networks, roads, and pathways between these things acting as channels. In order to maintain the structure and avoid chaos we need smaller and more manageable processes, for example, its easier to talk to 10 people than 10,000 as its more comprehendible and so this emerged within the built environment, by creating smaller networks or suburbs it helps people identify with their space and society. Hiller and Hanson breakdown the hierarchy of the systems and how for example clusters of estates were less integrated then systems of streets, a unified street system allows the easy access and connectivity between people in the community. 

Hiller and Hanson Took about two ways that “human societies are special phenomena” (Hiller and Hanson 26) the first being about how people arrange themselves and space whether that be to close or sparse distance, secondly How it is arranged by “buildings, boundaries, paths, zones, and so on” this conceptualizes and makes tangible the patterns between people in space. We use these boundaries and pathways to link all aspects of spatial orientations, as a simple example if there is a physical barrier or vast space you will instinctively find another way or follow pathways of others but the question lies who decides this? As designers what happens when we shift this way of thinking and what implications does it not only have within the way people remind to space but in turn how culture and social logic are shifted. It is a highly controversial topic and tackles not just space and developments but also affects the culture and social aspects.