Sunday, November 02, 2008

Take Me to the River

The rivers form the vascular system of the earth carrying nourishment to all creatures and providing a place for rituals and emotional release. Plutonian rites of fertility, birth, baptism, and death are often celebrated at the river's edge, and the vital waterways are known to wash away human sorrows and sins.
They start clear and pure in the mountains then flow through civilization acquiring the muck and waste of human activity until they arrive at the deltas, where the accumulation reaches its maximum and the grounds are most fertile. Then they flow into the sea, evaporate, and come back down in the repeating cycle.
It's interesting to note that the refuse comes to a fruitful end in the lowlands. There seem to be mechanisms that help humans process their crimes and guilt. These infractions are also universal and some acceptance of the fact is part of wisdom, acquiring and extending forgiveness when possible.


When Hurricane Katrina aroused the Mississippi River to flood New Orleans on August 29, 2005, Pluto was just turning direct in Sagittarius, exposing the racial and economic inequality in American society in a raw and painful moment, not to be forgotten. History surfaced all at once via the river with Neptune at 13 Aquarius. The river - where previous sorrows were submerged.
Just prior to that, on December 6, 2004, the great tsunami in Sumatra rolled in causing the earth's axis to shift and time to be altered a fraction. I was thinking perhaps this was a moment in which human dimension shifted as well. The ascendant of the chart was 22 Capricorn, governing time; Chiron, the Jupiterian, was conjunct. Neptune was at 15 Aquarius.
The washing away of burdens in these events could have prepared the world for the evolutionary step, a cumulative release of many watery emotional occurrences. Neptune in Aquarius remains married to Uranus in Pisces these days, due to the mutual reception, increasing the scope of emotional experience and collective engagement.
So given the current heightened state, some of my wild ideas have come zinging in.
The Moon and Neptune oversee waterways on earth and feelings in humans. Perhaps the fear of the black man has something to do with the darkness of night and the lunar world where imagination dominates and terror can emerge, having no clear identity. I even thought of the night world of American Negro musicians, where joy thrived until sunrise. Under cover of night, the poetic can penetrate uninterrupted. Of course, lynchings and such also occurred under this cover, adding to the natural fear of the subconscious world. White and black stand out in the night and all kinds of meetings were going on.

So now .... not only is the white man's lock on domination being opened, but I was thinking that maybe some incorporation of the lunar dimension is coming with the shift. The North Node of the Moon on election day is at 13 Aquarius, exactly where Neptune was when Katrina came. Maybe sorrows have broken through. There has been talk of a tsunami on Tuesday. And that could explain all the crying that's been going on, equally among men and women.
The Hand of Nature
Oh I tell you I've seen that old river come up.
When it begins to get in the houses,
we take and move everything up on the bank
across the railroad tracks.
Well, city folks come trotting up with their soup
kettles. They's always one saying to
another, "Do you suppose them peoples got little
enough sense to go back to them
shacks when the river goes down?" Yes, Lord,
we'll always go back to Shanty Town
till the river rises up one day and forgits to go down."


A TENNESSEE SQUATTER

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Plutonian rites of fertility, birth, baptism, and death are often celebrated at the river's edge,

This is indeed true. Barebones holds its annual Halloween pageant by the Mississippi River, some years incorporating the river into the performance. The theme varies each year, based on current events, but always about confronting our most Plutonian nature as Americans.

One year, they had the audience gather on the banks of the river after the main pageant was completed. It was eerie to assemble by the slowly moving water. You tend to forget that the river never stops flowing, even at night.

As we waited, a riverboat about the size of a tugboat drifted down from upriver, and was moored just offshore. Performers onboard, veiled facelessly in wafting black fabric, waited silently on the boat as the audience was encouraged to call out the names of their beloved dead, so that the riverboat could bear these well-wishes and remembrances away into the Otherworld. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the riverboat was unmoored and caught the current again. It drifted away and disappeared around a riverbend.

It was so cool. I love that we have such talented people willing to do this stuff because it has deep, mythic meaning. The audience has grown from 100 to 4,000. Clearly it's tapped an unconscious need.

2/11/08 6:59 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

... Perhaps the fear of the black man has something to do with the darkness of night and the lunar world where imagination dominates and terror can emerge, having no clear identity.

A compelling remark. I bet you saw images of Manjushri, the Tibetan Buddhist bodhisattva/deity of wisdom, while in Nepal. He is gold, holding a flaming Sword of Wisdom in one hand and a lotus in the other, with a sutra book at his shoulder.

I just found out there is a Black Manjushri about which very little is known or published, all of it kept secret.

I think I need to spend time with Black Manjushri.

joe -- that is a great memory you have, that experience of calling the names of the dead to the performers on the riverboat.

Beautiful and real. Thank you.

jm -- I'm digging your notice that BHO is bringing his campaign to a rest at Manassas, VA. Wow, wow and wow. I don't know enough about the family lineage of Toot & Gramps -- maybe they had ancestors fighting at Manassas? Wouldn't that be something.

2/11/08 9:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Joe that sounds wonderful. Thanks for that!

2/11/08 9:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're both welcome. :o)

BTW, is it just me, or is that first photo upside down?

2/11/08 2:36 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Why yes it is. No wonder it looks so beautiful to me. I kept staring at it last night. :-)

Joe that's a gorgeous description. Good to see your prose again.

It would be interesting to do a study of the black figures in mythology.

2/11/08 3:22 PM  
Blogger tami_w said...

I'll agree with yeshe_choden and say Wow, wow and more wow. Such beautiful imagery jm and joe. Lots of water, very purifying and full of emotional depth. I feel the tides turning. And I like it.

I also like the upside down photo...very appropriate since everything is being turned upside down. Funny, in the picture the up, or in this case the down, is more clear from this point of view. Looking at things this way may be the answer.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday. Got my U.S. map all ready...one red crayon, two blue.

2/11/08 6:57 PM  
Blogger jm said...

You are so right tami about the upside down. That's Uranus too.

Funny, in the picture the up, or in this case the down, is more clear from this point of view. Looking at things this way may be the answer.

Somehow this is very reassuring to me. Reversal would be a good thing in many ways.

I've always been captivated by looking at rooms in mirrors and how much more beautiful they are and how I long to be there. I am actually. Interesting. Kind of like wanting an alternative reality without leaving the present one.

2/11/08 8:22 PM  

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