Being Born on the Fourth of July has always meant getting the manic spill off from the patriotic celebrations. My party plates and hats often had the red, white and blue on them. It melded my Cancer Sun destiny to that of the country, in a way that I always (secretly) thought had mythic importance. My Dad always told me the fireworks were for me, and that made me feel special, too. I'm also distantly related to one of the signers from Georgia, great-great-great-great uncle Lyman Hall. But this Fourth, what is there to celebrate? A few years ago, a friend that grew up under martial law in the Philippines saw what was happening in America and had this warning, "Martial law looks just like democracy, until you step out of line." Have you seen what happens to those that speak up outside the designated "free speech zones?"
And now the hand of censorship is closing around the Net in subtle ways. Even though we've lost a lot of our civil liberties, it has remained the one place to explore ideas as far as your mind can take you. But since everyday is "opposite day" in America now, You Tube has even started censoring videos that present the visionaries of our history like JFK and MLK Jr. What is a nation, without its ideals? With the death (Pluto) of our nation's ideals (Sagittarius), what is America? I'd like to celebrate Independence Day by posting this short video (banned by YouTube and reposted), that I find inspiring. I'll still be lighting sparklers on my birthday and thinking of America's heroes. And knowing that even if all the light goes out in "authorized" America, after Pluto has killed off and revealed falsehoods, we'll always have the essence of that original founding philosophy (Sagittarius) guaranteeing "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" to carry forward.
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"The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy." Meryl Streep
While we're under the influence of this new Moon in Cancer, meeting the Sun and Venus, there's a chance to experience the strength of sensitivity that this sign strives for. Through the dark mystery of New Moons, where miracles are possible, there can be a change of heart. It's a Meryl Streep Moon, because she embodies Mother Earth, as a Sun in Cancer and Taurus Moon, who through her two decades-long environmental activism, has sought real, tangible solutions to protect kids from a toxic world.
We're all now learning the lessons of Saturn in Virgo, which Meryl Streep has in her natal chart. Through motherhood, and wanting to provide pure, healthy, non-toxic food for her own kids, she began considering what's in our air, water, soil systems -- the food chain and the atmosphere, both seen and unseen. “It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician,” she said. The group she co-founded, Mothers and Others, demanded in 1989 that the pesticide Alar be eliminated from produce, mostly apples, and later helped pass the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.
This new Moon blends together the instincts of nurturing, with the sensible earth-wise healing of Virgo (Saturn, Mars). Some themes are: purification, ritual cleansing, noticing cause & effect in your daily routine or diet, and finding a rhythm that makes room for simple pleasures. You can show self-love by tuning into your body and listening to it, to see where there is dis-ease. Collectively, it can inspire practical solutions that put us on a path to reclaiming our naturally organic environment. And dictating to the market what we will accept, based on our choices. As Meryl said, "We are all activists every day that we make a purchase. We vote daily with our credit cards; we demonstrate with our dollars. Americans, mostly women, demonstrated that they cared what is on our food. We made the connection between what is on our food and our children's health long before Congress enacted new regulations to protect our kids from pesticide residues."
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