The face of affluenza looks a lot like this woman I met this morning. She could be a poster child for the disease of over-consumption. Employed by the state of Hawaii as a teacher at Hilo Union Elementary, she was securely under the government blanket for most of her adult life. When asked if her colleagues were worried about their jobs with all the budget cuts on the butcher block, my questions unleashed a mini tsunami of her own personal and financial worries. I asked her if tenure meant what it used to, and she said that the only positions that were safe in the schools were the Principal and the secretary. Hawaii uses a weighted student formula which means that the schools are funded on a per child basis. Falling enrollments mean that teachers get the big C-U-T.
I could tell by the nauseas tones of her expression that she was suffering from a head on collision with Arithmetic and government entitlements. She was in the initial phases of that financial punch in the gut, the sickening "A-ha" reality check that broadsides you right out of the comfy suburban existance, perpetually taken for granted. It's that giant bitch slap that wakes you out of your world with its scoldings of the multilple consumer debts and piles of household monthly expenses. Suddenly, she is being forced to examine all of the illusions and promises that make up the fabled American way of life and finds nothing but an empty nest egg.
She mentioned that due to her secure job, with its benefits and retirement pay that her and her husband had fully participated in the great American Dream. The big house, the brand new cars, Vegas getaways three times a year, and all the lavish material possessions a low six figure income family dares to acquire. She never thought about the grocery bill and would buy whatever she wanted at KTA.
No more. Now, only what is needed to keep body and soul together.
In this post reality phase, she finds herself scrutinizing the lifestyle that she and her husband have for so long, taken for granted as their just desserts. Thoroughly hornswoggled by these myths of the good, stable government job, she has done the math and knows that Generation X, Y and Z will not amount to a large enough work force to fully fund their retirement years. Now at 60 something, and near the finish line with retirement at the threshold, she and her already retired- from-the-government-job husband face their golden years, dependent on a state government in a fiscal catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. I mentioned now would be a good time to get a garden going with some chickens on the side. She agreed that she was thinking along these lines and used the word "Downsize". Of course I plugged my blog, but I think she was so consumed with fear and worry it went in one ear and out the other.
With all of those benefits and the good pay, why not grab everything Mom and Dad said you could have if you were smart enough to land such a prized career? It's all yours, just sign on the dotted line and make the minimum payments. So, what happens when this balloon bursts from all of the economic bullets whizzing around?
Did Mom and Dad lie to us, when they told us to get our degree, get a good steady job, so we could live that dream? Is there any job that is bullet proof anymore? Oh, yes, school principal and school secretary! There you go. Did any of these American Dreams and material wealth so hawked by slick television ads ever bring anything close to true happiness? Does anyone in the western world even have the vaguest definition of security and happiness? Are we using the wrong measuring sticks to gauge the American way of life, you know that three letter acronym known as GDP. Gross Domestic Product. Perhaps a tiny mysterious Himalayan Shangri-la has a different three letter acronym that deserves a look-see? Is there, perhaps a better koolaid out there besides the "Life Takes Visa" flavor?
I happened to catch one of the most provactive shows on PBS last night about the tiny country of Bhutan. This little Kingdom high up in the Himilayas never got hooked up to the twentieth century until 1989 when they finally allowed televisions to be owned. Before that, very few were ever allowed to even visit this place and no one knew much about it. I always knew it as a place that had incredible architecture from my days at the University of Texas at El Paso. (UTEP's campus buildings are influenced by this.) The things I did not know were the deep adherence to Tantric Buddhism. They never wanted to have televisions because it screwed around with the thoughts and desires of the mind. Example: Happy Bhutanese person, content in their mud hut eating rice and bean curd, gets tv and suddenly realizes that they are missing out on Escalades, Happy meals,Xboxes and Beverly Hills chihuahuas. They begin to wonder if they are a Mac or a PC and just WHY does Life take Visa. Soon, its a slippery slope to alcohol abuse and prozac prescriptions. Hopefully, the doctrines of Tantric Buddhism have shielded their souls from the onslaught of the outside world. From what I could tell from this brilliant PBS documentary, they remain a blissfully, rich culture, proud of their "Gross National Happiness"(GNH).
The Bhutanese people have a huge message for the rest of us and it seems to be something we have suspected for the last 50 or so years. Yes, it is true, television has been VERY BAD for us, maybe much worse than we even know. It surely ties in with this "Affluenza" thing I always write about. Leave it to PBS to have such ground breaking and thoughtful productions. This one was truly brilliant and affected me deeply. I was quite blown away by the Bhutanese people and fully expect that we will be hearing a lot more about them . They do have that thing, that secret to human life, that we are all looking for; the golden keys to the kingdom. Except, what these keys lock is not found in a McMansion or an Escalade.
On another seemingly unrelated subject, a friend of mine sent me this forwarded email about an astrological change ascending on the planet. Once you read it, you will see that it really does fit into everything I have written in this post. Forgive the esoteric, new age, hippy, talk and bear with it.
We are in the astrology of major change; duh! We all knew something like this was possible some day, we just didn’t know it would happen this day. Life is change; change is law, but no one was prepared for just how fast this change has hit us. We are witnessing the end of an era: Opulence, excessiveness, elitism and favoritism have had their day, and it is done. The corporate dinosaur is dying. How many of you have been finding yourself strangely humming “The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” over the last month? Or being drawn to the period of the American Revolution? These are themes that are in the air that are being activated by the current astrology.
Pluto has moved into Capricorn and will be here until 2023; it sets the background tone and temperament that all other planetary cycles happen within. In Capricorn, a major buzz word for the next 15 years will be “sustainability.” We are seeing the falling out of lifestyles, business practices, and financial policies that are not sustainable. Perpetual growth and expansion is not sustainable in a world of finite resources, and we will need to reset our compass accordingly, and prepare for the rebirth side of the cycle.
This is no small issue. Philosophically and politically we’ve been chanting “growth, growth, growth” for so long, it is ingrained in our psyche as if it is truth. Now we have to slow down and find ways to make life interesting other than making money.
The last time Pluto was in Capricorn was 1763-78, with the American Revolution and the birth of The United States being the core themes of the time. The end of an era. That was the end of the King era and the birth of the era of democracy. In our current era it is the corporate giants and CEOs who have been the royalty and the favorite few, and it is their regime that the current revolution will topple over, redistributing their wealth.
Are we living our vision?
The United States’ birth chart has Moon in Aquarius with the attitude of independence and freedom for all. Jupiter and Neptune are the two most positive visionary planets and are now being joined by Chiron and its sacred wound mythology; all three together in Aquarius and about to go across the United States Moon. The wound in Chiron’s mythology is not the destiny; destiny is in how life changes because of the wound. The healing that you are lead to is the destiny. We’ve been wounded and have pulled away from our heart, our Moon in Aquarius, best described on The Statue of Liberty’s famous plaque:“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
Where we have not been right with our heart, problems happen. We haven’t been right with our collective heart, the American Dream became for members only, and freedom became a weapon. Yes, there is a leveling and a redistribution of wealth and a chance for us to rebuild from the bottom up rather than the top down. Trickle down got up and went, and we’ve seen it for 8 years; let’s give this new distribution of the public wealth a chance, what else are we going to do? We’ve already failed miserably with business given absolute free license, which translated as, without a conscience, and now we are given the opportunity to re-invent ourselves (as we must anyway) and with this great leveling that is happening, there will be a new distribution of the existing wealth. It’s like water, there is still much of the same water here as when the dinosaurs were here, just distributed differently. Same with wealth, there will still be the same amount here, just distributed differently. The problem with the “greatest good for the greatest number of people,” is how this inadvertently creates havoc for minorities. Aquarius is universal in scope and stands up for everyone’s need, not just the greatest number.
Saturn in Virgo: Are we as effective and efficient as we can be?
When you have plenty of anything you don’t have to be conscious of its use; “there is more where that came from”. With diminished resources you become naturally more efficient in the use of the materials available. “Listen to the whispers or Listen to the Shouts” is how it is with Saturn transits. Saturn problems always come pre-announced as gentle pressures reminding us of what we need to pay attention to. If you ignore the first subtle promptings of Saturn, the pressure increases and the noise gets louder. Saturn has been in Virgo and will stay here until Oct. 30th. Simplify, simplify, simplify has been the call. Diminish clutter, get rid of excess, make yourself and your lifestyle “lean and mean,” has been the call for nearly two years.
Earth friendly technology with the key phrase being “sustainable” becomes the premium. We are called to quickly adjust to a less is better mentality because we need to, or have to, or get to, but one way or another we are going to deal with living with less.
Saturn continues to be opposite of Uranus and will be until summer of 2010. This last happened in 1964 through early ’67; very revolutionary times with LBJ and the Vietnam War, students taking over Universities in protest, and lifestyle changes of a radical nature. Well, here we are again, with the need to radically reinvent our lifestyles and way of living. We are in the falling out period in-between eras. We are going to be a more conscious people, because we have to be. See beyond the collapse, see a more humane world on the other side of this and you contribute a great deal to help offset the fear that is rampant.
Ram Dass was once asked if he thought about Armageddon, so he thought maybe he should have an opinion. So he thought about how his life would be if it was Armageddon. He thought he would center himself with some type of practice, connect with the Divine as best he could and then get out in the world to see how he could be helpful. Then he thought what it would be like if it wasn’t Armageddon and he realized he would first center himself with some type of practice, connect with the Divine as best he could, and then get out in the world to see how he could be helpful. Since it was the same for him either way, he lost interest and went on with his life.
Seems like good advice for these times. Find activities and interests to invest in that aren’t dependent on how well the stock market is doing. One of the great things about the sixties was the “creative poverty” of choosing alternative lifestyles away from the money world. This isn’t the sixties, but if we’re going to be poor, let it be creative poor. Astrology can give you clues as to the areas of your life that can be most rewarding during these changing times.
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Michelle Obama's Whitehouse garden may just be the start of a "Gross National Happiness" in this country as we begin to sift through all of the illusions of wealth and prosperity that have defined this nation for the last 60 plus years. I see a lot of Prozac and Zanax prescriptions swirling down the toilet bowl once this all kicks in. It is near impossible to be in a fog of depression after eating a meal of fresh picked green beans and digging into a bowl of crisp salad greens gathered from one's own harvests. It has taken us far too long to go back to this, but Thank God we are heading down a greener path. Mahalo nui loa, Michelle O! If you do nothing else, but this, you will earn the crown of most influential first lady.
With talk of backyard gardens and forced debt consolidations, liquidations, and pay downs, we are on the fast track to a lighter load of the old ball and chain of financial obligations and expectations. The new cool is having an organic garden, dumpster diving for household stuff, and living low on the food and debt chain.
Yes, friends, there really is an upside to an Economic Depression and it seems that the universe, including the isolated and happy Bhutanese people, have huge lessons to bring to us about the sicko culture of Western existance. Until we realize these things, the deep kimchee we are in, continues to pull many a debt ridden soul down farther and farther into its bottomless consumer trap. We have a helluva lot of digging to climb out this "Life takes Visa" shithole.
