It has been brought to my attention yet again that the major pharmaceutical companies such as Merck have successfully lobbied the Republican government via extensive payments and donations to make vaccinating children mandatory. It is know that preservatives in vaccines contain mercury, which produces long-term mental effects and can produce autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in some children. Such substances are banned in Japan, Europe, Russia and England. I think this is outrageous, as their next step is to make a flu vaccine mandatory for all individuals on the pretense that a winter flu will kill millions. Last October President Bush vetoed a bill that would have banned the use of mercury in flu vaccines despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move. There are also lobbying attempts on the part of major pharmaceuticals to force vaccination of young women starting at 11 years old against potential sexually transmitted diseases and the possibility of cervical cancer.

From a William Wordsworth poem:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings,
Our meddling intellect
misshapes the beauteous forms of things
we murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art:
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

— William Wordsworth, from The Tables Turned

The current financial crisis in the US has some distinctly insidious undertones, as well as overtones. Funny that it should happen just before the election, strange that John McCain refuses to participate in a debate with Obama. It all seems fishy to me, especially as it coincides with Mercury going retrograde yesterday on the 24th. That means that it won't go direct until the 16th of October, and won't return to its position yesterday until the 30th of October, one week before the election. This last phase is called the "shadow" of the retrograde cycle and often shows a time when issues as presented to the world are not what they seem. I will be very wary of definite chicanery before and around election time.

"Man is God’s astrolabe, and just as by means of an astrolabe the astronomer discovers the condition of the celestial spheres and observes the motions and influences of the stars, so when Man has received from God the gift of self-knowledge, he continually beholds the manifestations of the Divine Beauty, which is without attribute and beyond description by means of the astrolabe of his existence, which is a Divine Mirror wherein that Beauty never ceases to be displayed." Rumi

I came across this quotation in my diary from 1971:

I lay no wood, Brahman, for fires on altars,
Only within burneth the flame I kindle.
Ever my fire burns, ever composed of self,
. . . . and the heart is the altar;
The flame thereon — this is a man’s self well tamed.
Samyuita-Nikaya Upanishad I

Presidential Panel at the United Astrology Conference 2008 in Denver

I just returned from the amazing astrology conference (UAC) in Denver together with 1500 other astrologers from 35 countries. Among the activities was a Presidential Panel with some of the wisest astrologers in the world. Click above to have a look at the media reaction, which ranges from the idiotic to the perceptive.

I am back, involved in my blog and will post new material on a regular basis in 2008. There will be many strands of material, ideas, thoughts, dreams, perceptions and reflections.

From CGJung, His Myth:
"Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean five thousand years ago . . ., Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the Soul. this is the Centre, the Self . . . Nobody understands what I mean, only a poet could begin to understand."