Wounded healer Chiron, currently retrograde, slips back into late Pisces on September 26, stirring the highly karmic "end of the zodiac" zone until re-entering Aries on February 17, 2019.
With Chiron in this extra-potent area of the zodiac, we're coming
into contact with some big collective karma and big collective lessons -
the Grand Finale of the entire Chiron in Pisces transit.
In Pisces, we're coming into a fuller understanding of the connections between collective wounds and pain and personal wounds and pain. In most cases, the things that wound and hurt us are things that are wounding and hurting many others around the world. Understanding and applying this can bring us to a state of spiritual transcendence about our own suffering and the suffering of others.
Pisces is a sign related to institutions and prisons, and with Chiron in late Pisces, we see a very painful theme involving individuals serving prison time as proxies. These proxies are bearing the extreme burden of prison sentences that should actually be served by those heading reckless and violent corporations and institutions that are causing so much harm and destruction in human society.
This article from August 1, 2017, when transiting Chiron was in late Pisces, clearly outlines one element of this very broad issue. The North Node of the Moon (successful, soul-driven path forward) is at 29 degrees Pisces in Leslie Demeniuk's natal chart, and this point is currently being re-activated by transiting Chiron:
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Photos: Willow
"This is a call for spiritual solidarity with Leslie
Demeniuk and for all those unjustly imprisoned on Earth, past, present and future.
Leslie is a 48-year-old woman currently serving life in
prison without the possibility of parole at Lowell Correctional Institution, a women's prison in Ocala, Florida.
(Lowell Correctional Institution has been described as "a special hell for women,"
where it is common for female inmates
to die under suspicious circumstances. There have been accusations by
prisoners of sexual exploitation, beatings, and torture of inmates by
guards.)
Leslie is a victim of the pharmaceuticals industry – of
their dangerous and deadly drugs, of their lies, of their cover-ups, and of
their diabolical greed, which places profit over human life. Leslie
is a victim of the patriarchal hierarchy known as the medical establishment,
where doctors and medical professionals often refuse to listen to patients, arrogantly (or at the very least,
ignorantly) continuing with practices that contravene the Hippocratic Oath to
do no harm:
"I will apply diatetic measures for the benefit of the sick
according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor
will I make a suggestion to this effect."
It is the pharmaceuticals executives of GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer
Inc. who should be
serving this prison time, not Leslie. Leslie – like millions of others around the world – is a victim of a reckless and irresponsible
industry focused on profit, rather than real care and consideration for
human beings.
In 2001, Leslie was going through a divorce and custody battle and was
experiencing depression - a natural reaction considering the circumstances.
Leslie saw a nurse practitioner at a local clinic and was given trial samples of
the new generation anti-depressant Zoloft (manufactured and sold by Pfizer Inc.),
as well as the anti-anxiety medication Xanax.
(Of course, the instant reaction from the mainstream medical establishment is: drugs.)
After she began to take the pharmaceuticals, Leslie had an immediate adverse reaction, which
involved swelling and hives. She
called the clinic to report the symptoms and was told to continue taking
the pills. After two more weeks on the drugs, she experienced
hallucinations, suicidal thinking, and an overwhelming urge to drink
alcohol. The suicidal thinking went to the extent that she picked up a gun and
was very close to killing herself.
Leslie attempted to report these side
effects to her doctor but was not able to book an appointment for
three weeks.
Instead, she went back to the nurse practitioner who originally gave her
the samples of Zoloft and Xanax, and he immediately switched her to
Paxil
(manufactured and sold by GlaxoSmithKline), another new generation
anti-depressant.
This was done despite Leslie questioning the nurse practitioner about
the
safety of such a switch.
New generation anti-depressants are linked to a side effect
involving an overwhelming urge to drink, and Leslie experienced this, as well, abusing
alcohol at the time that she was taking the pills.
Three days after starting the Paxil, in a
state of drug-induced chemical psychosis, Leslie shot and killed her sweet babies, twin
4-year-old boys, and attempted to overdose herself on pills.
By all accounts, Leslie was a very loving, caring, and
devoted mother, and this terrible act was completely out of character.
Leslie was tried in a Florida court in 2006, before the full
extent of the side effects of these drugs were known in the mainstream public.
In 2004, GlaxoSmithKline won a motion in court that allowed it
to keep information about studies, trials, and investigations regarding the
risks and safety of Paxil out of Leslie’s trial.
Chemical psychosis and violent behaviour now linked to
anti-depressants like Zoloft and Paxil were not well-known side effects in the
mainstream public at the time, and this court ruling barred Leslie’s lawyers
from bringing the company's own data in as part of her defense. In a case that
could have set a much-needed court precedent in situations of drug-induced psychosis and
violence, this ruling protected the drug companies.
Despite the defense presenting an internal memo from 2000 in which a company scientist for GlaxoSmithKline acknowledged a link between antidepressants and homicide, the knee-jerk public reaction
to a mother killing her own children resulted in Leslie being convicted of two counts of first
degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole.
Since Leslie’s trial in 2006, it has become much more widely known that
SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) drugs like Zoloft and Paxil can cause
suicidal thinking and actions as well as violent/homicidal behaviour in people
having adverse reactions to the drugs.
Leslie is but the tip of the iceberg, representing many more
victims who, in a pharmaceutical-induced state of chemical psychosis, have committed
suicide, assault, or homicide.
How many other victims of the pharmaceuticals industry are
spending time in prison under similar circumstances? The real numbers would
be staggering. I suppose these can be called iatrogenic (physician-caused) prison sentences...
A list of other examples of SSRI-related homicides committed by adults can be found in this article, "Precription-Only Homicide and Violence" by Dr. David Healy.
The
link between violence and SSRIs (as well as other pharmaceuticals) has
been well understood through anecdotal evidence for many years. The
pharmaceuticals corporations, mainstream medical establishment,
government regulatory agencies, and media have been much more reluctant
to acknowledge the link, however.
A Swedish
study released in 2015 studied more than 850,000 individuals taking
SSRIs and found that individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 had a 43%
increased risk of committing violent crimes while taking SSRIs versus
when they were not. (Source.)
Many
mass shootings in recent years have involved people on SSRIs,
particularly young people. "In the last 28, years, there have been at
least 47 acts of violence committed by those on or withdrawing from
psychotropic drugs, leaving 194 wounded and 133 killed." (Source: "Psychotropic Drugs: A History of Violence," Citizens Commission on Human Rights)
(And remember - these only represent the incidents that have been
conclusively linked to psychotropic drugs like SSRIs, not the real
numbers.)
As early as 1990, researchers and psychiatrists were warning
of increased risk of suicidal thinking and actions when taking SSRIs. Victims
of these drugs have been screaming about side effects ever since. However,
there has been a concerted effort by pharmaceuticals corporations to
downplay or cover up potential side effects.
In
2004, SSRI manufacturers were forced to place a black box
warning on the drugs about the increased risk of suicidal thinking and
actions
in young people only. (In one of those "cosmic coincidences," this black
box warning was added the same year GlaxoSmithKline won the right to
keep safety information about Paxil out of Leslie's trial.) This black
box warning, of course, does not go nearly far enough, merely
scratching the surface of the true risks associated with these drugs,
which
affect adults and young people alike.
In
a lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline in 2017 over the
suicide of Illinois man Stewart Dolin, evidence was presented showing
that people taking antidepressants like Paxil (the SSRI Leslie was
taking at the time that she killed her
sons) were almost nine times more likely
to exhibit suicidal behaviour. Stewart's widow, Wendy, was awarded $3
million from GlaxoSmithKline in 2017, though the ruling is being
appealed.
Since Leslie’s trial in 2006, the entire climate and the
entire body of public knowledge around this subject have changed as the truth
about the dangers of these drugs has come out.
At this point, millions of people have experienced similar
side effects, millions of people have been victimized and have lost their lives
or the lives of loved ones because of the irresponsible and reckless
prescription/dispensing of pharmaceuticals like Zoloft and Paxil.
On December 8, 2009, I finished the last of three antibiotic
pills prescribed to me by a walk-in clinic physician for what was believed to
be a mild urinary tract infection.
By the next day, I was crawling around my apartment on my
hands and knees because my tendons had turned to mush and I could not put
weight on my Achilles.
I was having an extended, drug-induced panic attack with
morbid and suicidal thoughts coursing through my brain without cessation. I
couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t sleep. There was intense pressure in my head. I
had a severe headache to the point that I could barely move my head off the
pillow. My ears were ringing loudly. My vision was not lining up correctly.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw colours and shapes and figures and flashing
lights, as if I had a strobe light going off behind my eyelids. I couldn’t use
artificial light or look at my computer screen without pain. I had fatigue so
crushing that crawling to the bathroom and back took a couple hours to recover
from. My entire body felt poisoned, and eating food made me feel worse. I was
so weak, I could barely lift my arm to my mouth to feed myself (subsequently
losing 30 pounds in three weeks). I was convinced I was going to die.
Like Leslie, taking a pharmaceutical prescribed to me as harmless by a medical professional (in this case, the fluoroquinolone antibiotic Cipro) had transported me into a living Hell.
That Hell has involved years of debilitation and pain that continue to this day.
Like
Leslie, I experienced chemical psychosis induced by the drug I took.
Suicidal and morbid thoughts ran through my mind constantly (remaining
with me for years until I smoked cannabis medicinally for a period of
time, and they mostly stopped). My body and mind had been turned into a
living Hell by the drug. The world around me seemed like Hell. And I was
being convinced by the effects of the drug that suicide was my only
hope, my only escape, from this intolerable Hell I was experiencing.
By
extension, it is not difficult to imagine that in the state of chemical
psychosis Leslie experienced, killing her boys and herself was the only
way to release them from this Hell-world they were inhabiting.
Leslie Demeniuk is a victim of the pharmaceuticals industry in one of the most
heinous ways possible. She has lost her darling sons and also her own freedom.
She has not received justice and is now paying for the crimes of others with
her own life.
Perhaps equally, however, Leslie is a victim of a culture
that pathologizes natural human emotions in times of trauma and crisis. She is
the victim of a culture that drugs people with potentially dangerous
pharmaceuticals rather than providing any real support or assistance through
traumatic events.
Why are people not referred to counselors or therapists, for example, before they are put on potentially dangerous drugs? (Answer: the money)
Someone to talk to, someone to help with child care, cooking,
or cleaning, someone to cheer her up, someone to make her laugh – these simple,
human acts are not being provided within the medical establishment or by the
fragmented and stressed society at large. This leads to a
treacherous disconnection from the basic support that could mean the difference
between health and breakdown, between life and death, for a mother (or anyone) feeling
desperate, depressed, overwhelmed, anxious, and alone.
It is an entire culture that failed you, Leslie, and it is failing
all of us, too, in one way or another.
You, sweet lady, with your Darkest Moon, your Black Moon
Lilith point, in Cancer. The vilified mother, tossed to the wolves by a society
that cannot stand to see its own reflection, its own failings, its own
hypocrisies. You hold that mirror up, Leslie, and you're banished because of it.
Transiting
Ceres (nurturing) and Venus (women) are currently conjunct your Black
Moon Lilith in Cancer, and we can see how the shortfalls that failed you
are failing all mothers, all caregivers, all people. We can see the
suppression of natural emotions as people - particularly mothers - try
to keep up in an insane and inhumane system, and we can see the
dysfunction that inevitably results from this emotional suppression. We
can see the hidden shame, the dark feelings, the emotional extremes
(Black Moon Lilith) of over-taxed mothers (Cancer), doing their best
within this insane and inhumane system.
The mother who drinks one too many glasses of wine every night, the
mother who takes one more sleeping pill or pain pill or anti-anxiety
pill than was prescribed. The coping mechanisms.
Your
North Node dharma path on the final degree of the zodiac, 29
Pisces, conjunct natal Chiron. A supremely karmic path to walk.
Institutions, prisons, drugs, smokescreens, obscuring of reality,
individuals victimized by collective circumstances. The end of the line
where all the chronic problems, all the loose ends, all
the leftover dysfunction and pain and shameful understandings are
dumped. A pain
that has no discernible beginning or end. Bearing the burdens of
victimhood,
devastation, and loss for the collective. Walking a path that
illuminates the
victimhood of us all via your own story, weaving invisible threads,
connecting dots, joining hearts
and spirits through time and space. Walking the path of the mercilessly
abandoned, of the supreme scapegoat, of the psychically tortured and
imprisoned.
But
eventual redemption, transcendence – if not in this
world, then in the next. Natal wounded healer Chiron in early Aries is
walking with you on this path, conjunct your North Node, blazing you
through this brutal pain for an ultimate understanding of
the love that sustains and binds us and for an ultimate understanding of
yourself as a person within this broader context. Walking this path
under the painful (Chiron) identity (Aries) of a murderer, wearing the
mark of a heinous criminal. But that's not who you are.
Leslie Demeniuk is not a criminal. Leslie Demeniuk is a good
and loving mother who lost the most that any mother could ever lose – her
darling children. The loss of a lifetime of freedom most likely pales in
comparison to that.
Leslie is a victim of a greedy and evil industry, just like the
hundreds of millions of others who have been adversely affected by dangerous pharmaceuticals,
kept on the market and prescribed daily without adequate warning or precaution.
This group includes me.
Let’s hold that Dark Moon mirror up to the real criminals –
the ones in suits and ties sitting in corner offices at pharmaceuticals
corporations, the ones in white coats recklessly scratching death sentences or
life sentences on prescription pads, the ones behind pharmacy counters dispensing
horror and hell in little bottles, the ones in governmental offices giving it all a green light.
Leslie's story can be seen in the series Women Behind Bars, Season 1, Episode 11, available for viewing on Netflix.
Though the tone of the Women Behind Bars series is
quite sensationalistic and somewhat blood-thirsty in your standard "American
(In)Justice" sort of way, it also illustrates just how many people (in
this case, women) are in prison, enduring terrible conditions, who
should not ultimately be there. At the very least, who should not be
serving such lengthy sentences considering the circumstances. Women
snapping and killing their long-time abusers, women who are present when
their abuser kills another person, women who have few to no viable
options for getting out of the bad situations life has dealt them, often
since childhood.
As wounded healer Chiron transits the final degrees of Pisces
(institutions, prisons) from 2017 to 2019, this issue comes to a head.
Individuals are bearing the burden for intentionally-engineered social
conditions that divide us into the fortunate and the unfortunate, the
haves and the have-nots, the success stories and the failures.
Individuals are bearing the brunt of an intentionally-stratified,
fiat currency-driven, and unequal society. Ultimately, this social structure is a
toxic failure driving people into anxiety, depression, and ill health.
One of the primary reasons for the breakdown of Leslie's marriage -
leading to her depression - was her husband's service in the U.S.
military, which involved long periods of time away from home working in
war zones. Leslie's ex-husband Tommy Demeniuk is also a victim in the
worst possible way of the pharmaceuticals industry and of the military
industrial complex, two industries which are intricately connected.
Though he likely doesn't see it this way, Tommy is a victim of a society stratified by class where poor and
working class people are paid (relatively very little) to fight the wars
of rich men and women. In this skewed system, the poor and working classes are forced to
supersede their own best interests, risking everything to secure wealth,
resources, and territory for the rich.
I’m so sorry, Leslie. I’m so sorry you didn’t get the
support you needed when you needed it and that this toxic culture filled the
void in the horrific way that it so often does. I’m sorry so many of us are
being victimized in this way, that so many of us are not getting the support we
need within these Pluto in Capricorn-era patriarchal hierarchies, driven by money and illusions of
success rather than caring, consideration, mutual support, basic common
decency, and respect for human life.
And
so we must reject this culture that keeps us so
stretched and stressed, so isolated and exhausted, so depleted and
at-the-brink. So disconnected from each other in fundamental ways.
We must reject a culture that fails the caregivers, the mothers, the
nurturers of society (Cancer) - those who have given so much - when they
need some of that care themselves.
We must hold the hands of those at the edge, on the verge of
tipping into the bleak. And we must courageously reach out for a hand when we
find ourselves at this point.
The establishment does not care about us. It was not designed
to care. Caring wastes time; it cuts into profit margins; it gives competitors
the edge.
So we must care for ourselves and for each other – radically
and lovingly, fiercely and fully, gently and sweetly.
We must do better. We must make up for the failings built into this system to harm us. We must warn each other about the traps
designed to ensnare us. We must link our
fingers into a net - so strong - to catch us when we fall. We must create asylum, refuge, secret
pockets of sanity and humanity stumbled upon magically when we most need to
find them.
We deserve better. You deserve better, Leslie. So we must make it better, together.
Transiting wounded healer Chiron forms conjunctions to Leslie's North
Node on the final degree of the zodiac, 29 Pisces, in 2018 and 2019.
This is followed by her Chiron return at 4 degrees Aries in 2019 and
2020. The healing cycle is coming full circle. The healing Leslie needs
as an individual is the healing we all need.
Please support the freeing of Leslie Demeniuk and all those serving prison time for the crimes of the pharmaceuticals industry.
Please research the potential side effects of any pharmaceutical (or
even herbal remedy) before you take it. Do not take your physician or
pharmacist's word for it.
In the hearts and
minds of those who seek real justice and equality on Earth, we know that
the social structures as they exist cannot go on. As transiting Jupiter in Libra forms its final square to Pluto in Capricorn (exact August 4), this could not be more apparent.
Until
our efforts bring about the grand-scale changes needed, we stand in
spiritual solidarity with those unjustly imprisoned on Planet Earth,
past, present, and future. We link arms, we hold hands, we join at the
heart with anyone who has been unjustly imprisoned and with anyone in a
state of socially-engineered desperation or isolation who feels as if he or she is in prison.
A better world is not only possible - it's necessary. Thank-you for being here and for helping to make things better."
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Now, in late 2018/early 2019, as we receive the full blessings and spiritual awareness of the Chiron in Pisces transit, integrating the full master Pisces lessons, we can see previously-invisible threads connecting personal to collective, individual to sociological. Armed with this healing Piscean awareness, we can now make the shift to creating a better world in a much more active, direct, and immediate (Aries) way.
As Chiron first planted its flag in early Aries (April 17 to September 26, 2018), we saw some very inspiring action - both individual and collective - as we took on this chapter of more active (Aries) healing (Chiron).
The victims (Pisces) are fighting back (Aries), and they're fighting back together, in common force, in devastating waves, in order to stop the chronic victimization that is going on.
In order to heal, we have to stop the sources of the poison and harm. We have to pull them out from the roots. It's as simple as that. Treating surface symptoms is only a temporary solution.
In August 2018, with Chiron in earliest Aries, we saw a $286 million court ruling against genetically modified organism and chemical corporation Monsanto. The court found in favour of Dewayne Johnson, an ex-school groundskeeper in California, who is dying of cancer caused by Roundup exposure. Glyphosate-based Roundup is Monsanto's best-selling herbicide, the most popular herbicide in the world.
At this time, there are 8,000 more court cases pending related to the harmful and deadly effects of Roundup exposure. This is the same ubiquitous herbicide that is now being found in our urine, in our bodies, in mother's breast milk...
As written about on this blog, Monsanto was gobbled up in a $66 billion merger by Bayer Corporation, the maker of the drug that poisoned me, as well as many other deadly and debilitating pharmaceuticals and chemicals. The Bayer-Monsanto merger became official in May 2018, just as Uranus (biotechnology) entered Taurus (farming, agriculture). You can find out more about that merger in Dark Moon podcast #2.
Since the $286 million ruling for Mr. Johnson, Bayer shares have dropped 11 percent.
It seems Bayer will be paying for its own crimes against humanity and life on this planet, as well as those committed by Monsanto.
Instead of wiping Monsanto's bad reputation clean with this merger, one of Bayer's stated goals, Bayer will be dealing with Monsanto's dirty laundry for decades to come. In combination with its own extensive dirty laundry, this could be enough to bring down or to at least seriously curtail the toxic and deadly activities of this corporation.
#BankruptBayer
Here we see some of the "full circle" element of the sign of Pisces. What goes around really does come around...eventually. No misdeed is ever really covered up or made invisible. With Chiron in latest Pisces, I hope this lesson comes fully to roost for all individuals using a corporate shield to deflect their own misdeeds, irresponsibility, and criminal activities.
And here we also see a new and more active chapter opening, symbolized by wounded healer Chiron in Aries (2018 - 2027). We see a chapter where people just aren't willing to take it anymore. We see a chapter where, if we don't want to be victimized by the endless scams and schemes and traps that have been set out for us, we have to fight. We have to be active, alert, vigilant, willing to take action when an opening presents itself.
Look for those openings, and take them whenever you get a chance. The healing wave comes under Chiron in Aries only when the individual (Aries) is willing to take a stand and to take action in his or her own personal life. It's the millions and billions of individual actions in aggregate that make up this Chiron in Aries healing force. Know the healing power of your own actions, your own efforts, your own warrior-fight. Own that healing power, and use it well during this transit.
Chiron goes direct at 27 degrees Pisces on December 8, 2019, re-entering Aries on February 17, 2019.
