Dark Moon Podcast #2 Coming Your Way!

Dark Moon Podcast Episode #2 has officially been unleashed onto the interwebs! 

In this episode, Yerevan and I talk about the Bayer-Monsanto merger, plant spirit communication, flower essences, and guerilla gardening. 

Yerevan was even kind enough to choose a flower essence specifically for Evil-Doer Fatigue, which is pretty fitting for the Bayer Monsanto element of the show. I'm sure we've all caught a dose of that at times this far into the Pluto in Capricorn years...

You can hear our conversation in Dark Moon Episode #2 here:

- Bayer Monsanto Merger & Plant Communication - 

  


You can also find Dark Moon Episode #1 here, posted on May 15, 2018, the very day Uranus entered Taurus:

- Uranus Ingresses and Timed War Attacks - 

The Personal Planets Conjunct the North Node in Leo: A Creative and Heart-Centred Crescendo Point

"The Personal Planets Conjunct the North Node in Leo: A Creative and Heart-Centred Crescendo Point" is a 4,800+-word article available to Willow's Web Astrology patrons that delineates and interprets the astrological atmosphere for the summer of 2018.

Have a heart! No one's work comes free. If you regularly find Willow's Web Astrology blog helpful and illuminating, please consider becoming a patron. WWA patrons receive juicy astrological articles to their email inboxes that are not available on the blog.

Patronage ensures that I can continue this astrological work, along with unpaid activist and public education work. It also makes fun and funky projects like Dark Moon podcast possible.

In light of all the loved-up creative energy soon to be upon us, you can also peruse some of the offerings here:

* Willow's Web Astrology Etsy Shoppe *

Triggers and Baiting and Smokescreens, Oh My!

 The clock in my town is stopped at 11:11...

We're currently in the grips of a very spicy opposition between Venus in Cancer and Pluto in Capricorn. This opposition is in effect now, and social/relational/financial pressures may be building as the aspect becomes exact June 5 at 20 degrees of the signs (7:25 p.m. PDT). 

A Venus-Pluto opposition, which occurs about once a year, has a real "cut the crap and cut to the chase" sort of tenor at the best of times. This one is made extra spicy by the influence of Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn, which is tightly conjunct Pluto, as well as soul mate asteroid Juno in Aries.

People may become triggered very easily under this aspect, and, with the extra-triggering influence of Black Moon Lilith, those triggers may carry on and on and on...

Understand this charged social/relational atmosphere, and give space where necessary. 

The cardinal sign influence indicates that we may need to lead or participate or stick our necks out in some way within this charged atmosphere. But after we've done what we need to do, we can take a cue from Black Moon Lilith and duck out of sight/reach. 

Laying low or practising mindful avoidance at key charged points has distinct advantages now. 

If you have unintentionally triggered someone with an innocent remark, there may be some damage-control finessing you can do to set things right. Some soothing or apologizing or smoothing over. But there also might not be! Juno in Aries says, you may just need to stand your ground and do your thing, regardless of the reactions around you.

We're not going down as martyrs anymore, friends. That's so last era.

So remember: other people's triggers are not your responsibility, just as your triggers are not theirs. Recognize the roots of the reactions or behaviour if possible, but don't allow people to dump a steaming pile of nasty emotions on your lap. Just step out of the way. Allow some processing time. And keep your lips zipped until you sense the "all clear."

Confident women with strong personalities may be especially triggering now, particularly to The Old Guard sticking with the patriarchal rules of engagement. But you know what, strong women of the world? That's not our problem! Those are triggers that need to be sprung, and we're going to spring them just by being ourselves and doing what we need to do in this world. 

There's a pretty strong "suck it up" vibe with this one, especially for those doing their best to reinforce old, outdated status quos. There will be some ego bruising for those clinging to the old standards.

At the same time as we're doing our thing with our fine-yet-triggering selves, we're doing our best to avoid our own known trigger zones so as to save ourselves the time-suck and energy-spew that triggered emotions create.

We may be thinking some dark-ass thoughts about the people around us and about human society in general under this Venus in Cancer opposition to Pluto-Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn, but know that the "human intolerability quotient" is exaggerated at the moment and will start to ease as Venus moves out of orb of the opposition to Pluto-BML (officially by June 13 when Venus enters Leo). 

Just as our social/relational tolerance levels are being stretched to the breaking point by Venus opposite Pluto-BML, the Sun and Mercury come together in exterior conjunction at 15 degrees Gemini (June 5 at 7:02 p.m.), forming challenging square aspects to stationing (ie. very potent) Neptune in Pisces on June 6. 

(Neptune is currently slowing to station retrograde on June 18 at 16 degrees Pisces.)

These aspects to stationing-intense Neptune indicate a confused and chaotic element to things where people may be looking for a scapegoat to blame for their pain, struggles, and troubles. People may not be able to pinpoint exact what is stuck in their craws, so they may lash out at whatever or whoever is handy.

Again...we ain't playin' that game.

The Sun-Mercury in Gemini square to Neptune in Pisces also indicates a prime time for media-related distractions (the Roseanne gong show springs to mind - that had to be a set-up from the get-go), as well as mainstream media outlets attempting to pull the wool over our eyes in some way. (When are they not doing that, though, really?) 

Eliminating as much contact with media as possible may be in order for the next couple weeks. Read a good book instead! Get outside. Forget the diversionary maya world being constructed for us via mainstream media and social media. Really...you don't need to pay it much mind at all. 

Mercury in Gemini will continue into an awkward, uncomfortable, and potentially-inflammatory quincunx aspect to Pluto and Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn on June 8, and again, this indicates that mainstream media and social media have an even more toxic element to them than usual. Conversation, ideas, and words are not hitting the right spot, either, and this may be one of those "duck out of sight" times. 

The Sun in Gemini continues into this quincunx to Pluto-BML on June 11, extending the intensification of media toxicity for a few more days. 

There is a lot that we need to be outsmarting and seeing through these days, and the hair-trigger intuition of Black Moon Lilith conjunct Pluto helps us to spot the poison before we inadvertently swallow it down...

Extremely Lo-Fi One-Woman March Against Bayer Monsanto - May 19, 2018

We're onto you, evil-doers! 

Yesterday was the worldwide March Against Monsanto, a day each year when millions of people gather around the globe to march through the streets and protest Monsanto's many destructive practises. 

Monsanto is a corporation that produces, among other things, genetically modified seeds and chemical herbicides. It uses standard "add-a-gene" genetic modification, as well as relatively new "remove-a-gene" genetic modification called gene editing or CRISPR, which has been shown to produce genetic mutations.

According to multiple independent animal feeding trials, genetically modified diets can cause severe health damage in animals, including digestive damage, reproductive damage, organ damage, suppressed immune systems, tumours, and premature death, among others. 

Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup, has also been found to be toxic to biological systems at even tiny levels, at levels the governmental regulatory agencies, as well as the GMO corporations themselves, deem perfectly safe for regular animal and human consumption. At this point, with glyphosate usage through the roof worldwide, women's breast milk is testing positive for glyphosate. Our urine is testing positive for glyphosate.

In Canada, there were marches planned for Calgary, Kelowna, Dartmouth, Kitchener, Ottawa, Toronto, Quebec City, and St. Georges-de-beauce.

I tried to round up (no pun intended) some people to march in my local area but came up short, so I decided to take to the streets (ahem...the small town streets) myself to get the word out. 

It takes a bit of gumption to do a one-woman march on a subject that is socially divisive, but I've actually done this in the past, so after I made the decision to go for it, it felt fairly familiar.

I made the decision to march at the last minute - on the morning of May 19. I made my signs in the hour before I started marching, so they were a bit of a rush job. I procured some white bristol board from my local print shop, as well as a red and a black chisel-tip Sharpie. The classics.

When the words were complete, I hole-punched two holes at either end along the top of the bristol board for the string. I put a couple layers of packing tape over the holes to reinforce them and punched a hole through that with a pair of scissors. I threaded some string through to make a double-thick hanger to put around my neck, and I taped the ends of the string to the back of the paper.

There are definitely more professional and slick ways to make signs, but I've always liked the do-it-yourself stylings of handmade protest signs...

I made a second sign about genetically modified alfalfa - a pet issue of mine that I've been campaigning and educating about since 2011. I hung this sign backwards so I would have a pertinent message for the peeps both coming and going. 

Yes, this brings up the possibility of your sign getting caught in the wind and half-assed choking you out (which happened a couple times), but it's all worth it in the name of Marching Against Bayer Monsanto! 

My march was definitely a march against both Bayer and Monsanto. Bayer is the maker of Cipro, the horrifically dangerous fluoroquinolone antibiotic that poisoned me in 2009.

These two nasty corporate criminals are in the process of merging in the unholiest of matrimony. The merger is expected to be completed this year, and it follows other monster-mergers of GMO/chemical corporations: Dow with DuPont and Syngenta with Chem China.

Bayer is, of course, equally as evil as Monsanto, and I've covered its crimes and checkered past in previous articles and videos:

From February 3, 2018: "Stop Bayer-Monsanto's Crimes Against Humanity, Animals, and the Environment!" 

From April 28, 2017: YouTube video "Billions Against Bayer Monsanto April 28, 2017 and Continued Recovery From Bayer's Antibiotic Cipro"

From  April 13, 2017: "Pluto Stationing Retrograde in Capricorn: From Millions Against Monsanto to Billions Against Bayer"

Protest Report

The astrology for the day was very on point. The Sun was in the final degrees of Taurus, the sign of the farmer. Planet of revolution and (bio)technology, Uranus, had just entered Taurus on May 15, and Venus, newly in Cancer, formed a productive sextile to Uranus in Taurus that morning. The Moon was in late Cancer, forming a sextile to the late Taurus Sun. Both Taurus and Cancer are signs associated with food and also with protection, so worldwide marches designed to protect our food supply were quite fitting under these skies.

It was around noon by the time I had finished my signs, and I started off walking around the downtown business district. I was met mostly with curious looks and people's queries about what this was all about. I was surprised how many people asked me what Monsanto was and what a GMO was, but I was happy to fill them in on the subjects.

I came across my musician friend who was practising guitar on her lunch break at the library amphitheatre, and she was nice enough to snap the pictures of me (above) with the signs. 

From there, I moseyed along to the Farmers Market, where most people still didn't know what the hell I was up to. I spoke with a friend who was at the market selling her famous borscht, and I also procured an aloe vera plant, which I had been looking for for a few months now. Nowhere in town seemed to have them. I took this as a good sign for the day and for the march. 

After depositing my new aloe plant back home and purchasing some almonds at the health food store as fortification for the journey ahead, I marched along the main (read: traffic-clogged) thoroughfare through town. This road connects downtown with uptown, and there is a big hill as you climb your way uptown. I'm not sure how far I walked uptown, but it was in the ballpark of 1.5 miles. I was walking on the sidewalk against the traffic so people would have a close-up view of my sign as they drove past me. 

After I made it uptown, I switched sides and walked down the opposite sidewalk as I made my way back downtown.

Overall, this was a fruitful leg of the march. In total, I received:

- ten honks
- one thumb's up from a bus driver (he probably couldn't lay on the horn as a public employee and all...)
- one excited wave from a Mama with her two bambinos
- one "Nice sign!" as I walked past a young man
- one "Monsanto sucks!" yelled out the window of a passing truck
- one woman who stopped me to ask why there weren't more of me (more people marching)

I made a stop at the community garden, where I have a couple plots, before wending my way through the park. This was also a fruitful area. I had a very nice conversation with a woman who was biking through the park. She was very interested in what information I had to lay down, and I gave her one of my Stop GM Alfalfa zines. As we were talking, a couple came riding up on their bikes, and I was able to explain to them what Monsanto and GMOs were. In particular, we talked about the gene edited "non-browning apple" abomination that is being produced in the Okanagan area of B.C. 

They were adequately grossed out by what I told them.

From there, I continued my trek and was stopped by two elderly couples, as well as a 7-year-old boy who asked what my signs were about. I tried to explain genetic modification of food to him and asked if he had heard of GMOs before.

He replied, "I think I might learn about that next year in Grade Three."

Too adorable! If only that were true!

You can see a few clips from my jaunt in this video (although I've pretty well summed up the proceedings here in this article):

Extremely Lo-Fi One-Woman March Against Bayer Monsanto May 19, 2018

It was somewhat tricky to march (especially uphill), keep my signs on straight, and get action shots, so these clips are mostly re-caps, but we do what we can do! I'm sure long-term readers are used to my guerilla, lo-fi, DIY ways by now and can overlook any gaps in camerawork. 

Overall, this march was a joyful and fun thing to do. Although a lot of people were wary of me and did the eye-averting thing, I didn't run into any overt nastiness. This was a big relief because GMOs and chemical herbicides are divisive issues that can get quite heated at times.

I enjoy doing things on my own, so it was not a hardship to do this march as a one-woman band, but I'm always open to other people in the area who would like to come together to march in future. 

Basically, I hope people take away from this article and this video that they do not need an external group in order to take meaningful action! Independent actions are powerful, sometimes even more powerful than group actions.

With Uranus transiting Taurus until 2026, we can expect an onslaught of new (mostly unlabeled) GMO foods in the marketplace, particularly involving the relatively new gene editing technology. 

But we can also expect a massive surge for local food, independently-produced food, non-GMO food, and food that is organic or produced up to organic standards. Uranus in Taurus indicates a strengthening of "local food community" worldwide with new connections being forged on both local and global levels. We can expect increasing "radicalism" when it comes to the resistance to corporations like Monsanto, Bayer, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta, and BASF. (Only in a world this messed up would human resistance to poisonous and deadly GMO foods/herbicides be considered "radical.")

There is joy to be had under this Uranus in Taurus transit in taking firmer control over our food, in making healthier choices, in sourcing higher-quality options, and in exuberantly thumbing our noses at the people and corporations who are dramatically crappify-ing our food supply. 

Choose good food! Fight for good food! Grow good food! Work to stop Bayer Monsanto and all evil-doing and poisonous corporations! It's well worth it.

Introducing: Dark Moon Podcast with Yerevan and Willow

I'm happy to introduce an exciting new podcast project I'm involved in called Dark Moon, along with my co-host extraordinaire, Yerevan.

We had a large number of glitches and problems and obstacles to overcome over the past couple months to get this puppy on the interwebs, including a nasty cold that made it hard for Yerevan to speak (!!), but despite all this, our very first (somewhat raw) episode has gone live today, just in time for the New Moon in Taurus and the Uranus ingress.

Fittingly, the title of our first episode is:  

- Uranus Ingresses and Timed War Attacks -

We're planning a series of these Dark Moon podcasts that will cover a wide range of topics. If these 'casts are of interest to you, please subscribe to our Dark Moon YouTube channel. 

Thank-you to my co-host Yerevan for suggesting this project and for all her hard work, and special thanks to Jon Darkly for the use of his wonderful music, as well as for his technical assistance. 

We've officially planted our flag on this new astrological chapter - Uranus in Taurus until 2026 and Chiron in Aries until 2027 - and I hope it is a great one for all freedom fighters and peace workers and resisters of the bullshit! 

I do believe the Dark Moon podcast is a harbinger of good things on that front. 

An epic shift is upon us. Let's observe it and enjoy it and use it to its full potential.

Thanks for sticking with it, friends. 

From the Vault: Saturn in Virgo Calls Bullshit on The Secret/Law of Attraction Phenomenon

Willow's Web Astrology: the original

Often imitated, never duplicated.

This is one of my articles from a series of articles I wrote in 2009 on New Age deconstruction. It's called "Saturn in Virgo Calls Bullshit on The Secret/Law of Attraction Phenomenon," and it was first published on the blog on April 21, 2009. 

Saturn transited Virgo from September 2007 to July 2010. During that transit, it formed an opposition to transiting Uranus in Pisces. The time was ripe for cutting the crap as far as the New Age mechanism (and all pseudo-spiritual bullshit) was concerned...

This is actually one of my favourite articles I've ever written. 

"(Here's one last purge of old Piscean energy as Venus, Mars and the Moon sit on the final degree of the zodiac. By the time you've had your first cup of coffee tomorrow morning, the Moon and Mars will be in Aries. By the wee hours Friday morning, Venus will be in Aries, too...)

As one of my forays into the world of the New Age movement, I worked at a New Age wellness centre in Calgary a few years ago (for a split second) that preached "wholistic health" (yes, they spelled it with a "w").

At that time, most of the people there were over the moon for The Secret and fervently promoted the crap out of it, day in, day out. They had regular screenings of the low budget video and had a 20-year-old "Belief Repatterning Practitioner" at the ready to cleanse you of your "negative beliefs." (For about $80 per session or so - should only need three to six sessions!)

When I wouldn't submit to a "belief repatterning session," the owner of the business whipped out the New Age passo aggro in record time, telling me she was sorry I wasn't "open to new modalities" but she hoped that one day I would be. She also snuck a snide little dig in there about my unfortunate "inability to manifest."

God. What a fucking hack.

That dissenting view was the beginning of the end for Willow at "Love and Light Central."

The thing I couldn't get behind then - one of many things - was the absolute lack of any sociological context involved in the promotion and application of these ideas. The large majority of people who bought and/or provided services in that place were middle to upper-middle class, urban, white people (or identified with that group).

So to have them saying, "Oh, people in bad situations are choosing it for themselves. They're keeping themselves there due to their negative thinking, etc. My life is great! I've manifested everything I ever wanted because I know how to apply the law of attraction 'positively.'" That just didn't fly with me. And still doesn't.

These people seemed to have absolutely zero understanding of their own societal context (privileged urban white folks - even the hippie lookin' motherfuckers) or of the influence of systemic roots related to human conditions. There was no understanding of any kind of interconnection between/among conditions, either. IE. that an owner might be rich because his labourers are poor. He is rich because of a power structure that allows him to reap the benefits of the labour and effort of other people, not because he "manifested his abundance" magically.

So you know that brand new Escalade you're patting yourself on the back for "manifesting?" Well, think about all the people who actually made that Escalade happen. There were the workers in the factories shaping the raw materials. Then the people in the auto plants who built the thing. These people do manual labour day in and day out (and many have been laid off at this point). Then there are the truck drivers who loaded 'er up and drove the thing to the car dealership, hopping themselves up on speed so they can meet their mileage quotas. There are the guys out working on rigs, being hurt and killed to drill oil in order to run the thing, drinking themselves silly to get through another -20 day of work in the winter. There are soldiers fighting and dying (and killing, of course) for access to Middle Eastern oil to run that big bitch. And there are women who are expected to somehow emotionally deal with the results of all this and prop their husbands/boyfriends up for another day or week or year of this stuff while raising kids and holding down jobs of their own. Then there is the damage to Mama Earth that running these big luxury vehicles causes.

Point being, there's a lot going on with this whole "manifestation" process that people don't see, regardless of what it is they're "manifesting." And the disconnect from it fuels all the thinking that it just magically appears one day.

Sorry, but you success stories are being propped up at every turn by people who are getting the fuzzier end of the lollipop. Pluto in Capricorn disposited by Saturn in Virgo knows this stuff.

Following this application of The Secret's ideology, it doesn't matter if you're a poor black kid born into drug-and-violence infested projects or if you're a female born into Taliban-ruled Afghanistan or if you're a rural farmer treated like a labour slave your entire life who had to leave school at 13 to work or whatever the circumstances an individual struggles with. If your life is difficult or depressing, it's the workings of your own negative thoughts and you are somehow choosing this life for yourself because you alone are "creating your reality" and you alone are responsible for changing things. If you were more "positive" and knew how to "manifest," you would be one of the success stories, instead of the failure that you are.

There's little to no concept that the deck might be stacked against. Or that it might not be solely about figuring out how to "successfully" work the same old structures, capitalizing on a bad situation for your own personal gain. Or that it might be of collective responsibility to improve conditions for all people. That THAT is the real meaning of holistic health, not just eating overpriced organic food, recycling, and having a colonic flush once a month. If you refuse to look at social justice issues, if you refuse to look at the power systems/structures that aid in determining who is a winner and who is a loser (and the collective beliefs holding those systems/structures in place), you're missing the point. Because those are things that need to be improved to actually create a real, meaningful holistic health.

As long as the New Age movement is happy to make its coin treating the symptoms of a sick culture, it's just capitalizing on a bad situation.

And it's just a group of navel-gazing privileged people patting themselves on the backs for being so damned successful and enlightened.

It was actually funny because that New Age business owner was a perfect example of the lack of understanding of the owner-worker sociological context. She was a person who brought new people into the fold, milked them for their talent, energy and ideas and then, once they became an ego threat to her, turfed them from the organization. All the while glorying about what a visionary success she and her business were.

Again, using and abusing other people to manifest your Grand Success is a total load. But as long as the Emperess has no clothes and no one will speak up about it, it continues.

Well, you know what? The Emperess has no clothes. She's naked as a fucking jaybird.

I decided recently, after a 1.5 year hiatus, to start posting again on an astrology message board.

Within two days of being back, I had received e-mails from three different people promoting The Secret and the so-called law of attraction to me. Of course, they don't come right out and say this. They tell me they are offering to "check my perceptions" or some such drivel.

So I was thinking, wtf? Three years later, The Secret still has this much sway?

Within a day, I see ads plastered all over the website for Beyond the Secret. Oh, yay! The Secret has a sequel. Well, blessed day.

From what I can surmise, the original created so many people blaming themselves for their "inability to manifest" and so much depression over their "inability to create the exact reality they desired" (not to mention being blamed by those shiny, happy people who DO know how to create their every desire, mostly through social privilege) that they are now schlepping a sequel with the premise: Oh, um, yeah. About that instant manifestation thing. Well, it helps if you have a plan to get your every desire! And let us show you that plan for another $29.95 in yet another seminar or yet another video/book.

So now the shame spiral created by the original has an antidote. Uhhh, yeah. And if that doesn't work, never fear!

**The Secret - $29.95
**Beyond the Secret - $29.95
**One Last Secret - $29.95
**Seriously, This is the Last Secret - $29.95
**Oops! We Forgot About This Secret... - $29.95
**OK. Really. This is the Final Secret - $29.95
**Wow. This is Getting Embarrassing, But This Is REALLY the Last Secret - $29.95

Have your credit card ready, folks, and we'll show you how to manifest a huge bill...almost instantly!" 


All Willow's Web Astrology articles from the blog on Deconstructing the New Age Meme Complex

Zine Deconstructing New Age: The New Age Movement as a Spiritual Control Mechanism

From the Vault: New Age Solipsism

Willow's Web Astrology: the original

Often imitated, never duplicated.

This is one of my articles from a series of articles I wrote in 2009 on New Age deconstruction. It's called "New Age Solipsism," and it was first published on the blog on May 29, 2009. 

  
"This is something so many people are caught up in these days, and it has some really horrid effects socially, culturally and politically.

This idea of: "Nothing exists outside me."

This concept is basically feeding the already off-the-charts strain of narcissism in Western culture and leads to endless philosophical tail-chasing, navel-gazing and inaction in concrete, meaningful ways. It also leads to that very scary level of detachment so commonly asserted: "I live in a different dimension. I've transcended the pain and suffering of Earth. It has nothing to do with me. I'm enlightened."

(I'd just like to point out here - anyone who uses the word "enlightened", isn't. Nothing worse than premature enlightenment! The New Age sells it in a jar.)

It's some sort of Piscean oneness concept gone way wrong. Horribly misapplied to the point that its effect is opposite what was really meant. Instead of understanding the energetic connection among people/situations and the personal responsibility that goes along with that, it promotes a very desired mindset: It's all about you! Nothing exists outside you and your little bubble of understanding!

It's a prime example of how the New Age latches onto a grain of truth (concepts of holism, for example) and then promotes the misapplication of it.

I was on an internet message board yesterday on a thread where people were talking about Obama and if he is a "lightworker." Someone posted that he was doing the evil deeds of the New World Order.

The reply to that comment from another poster (a huge The Secret fan who is constantly schelpping his website based on it) was a prime example of this solipsism.

Instead of actually talking about Obama and his concrete track record (you know, continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, funnelling trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money to international bankers under threat of martial law, attempting to bring in compulsory military service for all citizens 18 - 25, etc., etc.), this dude gets all up on his pseudo-Socratic high horse (another common method with these condescending douches who believe they're "kindly and wisely" pointing out the errors in our perceptions) and asks:

"What is it in yourself that Obama reflects that you've decided is evil?"

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

The old "If you don't like something about someone, it's related to something you don't like about yourself" trex. Bullshit dime-store psychology packaged and sold as "spiritual truth."

His whole ideology is that if there is something you're seeing that you don't like in the world, you just require more meditation or cleansing or self-examination or whatever the fuck he prescribes, more INTERNAL focus, and that will make all the bad stuff go away.

Insanity. Sheer insanity. And the popularity of The Secret (and now, of course, Beyond the Secret!) has created millions of these people, promoting this same garbage, up on their "enlightened" high horses about how those of us who see "darkness" are buying into a "negative belief system" and that we will only understand the errors of our ways once we get to their "level."

Dear God. And we wonder how Bush et. al. were able to get away with it all? And how international bankers just robbed the American people blind under Obama? How all this continues?

It doesn't matter what particular subject you're talking about, "true believers" of this stuff translate everything into their brand of The Secret-ese. It all has that very simplistic and meaningless answer. It all goes back to the same solipsistic ideology and lets them off the hook for any sort of real analysis or concrete problem-solving.

Don't like poisonous oilsands mucking up your river systems? Well, it's a part of you that's doing it! You're creating it.

Don't like babies being born irradiated and deformed from exposure to the U.S. Army's depleted uranium munitions? Well, it's connected to you! You create your own reality, so you're creating that.

They seem to believe constant repetition of this messed-up, solipsistic idiom is meaningful in and of itself? It's not.

You can see exactly how this is being used by the powers-that-be. They love the fact that people are going to look at themselves as the cause of the murderous, destructive regimes and focus internally, rather than holding them accountable for their crimes against humanity.

It's this whole idea of giving institutionalized murder and crime a New Agey free pass because "we were all murderers in one lifetime or another!" Bullshit.

It's the same misuse of concepts like "bad karma" and the caste system. Manipulating people with "spiritual" concepts into accepting injustice and substandard conditions.

The NWO seeks control in four ways - political, monetary, intellectual and spiritual.

And its clear that the ideology of the New Age movement works perfectly to subdue and energetically lobotomize the population. They'll repeat the same old, meaningless idioms, lulling themselves and those around them into complacency. A complacent population: just what the doctor ordered. Unless humanity starts to collectively take a look at what is really going on, to hold awareness of it and demand accountability for crimes committed against humanity, these things continue unchallenged.

All while the "enlightened" crowd sits on their thumbs in some yoga studio.

Oh, but these people are all beyond the archaic political system, right? It has nothing to do with them, up on their enlightened pink clouds. They see no level of personal accountability at all. It's all in the hands of the "higher power," which, it turns out, is THEM! (No wonder these people are so messed up.)

"All part of the divine plan. All part of the divine plan. All part of the divine plan."

The thing is...spiritual hierarchy is over. Dead. Done.

So anyone talking about "enlightenment" is living in an outdated paradigm. Most of the "love and light" worshippers I've come across are enamoured of false light. They have little to no intuitive capacity as far as determining what is real and what isn't and have handed over their personal discernment powers to external sources.

Many go from fad to fad, desperately trying to get their fix of puffed-up Neptunian glamour. Using whatever energy they can find (dirty or not) to sustain their ride on the spiritual carnival merry-go-round. Not wanting to get off to face anything beyond that spinning wheel of hyper-real lights and mind-spinning ether.

Neptunian energy really can be an intoxicating and addictive substance, and once you see how people are using/abusing it, it's sad and enraging at the same time. Most people are better than this.

I see signs of progress, though. There are a lot more people speaking up about this stuff than there ever were before, challenging the constantly repeated assertions of the New Age ideology and ideologies of the day, in general. I think the mass appeal is weakening. People are speaking up despite the fear of spiritual bullying from the positivity-pushers. That pressure really was immense. There were (and still are) so many people lying in wait to latch onto anything they perceived as "negative" and stuff their ideology down other people's throats. It definitely created self-censorship, and I hope people continue to break the influence of that.

It's kind of crazy that the positivity-pushers could have that level of control, considering the weakness of their schtick, but they did and still do, to a great extent.

The other odd thing is how many people who are blatantly promoting ideology related to the New Age movement do not consider themselves New Age. (Or at least won't admit it.) The aforementioned The Secret-spouting message board poster is an example. As are quite a few people in astrology circles. One astrologer, a yoga and Eastern philosophy-lover living in California, even has a personal guru named Amma - a lady who hugs people all day, giving them old paradigm Piscean unconditional love. And yet, he doesn't see any connections among himself, the ideology he is constantly promoting/reinforcing and the New Age movement at all.

I think it's possible they have no idea what they're promoting when they constantly spout off this ideology. No real understanding of the effects this stuff has...

However, in the name of bringing this all to awareness, I definitely encourage people speaking up and putting these New Age regurgitators in their places. I do it every (clear) chance I get."

All Willow's Web Astrology articles from the blog on Deconstructing the New Age Meme Complex

Zine "Deconstructing New Age: The New Age Movement as a Spiritual Control Mechanism" 

Mercury Busts Out of the Retrograde Shadow, and Things Pick Up Speed

So mooooooo-ve it!

Photos: Willow

We are now gradually moving out of the edgy, mental stress and challenge indicated by an extended square between Mercury in Aries and Saturn in Capricorn. 

Messenger planet Mercury was retrograde in Aries from March 22 to April 15, forming three squares to Saturn in Capricorn during its transit of Aries (the final one April 25), and this indicated a complex and somewhat stressful start to spring in the northern hemisphere.

(Not to mention below normal temperatures in locations worldwide. Chiron on 29 degrees Pisces, the degree associated with the last day of winter, coincided with a winter that didn't want to end!)

We're now moving forward, but we've certainly been required to work for it every step of the way.

Communication and intelligence planet Mercury is putting the pedal to the metal as it breaks free of the Saturnine hold that has added challenge and hard work and strategy and complication and complexity to our fresh, spring plans. 

Mercury busts out of its retrograde shadow at 16 degrees Aries on May 3 and moves out of orb of the square to Saturn, now retrograde, in Capricorn by May 5.

This indicates a strong propulsion forward, and we must be prepared for it. After biding our time and working through challenges and making adjustments to the delayed timing indicated by Mercury retrograde and Mercury square Saturn, we must now be ready for things to take off quite quickly! The connections we're making, the conversations we're having, and the information we're sharing are bringing us onto new ground. The territory we have been striving to reach is about to get here fast, and this brings new challenges and requirements for successful navigation. 

Mercury in Aries will move into a particularly cardinal-dynamic period on May 12 and 13, as it forms a square to action planet Mars at 28 degrees Capricorn (May 12 at 6:30 a.m. PDT) and a conjunction to revolutionary Uranus at 29 degrees Aries (May 13 at 3:50 a.m.).

The Mercurial action around this time indicates particularly potent movement, as Mars will be just inside its retrograde shadow at 28 Capricorn at the time of the square (returning to these themes again in late August). Uranus will be in the final minutes of the sign of Aries at the time of the Mercury-Uranus conjunction, ahead of the Uranus ingress of Taurus on May 15. 

The Mercury-Uranus conjunction at 29 Aries is actually the last non-lunar aspect to Uranus before it enters the sign of the bull. This indicates the potential for mental breakthroughs, hot ideas, and startling/exciting realizations as Mercury and Uranus conjoin on the potent anaretic degree of Aries. The Moon will also be in Aries on May 13, forming a square to Mars in Capricorn and a conjunction to Uranus, and this amps up the potency of these aspects. We're fully immersed in the drive into new terrain. 

We can expect big, bold movement around this time, especially movement that we have been working for throughout the Mercury retrograde process. Some breakthrough moments are indicated as we break new trail and hit our strides.

However, there is also an indicator of some "peak stress moments" hitting around these times, as well. 

Mercury moves into grounded Taurus on May 13 (5:40 a.m.), immediately following the "too hot to handle" conjunction to Uranus at 29 Aries.

Mercury transiting Taurus indicates that a bit more of a mellow mindset is possible in the last two weeks of May, and this comes as a relief after the extended stress and charge of the Mercury in Aries retrograde in square aspect to Saturn in Capricorn. 

A nice, stabilizing trine between Mercury in Taurus and Saturn Rx in Capricorn occurs on May 18, and these two bodies are working together from much more harmonious angles. This earth trine should soothe some of the frayed nerves and raw mental states following the hard-angled cardinal energies we've been navigating.

May 18 also appears to be a fortuitous date to plant a garden! This date follows the 24-degree Taurus New Moon on May 15 and will involve Mercury in Taurus exactly trine Saturn Rx in Capricorn, as well as the Moon quite comfortable in its domicile of Cancer.

If one is planting according to the lunar cycle, it is said that plants that grow above ground should be planted between the New Moon and the Full Moon. Plants that grow underground should be planted from the Full Moon to the Balsamic Moon. The Moon in a water or earth sign is considered fortuitous for planting, and Moons in air or fire signs are said to be less fortuitous. 

So the Taurus New Moon on May 15, the day of the Uranus ingress, provides an official opening into Gardening Season 2018 (except for you lucky people who can garden almost year-round).

I generally plant my gardens intuitively, when I have the time and energy to plant, as I'm sure most people do these days. I also don't generally plant the above ground plants and the below ground plants at different points in the lunar cycle. But since the astrology seems to be lining up nicely, I may pay a little closer attention to it this year.

It's been a long haul, friends, but as Mercury burns its way into new degrees of the zodiac as of May 3, we're over the hump. 

Happy Gardening, and enjoy the warm and sunny weather!