The Released

I saw a Frontline program last night called "The Released" that was a perfect example of the systemic change Pluto in Virgos will be responsible for bringing about. And it really can't wait.

The program was about how mentally ill/psychically disturbed people bounce from jail to homeless shelters, jail to homeless shelters in a frustrating, neverending cycle.

The big mental institutions in the U.S. and Canada have been closed, which most people see as a good thing. But true to form, the leaders of the day didn't put any sort of supports in place to make up for those institutions. They've left these people to "integrate into the community" on their own while most of them need at least some level of day-to-day support to stay on their medications and live stably.

So in lieu of a supported, meaningful transition into communities, prisons are acting as housing for the psychically disturbed. As one woman put it, they receive better care while they're in jail than they do on the outside.

The cycle these men suffer through is just so horrifically frustrating. The system is broken, and they keep going through it and reaping the damages.

Most of the men were released from jail with two weeks worth of medication and instructions to follow up with their primary care physician (easier said than done). Many were dropped off at homeless shelters and that was that. Crammed in with tens of other people, many mentally ill/psychically disturbed themselves. Forced out of bed at 6 a.m. every morning and left to wander the streets.

And the insufferable Christian sermons they had to sit through for the privilege of a bed to sleep in and some institutional food to eat!

It was only a matter of time before they stopped taking their medications and were back to full-on psychosis, committing criminal acts. And back in jail.

Like many people, they're living in a system where they're set up to fail. To repeat the same dead-end cycles.

Even the "good" places for the mentally ill/psychically disturbed had three men, with varying degrees of psychosis, to a room.

To never have any privacy and to be around other people battling these problems all the time, especially when you're psychically sensitive yourself, is a recipe for long-term failure, I think. It's only a matter of time before the stresses of living like that create a break.

The funny thing about one gentleman, Lynn, was that he was repeatedly arrested for breaking into people's houses on the search for Osama bin Laden. He was really tapped into the collective unconscious fears there! I used to work at a halfway house/homeless shelter, and I always felt that's what schizophrenia was...an excessive connection to the collective unconscious, especially the dark, fearful parts of it, and an inability to shut it off. Overwhelmed by the denial of the collective...

When Lynn was asked to tell the interviewer what he was looking for in the most recent house he broke into, he said: "bin Laden, Sadaam, the Anti-Christ, the devil, terrorists...I hope I haven't forgotten anything."

Made me think, well, he's pretty much got it there! This insane Bush-led drive to "get the foreign bad guys" has overwhelmed the collective subconscious. There is fear everywhere, and these psychically disturbed dudes are just bombarded with it. It becomes their daily reality instead of remaining underlying, unaddressed fears as it does in most of the collective.

Pisces (psychic/spiritual realms) carries what is undealt with in the preceding signs, and it remains in the subconscious until faced. These people are taking on a huge Piscean load for the collective and then don't have the necessary corresponding Virgoan practical support systems to deal with that load. Not fair!

In a weird way, the drive to get those "terrorists" IS a big part of why Lynn's life is the way it is. The use of U.S. resources overseas and the focus on foreign oil and power has led to a decay of social support systems at home. There is so much energy being poured into Bush and company's foreign wars that people are left to languish domestically, especially those most vulnerable who lack political pull and personal resources themselves.

And there is this entire industry of charity going on providing institutionalized care for these people - something the closure of the big psychiatric hospitals was supposed to get away from. What was supposed to be a temporary solution (homeless shelters) has become the only solution, in a lot of cases. Really, mentally ill/psychically disturbed people don't need charity. They need real lives. And they need to stop being forced into the same structures as "normal" people and set up to fail.

I can't think of much worse than living your entire life with people treating you like you're a charity case. Multi-layers of authority figures telling you every move to make. Yes, they need some support in their lives, some structure. But the level of personal choice or freedom these people have in their daily lives is close to nil, and I really don't think the human spirit is designed to put up with that for too long. The Uranian factor. It seems the only two options are at opposite extremes - the absolute chaos of homelessness or the absolute enforced institutional structure with its stifling rules, schedules, lack of personal choice. Neither extreme can be lived for too long.

As some famous saint once said, "Charity is no substitute for justice withheld."

And we can see the connection here between the systemic clean-up of the Pluto in Virgos and the social justice/right human relations of the Pluto in Libras. As with everything, it's interrelated. Justice is not possible without first creating properly and healthfully functioning systems that provide the support and assistance necessary for human beings to live their lives.

So this is why I'm on Pluto in Virgo's collective ass a bit here. Because we really need to get going on this. Every second wasted on a lame-ass Pluto in Leo throwback ego game or power play is a second someone is living in misery. The choice between continuing with the ego detritus or digging in and making concrete improvements seems clear to me, so when it isn't as clear to other people (or our supposed leaders)...very frustrating.