Monday, March 12, 2012

Ceres in Aries and the Fight for Women’s Reproductive Rights

Feminine dwarf planet Ceres, related to fertility and particularly women’s control over fertility, is currently transiting Aries, the sign of, among other things, the war, the battle, the fight.

With the current Mercury-Uranus conjunction in Aries square Pluto infusing the atmosphere, the Ceres in Aries themes are quite apparent within media (Mercury) channels. Case in point: the verbal attack (Mercury in Aries) from Rush Limbaugh of law student Sandra Fluke.

As many are probably aware by now, Fluke spoke at a congressional hearing in favour of the Obama health plan covering the cost of contraceptives. Her support for this was based primarily on health reasons – a friend of hers lost one of her ovaries due to a condition that could have been controlled had she been able to afford birth control pills. Limbaugh, one of those right-wing, privileged, white males who seem to be so oppressed by women having control of anything these days, called her a slut and a Feminazi on his radio show, prompting a storm of controversy and the pulling of multiple advertisers from his show.

Here's Rush at his finest:

“So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Limbaugh's language has an undertone of sexual violence and is a broadcasted voicing of the hatred, rage, and fear within the societies at large related to women's control of their own sexuality and reproduction.

The thread of hatred toward women, particularly strong women and particularly feminists, is out with teeth bared these days, not least of which in the race to become the next leader of the United States Republican party.

“The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”

- Scary, scary Rick Santorum from Khamenei or Santorum? You Be the Judge by Reza Aslan

Incidentally, radical feminism does not mean “extreme, over-the-top feminism,” the way most anti-feminist people, like Rick here, use it. Radical feminism is a branch of feminism that pertains, coincidentally, to the idea that the primary force of male oppression and dominance over women is in the control of their reproduction process. This control could be literal physical control – as in continually impregnating them and limiting the access to abortions and birth control – or coercive control through social mores and constructs.

The thread of underlying hatred toward feminists is prevalent on certain astrology blogs, also, and the Team Rush commentary following this incident involved an almost inexplicable rush (no pun intended) to dissect Sandra Fluke’s natal chart.

I understand there are problems with feminism - it is an institution at this point with multiple flaws and areas of bloat, requiring the same Pluto in Capricorn integrity-checks and metamorphosis that other institutions require at this time.

But this isn't really about feminism as an institution - it's about women's rights and the virulent rage and attempt at domination that comes about when women exert those rights. It seems that nowhere does this exertion strike a stronger chord than in the area of women's reproductive rights. There is a continued attempt at the erosion of these rights, including systemic attacks both legislatively and in the arenas of public opinion by people who would like to use Pluto's transit of Capricorn to cement a nice, no-rocking-of-the-boat old school patriarchy.

As usual, "women's issues" are actually everyone's issues, and last time I checked, accessible birth control benefited men, too. Men want to have sex without unwanted pregnancy, too.

Astrologers talk a lot about the revolutionary, future-oriented energy of the Uranus in Aries transit, and that drive is certainly there. We just have to remember that not all visions of the future are versions we would like to see come to realization.

An extreme regressive tendency can also be expected throughout the square series between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn with a move back to a "good, old days" 1950s male-female ideal that never really existed. I've written about this before - a type of nostalgia for the "angel-of-the-home woman/breadwinning-bringer-home-of-bacon man." Gender roles where the man controlled the money and made all the decisions and the woman was happy to birth and rear kids, cook, and clean.

Along with this regression will come the continued attempt to erode access to abortion, the morning after pill, and contraceptives. Nostalgia for back alley abortions, coat hangers, and women dying of infection and hemorrhaging, I guess. Might as well paint that shit into a Norman Rockwell painting.

Feminine Ceres has been reclassified as a dwarf planet and is now on equal astronomical footing with masculine Pluto. These two have always had equal power for growth and regeneration as well as death and destruction. The battles along the male-female, masculine-feminine lines will be intense, sometimes heated, and often in-your-face over the next years on this planet as the equalization and sharing of power is ground out one battle at a time.

These are our fights. Right now, right here. This is where we take a stand. The current feminine force including Vesta, Black Moon Lilith, and Ceres in warrior sign Aries is showing us the battleground, and every woman and man who does not want to see a regression in the areas of reproductive rights, women's rights, and the equalizing of power between men and women must take up the battle now.

Signed,

Willow, defender to her death of women’s reproductive rights

(If that makes me a Feminazi – seriously, that term needs to go – so be it. Anyone who doesn’t like it can mosey on over to the aforementioned Team Rush astrology blogs. Check out some inspirational reading in Michelle Duggar's 7 Rules For Being a Good Wife while you're at it.)

23 comments:

HoBad said...

Rush Limbaugh, Sex Tourist:

http://www.alternet.org/story/38192//

http://newsbusters.org/node/6310

My spidey sense tells me *fully grown adult women* are probably not what he's going there for.

Watch a video of him with the sound *off*. "Yikes" was my reaction when I did.

Willow said...

Similar to the "Alex Jones with the sound off" experience?

HoBad said...

Idea is the same, yes.

Alex JOnes with the sound off comes off as a wildly gesticulating meglomaniac but not as somebody who likes to hurt people.

LImbaugh seems straight up sadistic with the sound off, like the type of person who likes to hurt people.

South Node is in Virgo in the 8th, ruled by Mercury in Cap on border of 11th the 12th.

Upside would be somebody who is involved with matters of sexual (8th) health (virgo). But this is the SN so we lean to the darker implications. Virgo demands "purity" and the 8th is other people's bodies. Taken to its extremes, that is a Taliban type mentality toward sexuality even as he makes trips to the DR.

HoBad said...

One more thing: that Mars/Moon conjunction we just hit his South Node on the noggin.

Deb said...

Michelle Duggar?

:: Barfs all over keyboard ::

Anonymous said...

Yeehaw woman!

Anonymous said...

Come on Rush, follow Maude...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-KDCBJuu7JhY7J/the_big_lebowski_1998_maude/

The only thing that could make watching a bunch of gray haired old men talk about birth control is hearing just one of them say it.

Pam said...

Willow, 'defender to the life' of women's rights...

Let's step into life. Giving life to things, breathing life into things, living our lives towards the things that are important.

love Pam

Anonymous said...

Hi Willow, Hi Ladies,
i want to ad a thought about birth-control.
i am 45. i used anti-baby-pills for ca. 1 year of my life and condoms the same.
i had sex all my life through. i have 3 children. 24, 21 and 6.
why? i could have 20 or more in 30-years very acitve sex-life.
i am sure, to give birth is always a political-act. so is to take anti-baby-pills.
to use the birth-controlls instruments of the pharma-industry, especially hormon-based ones, for me i need to take a very close look at. and i dont use it because of the same reasons i dont take the other stuff they provide. i am more than very critical.
i am sure we can controll birth in an natural way. may this wisdom come to us all (again).
if we controll it, as you write willow also because men dont want to give birth and relate sex and birth, we let them also out of their responsibility for the giving of birth and that is part of the unequality between women and men.
i think we need to discuss that part of the story too. this easy controll also gives them permission to steal them out of the collective responsibility for each child.
angi

Willow said...

Defender to MY death, Pam. I don't mind thinking about death as it is as natural to me as life.

I'm not a personal fan of birth control pills or of any of the current pharm methods, but at the moment, many women are, and I think you work with where you are at the moment. Women have been channelled into artificial lives away from the Moon cycles and their own monthly cycles, so securing access to other birth control methods seems to be at least a stop-gap for the present.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean Willow,
And so is, to Leave The addiction to Pharma industry. As we dont know The True aftermath of The other shit thats going on, wie also dont know The Impact of using Pharma birth controll. Around 20 percent of women of Second Generation anti baby pills are unable to give birth as they want to in Natural Way. To me it feels as dangerous as your Cipro. I feel to give away my ceres-rights to build and destroy. I give my power in The hands of The Pharma industry.
I feel it when a Soul Enters my Physical Body and i send her back home when my Partner and me are Not able to Take care responibly at that Time. And Not in The Way of abortion. Just in The Form of Energy entering and leaving After relating.
As women are guided (and allowed to) different forms of addictions. This is One and we should be able to See through this and stop it. Each One as she can.
I dont want to ignore present conditions of many women in The World. But i feel this as a very dominant thread of patriarchy covered as 'womens Freedom' when in fact its a Male idea to Cut us from our ceres Wisdom roots.
Maybe also a saturnian lesson about responsibility in relations. This Time Relations to my unborn or souls-want-to-come or Future-generations. Teachings of The Future to help me in my actual relationships to find The Way.
Of course possible that this is just my own lesson of my natal Saturn-Square-Venus. Ceres- Square Moon-Pluto-Uranus-Eros Konjunktion now that Pluto is sitting on my IC.... And nothing collective.
Angi

Anonymous said...

Another Thing. I Share my view to find Out if other women have similar expierience. To find Out New ways. Nothing is more far than Tell (Young) women to dont avert and care for yourself and stay away from unwanted pregnancy.
But as ever, its complicated and more tangled than we think. And maybe with Saturn in scorpio this could be One Thing to be needed to change.
As you sometimes Write Willow - Sex is Deep Exchange on many Levels. And Sex is also The possibility of pregnancy. We Need to Act responsible. Each in her Way.
Take care of yourself, Ladies.
Angi

Brenda Johnson said...

This focus on reproductive rights at this point, is amazing! Again - All about Control, Power, and Hatred towards Women - ongoing! How to take back the power?

As Venus /Jupiter takes place in Taurus this week, check out this video/story from Eve Eisler:

www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler.html
Eve Ensler: Suddenly, my body/ Video on TED.com

Leaving the reproductive years is very freeing (it may be 40 yrs., but then you have another 40 yrs to go?), you enter a time period where your relationship to your body becomes very important, just in terms of survival/health, as you age. So, there is a thread of "wellness" that is dependent upon many decisions and choices we make and that involve relationship, + awareness of socio-cultural and political conditioning.

Women's studies, involvement with women's circles, centres, community, knowing that comes through direct relationship with nature, is the most powerful antidote to the propaganda - and have to say, pulling down the veils of illusion in order to maintain a "wholeness", physicality, beauty and organicness of life, in this body, at this time.

This is the antidote, as i see it, for me. Tuning into all aspects of water, wind, earth, fire - rolling in the grass, the smells of earth and growth, the sweet sounds of birds, flying with the hawks, eagles, the light and movement of the stars, planets - i have been trying to completely take it in, drink it, absorb the energy of all that. It invigorates my soul.

Am beginning to see that suffering through inequities, power and control will always continue at some level. That does not mean that we should not continue to bring about change in every way - countering the effects of patriarchy on all levels.

In the 70's taking a course in women's studies called Women and the Utopias, no one in our class could actually envision a really ideal world. We were aware of patriarchal history, through Emma Goldman, Phyllis Chesler, Steinem, Marge Piercy, Barbara Walker (later), all great original thinkers and activists, and many more.
As much as we could outline the design of "how it could be", there was always the recognition that the level of consciousness/awareness of our complex human natures affected everything we planned.

Just reminded of this as we hear of the level of consciousness at this time. How can we integrate or take to another level, the connections, between patriarchy, nature, our bodies - using mars in virgo at this time, where the masculine in its more forceful, is quieter, yet working/discerning/discriminating and again, to have mars retrograde, then venus retro coming up, at this completion time, of saturn in libra - its a whole lot about the nature of who we are as men and women, our relational and social systems.

Can hardly wait til we get into saturn in scorpio!!

With the New Year just around the corner - What is the state of our Beingness? Beingness is wholeness, experiencing ourselves - through our senses at a very organic level and relates to feeling, also.

NEW "Being" - how we want to "Be" in the world, how we wish to experience ourselves - as Dynamic, Alive - this is what we are reviewing at this time! This is the Self vs. Others balance/seesaw (libra/aries), and is run by the engine of (virgo) "wholeness" and (taurus) grounding in the body/in our values/ and in the world.

Despite the obvious down side of the retrogrades, it is clearly an important time period and think that also, with eclipse happening May 20, our "thinking processes" based on our sense of Who we really are, will affect us for the next 3 yrs.

Joy to Spring!
(this is almost like a blog post, sorry Willow, you can edit if you like)

Willow said...

Yes, the necessity for energetic responsibility of all kinds, particularly sexual, is coming with Saturn in Scorpio, and I welcome it wholeheartedly.

To be clear, I'm not advocating birth control pills in this post. I agree that they are potentially dangerous and not the best form of reproductive control. Bayer (maker of Cipro) is currently fielding a class action lawsuit from women and their families who took their pills Yaz and Yasmin...and then died or suffered blood clots, strokes, etc. The suit is looking into the possibility that Bayer kept them on the shelves even after knowing the side effects.

On the other hand, I took low dose birth control pills when I was a teen and found relief for severe PMS, cramps so bad I would black out, and irregular periods, so I realize there are health benefits for some.

As I say, we can work toward the ideal, but we also have to work with where we are at the moment. The ideal would be one where women (and men) can control reproduction naturally and responsibly, but this is not where we are in the mainstream. In many cases, it is not even possible to deny men sex without repercussions.

Funding for birth control was a trigger issue here, but the real story (to me) was the broader issues it brought up.

Tyler said...

Politicizing woman's rights is an problem, just as politicizing religion, or gay rights is an issue... as if you never had them to begin with. It's none of the bankrupted and perverted governments bloody business to begin with. Just like the politicized gay rights movements and all the rest... they turn ones personal freedoms it into a mockery of itself in an over budget film disguised as politics to divert attention and ones energy from the real issues.

What kind of battle is it when one cannot even prove the legitimacy of their elections?

If a government cannot prove the honesty and accuracy of the elections by which they claim authority over the people, then the people are neither legally nor morally obligated to obey that government's dictates nor to pay its bills nor to send their children to die in that government's wars, and may with full moral justification resist with lethal force efforts to coerce said obedience, looting, and conscription.

Lilith in Scorpio said...

I was just going to leave you some big virtual ups for this post (and for the Norman Rockwell thing specifically), but after reading others' comments, I feel I need to add something. Something you pretty much covered but which bears repeating.

Ultimately, this is not about birth control pills, just as the current spate of vaginal ultrasound laws here in the US isn't about abortions (or protecting Teh Unbornz). This is about controlling women, period. And this is all it's ever been about.

Arguments about whether hormonal bc is good for you or not are irrelevant in this situation, because it's about ensuring that the mass of women will no longer have easy and effective control over reproduction. And I don't think I need to tell you what the impacts on all of our lives will be if (once??) this happens. It will eventually impact us whether we're taking bc or not, whether we're sexually active or not, whether we're straight or not, because once they've made it illegal to use bc, we're only a hop, skip and a jump away from some serious Handmaid's Tale-type shit.

I am not sexually active and I do not take bc. Haven't in years. But I will absolutely fight tooth and nail for the right of other women to access it, because women MUST retain control of their reproductive health to retain control (such as it is, for many) of our lives.

Love,
Subfeminiazi Lilith

Willow said...

I'm totally with you, Lilith.

HoBad said...

Regarding cramps:

I'm a dude so I can't speak to cramps but when I was in TCM class the instructor handed be a bottle of pills "The Free and Easy Wanderer" Pills and said "take these". I did and my moods mellowed out a whole lot.

Turns out they're usually prescribed for cramps and PMS. hey they worked so I didn't care. But if they worked for my mind cramps maybe worth looking into if cramps of other varieties are a problem.

I would never recommend just trying something willy nilly but apparently Free and Easy Wanderer is one of the most commonly prescribed TCM formulas. Can be found at most health food stores. Would be careful if currently using bc though as you don't want them throwing anything off.

(Mars in Virgo here.)

Anonymous said...

If you want to move a lever, you Need to find One Point to Set it.
That Point to me is, where The collective meets The Personal. Keep your First attention in then Field and let it Guide your Action.
Its about power and Control. Ok. Whenever you Need external help to stay in your power and have your Control, you gave (part of) it away. (your then partly in a neptunian glossey of self-delusion of power.)
I think we should keep that in mind in our dayly Actions.

Angi

Willow said...

The killer cramps are luckily a thing of the past, but thanks for the hot tip, HoBad.

msfullroller said...

Oooo, I'm about to have a Ceres return real soon...in the 8th house! Radical feminazi if that's what one chooses to label me as such, then hell yeah I am!

This crap goes so deep, it's pathetic. Great work as usual!

Mel leo said...

I truly cannot understand how sole responsibility is always placed on the woman. Sorry. Woman traditionally cannot become pregnant without a male counterpart. Two ppl are responsible for the conception act. so logically how can ONE person, always the woman, be held morally responsible. Im pregnant and as of thursday I have to make a life changing desicion that could possibly last an eternity and permantently resignate on my soul. My male "partner" equally responsible chose to leave and take this week to work on himself at a location 2-3hrs away where I hve zero contact with him. He did not have one conversation as to his feelings about conception

and his wants or anything actually regarding
matter before he chose to leave without actual notice or during any other times he was staying, sleeping, eating etc at my residence. We have a beautiful 4yr old girl that he also left without noticeor even a goodbye. So im left with overwhelming tasks involved with emotionally and financially providing for a child and maintinig large home with five animals. Which is secondary to overwhelmimg life changing desicion I must now make alone and quickly. my point is: real life is never as black and white and cut and dry as answering the one question of Do I have an abortion or not? Or is abortion a moral decision? Unless you are the one who is
walking in the, never black and white shoes that will lead to the real life appointment where a desicion must be made taking so many complicated variables into consideration that alters the bearer of those shoes for life you have no right to judge or feel justified in making decision for the person. I wish I could be the coward who runs and disconnects by lying to ones self but with any great gift granted to a person there comes a equally great negative counterpart and tremendous responsibility that
some force intrusted women with. Whatever incredible force that is responsible for creating both male and female life chose women for a reason to be bearers of life so we logically are also burdened with being terminators of life since every action has a equal reaction as sir issac newton pointed out. Limbaugh is nothing without the male bs men like him need because without it hes a unattractive, overweight, man with losey personality and nothing to offer realistically to a woman.

You all are amazing. Ur post are great

Willow said...

Ugh. I'm sorry you are having to deal with all that, Mel leo.

Working on himself, eh? Sounds as if he's running away from the real work.

Reminds me of a post I wrote on that very subject, actually...