1:59 a.m. - 2003-09-10
Root Questions
There's been some major controversy stirred up in Europe with respect to the value of astrology. Well let's see. Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler openly cited astrological principles, incorporating them into the astronomical tracts that they presented to their societies. Francis Bacon asserted that the planets should have influence on terrestrial events and that those influences should be studied.
It was difficult to find the psychology study that generated the current round of controversy, but I finally tracked it down on the following website for British astrologers, Britastrology. There was fairly extensive discussion about the empirical methodology and interpretation of the raw data that was quite interesting. You know, the old saying lies, damned lies, and statistics. Didn't have time to assess that carefully yet, but there was certainly food for thought in the comments.
The site also had an essay on some fairly strong aspects that arise in October in the US with respect to the President and political conditions then. I've witnessed the effects of that transiting conjunction in the birth charts of friends in the twenty or so years I have worked on charts. The results were always some sort of major personal upheaval; other aspects and the placement in houses having to be considered of course, to determine which part of their lives would be affected.
My favorite part of the website, however, was a discussion of Queen Elizabeth I's chart. I had a fascination with that period of British history ([Plantagenet + Lancaster] x War of the Roses = Tudor)throughout junior high and high school. So much so that the yearbook team put it down as one of the distinguishing things about me - "expert in English history". Not. It was just that the reign of those two families and their internecine wars created conditions that were pivotal to the evolution of both democracy and the industrial revolution. Maybe there's a synchronicity in effect that has the article on the US and Madame, the Queen in the same issue.
Closer to home, there was an article in the weekend paper that spoke of a small town in France that is preparing to rename their town square in honour of an Alberta soldier - one Captain George Burdon McKean. According to the paper it's because of a battle on September 02,1918, "that saw McKean and two comrades rout hundreds of German troops by fooling them into thinking they were hopelessly outnumbered." The story goes on to say "It's a battle military historians say is often overlooked as one of Canada's biggest military triumphs, which paved the way for the Allied victory in the Great War..." Apparently, he routed (psyched) out the Germans by leading the advance on the village just after a fierce Canadian assault on the Drocourt-Queant line. "The (5'6", 120 lb) Canadian began shouting and waving as if he were leading a massive force into town (waving his pistol Wild West style); the Germans fled in terror."
Hmmmm, well last week I wrote about the curse of inheriting the "McKean backside" from the female genes of my Mom's forebears. I don't how we are related to this fellow, but it appears we come from the same Scottish clan anyway. He emigrated from England (born in Wellington)to join his brothers in Alberta in 1902. My great-grandparents (John and Sarah McKean) arrived in the Province of Manitoba in about 1908 from the parish of Bothwell Hants, Scotland. My great-grandfather fought in the trenches in France in WW I. He was poisoned by mustard gas, I think, based on the description by my Mom, of his physical state after that. Not a close relative - the hero - probably, but the behaviour pattern is definitely a recognizable family trait. Act first, think later - sometimes it even works. One of my Mom's cousins is doing a genealogical profile of the the McKean family in Canada. I think I'll send him the article and let him figure out the bloodlines.
I finished reading the "Hobbit" out loud for my youngest son and have gotten as far as the meeting with Tom Bombadil in the "Fellowship of the Ring" (first book of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy). The one thing that has really upset me about the current movie version is that the journey through the Old Forest (ents and huorns both), the meeting with Bombadil, and the attack of the barrow wights were all cut out of the first installment. Yet key pieces of the story derive from that sequence of events and it is quite a bit more dramatic than some of the other pieces that were kept in. It is my only real criticism, but I just don't feel the story is the same without it.
Anyway, Miss Kitty and her babies love story time. This evening Badge climbed into my lap - I'm at least able to sit in half lotus again thanks to my chiropractor. Nimbus curled up on the couch with my son. Miss Kitty was laying nearby on the floor, with the three other kittens - Cheshire Cat, Trinity, and Pasha - nursing. This scene was in stark contrast to the riotous play in the hours preceding it. Don't know about "music soothing the savage beast" but obviously storytime does. All the babies were sleeping by the time I'd lost my reading voice; all of them began playing again when I stopped. At least we had a few "idyllic" moments together tonight.
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