vol. 2 episode 12
Greetings,
Well, it’s “No Poop July” apparently. And while that headline and the subsequent story managed to turn Elisabeth and me into a couple of giggling frat boys for a moment in this episode, there are some more sobering considerations this headline points to, which we are sure to explain.
Stories of stuckness are exactly the kind of “news” we’d expect during a certain astronomical-astrological cycle, namely, Mars in Taurus (sign of the bull). That’s important because it’s evidence of how we experience cycles within cycles in our lives every minute of every day, and those cycles and their unique kinds of energy are indeed predictable. It’s no different than meteorology. Think of us as your astro-weatherwomen.
The value of being able to predict these cycles is that when you can anticipate what is coming, you can leverage the energy. You can protect yourself. You can stay calm and centered, and you can find your power within. You can decide when to act, and you can do so powerfully.
Conversely, the way the network news functions is to cause you to feel alarm, to stay focused on what they are saying, how they are interpreting the news for you, which is to say, you are giving your power away to them because you are paying them with your attention.
What do you get in return for your investment?
For me, the dividends were zip, nada, zilch. However, I came to see that the pay-off for the networks was, shall we say, astronomical.
Letting infotainers and newscasters tell me what to experience, I found, was disempowering. Besides allowing my mind to be colonized by whomever was funding the particular broadcast, I found it sucked my attention out and up, toward whatever they were telling me was important to focus on. It’s subtle, but it’s like being led around on a leash.
And while advertisers make themselves obvious, there are always secret shareholders behind the scenes whose motivations I might not ever know unless I invest still more time finding out; at that point, I just figure it’s better to take my time and attention and place it somewhere else. Like — how can I empower my community? How can I be effective at applying my value system that is transparent and easily interrogated by anyone who wants to see what I am doing? What can I achieve by aligning with others who are similarly engaged, finding solutions and resolutions to what actually is happening around us, and that we can see and feel and experience?
I am certain Elisabeth agrees with this, and that many of you understand what I am talking about, too.
Here’s a powerful example of what it’s like have your mind colonized. Elisabeth sent it to me after we wrapped episode 11, where I talked about the power of story:
This clip makes me both sad and angry. This woman is clearly scared. I get a pit in my stomach watching it. But why is she scared? Because the infotainer she has chosen to pay her attention to is making her scared and then telling her that if she keeps paying him attention, he and others like him will make her safe. She’s been told a story by an extremely artful storyteller, who has succeeded in cultivating this woman’s identity and allegiance. He has colonized her mind.
That’s not being centered, that’s being suckered. That’s awful. She is an unwitting victim, and that is an outrage.
This clip underscores why in every episode of Off the Charts, we emphasize that we are offering you ways to reconsider how you trade in information.
We might not explicitly call it out and say, “Here’s the checklist you need to quit the news media!”, but I am not sure if that’s helpful. Maybe it is, but I suspect the more authentic way to work with our podcasts is to just listen and then think about how you experience the world once you’ve taken in what we have to say, versus how you experience the world after you listen to the news networks, or anyone else who says, “This is what is happening, this is what is true”.
For me, if I consume network infotainment without doing so consciously and without purpose, I find that I feel hollow and disturbed. It’s akin to eating lots of crap food. It makes me feel off-center, buzzy, bloated, off-kilter.
It’s harder to be centered in that condition. And it is from a still and quiet center, a little bit of a void, that we find our power. That hollowness of inattention to ourselves, but attention to whatever the media says we need to focus on, can then return to us as potential. Hollowness or potential. They’re both voids, but one is sucking you away from yourself, the other is pulling you in. Which would you prefer to be in communion with?
Choosing our own adventure. This is the realm of mature souls. And I am invested in the potential of that more than I will ever be in the hollow gains of being cultivated by someone else.
Also in this episode…
Okay, now that my indignation has been made clear, let me share with you what other fun things are in this episode. Naturally, Elisabeth bursts into song.
This time it’s “War is a Science” from the musical Pippin, plus a little nod to the brave Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail because you know, it fits our discussion of the manly man Senator from Missouri, Josh Hawley.
Plus, lots of discussion about what Mars in Taurus will mean on Monday, August 1st as it meets up with Uranus and the North Node. Think “big, explosive, potentially violent, but also potentially liberating,” among other possibilities.
And! We begin taking listener questions! Thank you to all of you who sent in your questions and musings. We begin with one from avid listener “Frank” who wants to know how the US Pluto return is being experienced by the various generations.
We love our patrons!!!
Thank you to all of those listeners who have become material supporters of OTC. We have now begun talks with hiring a production coach, and we are shopping for new equipment. YOU made that possible.
And we are starting to keep a rapidly expanding library of goodies just for you, such as interesting outtakes from EG’s and my conversations about the philosophy of astrology among other bits and bobs. There’s one I especially like — a deep conversation we had in the making of this episode but couldn’t figure where to place it. It’s on how the evolution of the Placidian house system was the natural response to how Christianity had disrupted the holistic nature of pantheism that I believe is reflected in the Hellenistic house system. That hasn’t been posted in our premium content library yet, but it will be soon.
And finally… a little survey:
Please let us know, because it will help us streamline our production process. If the majority of you don’t really refer to the charts, we will not bother you with them, and will probably just put them in the paid content library as reference material.
Thanks for your time and attention. We do not take it for granted.
One last thing, please tap the little “love” button at the top of this post, leave your comments in the comments section by using the little “comment” icon, and please share this podcast with others you think will benefit from it, or at least find it pleasingly provocative.
And of course, if you haven’t yet, then:
Thanks!
Be hopeful. Look at the stars.
(And don’t flip anyone off this weekend… listen to the episode to find out why…)
x Whitney and Elisabeth
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