Now it seems the use of the historical procedure has emboldened the Fed to seek greater powers over the US financial system. That, and some interestingly timed planetary transits.

On Monday, March 31st, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ( I’ll say more on Paulson in a later post) will appear before Congress to ask that the Federal Reserve be given new powers to oversee the US financial markets. The Fed was initially created to oversee only commercial banks, those that cater to Mr. and Mrs. Average American.

Coincidentally, the Fed’s powers were already increased in 1994 with the passage of the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). HOEPA assigned the Federal Reserve the task of preventing predatory lending practices in the home mortgage market.
The Federal Reserve was established on December 23rd, 1913 in order to create a central bank that would standardize US currency. I was unable to find an exact time for its founding, so I ran the chart for 12 noon. (Click chart for larger image.)

It is a common misconception that the Federal Reserve is a branch of the US Federal Government. It is, in fact, an independent entity run by a Board of Governors whose members are appointed by the president. Wikipedia explains it this way:

It is considered an independent central bank because its decisions do not have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branch of government, it does not receive funding appropriated by Congress and the terms of the members of the Board of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.

There exists a great deal of controversy over whether the establishment of the Federal Reserve has been good for the people of the United States. Some even argue that it is unconstitutional. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln resisted the creation of a Central Bank. The Fed was finally signed into law by Woodrow Wilson, who later regretted it, stating,

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men…

At the time of the Federal Reserve’s Founding, the Sun was at 01 degree Capricorn, opposed by Pluto at 00 degrees Cancer. If you have been following the current positions of the planets, then you are aware that Pluto entered Capricorn on January 28th of this year and currently sits at 01 degree of that sign. Pluto rules power as well as money not directly under your own control (such as taxes and investments).

As Treasury Secretary Paulson appears before Congress on Monday to ask for increased powers for the Federal Reserve, Pluto will be stationing (appearing to stand still in the sky) exactly conjunct the Fed’s natal Sun and opposite it’s natal Pluto as it prepares to go retrograde on the 2nd of April. The energy of a planet as it stations is said to be greatly magnified.

As Pluto turns retrograde it will slip back into the sign of Sagittarius, remaining there from June 14th through November 26th. The hallmarks of Sagittarius are optimism and expansion. Pluto’s initial entry into that sign in 1995 coincided with a rally in the financial markets. Combined with the ability to make trades over the internet, the nature of investing was forever transformed (another Plutonian effect.)

With the intense Pluto in Capricorn somberness that now colors the financial outlook for the US, it appears that the Treasury Department and The Federal Reserve are seeking to benefit from the current Pluto station and its upcoming foray back into Sagittarius by presenting the Fed as the only entity that can stem the rising tide of financial uncertainty.

If Treasury Secretary Paulson is successful in his bid to grant greater oversight of the US financial markets to the Federal Reserve, it will result in an unprecedented concentration of power, giving enormous control over US financial markets to a non-government entity whose decisions are not subject to approval by Congress or even the President himself.

On the other hand, Pluto’s transits may bring to light hidden information that will prompt profound changes in how the US handle its resources.

As Robert Gover, author of Time And Money: The Economy And The Planets, points out in his insightful article on Pluto and the Fed,

It has been found by astrologers that Pluto has to do with changes that are at first hidden, unknown, not yet manifested into our material reality.

No matter how this transformation manifests, and it’s still too early to know, we are surely about to witness an intense struggle for economic control.

Technorati Tags: subprime mortgage crisis, Federal Reserve, Henry Paulson, Pluto in Capricorn, economy

I reminded a client today that ultimately we need to be preparing for things to come, since much that we take for granted today will not be so a dozen years from now.

He goes on to say that the changes will happen whether we like them or not and suggests that we need to learn to “think in the future.” Well said, Robert!

In my own research into the changes that are coming, I’ve seen a future that doesn’t follow our current model of progress. When I mentioned some of the upcoming possibilities to my friend Candice, her reaction was, “That won’t be very convenient.”

As Pluto moves into Capricorn in late 2008 to remain there until 2024, we will be asked to replace “convenient” with “responsible.” So many of the conveniences we’ve come to rely on are, as Mr. Wilkinson so wisely points out, unsustainable. There are obvious ones that come to mind, like gas guzzling vehicles and gadgets galore that put an ever increasing strain on the electrical grid.

There there are those that are less obvious. Think about the recent problem with e-coli tainted spinach. This was not an isolated incident of carelessness. This is a real danger that can happen again, a by-product of industrialized agricultural practices, a modern convenience that we take for granted, that we think of as normal. Often, when problems like this are brought to the public’s attention, the resulting solution is not one of changing the practice, but of throwing more modern technology at it.

The NY Times this week reported that, a few years back, e-coli from cattle feces found its way into hamburger. Instead of cleaning up the source, meat processors “nuked” the meat to kill the bacteria. Still hungry for that burger?

There are other by-products from our modern conveniences that have been proven to make people sick, yet no steps have been taken to change this, nor have any serious warnings about these ill effects been issued. Common Dreams News Center carried an article originally published by the Independent UK, warning of the dangers of the electrical fields emitted by mobile phones, microwave ovens and even your hair dryer. The report stated:

The International Agency for Research on Cancer – part of the WHO and the leading international organisation on the disease – classes the smog as a “possible human carcinogen”. And Professor David Carpenter, dean of the School of Public Health at the State University of New York, told The Independent on Sunday last week that it was likely to cause up to 30 per cent of all childhood cancers. A report by the California Health Department concludes that it is also likely to cause adult leukaemia, brain cancers and possibly breast cancer and could be responsible for a 10th of all miscarriages.

These so-called conveniences, in many cases, are not convenient at all. A few weeks back I went to Office Max to get some supplies. The checkout line was long, not because the store was crowded, but because the credit card terminal was not working properly. Unless one was paying cash, the checkout process required 4 extra steps to force the machine to accept the payment. At the end of my transaction, the flustered cashier apologized for the delay. “That’s okay,” I told her. “This is the future we’ve been waiting for since we were children.”

When I think of the problems that plague our modern conveniences I am reminded of a book I read about a dozen years ago called In the Absence of the Sacred. Author Jerry Mander wrote that technology is not inherently good or even just plain neutral. He argued that we need to have real debate about the economic, social and environmental costs of any technology before it is adopted. He made the case that only one segment of society is currently making the decisions on whether a technology should be adopted, and that segment is the corporate one. He wrote that in 1992 and it has only gotten worse as the criteria for adoption has narrowed to one factor, the bottom line.

Last week, Ken at Prospero’s Books pointed to an interview with David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous. In the interview, Abram points out that, culturally, westerners have lost their relationship with their senses, that we spend all of our time in our heads. We depend on our computers and gadgets to guide us. With a GPS system in every car, we no longer need to know how to navigate by the stars. With the answer to every question posted on the internet, we no longer have to rely on our own wits.

I was talking with a wise friend and a fellow healer recently about how, when we were growing up, we were taught not to eat berries off of bushes, and god(dess) forbid, don’t eat a mushroom that you picked yourself – you might die on the spot. Food was only safe if it came in little plastic wrapped packages at the A&P.

Luckily some of us have gotten over those beliefs. A week ago my husband headed out to Mount Hood and came home with 4 pounds of wild chanterelles. On the way back home, he stopped in our suburban Portland neighborhood and picked figs, chestnuts, walnuts and apples.

I believe that one of the changes we will be asked to make in the near future is in the way we grow and gather our food. When we visited my aunt in upper, upstate New York, she pointed to the “Salad Train,” a literal train that brings their produce across the country from California. Apparently this is how much of the US gets its food.

While I love being able to buy olive oil from Italy and lobster from Maine and chocolate from Belgium, I think we are going to have to depend more on locally available products. Here in the Pacific Northwest we are blessed by the local bounty and an already burgeoning movement to buy locally grown foods.

My husband and I have gone on wild food walks, together and separately. I feel confident that, if something were to prevent the delivery of food to our local supermarket, that we know enough to survive, at least for a while, on what we can forage very close to home.

I’ve also taken classes in making medicines from plants, and while I’m not a pro, I can brew up a mean cough syrup and turn a few roots into tincture. As more and more organisms become resistant to our modern medicines, a movement is already in place to return to ancient and traditional treatments. Wired News reported recently on a group of physicians who are using honey to treat infections and wounds. Like the research on the dangers of EMFs, this is mostly taking place outside the US, but I expect that, as the havoc created by over-administration of antibiotics reaches crisis level, there will be a clamoring for more alternative therapies.

Of late I’ve had this very strong desire to get my hands on an old fashioned foot pedal driven sewing machine, one that doesn’t use electricity. I can’t tell you where that desire is coming from, only that it is compelling. I believe that in the not too distant future, we will be forced to be discriminating in how we use our daily power rations.

My husband and I have also been re-learning how to identify the stars and constellations.

Even if these skills turn out to be less than useful in the future, which somehow I doubt, the simple rewards of the sensual connection back to the earth below us and the cosmos above us are more than enough. We are reminded to be more in touch with each other, with our bodies, with our hearts.

In his article on the coming changes, Robert Wilkinson tells us:

Open to your future! You are on a journey. Where are you going? You can choose what that looks like, and how it will unfold, through using your gift of imagination.

My third eye viewer tells me that the future has a lot in common with the simpler, saner past.

Mr. Wilkinson concludes by saying:

As we move through these irrational and uncertain times, if we keep our hearts and minds open to the magic of magnetic attraction, we will find our community and learn a better way to live on this Earth in the future, long after the current mess passes away into the sands of time.

I repeat, well said.

Technorati Tags: astrology, changes, future, technology, past

My frustration with both the device and the company have led me to long for “the days when we banged a couple of rocks together.” Every time I say this, my husband warns me, “Be careful. You might get your wish.” I’m not sure, in light of all that is going on with our world, that it would be a bad thing.

Instead of a long discourse on politics, the downside of technology, Native American prophecy and the end of the Mayan Calendar, I will simply pass on this wise observation:

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.
~Albert Einstein

Technorati Tags: Mayan Calendar, simplicity, Einstein, technology, complexity, prophecy

For months now I have been saying that, like the John Lennon Song, the power to change what is happening in our country will be exercised by its people. After all, the United States is astrologically a Cancer and Cancer is the sign of “the people.” Think about it. Our Constitution, the governing document of our land (at least until yesterday) begins, “We the People…”

With yesterday’s passage of the so-called “detainee bill,” legislators have proven conclusively that they are unable to stop the decline into dictatorship. That job now lies with the public. And the public has already started the process.

Today, Common Dreams News Center published a story entitled, “Hundreds Arrested in Week of Anti-War Actions.” It states:

Since last Thursday, when more than 500 anti-war groups and religious organisations signed on to the “Declaration of Peace”, some 250 activists have been arrested in various cities for taking part in nonviolent actions.

Since I have been expecting this course of action, though not sure exactly when it would begin, I decided to see what else was being reported on other news sites. I started with a Google search. I tried searching for “peace rallies,” “peace demonstrations.” “anti-war demonstrations,” and a few other related terms. I was shocked to find that I was not getting any returns, at least not ones related to demonstrations in THIS country.

So I started going to specific newspaper sites, including the so-called liberal New York Times. Again, nothing.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised about the lack of news coverage. God(dess) forbid the public be given any ideas about its own power to change things. Despite the suppression of the stories, the feelings of discontent cannot be kept hidden. This country was founded by revolutionaries, and as Pluto, the lord of transformation, returns to it’s location at the time of the founding of this nation, expect to see history repeat itself.

Technorati Tags: revolution, United States, detainee bill, dictatorship, Pluto, anti-war demonstrations, power to the people

While you are at the show, stop by booth 813 to have a reading or just say hello.

A small high-tech firm in Dublin accidently discovered a way to generate clean and unlimited energy using magnets.

The Guardian UK reported:

Sean McCarthy says that no one was more sceptical than he when Steorn, his small hi-tech firm in Dublin, hit upon a way of generating clean, free and constant energy from the interaction of magnetic fields. ‘It wasn’t so much a Eureka moment as a get-back-in-there-and-check-your-instruments moment, although in far more colourful language,’ said McCarthy.

Of course, the left-brained scientific community has scoffed at this claim, trying to write it off as a marketing stunt. You see, Steorn’s discovery goes against the dominant paradigm. The laws of physics state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

But not everyone is entirely convinced that those laws can’t be broken. In an interview, Martin Fleischmann, a retired cold-fusion scientist, states:

“I am actually a conventional scientist,” he says, “but I do accept that the existing [quantum electro-dynamic] paradigm is not adequate. If what these men are saying turns out to be true, that would be proof that the paradigm was inadequate and we would have to come up with some new theory…”

He goes on to say that he doesn’t have confidence in the study. But, in response to an ad placed by Steorn in The Economist, more than 3000 scientists have applied to test Steorn’s theory.

I am not a scientist, but when I listen to the Still, Small Voice, what I hear is that Steorn is not actually yanking the world’s collective chain. What I believe is that they received a transmission from the future, that this technology has arrived before its time because of the dire state of our planet. With hope, this ahead-of-its-time technological breakthrough will be received with open arms. That’s what the optimist in me desires.

But part of me is a pessimist and I fear that the good that can come from this discovery will be thwarted by the naysayers and the folks who are more concerned with profit than preserving the earth’s bounty. Remember, Galileo went to prison for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around. I hope this part of me is wrong. Time will tell.

If you want to know how it all turns out, you can sign up on Steorn’s home page to receive an email detailing the results of the trials. I, for one, can’t wait to hear.

The December 2005/ January 2006 issue of Mountain Astrologer featured an article entitled Pluto into Capricorn Part One: Redefining Freedom – New Politics for a New Century by Edward Gillam. In it he points out that it was during the transit of Pluto through the last degrees of Sagittarius in the 1760s that the relationship between the British and the American colonists began to fall apart. Gillam states:

…violent protests began in 1765; Pluto had, by then, firmly established itself in the early degrees of Capricorn. By the time that the revolutionary movement had gathered unstoppable momentum, Pluto had moved into the final decan (segment of 10 degrees) of the sign. …This resulted in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, with Pluto at 27°33′ Capricorn.

Essentially, the United States is about to have a Pluto return.

Capricorn is the sign associated with the rules of society and political institutions. Where Pluto casts its shadow one often finds transformation through confronting and dealing with issues of power. Do I agree with Mr. Gillam that we as a country may be starting a new cycle of revolution against the established power structures? I do.

Long before I considered the astrological influences, I was seeing a future for America that included war, devastation (as in that wrought by Hurricane Katrina) and lack of resources, not just gasoline but food, water and electricity. I first had this vision on the night of December 12, 2001 moments after I heard that the U.S. Supreme Court had declared George W. Bush the winner of the hotly disuputed presidential election. So visceral was my vision that I had pains in my stomach. I shared it with a few select friends who looked at me like I was crazy. Remember, we were still basking in the economic glow of the Clinton administration. So I kept my mouth shut about it for a long time.

Six years have passed and the people I talk to are no longer shaking their heads. The mess created by the current administration will not be simple to clean up. Capricorn can be a stern teacher and my clients have often heard me say that during a Pluto transit, “Resistance is futile.”

As I’ve watched a Congress powerless to stop the tide of political corruption, the vision before me shows a future where the power to make positive change is more likely to come from the people than from their elected representatives. The showdown in the Connecticut Democratic primary between incumbent Joe Lieberman and anti-war challenger Ned Lamont is one such example of the people standing up against the established (dis)order. But somewhere deep in my Scorpionic gut, I know that elections are not enough. I’ve been telling those close to me for some time that I see the country headed for a new wave of of civil unrest, not unlike that experienced during the 60s.

I remember those times well. My mom had a job in downtown Newark, NJ. One day she was told to go home because the streets had become dangerous. We watched the riots on the television, afraid, wondering if Mom would be able to return to her job, and if she did, would she really be safe.

Coincidentally, the August/September 2006 issue of Mountain Astrologer contains a short piece by Ray Grasse called “The Sixties Reloaded.” Grasse points out that Uranus is moving into opposition to the point where it conjoined Pluto in 1965 and 1966 and suggests that we may experience some of the same revolutionary themes from that time.

The U.S. is not the only nation affected by Pluto’s impending journey through Capricorn. I hear yesterday on Air America Radio that the military is standing ready in Mexico to quell possible civil uprisings related to its own disputed elections. Very little is written in the mainstream media about the dangerous situation there. However, if you look closer, you can find travel warnings issued by countries all over the world, even our own.

I didn’t write this to scare you, but Capricorn does require us to view things with a heavy dose of realism. Even so, it’s important to remember that change, no matter how difficult, is ultimately a good thing. The stages of change begin with death but always end in rebirth. The last Pluto in Capricorn cycle marked the end of colonialism in this land and the birth of a nation. As we begin this current cycle, it’s impossible to say exactly what we are birthing. First we have to clean house and throw out the trash. (Pluto rules garbage, recycling, composting, etc.) Only when that’s done can we uncover the treasure.