I tried to stay off the internet that day. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being stressed about what men in power with bad hair, fashion sense, criminal records, or intentions are going to do to all of us. I’m not saying that what they plan to do is anything less than terrorize, but I no longer knowingly offer my cortisol to their whirligig. I know that every news story I encounter over the next four years will be demoralizing, to say the least. I have to save my energy. You do not have to pay a deductible on the first dayI thought. This isn’t 2016. I’m wiser and much more on my guard. I want to keep as much of myself intact as I can as I fight my way through the onslaught of violent acts we have been promised.
But I saw it anyway. Clear as day. We all did that.
The images of the openly transphobic billionaire, left arm raised, fingers taught, reaching for the gold medal of supremacy were everywhere. The richest man in the world – a man who promotes Germany’s far-right party, the AfD, the British anti-immigration party Reform UK – with a full Nazi salute.
Which he did twice.
And many greeted him back, from the comfort of their own homes and communities, in their imaginations, or simply out in the open with their cheers and without any form of opposition.
This is where we are. Again. And it’s a long way to get there. Decades. Generations. Revolutions are not built in a day. (Though I’m open to a miracle.)
As much as I try to keep my focus and not be deterred by the completely unsurprising chaos of the far right, it wakes me up and I think about it. I wake up and feel the heaviness. I wake up to a slew of spooky ghosts. And I’m in good company. What other outcome could there be, after the last Democratic president spent over a year excusing and financing a genocide in Gaza (using our tax dollars)? When there is no opposition to the most morally depraved actions known to man by the supposed liberal leaders who govern us, extremism is all too predictable. If no one in charge has the moral clarity to say that bombing a population, especially a population that is 50% children, is abhorrent and wrong, then we are already in hell. If we can livestream how our cousins, relatives and fellow human beings are being slaughtered, and how homes, hospitals, schools and cities are being razed in the blink of an eye, then anything is possible.
So this incredible gesture, this dog whistle for all the right-wing extremists and white nationalists around the world, is almost a formula. Add to that the eerie irony that the Anti-Defamation League has told us that being pro-Palestine is anti-Semitic, but the salute heard around the world is not.
Next week brings us a New Moon in Aquarius on January 29. This New Moon, in trine to Jupiter, is open-minded and confident. Pluto, the planet of extremes, is also newly settled in Aquarius and make an exact conjunction with Mercury on January 28. It is certainly tense, but it indicates an initiation, one that can make us aware of our ability to do alchemy.
Aquarius’ gifts to humanity are certainty, intellectual rigor, and the ability to see the forest and the trees. This sign is unwavering when it comes to the truth. As a visionary, Aquarius isn’t one to wear rose-tinted glasses or get lost in the comments section. It has the power to reach a decision through in-depth and intensive analysis of any subject.
It’s clarity.
We all know the quotes. We all know how important it is to stand definitively against evil and directly confront supremacy. What we don’t always know, I fear, is how to muster the courage to disobey power. But this is also the power of Aquarius. The sign known as the antihero, the outsider, the fringe dweller, the one who refuses to take center stage, Aquarius knows how to defy.
Those who seek total supremacy take advantage of every moment, every opportunity, every privilege, and every resource available to them. People who uphold the oligarchy achieve their goals and advance their agenda without regard for anyone, any law, without any moral code. It is high time that we who believe in a world beyond endless cycles of violence stop trying to abide by the rules that have already been imposed on us. It’s time we stop trying to be right, perfect, or even “good” and instead do what it takes. It’s time we stop waiting for someone to come save us and send out our own signal instead. One that is steadfast. One that openly declares that we will not let each other face these coming long, dark and difficult times alone. One that makes the bold statement that we will do whatever it takes to keep the soul of ourselves and this world intact.
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