More on those Sims I mentioned…

Now that I’ve told you about my Sims, I’m feeling somewhat committed to giving you an update on how they’re doing. I don’t know why. They are, in fact, fine. They’re always fine enough. I’m not sure that Sims can even die, come to think of it. And everyone wants to give them nice things.

On dialogue: Now, to be clear, speaking in the purely digital sense, Sims can talk to one another in the game, but they only talk in gibberish. I’m spontaneously channeling them like they’re fictional characters, and that’s how I’m quoting them in English. As usual, I do not claim to be able to translate gibberish particularly well. It seems that Sims no longer say “Deg deg”, which I think they did used to say for goodbye. Now they just leave, like they’re ending a phone call in a movie or TV show, without saying a word.

By the way, did you know that dog bowls cost them 5,000-8,000 Simoleons (cunning usage of the slang to this day goes to the Sims family of games) apiece?

Current Sim roster:
Andre: Andre moved to a bigger house yet again. Long story. Andre and Sea are not doing so well as a couple. That’s their update. Sea is sick of Andre not taking things seriously enough and Andre keeps cracking jokes at the wrong time. Things are tense. Andre does not want Sea to move in even though I notified all my Sims that they should couple up so that I could make new Sims without having to build new houses. What gives, Andre?
Narelle: Narelle had a brief fling with Gray. He had a dream about her and they danced in the rain for a while. Honestly, it was part of an in-game challenge, and they both snapped out of it pretty quickly. My Sims decided that Narelle’s house has the best view in town, where it looks out on the harbor. I put a window in her bathroom for this reason. We almost put one in her bedroom too, but she had a picture of the ocean in the way, and liked that better. Alright, Narelle.
Tom: Tom and Twyla are both very into work right now. I’m not mentioning anyone’s jobs just like I’m not mentioning their last names. Is that fine? They’re just Sims. Tom and Twyla took some time out to help Sea renovate. They all gazed into mirrors and remembered their past mistakes, for over three hours each. Intense. Tom and Twyla still certainly seem to be in love. Tom calls their “Be Romantic” option “57 Seconds in Heaven”.
Twyla: Twyla got a nice Siamese cat named Finches. Twyla likes to make up little songs for Tom, and he loves them. Did I mention that she put seven ferns in their enormous bathroom, while Tom was at work without her for once, and they now like to call it a “lagoon-like bathroom” for giggles?
Sea: Sea is so ambitious lately. He’s been renovating a house in the desert, and he talked about moving there with Andre, but Andre said the place wasn’t ideal and that he preferred his current setup in his ranch McMansion, which he then impressed himself by calling a McRanchion. I think Sea’s going to get a husky and possibly a new boyfriend soon.
Dylan: Dylan went for it with Gray after a brief disappointment involving Narelle and a rainstorm, and they’re living together now. They’re sweet together so far.
Gray: As soon as Gray moved in with Dylan, we made a special Sim magician room for him. A dramatic archway opens into the small chamber from right off the living room. Gray also wanted an extra door put in the bedroom because he personally cannot stand that Sims thing where they’ll just go outside to go between rooms. Dylan said that the two of them should talk about what their kids are going to be like, and Gray said “They’ll be happy”. She thought that was the most romantic thing.
Agrippa: Agrippa got a sweet German Shepherd and promptly named him Shadowfax (like from Lord of the Rings). Turns out Agrippa’s kind of a jock; he likes to spend a lot of time at the gym. He thinks that Twyla is very beautiful, but he means no disrespect to Tom.
Arnold: Arnold is the new guy, and got the house right next to Dylan. Works with Andre. Arnold requested his bed be pushed against the wall as a preliminary preventive measure against Woohoo, although he’s not necessarily against moving it. He wanted red countertops, which was a bold color choice in that kitchen.
Starry: Starry is new as well, and currently living in Tom’s old place (which Andre also lived in briefly, leaving eggshell colored walls in every single room). Starry is rescuing a puppy, which might be a Greyhound, but I’m not sure. She wants to name the puppy Chops if she can keep her. She’s reading a puppy book for 22 hours or something absurd like that right now.
Irulan: Irulan is new too, and currently in Gray’s old townhouse (which Twyla lived in very briefly before that). Rather religious (which Narelle is too, kind of). Irulan was very direct in telling Arnold they could be boyfriend and girlfriend this morning. He was like “Oh, interesting. Do you want to…” and Irulan cut him off, saying “No. I’m just informing you.” and left. They still haven’t kissed.

Are we living in a simulation?

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Is nihilism a philosophy?

(From the Easter egg page associated with: ᓚᘏᗢ“)…

me, on nihilism: Nihilism isn’t a philosophy. It’s what philosophy always seeks to defeat.
astral visitor (on receiving band): But didn’t Nietzsche love nihilism?
me: No. He just talked about it. Saying he loved nihilism would be like talking about Star Trek characters trying to avoid a massive astronomical phenomenon that kills people out in space. And then saying, Gene Roddenberry loved deep space vacuum anomalies, or whatever. He didn’t. But those were a threat in the (hypothetical) text.
(note: That the word nihilism is sometimes seen routinely capitalized in English is perhaps easiest to explain as a mistake arising from the fact that it is a German noun, and in German nouns are capitalized.)



No, nihilism is not its own philosophy. It is more like a bleak or harmful attitude and pathological phenomenon. Compare with neurosis.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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On pillars

You never used to hear about societies working without pillars of the community, and enough of them. With their elevation in society, they necessarily become its patrons. The concept of noblesse oblige is that of the upper classes making sure that the rest of the people have a good society to function in, such that it is a symbiotic and positive relationship that is easy to maintain, even across generations. That is a natural mechanism in any sustainable society. These pillars are automatically held up to high standards of behavior and judgment, and society needs that. It’s almost architectural. These are supposed to be the people who hold up the roof of civilization, and the whole structure is better for it. Ptah was a god in ancient Egypt that evoked such an archetype. He is mostly acknowledged as a god of architecture and craftsmanship, but part of his doctrine involved setting a divine example for those humans at the top of society who had an extra measure of prosperity and therefore shouldered extra responsibility in their communities.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Christs of the Ages

There comes a time sometimes when one individual has to learn something innovative about dharma and maintaining dharma (which involves being a good and decent person in God’s good graces) for many, many people, and the global conversation about dharmic principles is advanced. That mental and spiritual energy is felt all over the world by that person’s contemporaries. That individual can be termed a christ. This includes Jesus Christ, the Piscean Christ. Some branches of Hinduism acknowledge that Jesus Christ was an incarnation of Vishnu, and many claim that Gautama Buddha, the Aries Christ, was as well. It is also true that Krishna (the Taurean Christ) and Rama (the Gemini Christ) were the Christs of their ages. The Aquarian Christ is the next one after Pisces because it goes in the same order as the Great Precession of the equinoxes. The Christ ages occur through time as a reverse Zodiac story/sacred machine.

I had to personally uncover this religious/historical information using Earth Logos; I’d never heard it otherwise, though it is widely understood that Jesus Christ is connected with the Piscean Age, and that has been a powerful message conveyed over the last century.

Here are some notes from 🜄 (Easter egg page associated with: water) about the Gemini, Taurus, Aries, and Piscean Christs, starting with Pisces:

Notes on Jesus of Nazareth as the Piscean Christ:
Jesus of Nazareth was the Piscean Christ. He had a difficult ministry, which happened while the dismal Kali Yuga was in full swing (now in 2021 it is currently in an advanced state of decay and ready to be shed), but he spiritualized life for a lot of people. I think he was very successful in that. Many people have had it very much on their hearts over the years to makes sure that Jesus, his ministry, and his philosophies were not forgotten. Christianity, part of Jesus’s legacy, is one of the most popular religions in the world.

Jesus was Jewish, and studied Jewish sacred texts and philosophies as well as Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian philosophies. Jews were occupied and very oppressed by the Roman State in the time and place where Jesus had his ministry, and Jesus’s message was one of hope in the face of oppression and proving that miracles could happen, as well as one that ended up exploring the idea that death was not a dead end. Another key idea behind Jesus’s ministry was that God is good.

Jesus was a philosopher of the Pisces/Virgo axis, Pisces being the dominant note in the Age of Pisces and Virgo being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel.

Pisces themes invoked:
Healing: Jesus was known to do miraculous healing, curing the sick, the disabled, and more at key points in his ministry. Pisces rules the twelfth house, the arena where most of the healing of serious illness happens (the other being the sixth house, which is across from the twelfth, and focused more about health maintenance and other routine healing).
Mysticism: It’s said that the twelfth house is where we dream and have other experiences of transcendence. Jesus had a close relationship with God that he described as feeling personal to him.
Oppression: The twelfth house is also the house that rules oppression and overcoming oppression. Jesus’s life happened across a backdrop of oppression against Jewish people in his region. His prophesied coming was attacked even before his birth, and Jewish boys his age were targeted for murder around the time he was born in case they were him. It is a very good thing he survived, and he made it clear that oppressed people could be important.
Imprisonment and execution: The twelfth house rules prisoners, punishment, and death. Jesus was murdered via unfair execution for no crime at all, and briefly imprisoned beforehand.
Poeticism: Pisces has a distinct poetic or figurative streak. Jesus was known for wording things beautifully and teaching via parables, narrative analogies that help people understand a philosophical concept without systematically analyzing the main point for them in great depth.
Maturity: Jesus had a mature outlook, and described God as a wise and loving father figure. In the gospels, his disciples seem to look up to him. Pisces is the final zodiac sign of twelve, and at its best signals a peaceful maturity.
Illusion: The devil is said to have tempted Jesus in the wilderness during the ascetic period in Jesus’s ministry. The devil is said to have shown Jesus visions of paths he knew he was not destined to take, and Jesus was able to calmly shut down these deceptions.
Peace: Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace. Pisces carries the philosophies of mutable water, the calm sea that Jesus commanded into being when a boat trip found him and some of his disciples on choppy waters.
Fish: Fish and fisherman are iconography associated with Jesus Christ and Christianity. Pisces is the sign of the fish.
Death and overcoming death: Jesus is said to have died and resurrected. Pisces is at the end of the circular zodiac cycle, and Pisces and the twelfth house represent some of the mysteries of death and dissolution. Pisces is the sign of endings in general. Despite the Zodiacal Ages going in reverse order (e.g. Gemini, then Taurus, then Aries, then Pisces, then Aquarius, etc.), the Age of Pisces is the end of a major cycle, and ends around the same time as the Kali Yuga.

Virgo themes invoked:
Study: Jesus studied Jewish theology and multiple philosophies. In the gospels we read about him impressing adults as a child with his knowledge of scripture. Virgo and its planetary ruler Mercury are studious.
Chastity: Jesus had attractions, but chose not to be sexual during his ministry. Virgo is represented as a virgin. In Christianity, Jesus is said to have been born of a virgin mother, known as the Virgin Mary, who conceived him through a visitation by the Holy Spirit.
Mildness: We hear about two times when Jesus got angry, and one is apocryphal. He did not do violence. Virgo at its best is mild and careful, and wants to use good judgment.
Service: Christianity ended up being a religion very much dedicated to service to others, where there is good work to do. That type of service is a key Virgo theme, and the sixth house it rules is the house of dutiful service.
Wine: The Virgo constellation is often said to be holding a cup of wine. Jesus of Nazareth used wine at highly symbolic points in his ministry. He was also rumored to have performed miracles with wine.
Feeding people: Virgo is also associated with the harvest and feeding people. When the constellation Virgo is not holding a wine cup, she is often depicted with a sheaf of wheat. Jesus talked about food, especially grapes, wheat, bread, and fish, often and significantly. He was known for feeding people at one of his famous sermons when no one wanted to leave him and there was little food to go around.

Notes on the Gautama Buddha as the Aries Christ:
The Gautama Buddha was Siddharth Gautama, the Aries Christ. He was born a prince of a kingdom in India called Kapilavastu during the Kali Yuga, the most sorrowful of four time periods experienced in the Universe (Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga). He was evaluated early in life by a diviner who declared that he would either be a great king or a great religious leader. Siddharth grew up one of those conscientious children who feel the pain of the world very keenly. Whenever he went out of the palace, he would see that things weren’t going well for the average person in his father’s kingdom, and he was often grieved by the amount of suffering to be encountered in the world. He felt that his path lay in religious innovation, examining and resolving the subject of suffering.

He renounced his engagement in worldly matters while still a young man, and became an ascetic and philosopher. He started Buddhism, a religion that is highly systematic and contemplative in nature. As a basis for Buddhism as a religious system, the Gautama Buddha, as he became known upon his enlightenment, developed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. After experiencing both opulence and asceticism in life, he advocated the concept of a Middle Way between the two walks of life, incorporating positive things he learned from both.

The Gautama Buddha was a philosopher of the Aries/Libra axis, Aries being the dominant note in the Age of Aries and Libra being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel (especially for many hundreds of years at a time).

Aries themes invoked:
Leadership: Aries is a sign sometimes associated with leadership (especially military leadership). The Gautama Buddha was born into a royal family, and was raised to be a leader. He became a popular and charismatic religious leader after devoutly pursuing religious philosophy.
Ears: Aries rules the head, including the ears. The Gautama Buddha lived during a time when long earlobes were considered auspicious, and is often depicted with very long earlobes. He pulled them habitually throughout his life so that they’d be longer, as I understand it.
Nirvana: Nirvana is a term for disappearing into union with the divine. Esoteric Aries is known (per Alice Bailey) as being where the will of God is known, where a person’s mind can dissolve into the divine mind with the correct amount of discipline and merit.
Nontheistic options: I’ve said before that Aries wants to believe in God, and that tends to be true of that energy, but neither does Aries tend to feel that they absolutely require it to go forward correctly. This is also a precept of Buddhism, which embraces an amount of skepticism (a theme both Aries and Libra have in common), and presents a religious philosophy that can include reference to a divine mind/deity or not.
Extremes: Siddharth Gautama experienced extreme wealth as well as long periods of asceticism. Aries is comfortable with extremes, and as the Buddha he was motivated to learn from them and cheerfully reconcile them, showing mastery.
Choosing to operate as a single person: The Gautama Buddha married young, but chose a monastic lifestyle quite soon thereafter, veering toward the first house (ruled by Aries) and away from the seventh house (ruled by Libra), where themes of long-term partnerships are found. Many other people he knew followed suit and joined his monastery, inspired by him.
Innovation: The Gautama Buddha wanted to go his own way in life, rather than take after his father. He wanted to develop new philosophies to help people. Aries is a sign that tends to be comfortable with innovation, and a lot of personal innovation comes from a person’s first house, which influences nearly everything we do, rendering it more personal to us.
Mendicant tradition: The Gautama Buddha advocated a medicant tradition, that of a community supporting a dedicated religious devotee comfortably, arguing that a community can benefit a lot from sincere religious practice and the wisdom it brings. In a way, this relates to Aries being related to newborns (under the theory where an average person’s biographical life follows Aries to Pisces in stages that range from birth to elder status and finally death), insofar as newborns must in part rely on their community and its correct customs for survival, while offering hope and innocence to the group as a whole.
Dissatisfaction: Buddhism closely relates the concepts of suffering and dissatisfaction, which is a very Aries outlook indeed. Of course there are other kinds of suffering, and Buddhism does admittedly have less to say about those.
Atavism and ancient wisdom: Aries energy– brand new feeling and naturalistically wholesome at its best– suggests something of atavism. Before Siddharth Gautama’s birth, his mother had a dream featuring a six-tusked elephant, which was considered a sign of the Buddha. The six-tusked elephant may have been something to do with the idea of “thinking older”, subtly evoking by-then-extinct four-tusked Primelephas of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. The Gautama Buddha claimed to have recovered an ancient system that had been used before the full-fledged development of widespread theism, and adapted that into parts of Buddhism.
Aries and the cycle of rebirth: Buddhism discusses the cycle of rebirth, and how to exit it. Aries itself is a symbol of the cycle of rebirth.

Libra themes invoked:
Luxury and the problems of excess: Libra, being ruled by Venus exoterically, is one of the signs most related to luxury, and it also advocates moderation. Siddharth Gautama was born into luxury in a mismanaged society. His parents’ kingdom was not a happy place for its subjects, and poverty and crime were widespread.
Balance: Buddhism’s concept of a Middle Way recalls the symbolism of Libra: a set of scales, balancing on a central point. There’s a sense in Buddhism of moving from Taurus’s Venus values (e.g. consumption, sensuousness, hedonism) to Libra’s Venus values (e.g. mindfulness, balance, sincere points of satisfaction).
Reaction to injustice: The Gautama Buddha’s renunciation of his royal duties in favor of a religious path was in part a reaction to rampant injustice in his parents’ kingdom. Libra is associated with the tarot card called Justice.
Analysis and systematizing: Libra is an air sign that enjoys analysis and utilizing and developing systems. This is a common theme in Buddhism. It’s fairly easy to pick up on how thoughtful and systematic Buddhism is, even from afar.

Notes on Krishna as the Taurean Christ:
Krishna, the Christ of the Age of Taurus, lived in a very traumatic time. The Dvapara Yuga was almost over during his lifetime, and people were feeling currents carrying premonitions of the dim and downgraded Kali Yuga to come.

Sri Krishna (Sri being an honorific) was beloved and wise, though he did have a difficult childhood. He took refuge in the time he spent with his childhood peers. He grew up to be charming, attractive, and popular, and he stayed nice.

Krishna became a powerful king, who was known for his philosophies and his many wives and concubines, whom he may have been able to visit astrally. He was a responsible and ethically decent husband.

Like Rama before him and Buddha and Jesus after him, Krishna is one of the most important and popular religious figures in the world today.

Krishna was a philosopher of the Taurus/Scorpio axis, Taurus being the dominant note in the Age of Taurus and Scorpio being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel (especially for many hundreds of years at a time).

Taurus themes invoked:
Devotion: Krishna advocated bhakti yoga (which is not a kind of physical yoga, which is often referred to as hatha yoga), the practice of spending devotional time with deities. Taurus’s exoteric ruler Venus hints at this when expressed spiritually through Taurus: the connectivity between the divine and a person.
Sex positivity: One of the major spiritual motifs of Krishna’s life is his relatively reckless relationship with his lover Radha, who’d been married off young to another man. Their love is often used as a metaphor for a devotee’s very close relationship with God (or a god or goddess) that emerges when they practice bhakti yoga. Krishna also reportedly had hundreds of wives, later in his life. Taurus is sometimes seen as overindulgent, but is certainly one of the signs most associated with sensuality and sex positivity, being Venus’s primary sensual outlet in the zodiac.
Wealth: Taurus rules the second house, which is assigned to our concrete assets. Krishna was wealthy, and lived a lavish lifestyle. He was able to take care of many, many wives adequately.
Food: One of the most famous stories about Krishna’s early life features the time when Krishna found a large storage container of butter when he was exploring as a toddler, and ended up eating some of it. Food is a theme of Taurus, an energy that often likes to live large and enjoy gustatory pleasures. Butter is a dairy product, usually produced from cow’s milk.
Cows: Krishna grew up in a cow-herding community, where virtually everyone was taking care of cows. The community may have been Shaivite. Bhakti images of Krishna often feature him with pretty white cows (also with Radha, playing the flute, with fists full of butter, and more). Taurus is the sign of the bull (Shiva’s vahana), and by extension, the cow.
Lila: The concept of lila is that life is playful and pleasurable. These are Taurus themes. Krishna was very fun and fun-loving, and he lived passionately.
Music: The planet Venus often manifests in Taurus as musical or appreciative of music. Krishna was famously a musician, being very accomplished at the flute.
Throat: Taurus rules the throat in Western Astrology, and a flute is the type of instrument that functions most like a throat. It’s also true that Krishna gave long speeches. The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text that describes his life, philosophies, and visions, features a lot of monologue.
Quality: The planet Venus often manifests in Taurus as caring about quality in various ways. Krishna was recognized as an extremely high quality person (right at a point when people were noticing a pronounced dip in quality, as the Dvapara Yuga was starting to evanesce): nice, fundamentally decent, and often correct about things.

Scorpio themes invoked:
Transgressive sex: Krishna’s story features nonmonogamy (unto polygamy) and affairs, and how with careful ethics those situations turned out to be mostly okay. These kinds of complicated sexual patterns are often associated with Scorpio and the eighth house it rules, and it’s interesting to think about how Krishna was able to balance them and keep things running fairly smoothly.
Forgiveness: Krishna and his married lover Radha were recognized as a sincere and caring non-traditional partnership, and their love is usually not seen as sinning, precisely. But what they were doing did require a certain amount of forgiveness, which was extended to them. There’s a certain amount of forgiveness that is both practical and humane, and multiple scenarios in Krishna’s life illustrated this. Scorpio energy must be gracious and forgiving enough, or it is in a state of too much decay.
Wealth: The Taurus-Scorpio axis deals with wealth. Scorpio and the eighth house involve types of wealth that deal with dependency, complexity, financial losses, charity, and money changing hands. One story of Krishna details how one of his wives once offered to give away Krishna’s weight in gold as part of a silly game, with fairly fraught results until Krishna’s first wife stepped in to save the day with a devout gesture.
Death: The Kali Yuga, known as a comparatively afflicted time (compared to the glorious Satya Yuga, the propitious Treta Yuga, and the adequate Dvapara Yuga), began with Krishna’s death. Scorpio and the eighth house deal somewhat with the deaths that you live through, and in this case it was the human world who lived through the trauma of losing Sri Krishna.

Notes on Rama as the Gemini Christ:
Rama (Vishnu’s first human avatar) was the Gemini Christ. His life was characterized by a lot of success, and some hardship. He was born a prince, and heir to a great and prosperous kingdom. The Age of Gemini, and the Age of Cancer and Age of Leo before it, took place (partially in the case of Leo, I believe) during the Dvapara Yuga, which is still remembered as a very gracious time. The Ramayana, an epic poem which describes Rama’s life, is full of people who gave each other lavish gifts, openly respected and adored one another, tried to do what was right, and trusted one another when possible. In fact, other records mention Rama’s father King Dasharatha giving up his only daughter to be adopted by and live with another king in a neighboring kingdom, on the grounds that the latter king had no children. King Dasharatha had no other children at that time. Rama and his three brothers were born later.

By Rama’s time, the Dvapara Yuga was in a slight state of decay, but only so much that the Ramayana shows people being sometimes gracious to a fault, or in the wrong directions. Conduct seems very encoded and formalized during this time, more perhaps than we’re used to in the Kali Yuga that followed.

Rama was a philosopher of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis, Gemini being the dominant note in the Age of Gemini and Sagittarius being directly across it on the zodiac wheel. Because the Zodiacal Ages (the various Christ ages) take a long time to ebb one into the other, the Christ of each age may invoke an axis of two opposing zodiac signs and some of their themes. It’s good to have two feet planted, so to speak, if you have to be on a wheel.

Gemini themes invoked:
Twins and siblings: Gemini, sign of the twins, rules the third house, the house of siblings. Rama had three brothers all born on the same day to three different mothers, and the boys were very close. Two of the brothers were twins, though Rama was not a twin. One of them even went into exile with Rama when their stepmother tried to promote her own son as King Dasharatha’s successor, and that son selected to stay loyal to Rama during the exile. The brothers demonstrate true kinship between siblings, and all ended up marrying women from the same family, another royal house.
Marriage and love: Rama is often mentioned in the same breath as Sita, his beloved wife, and they are often shown together in bhakti images, the triumphant couple. Sita was known as a daughter of Earth, and Rama was the divine incarnation of Vishnu, which may recall the twin brothers Castor and Pullox, one of whom was a terrestrial man while the other was a son of Zeus. Rama and Sita had a celebrated love, one that lasted a lifetime (despite varying accounts on the matter). Gemini is associated with the tarot card called The Lovers.
Being nice: King Dasharatha was a nice, thoughtful, and generous ruler. Rama is known to be one too, in his time. King Dasharatha’s household seems to be so much in harmony that his three wives appear to coexist happily, and their sons love each other. Rama in particular is known to be extremely nice. Even when his stepmother Kaikeyi used an old promise from her husband King Dasharatha to oust Rama into exile for fourteen years, Rama is nice and courteous about it. He even parts with his three mothers lovingly, showing no grudge. Cancer, the sign associated with motherhood and the name of the age that precedes Gemini (a sign for whom it is important to stay personable and nice in general) in the precession, had already decayed. Kaikeyi’s perversity at requesting so much suffering on Rama’s part may be a nod to the passing of the Age of Cancer.
Problem solving: It is in the third house that we first learn the basics of problem solving. In the Ramayana, there are very few problems that have no solutions. In fact, Rama was born to solve a problem and slay a terrifying demonic being who couldn’t be killed by anything mightier than a man.
Verbal weapons: Rama and his brother Lakshmana studied with a holy man in their youth and were given sacred mantras to use as weapons that could slay demons handily. Gemini and the third house are particularly focused on language.
Friendship: Gemini is a sign that values true friendship highly. The friendship between Rama and the monkey leader Hanuman is celebrated throughout the world. Hanuman helped Rama find his wife Sita after she was abducted and aided in her rescue. One common bhakti image of Hanuman is a monkey tearing open his chest to reveal a heart with Rama and Sita visible inside it, as if he holds them always in his heart.
Local community: The third house is the house of our local community. In the Ramayana, Rama is so beloved in his local community that there was widespread mourning in his father’s kingdom when Rama was exiled.

Sagittarius themes invoked:
Not being mean: Jupiter is the ruler of Sagittarius, and prescribes good humor and broad mindedness. In Rama’s culture, meanness seems to be so rare that his stepmother Kaikeyi’s betrayal of Rama is shocking, and the grief ends up killing his father.
Rape and abduction: Barbaric Ravana abducts Sita and seems intent on raping her. Sagittarius’s symbol is a centaur, a creature that brings up themes of that sort of behavior.
Chivalry: Central to the story of Rama is that Rama must rescue his love, Sita, from a violent villain who has abducted her. Sagittarius is an energy that thrives on chivalry.
Destiny: Sagittarius is a sign concerned with destiny and finding one’s destiny. Rama wasn’t just born a king, he was born to vanquish the evil Ravana, and many events in his life set him and kept him firmly on the path to doing so.
Wilderness: Sagittarius is very connected to the wild. Rama was exiled to the wilderness for fourteen years to delay his accession to the throne.
Good and evil: The Ramayana is a classic tale of good versus evil. The humans are mostly very markedly good in the story of Rama, and they defy evil. Sagittarius rules the ninth house, one of the houses where we confront questions of good and evil in the philosophical sense.
Bow and arrows: The centaur of Sagittarius is a bowman. Rama is known to have carried a bow and arrow, and he had to lift a huge artifact called Shiva’s bow to win his bride Sita in a contest for her hand in marriage.
Devotion: Hanuman is known for his personal and practical devotion to Rama and Sita, and his willingness to help and serve them. He is known as an example of devotion to God. Sagittarius and the ninth house do well to never forget devotion to the good higher power that they answer to.

I may expand more on these later. This mystery of the Ages has many mystical and practical features.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Sacred writ

If you have a holy book that you cherish, it is almost certainly connected to some religion or another. It’s very important that a holy book have sound and adequate morals that it conveys. It’s very important to pay attention to the valid moral elements of the holy writ, and not to take its message too much out of context.

In the case of the Bible, for instance, it’s best to keep in mind its unique context in history, also to consider how modern politics have shifted in ways that demand further interpretation of the spirit of the work, and to stay away from falling into the quagmire of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is an aggressive interpretation of scripture and/or religion that takes excerpts out of context and/or has a tendency to focus on the wrong points. Looked at in-depth, fundamentalism often becomes indistinguishable from superstition, and at that point, it usually carries no philosophy whatsoever. Superstition beggars belief.

Another way that fundamentalism can creep in is when something entirely out of context is selected from a sacred writ and applied to the reader’s life or the contemporary world without a clear connection to the moral message of the scripture. Again, to use the Bible as an example, it is particularly rewarding to read entire chapters in order to complete one book at a time rather than read random excerpts, and to pay close attention to the spirit of the work and its moral message in context (though this would be less applicable in the case of Psalms, for instance). Many people actually use the Bible for divination (instead of using the tarot, for instance) by flipping through it randomly and applying whatever text their eyes land on to their current situation or whatever question they’re focusing on. This is not equivalent to Bible study, and tends not to convey the same things a complete book of the Bible communicates.

Certain kinds of fundamentalists have promoted the idea that Earth is about 6,000 years old, and others have promoted the idea that we can use ancient imagery talking about time and its vagaries to conclude we have to wait hundreds of thousands of years to reach the Satya Yuga. Both theories can be disheartening. In truth, humans in general have never been as good at calendars as we are now, and old scriptures are at their best when we interpret them responsibly and deftly.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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Good and evil

There was a political doctrine in the 20th Century (1900s) that advocated and preserved evil in the world for the simple reason that eventually there would need to be an Apocalypse of sorts, for a short period of time, after which everything would get better. People were told in prophecies all over the world to expect that coming formula.

The doctrine could even be found in mainstream political parties in some countries.

Sometimes things fall apart and putting them back together in conscientious, inspired, and well-intentioned ways is the best humans can do for one another and themselves. Sometimes it creates necessary innovation, or just convinces us that best practices are best. That can be one of the main mechanisms of things getting better.

But promoting evil sounds circular and wrong-headed, and it is wrong. It’s a clear example of folly, and not the minor sort of folly. That’s the attitude that’s encouraged people in modern times to opine that good and evil should be or must be balanced in equal measure, seemingly on the principle that balance itself is a good or necessary thing. That is cribbed directly from fiction, one assumes. In reality, civilization routinely rejects evil, enough so that the average person can breathe and relax. The real and correct balance between good and evil is choosing and promoting the good while constantly beating back any evil and keeping the ravages of evil away from humanity and our sphere of influence.

For most of human history, people acknowledged that any evil allowed to run rampant was a state of imbalance.

The Apocalypse was almost certainly going to happen at some point (or something that felt sufficiently apocalyptic, although it wasn’t necessarily going to look like it does in the movies, and right now it looks like this, and should definitely get no worse), and technically speaking, the transition between a decaying modern world and a futuristic one could’ve gone smoothly. But humans and change, ya know?

We’re on the precipice of the futuristic world, and it is going to be one of the most inspiring times in human history if we can pull off preserving what’s good about our systems and infrastructures and building upon them in ways that will start to seem quite natural soon. Preserving human rights is fundamental on all sides. Systems and the people in them must shore up their ethics as soon as possible, or the Apocalypse will not necessarily be just a temporary hiccup, but something even worse, which would be extremely tragic.

──── by Lync Dalton ────

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