What's In Our Heads?

Drumming into the edge of the void ft. The Cranberries.

Before Dolores O’Riordan — lead singer of The Cranberries — passed in 2018, she described the divinely-inspired writing process of Zombie: the Verses, the Chorus, the Lyrics, the Hook(s) all came to her without inhibition or obstacle.

The resistance came instead from the Record Label, given the explicitly political nature of the lyrics. The song — 1994 lead single from their 2nd Album “No Need To Argue” — was inspired by the death of two children from one of the thousands of civilian bombings carried out over 4 decades, across Northern Ireland and the UK, during The Troubles.

Not that she minded much; imagine the following in a rich Irish accent:

"If I think something, I have to say it. And I really don't care what anybody thinks, you know?"

Opinionated, Fiery, IDGAF attitude: what Planetary Archetype would that remind you of? I would suggest Mars, which becomes even more appropriate given the focus of the song is War and it being fueled by righteous anger.

O’Riordan has a powerful but challenging chart (how’s my Astrology lingo coming along?). Her Mars — the Planet of War, where we channel our righteous anger — lies close to her Ascendent in the 1st House: where planets are most tied to our sense of Self, and most readily show up in our lives and personality. Mars is also conjunct the North Lunar Node Rahu, thought to represent our life purpose and direction.

Mars-Rahu forms a Grand Trine with Saturn in the 4th House (Struggles, Trials, Burdens in the Homeland) and Uranus in the 8th House (a Revolutionary Perspective on Death). Her Moon is in Sidereal Pisces (Empathy and Dreams), Opposite Uranus, forming an almost perfect Kite.

Here is a soundtracked 1 minute summary:

Zombie came as a shock — not in the least due to the delicate-looking Sun-Venus in Leo figure behind it. Based on the band’s debut album, those crunchy guitars and guttural bellows came from nowhere; in reality, it signified the moment O’Riordan first learned to channel this pure and embodied Mars energy (and the majority of their 3rd album went down the same road). 

Few songs are more deeply entrenched in our cultural consciousness than Zombie: it is a Local Pub Cover staple and a Kareoke classic; it was the most played song on United States Alternative Rock in its release year of 1994; it even topped our own Triple J Hottest 100 countdown of that year. And, despite being almost three decades old (!?), it has arguably never been more relevant.

We all know it — but what exactly was the meaning of That Chorus: who, or what, is the Zombie taking hold inside human heads? O’Riordan, it appears, left this open for interpretation. Here are three options:

A commentary on how blindly cleaving to centuries old prejudices can reduce one's capacity for independent thought.

A metaphor to reanimate the children whose deaths inspired O'Riordan to write it.

A reckoning with the dead children that populate your mind; the dead bodies you've seen in the images that you can't forget.

https://twitter.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1720094564529402017

Oof.

As many of us grapple with the existential choice of continuing to bear witness to the brutal human consequences of this mind virus, or protecting our mental health... at least we have Dolores to eternally thank for this piece of sublime Mars catharsis.

I’m not sure how many more dead children I can stomach, so let this be a testament.

No Sunlight; It’s Alright

Musical Musings on Eclipse Season.

October 27 2023

The starting point for understanding the meaning of any Astrological Archetype is its observable qualities. 

• Fire Signs: they ignite, they bring heat, they radiate, they burn.

• Water Signs: they flow, they change and transform, they are deep, emotional. 

• Leo: the Lion, proud, majestic, regal, dramatic. 

• Cancer: the Crab, tough and protective on the outside, soft and nurturing on the inside. 

• Mars: the red planet, the planet of war, masculine, aggression and self assertion. 

• Venus: the brightest and prettiest star in the sky, feminine, beauty and love and romance, fantasy. 

Even the 27 Vedic Nakshatras — the most vivid yet elusive of the Celestial Characters at our disposal — take their inspiration from the observable characteristics of the 27 fixed stars that track the monthly passage of the Moon around the Ecliptic.

So… what is an eclipse? 

Ancient Astrological traditions typically understood them as omens for disruptive events: natural disasters, wars, famines, even the rise and fall of Kings and Empires (there are even records of “Substitute King” rituals in Mesopotamia, which attempted to shift the omen from the current ruler onto some hapless pleb). Modern interpretations have refined this existentialism somewhat, seeing eclipses as the beginning of particularly charged and powerful lunar cycles.

In a birth chart, Eclipses — signified by the Conjunction of the Sun and Moon with the Lunar Nodes Rahu and Ketu — are thought to indicate larger than life characters. Hopefully you already know about The Orange Moonchild, who was born in the middle of a Total Lunar Eclipse; Obama (assuming his birth date can be trusted) was also born 6 days before a Solar Eclipse.

But did you know that Israeli Prime Minister and War Crimes Enjoyer Bibi Netanwhatever was also born on an Eclipse? His Moon was at 26 degrees in the Sidereal Sign of Virgo when he was born, the exact location of the Solar Eclipse early this month (true story), which has seen his political career reach its most precarious point. 

Comparison between Netanwhatever’s birth chart (inner blue) and the recent Solar Eclipse (outer orange), showing the close alignment of the Sun, Moon and Lunar Nodes.

Want more eclipse syncs? You have come down the right wombat hole. Let’s try a few of these on for size:

• The defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 occurred three days before a solar eclipse;

• The sinking/torpedoing of the Titanic in 1912 occurred between solar and lunar eclipses;

• The Reichstag Fire of 1933 occurred 3 days after a Solar Eclipse.

• The testing of the first Atomic Bomb in 1945 was a week after a solar eclipse, with Hiroshima bombed 2 weeks later.

• Two of the most famous Political Assassinations in history — Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jnr — both occurred in between solar and lunar eclipses.

And what about the most famous of all martyrdoms — Yeshua/Jesus — with references to eclipse imagery on the day of crucifixion found throughout the Gospels.

And we haven’t even got to the Royal Family yet, oh boy!

Did you know that both William and Kate were born on eclipses, that Chuck and Diana were married on an Eclipse, that Diana died the day after an eclipse, and that Charlie was Coronated this year on the day of an eclipse? Probs all just coincidences.

Speaking of Coronas and coincidences: how is this for a spicy plandemic timeline, fellow Dissidents?

• December 12, 2019: First known cluster of “new” pneumonia-like illness in Wuhan.

• December 26: Solar Eclipse.

• January 1 2020: Huanan Seafood Market is closed.

• January 9: World Health Organisation announces a novel Coronavirus outbreak of 40 cases.

• January 11: Lunar Eclipse.

• January 21: First ‘Rona case in the US.

• January 31: Global Health Emergency declared.

I could go on (if you need more, check out this excellent 3 hour discussion) but let’s get back to the point: what is an Eclipse?

In the case of our last Solar Eclipse, is was the darkening of the Sun, completely hidden save for that ring of fire encapsulating the silhouette of the Moon. In ancient cultures, when human cycles were just becoming intimately connected to the Skyclock, it must have been an entirely traumatic experience for the Sun — the greatest Celestial deity — to disappear. It would have been a time of crisis; the sudden disruption of the natural order. A true test of faith.

It feels like that now — that the darkening of the Sun above was entirely fitting of the events unfolding below. The last few weeks has seen the veil lifted on the nastiest and darkest aspects of human nature to an unprecedented extent, with competing Religionisms doing their best to manifest the darkest shadow of the two difficult aspects that were at play: Pluto Square Mars with a side of Saturn Opposite Venus. 

How ominous is it that for the second instalment of our current Eclipse season — falling across the 28th and 29th of this month — that the Moon will be Conjunct Jupiter, which itself will be directly Opposing an exact Conjunction between Mars and Mercury? I guess we will know within a week or so’s time. 

Until then, here is a cover of the song “Pale” by British band Haelos: taken from an album helped me through some of my darkest personal times. And that was before I realised that it was a Ring of Fire on the front cover, and that this song — the last on the album — represents a symbolic reckoning with the darkness of an Eclipse.

May the darkness pass, swiftly and inevitably, just like the Skyclock directs it to.

Mars Square Pluto; Man on Fire

On October 7, two of the most problematic Heavenly Archetypes — the Planet of War Mars and the Lord of the Underworld Pluto — Squared up to each other around the Zodiac.

A Square is friction, disharmony, a clash between the energies of two Archetypes. In this case, we might imagine a harsh and brutal uncovering of the depths of human bloodlust.

Was it a coincidence that on this day — exactly one 50-year Jubilee since the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 — Hamas attacked Israel, and the world was promptly ambushed with one of the most defining and horrifying 24 hours of our already spiralling Internet Age?

A lot is made about the root causes of conflict in the Middle East. A lot of the discussion gets lost in historical arguments over lineage and land rights, and even more of it in talk of religious prophecy and Biblical Revelation. More and more, the debate is hijacked by the propaganda campaigns of broader geopolitical agendas that seem locked into mindsets of escalation and provocation.

In the Fog of the Information Wars, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate fact from fiction: real war atrocities from despicable war mongering propaganda. 40 beheaded babies would, for an example, be an astonishingly (but unfortunately not impossibly) demonic act of brutality. Yet, so too, would be knowingly allowing this terrorism to be carried out against your own people… or, for that matter — because we know similar lies have been used to justify wars before — confecting such a story for the specific purpose of enacting more military violence.

Perhaps this is the best way to understand the situation. Hamas enact their bloodletting in a brutally primitive, medieval and almost entirely counterproductive manner — rather than through sophistry, manipulation, propaganda and cold-blooded Saturnian politics of the Judeo-Christian Empire. This ideological schism appears coded into our reality in order to create perpetual violence and lead us into WW3.

To me, the fundamental barrier to peace in the Middle East is clear: a group of people quite literally being held captive and subject to a constant state of trauma in an open-air prison of war.

How have such animalistic living conditions come to be normalised and excused?

How could someone possible rationalise (as many influential public figures are currently doing in suspicious unison) turning one of the most densely populated and impoverished areas of the world into a post-apocalyptic parking lot: knowing full well and in full conscience the unprecedented civilian bloodshed that it would bring about?

Maybe it is just human nature. Or maybe it is the logical end point of the anti-human belief that any particular Race and/or Religion of people is fundamentally superior, divinely-anointed, entitled, or any more “Human” than the other.

Whatever the origin — and wherever in the world such a power and freedom differential occurs — should we be surprised if the darkest shadow of those subject to such captivity inevitably end up reflecting that back onto their captors?

I have just done a friend’s chart who has Saturn in a hard aspect with Mars, and its not an easy thing to frame in a positive light. That said, and despite Saturn’s demonisation, its disciplined and restricting influence on unrestrained warmongering would be more than handy right now. The good news is that Mars has just moved into a favourable Trine with Saturn, and still will be for the eclipse in two days time.

To assist in this energy, here is a song by a British chap called Gareth Icke. If that name sounds strangely (and ominously) familiar then, yes: he is the Son of OG Reptilian Conspiracy Theorist David Icke, whose most notable contribution to the world has been hypothesising that we live in an Archonic Simulation where Humans are harvested for their energy and controlled through a complex Planetary AI Apparatus best described as the Saturn-Moon Matrix. Fun!

It is to Gareth’s great credit that he has managed to emerge from that considerable shadow and make his own name, both as a Musician and one of the strongest voices in the “Truther” community for bringing to light the dire everyday reality of the Palestinian people.

My intention behind this cover is to practice this balance between the Aggression and Righteousness of Mars and the Humility and Restraint of Saturn.