Astrolynx

By Juan Sacelli

The Pluto Return

Why Pluto? According to contemporary astronomers, it isn’t even a planet, and never was. And yet a lot of us astrologers really love our Pluto. The US is having its Pluto Return, Pluto appearing in the same place in the sky it occupied at the birth of the US—this month, Feb. 20 ’22, according to the most commonly used US chart. We, the astrologers, think that’s a BIG DEAL. Ok, but why? And even if it’s significant for the US, what does it have to do with the rest of the world? Maybe because the US is now ‘The Empire`? The contemporary Rome?

Most historians attribute the start of the Roman Empire to the coronation of Augustus in 27 BCE. From that point it expanded for approximately the next 250 years (a Pluto cycle of 248 years); then it began to collapse. Read the columnists now: is the US (us) beginning to collapse? Will the autocrats capture the government (or, according to your political perspective, have they already?) And of course what happens to the US is going to profoundly affect what happens in the world at large.

In the West the astrological system is set up something like this: the seven visible ‘inner planets’, including Sun and Moon, govern personal existence. The three invisible outer bodies, Uranus-Neptune-Pluto, govern the spiritual territories. Uranus, the Yang principle, is a bit Star-Trekky—explore new realms, escape the limitations of physical earthly existence. Neptune, which in a nonmale-dominated culture would be Neptuna, or Neptunia, is the Yin: no matter where you go, you are spirit, you are already and always part of all that is.

Given that we now have a Yang and Yin, that leaves the job of being the Tao to Pluto. Which many astrologers interpret as being the Soul, or Tao in relation to the personal self. As our soul, Pluto is thus our fate. So, Pluto rules the underworld, which is actually the Inner-World. The point being, at a Pluto Return such as we are having now, the question being asked is: have we, as a collective (no one has a personal Pluto Return as no one lives 248 years), graduated from the attempt to rule and control the outer world to the attempt to rule ourselves? Are we ready for an Age of Aquarius, a Great Awakening (or, if you prefer some sort of Messianic event?). Has the ‘Spirit of ’76’ actually learned to become spiritual (spear it, or share it, to(with) you all)? Or is the spear in ‘spear-it’ going to be some sort of global pandemicwar-planetary overheat?

At some point in mythological evolution Pluto (Greek Plouton) became confused with Ploutos, the god of wealth or greed. So—which Pluto return are we having? As always, our choice.

One more cautionary point: though the precise point of the Pluto return comes this February, the energy has been building for awhile, and will continue swirling around us into and through 2023, due to the slow retrograde (review) process.

Whichever way you think it’s going, toward Heaven- or Hell-onEarth, we’re still here and the normal shifts and rumblings of the inner planets continue, as they do every month, telling the same stories in different ways. So let’s look at a few of those for February. The Sun of course moved into Aquarius in late January, hence bringing up the theme of the hope and ideals of a better future, a better year. There will be a New Moon Feb 1 (12:45 am Central; if you live in Mountain or West, the New Moon will be Jan 31). This one will highlight the ambiguity of our situation, as the SunMoon together in mid-Aquarius are also conjunct Saturn, a few degrees ahead, pointing out the obstacles ahead of us in attaining our hopes for ourselves and our world. The New Moon is also square Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius. With Uranus presently in Taurus (the Earth), this pattern overall is a rather spectacular illustration of everything I have been talking about—in a nutshell, where are we headed collectively, politically, economically, as the dominant species on the planet? Mercury retro conjunct Pluto (ach! Pluto again!) will be testing the plans we have made for ourselves—again both personally and collectively (are electric cars really the solution? should we migrate to Mars? Is ecology irrelevant to the 2nd Coming? Will Russia invade Ukraine? Is Covid getting worse or better? Will Allah ever be able to get along with Krishna?)

In sum, how can we emerge from this maelstrom of chaos and conflicted beliefs? Ha! By the Full Moon of February 16, things look somewhat different. That is, some of the conflicts are coming to a head, while others are squirting out the tail. With the Moon in Leo (everybody cheering on their favorite team), the Full Moon is square the Nodes: that is, we are shifting and sorting our identifications, our tribes. Can we really be different nations, races, beliefs, religions, sexual orientations, political affiliations—and survive on inter dimensional variations of the same planet? Can white-racist anti-capitalist atheist-fundamentalists find a way to allow buddhist-voodooconfucian vegans a right to be? Can the US ship Asian Carp filets back to China, in exchange for lithium-ion batteries? With Jupiter approaching Neptune, we’re looking for new ways to rearrange the pieces that might, just might, bring some semblance of Peace on Earth.

Brief bio: John Sacelli has been an astrologer, poet, dreamer, idealist, seeker and rebel for 79 years (don’t we all have birth trauma?). He can be reached at salynx@me.com.

By Fred Mittag

Marian Anderson (18971993) was born in Philadelphia, where she began singing in her church choir at age six.

When she was eight, her father bought her a piano but could not afford piano lessons. So, Marian taught herself by ear. Her father died when she was 12, leaving their mother to rear Marian and her two sisters. Their mother worked in a tobacco factory, took in laundry, and scrubbed floors in a department store.

After her father’s death, Marian became more dedicated to her church choir and would often learn the hymnal lines of four-part harmony: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass and sing each of the parts for her family—in the case of bass and tenor, an octave higher, of course.

Her dedication to her church choir impressed the church members. They raised $500 for her to study voice under the highly respected voice coach Giuseppe Boghetti. After two years with him, she won a chance to sing at the Lewisohn Stadium after entering a New York Philharmonic Society contest. One thing led to another, and by the late 1930s, she had become famous on both sides of the Atlantic. More so on the European side because of American racial attitudes. Still, President and Eleanor Roosevelt invited her to sing at the White House, the first time an African American had ever received such an honor.

However, Marian’s talent was not enough to pierce the racism of many Americans. When her manager set up a performance at Constitution Hall in Washington, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to permit her to sing. That was the largest concert hall in Washington, and the D.A.R. owned it. They had a written policy that only whites could perform there.

The D.A.R.’s rejection of Marian’s talent led to a public uproar, a more subtle parallel to earlier abolitionists and proslavery factions in America. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R. in protest. Indeed, she was the leader of the clamor against the Daughters of the American Revolution. She and President Roosevelt were quite a contrast to a president who calls white nationalists “nice people.”

Roosevelt invited Marian to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter morning. The symbolism of Anderson singing before the Great Emancipator was powerful. Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, introduced Anderson with the words, “In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free.” He also said, “Genius, like justice, is blind... Genius draws no color line.”

When Marian Anderson began her recital, Senators, Cabinet members, and Supreme Court Justices sat just below her. Martin Luther King was ten at the time, and when he was 15, he entered a speaking contest. Even as a teenager, his soaring oratory was becoming evident. In his competition speech, he referenced Marian Anderson and said, “She sang as never before, with tears in her eyes. When the words of ‘America’ and ‘Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen’ rang out over that great gathering, there was a hush on the sea of uplifted faces, black and white, and a new baptism of liberty, equality, and fraternity.”

Marian drew a crowd of 75,000 to the Lincoln Memorial. Radio stations broadcast her performance to millions of people, and critics called her performance “riveting.”

Back then, movies always began with a newsreel. One newsreel heralded the event across the movie screen with the words “Nation’s Capital Gets Lesson in Tolerance.” That was 1939, 25 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It’s a measure of how slow social progress can be.

Marian suffered all the indignities of any other black person. When a hotel refused her a room, none other than Albert Einstein invited her to stay overnight in his home. Besides the world’s foremost genius in theoretical physics, he was an amateur violinist. He admired Marian’s talent and was a democratic socialist, a seeker of justice.

Marian Anderson performed with some of the most famed music directors and conductors of her time, including Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski. Toscanini regarded her as the best contralto in the world. He said, “Hers was the kind of voice that comes along only once in a century. Finland’s foremost composer was Jean Sibelius. He welcomed her to his home, saying, “My roof is too low for you.” Leopold Stokowski took the worldrenowned Philadelphia Orchestra on an American tour, featuring Marian Anderson as the orchestra’s soloist.

The sophisticated New Yorker wrote of Anderson’s racially restricted performance opportunities, “There was no rational reason for a serious venue to refuse entry to such a phenomenon. No clearer demonstration of prejudice could be found.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower invited her to sing the National Anthem at his inaugural, and John F. Kennedy did the same for his inaugural.

Musicians use timbre, phrasing, vocal range, bright, dark, and many more terms to describe music. Timbre can get highly technical and is a term that belongs to physics as much as to music. In music, it refers to tone color caused by harmonics or overtones. It’s what enables us to distinguish a flute from a violin even though they’re playing the same note. It also determines the quality of a singer’s voice. In this, Marian Anderson had no equal in beauty of timbre. She had an astonishing vocal range, able to dip well into the tenor range without taking on a husky timbre. She reached well into the soprano range without sounding shrill or strained.

Unfortunately, the quality of recording when she was at her peak did not equal her vocal quality. We have to rely on descriptions by masters such as Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowski to imagine the beauty of performance in her operatic roles. Although lacking the desired quality, several videos on the Internet and YouTube can give us an idea of the stunning beauty of her voice.

Fred Mittag

BETO—An Extraordinary Rescued Dog

By Shannon Ford

BEFORE AFTER

Sometimes a rescued dog surprises even veteran

shelter volunteers. Beto, a handsome and hefty five-yearold Pit Bull, is one of those dogs.

A victim of horrific abuse, Beto had apparently been used for illegal dogfighting activities. After he was no longer needed, he was severely beaten, suffered serious head injuries, and was left to die. When Beto was rescued and brought to SOS Chapala Dog Rescue, his wounds were badly infected and he could barely walk.

Amazingly, he survived.

But even more amazing than Beto’s survival was his obvious love for life and his willingness to trust people. Beto spent nearly a year being cared for at SOS Chapala Dog Rescue, and it was obvious that he adored the shelter staff. A gentle, intelligent, and observant dog, Beto seemed to just thoroughly enjoy watching all the shelter activities, and he enthusiastically socialized with other dogs and shelter volunteers.

Beto’s zest for life endeared him to everyone who met him, and he quickly became a shelter favorite. When volunteers visited Beto, gave him treats, or took him for walks, he could barely contain his joy. He would do a little happy dance, alternately lifting his front paws whenever he was happy and excited. And that was often! He loved being walked, and as one shelter volunteer put it, whenever Beto was taken for a walk, he was “smiling from ear to ear.”

Due to Beto’s background, size, and age, he was considered an unlikely candidate for adoption. But fortuitously, a partner rescue group in Bend, Oregon thought they could find him a forever home. So Beto made the trip on the Bone Voyage bus to the Street Dog Hero shelter. He must have been doing his happy dance on the bus all the way to Oregon! Beto is now being fostered, still has his extraordinary zest for life, and we’re told he’ll likely be adopted by his foster family.

Beto’s story had a happy ending. But there are many rescued dogs in Lakeside shelters still waiting for their own happy endings.

SOS Chapala Dog Rescue, the newest Lakeside shelter, endeavors to end animal cruelty. Rescued dogs are cared for under the supervision of the shelter’s onsite veterinarian. Many are adopted locally, and some—like Beto—travel north to partner shelters for adoption.

On Sunday, March 20th, SOS Chapala Dog Rescue will hold its First Annual Silent Auction fundraising event at the Cultural Center in the Ajijic Plaza. SOS will welcome donations of items and services for auction from Lakeside businesses and individuals— for more information, contact Shannon Ford, sford@inbox.com. To learn about adoption, fostering, and volunteer opportunities, visit the shelter’s webpage, www. soschapaladogrescue.org.