A Good Sign

Jennifer Freed PhD is the best-selling author of USE YOUR PLANETS WISELY and a renowned psychological astrologer and social and emotional education trainer. She is the CCO of Ahasb.org. Jennifer has spent over thirty years consulting clients and businesses worldwide on psychological, spiritual, and educational topics. She can be reached at www.jenniferfreed.com

Shout Out to Birthday Darling Rendy Freedman of Montecito

Rendy Freedman is the co-founder of AHA! (www.ahasb.org), which is celebrating 21 years of serving teens, educators, and families.

She is the proud mother of three amazing adults and two irresistible grandchildren. Rendy is beloved for her endless warmth, compassion, and her great capacity to work hard and play with abandon. Look for Rendy this summer enjoying her ocean swims, and then having a bright cocktail at a social distance.

This month we are dealing with the virus and fierce and important social justice issues. Each of us will need to be part of the solution instead of adding to the problems. The worst thing we can do right now is create more separation or animosity between us.

In order to bring our best to the enormous challenges this month we need to undo our shame, and promote noble qualities and conscious social engagement. Read each sign this month for clues on how to become more effective in social transformation.

Using the energies of each astrological sign, we can tap into what may be underneath the shame – and can then find direction for dignifying our recovery from it.

Aries the Ram

Aries people tend to feel shame for impulsive behaviors, acting out, or lashing out. They often feel ashamed of how badly they want to be central to others. They can dignify themselves by realizing that all rash behavior comes from inner irritation and a lack of emotional soothing, and by recognizing that wanting to be seen and acknowledged is a powerful longing – one that, when met with true compassion, does not have to emerge as a monopolizing, reckless energy. Aries can be the leaders in protecting safety and standing up for the underdog.

Taurus the Bull

Taurus people tend to feel shame for needs around material security, stability, and control. They often feel shame for their focus on money. They can dignify themselves by realizing that their yearnings for comfort are part of being incarnated. When they upgrade their longing for material security to a strong sense of moral and social grounding, they can become a truly stabilizing force for others.

Gemini the Twins

Geminis can feel shame for being careless with actions and words and being all over the place in their minds. They often feel ashamed for being unrooted and insubstantial. These parts of the self can be dignified by realizing that the winds of the mind are not their true nature. The Gemini can feel self-compassion for feeling so spun around and can actively find ways to ground and stabilize their mind. Geminis can be the most effective at inspirational speech and writing.

Cancer the Crab

Cancerians may feel shame for underlying neediness, clinginess, dependency, and a deep orientation around security. They often have a deep shame for feeling so sensitively and having their feelings hurt so easily. They can dignify themselves by validating the desire for emotional closeness and the ability to mutually and vulnerably share intimacy. In recognizing that “home” is a legitimate longing, the Cancerian can feel proud to share their dreams for their ideas of home and family. They can allow others to know that underneath their shell of proficiency, they are highly sensitive souls who can be cut deeply by insensitivity. Cancers can be the sense of HOME we are all looking for. they become consumed with drama. They have a deep core need to be on the throne of others’ admiration. They can dignify those deep needs for primacy and affection by realizing that wanting love is the most natural thing in the world. Learning how to make self-love the pinnacle of fulfillment is the key. Leos can be the HEART for the drumbeat of social change.

Virgo the Vestal Virgin

The Virgo can feel shame for feeling so utterly imperfect – for failing to live up to impossible virtues and standards. Virgos struggle with intense themes of criticism of themselves and others, which leads them to feel ashamed about their pettiness. They can dignify themselves by realizing that the quest for perfection is beautiful, and that the road to perfection is a pothole parade. They can learn to love the potholes as if they were each an oasis in a desert. Virgos can teach us all discernment and refinement.

Libra the Scales of Balance

Libras can feel shame for wanting to be liked so much that they sacrifice authenticity for social chits. They feel ashamed of being too much in response to others, and about how they merge their identities with those of the people they are with; they can dignify themselves by realizing that harmony and collaboration are beautiful values. They can remember that if they ask first for what they need and want, the chances for balance increase. Libras can hold both sides and see the common good.

Scorpio the Scorpion

Scorpios tend toward shame for having so much self-hatred; they are even ashamed of their shame. The dark thoughts and feelings Scorpios deal with make them feel like they are subhuman in some way. They can dignify themselves by recognizing that dark thoughts and feelings are the reason humans know light. Their experience of darkness is a superpower – especially when they help themselves and others to liberate these feelings from the prison of judgement. Scorpios can help us find the emotional courage to face the hardest times.

Sagittarius the Archer

Sagittarians feel shame for feeling superior – for thinking they know more than others and have the right opinion on everything – and, paradoxically for the inferiority complex that lies on the flip side of that sense of superiority. They can dignify themselves by becoming aware that the need to be right is about fear of uncertainty, and that fear is a beautiful emotion when greeted with compassion and curiosity instead of an emotional bypass. Sagittarius can bring the joy of earnest truth.

Capricorn the Sea-Goat

Capricorns can feel shame around constant ambitious desires for recognition and success, as well as a secret shame for feeling like a fraud and failure. They may feel disgrace due to feelings of inadequacy and a lack of control. They can dignify themselves by validating the need for others to know how much effort they put into their contributions. Capricorns can address feelings of failure and inadequacy as natural outgrowths of having high standards and expecting more of oneself than is reasonable. They can come to see failure as just another word for learn and redirect. Capricorns can show us how to climb the great mountain with patient determination.

Aquarius the Water Bearer

Aquarians feel shame for their eccentric and unusual ways of seeing the world and for being different. They often feel ashamed for being at odds with their peers and for feeling out of place socially. They can dignify themselves by understanding how important being “not-normal” is to the development of the human race. Instead of being defensive and rebellious about how they feel different, they can soften with others about the ways in which they do not feel they belong. Aquarians can reveal a higher vision of the collective.

Pisces the Fish

Pisceans can feel shame for their unbearable emotional sensitivity and the longing to be saved by another. They often feel cowardly and weak because they are overwhelmed with feeling and dependency needs. They can dignify the vastness of their sensitivity by recognizing that feelings are always a call for love and intimacy; they can learn with others how to host feelings in a bigger story of impermanence and flow, and to find support systems to build true, dependable structures in their habits and lives. Pisces can demonstrate selfless compassion and empathy. •MJ 9 – 16 July 2020

LETTERS (Continued from page 11) say that our suspicion of intelligence goes back to our roots as an item of national pride.

I have recently started to hyphenate when mentioning the POTUS (he who shall not be named). With so many fascinating, dusty old grown up (or should I say adult) words beginning with our alphabet’s 16th letter, the fellow is clearly a P-resident. Whether Popinjay Prevaricator (no lie) or Pusillanimous Putz (not mean spirited enough) his list, like dead Jacob Marley’s chain, grows ever longer. Pompous? Pandering? Perfidious? Profligate? Take your pick. (Puling and Prurient don’t go hand in hand but you can look them up.) They too are relevant.

The July 2 column Purely Political which still touts a “seriously flawed human” and plans to vote for him makes it plain how partisan dreams die hard. The nation has already had our own version of the D.T.’s for four years; complete with tremors and terrifying delusions we try to awaken from this binge. Apparently once the red state Koolaid is drunk (or the red pill ingested) there is no vaccine for afflicted Republicans and a low recovery rate for many.

Sean Hutchinson

Our Banana Republic: Part Deux

So, last week our annually convened citizen Grand Jury released a devastating (not hyperbole!) report on our local cannabis industry that exposed the dark underbelly of how our County conducts business and the systemic changes necessary to restore, if that’s even possible, the public trust. Allow me to explain.

As it relates to Cannabis, it outlined what many of us already knew. We knew that the Supervisors created a 2-person Ad-Hoc committee to skirt our Sunshine Laws and prevent open public hearings. We also knew that the Ad-Hoc gave “nearly unfettered access” to growers and lobbyists while crafting the ordinance. What the Jury learned was that they failed to create agendas or take minutes to “avoid Public Record Act Requests for such documents” – so much for open government! They also found lobbyist emails more like “attempts to command,” ultimately describing them as “unnerving.”

The Jury often focused on an issue that I have previously written about (hence the “Part Deux”): Our uniquely different ethical milieu. We have no Contribution Moratoriums around Supervisor votes, creating a “pay to play” perception. Nor do we have obvious Supervisor Recusal Requirements, or an Ethics Commission. It appears that, apparently, we also don’t have Disclosure or Conflict of Interest rules

The “Cancel Culture” of today seems First of all should be the renaming of that extend to senior county staffers. just as foolish. In the last few weeks, the Democratic Party, the historical This may have allowed non-elected modern day justice warriors and comparty of slavery, Jim Crow, and segrestaffers – on their own – to forcefully plicit useful idiots in the media, unigation. It is no excuse that the party’s challenge and ultimately change an versities, and corporate image departattitudes and actions towards segregaAPCD Advisory that required a onements, have fired their shotguns at tion have changed dramatically over mile Cannabis buffer zone. So much everything from people and brands to the years: the cultural warriors do for an “independent” agency designed movies and ropes targeting the vague not recognize changing times. In their to protect our air quality. Hypothetical enemy of systemic racism. Editors at world, you inherit and are responsible Question: Could highly compensatthe New York Times, the Philadelphia for the sins of your fathers. The next ed/pensioned staffer(s) be permitted Inquirer, Bon Appetit, and Variety have demand should probably be for the to hold undisclosed consulting gigs been fired or demoted, not for pubelimination of the use of the word while helping to craft a County-wide lishing lies, slurs, epithets, or hate, but South as a noun. Too offensive. Too and uniquely different/pro-piece of for publishing opinions shared by miltroubling. It conjures up historical Cannabis legislation? Just curious… lions of citizens. Brands such as Uncle injustice. Others that should have to

Our $1.2B County continues to overBen’s, Aunt Jemima, Eskimo Pie, and go: Colonel Sanders for obvious reaplay the $6M or so in annual taxes (not Mrs. Butterworth’s have been forced sons; All things Dixie (Chicks already including expenses!) that cultivation to change names not because of any done, Winn-Dixie Supermarkets, generates. In reviewing the numbers, discrimination or abuse practiced by Stephen Foster songs, Dixieland the Jury took issue with SB’s unique their owners, but because the new Music); William Faulkner and Mark tax scheme that makes us de-facto woke crowd think they evoked imagTwain; Gospel Music; Cotton. It is pot partners by tying our tax fortunes es of historical prejudice. Realtors are hard to imagine anything pre-1960 to unverifiable and price fluctuating being told that they shouldn’t use the that isn’t culturally offensive or trouCannabis-cash-receipts. “Used nearly term “Master Bedroom” when selling bling to someone if they, like Humpty ubiquitously in CA,” is the more easa house. Modern day book burning Dumpty, can define a word to mean ily verified square-footage-grown tax takes the form of removing Gone With just what they choose it to mean. method. Using this method Monterey, the Wind from the film catalog and closWhat happened in Minneapolis to for example, is collecting more than ing Splash Mountain at Disneyland, George Floyd is reprehensible, just as 2X the amount of taxes against just because they allegedly chronicle a part is the weekly bloodbath in Chicago’s 62 permitted, INDOOR ONLY, acres. of history in a light this enlightened South Side. Police brutality is disPresently, SB has 217 permitted acres generation doesn’t want to see. Tearing gusting no matter who the victim is. (1,700 allowed), i.e. Monterey is coldown statutes and renaming buildings Substandard education in minority lecting 8X more per acre than SB. and schools doesn’t stop at the few that communities is unacceptable. Street Curious wouldn’t you agree? glorify slavery but extends to anything gangs whether they are White, Black,

The Jury also discovered that none of honoring anybody who had beliefs, Asian, or Hispanic, are a menace the tax-related discussions resulting in held opinions, or engaged in practices everywhere they are allowed to exist. our Cannabis-friendly scheme includwhich were popular at the time they Absentee fathers and the breakdown ed our elected County Treasurer-Tax lived but are deemed “culturally offenof the nuclear family are proven conCollector. This exclusion was also the sive” or “troubling” today. In some tributors to high school drop out rates, handiwork of the Ad-Hoc and certain instances, mere existence at a point crime, and economic inequality. senior staffers. Things really do get in time is cause for condemnation. These are real issues requiring real “curiouser and curiouser.” Anyone who doesn’t fall in line with discussion and real change. They are

PLEASE, take 15 minutes and read the group thought is viewed suspinot going to be solved by toppling the 26-page eye-popping report and ciously or labeled part of the problem. statutes of George Washington, firing the 12 recommendations made to the There is no room for disagreement. an editor for publishing an Op-ed Supervisors (uggh!), which complete The Thought Police of Oceania are in piece someone disagrees with, or ly validates the recent Reasonable control. changing the name of a popular ice Cannabis lawsuit against the County. What should be next in the cross cream bar. As a former Prosecutor, I was recently hairs of these rewriters of history? Lawrence W. Dam •MJ asked to handicap the likely follow-up of other hometown-trained and hometown-curious agencies? Well, although the Jury’s investigation was County “hindered” (their word), delayed and deeply disturbing, I wouldn’t hold Summer Weight Loss Special! your breath because, believe you me, SBC is truly a banana republic. Be $140 per month and ini:a:on fee waived vigilant, be involved and stay healthy! Includes: ・ Personalized diet plan

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