Asteroid Goddesses - the undistorted Natural/Divine Feminine

[Helena]

Hi Rad,

it is already very helpful.

Many thanks,
Helena

[Helena]

Dear Mary,

Thank you so much for having the time to share your wisdom with us here.
It's a joy to, through EA, have a perspective that is helping us center in what is truly needed.
Seeing times with this notion in fact opens a door to a new consciousness (that we might hopefully star keeping opened instead of closing  )

Many blessings,
Helena

[Rad]

Hi All,

Here is the birth chart for Queen Elizabeth the 2nd who just passed away. The inner wheel on the chart is her natal chart with accurate birth time, and the outer wheel the transits at the moment of her passing.

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Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, dies aged 96

Death draws to a close Britain's second Elizabethan era and heralds the reign of her son, King Charles III

Caroline Davies
Guardian
9 Sep 2022

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-serving monarch in British history, has died aged 96, drawing to a close the country's second Elizabethan era, and heralding the reign of her son, King Charles III.

The monarch, for whom abdication was never an option, died peacefully at Balmoral on Thursday afternoon two days after undertaking her final public constitutional duty, with the appointment of the 15th prime minister of her 70-year reign.

Her death means Charles now becomes king, and the Duchess of Cornwall the Queen Consort.

In a statement on Thursday evening, the King said: "The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty the Queen, is a moment of the greatest sadness for me and all members of my family.

"We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother. I know her loss will be deeply felt throughout the country, the realms and the Commonwealth, and by countless people around the world.

"During this period of mourning and change, my family and I will be comforted and sustained by our knowledge of the respect and deep affection in which the Queen was so widely held."

All four of her children had rushed to Balmoral after Buckingham Palace announced in a statement at 12.32pm that she was under medical supervision at Balmoral after her doctors said they were "concerned for her health".

Charles was the first to arrive. As the nation awaited anxiously for news, the Duke of Cambridge, Duke of York, and Earl and Countess of Wessex flew from RAF Northolt arriving at Balmoral at around 5pm. The Duke of Sussex also travelled separately to Scotland, arriving after the other members of the family.

At 6.30pm, Buckingham Palace announced: "The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and the Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow."

The Buckingham Palace flag was lowered to half mast.

Addressing the nation from outside Downing Street, the prime minister, Liz Truss, who was told of the Queen's death at 4.30pm, spoke of "the passing of the second Elizabethan age".

She praised the monarch's "dignity and grace", and a "life of service [that] stretched beyond most of our living memories". She concluded with the words: "God save the King."

The US President, Joe Biden, was one of several world leaders to pay tribute. A statement issued jointly with the first lady, Jill Biden, said: "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was more than a monarch. She defined an era."

In a world of constant change, they added, she had been "a steadying presence and a source of comfort and pride for generations of Britons, including many who have never known their country without her".

As tributes flow in from across the globe, the nation now enters a period of official mourning, which begins on Friday and will last for 10 days. As is traditional, officials brought a notice confirming the Queen's death to the gates of Buckingham Palace. Crowds gathered outside royal residences, many in tears.

Elizabeth II will be accorded a state funeral at Westminster Abbey, expected to be held on Monday 19 September, though that has not yet been confirmed. She is expected in coming days to lie in rest for 24 hours at St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, with members of the public able to file past the coffin before it is flown to London for her official lying-in-state.

As Queen of the UK and 14 other realms, and head of the 54-nation Commonwealth, Elizabeth II was easily the world's most recognisable head of state during an extraordinarily long reign.

Coming to the throne at the age of 25, she successfully steered the monarchy through decades of turbulent change, with her personal popularity providing ballast during the institution's more difficult times.

At her side for most of it, the Duke of Edinburgh remained her "strength and stay" during a marriage that withstood many strains imposed by her unique position.

Despite a family life lived under the often challenging glare of publicity, Elizabeth remained a calm and steadfast figure, weathering the divorces of three of her children, and the crisis precipitated by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

There were undoubted low points, but the mass outpourings of affection on her silver, golden and diamond jubilees testified to the special place she held for millions.

Rarely did she publicly reveal private anguish. Her plea for a fair understanding towards the end of 1992 – her "annus horribilis", a year rocked by royal scandal and a row over finances – was unprecedented.

A devout, churchgoing Christian, the Queen's annual Christmas broadcast, which she scripted herself, revealed a woman of unshakable faith.

She was left bereft at the loss of her lifelong companion, Philip, who died in his sleep at the age of 99 in April 2021 during the Covid pandemic. She sat alone and bereaved in St George's chapel, Windsor Castle, during the poignant funeral, hugely scaled down because of coronavirus restrictions.

The duke's death came during one of the most turbulent times for the Queen and her family, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit as senior working royals and decamped to the US to seek freedom and the ability to earn their own money.

At the same time, the Duke of York was in a storm that also threatened the institution, facing allegations from Virginia Roberts Giuffre, which he strenuously denied, that he had had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by financier Jeffrey Epstein. Giuffre filed a civil suit against the duke seeking unspecified damages at a federal court in New York, which was settled out of court in February 2022, with the duke paying an undisclosed sum.

To cap this turbulent time for the monarchy, the Queen then contracted Covid, suffering mild cold-like symptoms, shortly before she marked her platinum jubilee.

As age gradually caught up with her, and she had mobility issues, she was seen less often at public events. In April 2022 she did not attend the state opening of parliament, instead issuing letters patent, authorising the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge, as counsellors of state, to deputise for her. It was only the third time in her reign that she had missed a state opening, the other two being when she was pregnant in 1959 and 1963.

Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born on 21 April 1926 at her maternal grandparents' home at 17 Bruton Street, in London's Mayfair district, and was not expected to accede to the throne.

But at the age of 10, the abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, over his love for the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, and her father's rushed coronation as substitute king, changed the path her aristocratic life could have been expected to take.

The world witnessed her transformation from shy princess to young Queen, attracting the same global fascination as Diana, Princess of Wales would 30 years later.

But she seemed most content in a thick jacket and headscarf, walking her corgis or tramping Balmoral's highland moors. "You can go for miles and never see anybody; you can walk or ride, it has endless possibilities," she once said.

Watching her thoroughbreds pass the post was another great pleasure, and her love of horse racing once subconsciously manifested itself during the 2003 state opening of parliament when she announced details of a national hunt service bill, rather than "health service".

The image of a queen who kept cereal in plastic boxes and fed toast to her corgis while a gruff Philip breakfasted next to her listening to a battered old transistor radio did much to endear. So, too, did the two-bar electric fire she used in 2013 and beyond to heat her palace audience room, and "revelations" that her favourite TV programmes included Last of the Summer Wine and The Bill.

Illnesses were rare as she enjoyed robust health. At 85, she was still carrying out 325 engagements a year. Long-haul travel was only curtailed when she reached 87, and Philip 92.

She was the most widely travelled of any world head of state. She visited every Commonwealth country bar Cameroon, which joined in 1995, and Rwanda (2009). She visited Canada more than 20 times, Australia 16, New Zealand 10 and Jamaica six.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip arriving in Sydney, Australia, in June 1970 for the bicentenary celebrations of Captain Cook's first landing in Australia.

In 2011, Elizabeth became the first British monarch in a century to visit the Republic of Ireland. The following year, she shook hands in Belfast with the Sinn Féin politician Martin McGuinness, putting aside the personal tragedy of the IRA assassination of "Uncle Dickie", Lord Mountbatten, her distant cousin and Philip's uncle.

In 2002, her golden jubilee, her sister, Margaret, and mother, Queen Elizabeth, died within eight weeks of each other. Her relationship to both had been close, as they were among the few individuals in whom she could confide the pressures and frustrations of her position.

As many nations today mourn a queen, one family is mourning a mother of four, a grandmother of eight, and a great-grandmother of 12.

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II

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Her natal Lilith is 6 Taurus, N.Node 8 Capricorn, S.Node 5 Gemini. Her natal Amazon is 10 Capricorn, N.Node 17 Taurus, and the S.Node is 1 Sagittarius.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Goddess Bless, Rad

[Nerissa]

Rad,
What evolutionary state would you put Queen Elizabeth in?

She was of the 'greatest generation' - she was a mechanic & drove ambulances.

She went well beyond the 'confines' of the institution she was born into, which necessitated it's survival.

She was instrumental in butting heads with Thatcher (unprecedented in the role of Monarch) & helped abolish apartheid.
She was very good friends with Nelson Mandela - who a bit famously got away with calling her plain 'Elizabeth'.

She created the commonweatlh - making reparations for colonization & giving a voice & place in the world for countries otherwise without a face on the world stage.

She was a devout Christian, though any personal quirks or questions she had or struggled with we won't know - but she was well ahead of her time in many ways, especially considering the cultural context she was born into.

All I can say is thank God that Edward abdicated - he was a Nazi sympathizer - can you imagine how different WWII would be with that traitor to all that is good at the helm of what would become one of the great Allies to fight the Nazi's - ?

I am thinking the cusp on 3rd consensus to 1st individuated but sometimes she just seems like some kinda cosmic God- send

Thanks!

[Helena]

Hi Rad and Nerissa,

this is an amazing soul to study from, from the point of view of EA.
Apart from the fact that the monarchy is in so many ways an institution of supremacy, there are sometimes Kings and Queens that serve at the same time they rule, that seems to be certainly the case for this Queen (or her father), just looking at the Pluto in the 6th can speak to that. And what you mention Nerissa, of preventing the nazi king to rule, it is remarkable.

Rad, i have the same question of Nerissa I think, that is, not all soul's journey to the 3rd state consensus made them royalty, is this a soul type, i imagine 1st chakra, or simply soul desire? Also I wonder if it is appropriate and we can talk about the Queen's previous lives because I would have an hint (after some time wondering about it) she was a past time royal with a tragic ending that makes her story quite something looking at the chart, also relative to princess Diana. But have no way to say it is true or not.

As for the death chart, the Saturn moon on the mars Jupiter is really incredible and the natal moon's nodes being conjunct/mirroring Pluto's nodes relative to a transit Pluto in the first, could we say this marks a utterly new life chapter for her next time? Probably no longer a queen?

Thank you,
Helena

[Nerissa]

Thanks Rad for clearing up the evolutionary state - I was wavering on putting her more firmly in the individuated, however, I am not sure she'd have actually manifested as much change as she did if further in the individuated - she had that conviction of the consensus plus the urge to forward thinking that is very much the cusp as you confirmed.

The opposition in her chart Neptune/Moon 7th/Leo - to Mars/Jupiter 1st/Aquarius is very striking - that entire balance between self, others, personal drive & the needs of the collective - & that Saturn conjunct the MC squaring it all!! Wow.

I'm thinking though, Saturn in Scorpio is that need for keeping her own sense of self & the struggle she may have had, that none of us will know, & rightly so - & that's her Soul - Scorpio, there's much deeper lessons, & they are her own, not meant for public consumption.

I'm wondering what you think of the Sun - it's zero Taurus & that node is 20 Cancer - within orb for a skipped step, but out of sign - I'm figuring that she is firmly moving away from those evolutionary requirements - that this life was one big push-off from the past - would you consider it square?
Is it a culmination?

& yes - I was up in the mountains & I had this very strong feeling of her being in nature - & the only time you'd see her lose her cool was with her beloved horses & watching races - there is footage of her pretty much yelling her head off & running around trying to get the best view, lol.

She passed at Balmoral - her country get-away - I'm so glad for that, she loved Scotland & nature.....she was/is a remarkable soul.

Thank you Helena for your questions - I was thinking much along the same lines as you were - & it is interesting to think of the past lives of such a public figure - especially with that Pluto/NN 6th/Cancer.

I get literal chills thinking of Edward becoming King - there had to be divine intervention there - I've no doubt at all the world would be a very different, and not in a good way, place.

It's also bizarre how Prince Harry seems to be recreating much of that trauma - but, no surprise I suppose that the British Royal family would continue to have epic drama.

Had to Edit - put Aries instead of Aquarius - guess the 'A' threw me

[Helena]

Hi Rad and Nerissa,

Rad, thank you for your clarifications and my apologies for bringing up past life matters. I think it's so interesting to see it that way, karma yoga, because it would mean a soul that is much in alignment with her soul design, so to be within the "royal team" of the Goddess :-) would really mean to serve and that could be seen here so clearly.
I was thinking royalty in general more 1st chakra soul types but is a good understanding that it really is case to case, no rule at all?

Nerissa, I agree really interesting questions... It's consensual that the Queen is respected and admired for people who question the monarchy in the same way as those who support monarchy, which is quite something indeed.
Also Nerissa I was seeing prince Charles, now the new king as the moon at the exact 0 taurus degree, his mother to the degree, wow. The upcoming transit of Pluto will challenge that exact moon.

Thank you,
Helena

[Rad]

Hi Nerissa,

I'm wondering what you think of the Sun - it's zero Taurus & that node is 20 Cancer - within orb for a skipped step, but out of sign - I'm figuring that she is firmly moving away from those evolutionary requirements - that this life was one big push-off from the past - would you consider it square?
Is it a culmination?

*****

It is a square. It is a symbol for the culmination of previous lives in this life. She fulfilled all of her karmic and evolutionary intentions by assuming the role of Queen in this life. If she had made choices not to do this then that Sun squaring the Nodes would correlate to 'skipped steps' created in the life as the Queen. In so doing this would have led to yet another life wherein her Soul would create the conditions and circumstances in which the nature of those skipped steps would be recreated.

God Bless, Rad

[Rad]

Hi Helena,

I was thinking royalty in general more 1st chakra soul types but is a good understanding that it really is case to case, no rule at all?

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It is on a case by case basis.

I was reading the Guardian today and ran into a story about the Queen that really touched me. It's the story in which she decided to act within the context of a comedy sketch with the Paddington Bear. Here is a link to that article if you would like to read it: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/11/when-we-asked-queen-to-tea-with-paddington-something-magic-happened-most-lovely-goodbye

Here is a link to the video of it: https://youtu.be/ZZRP70zMHgo. And this one where The Queen's sense of humour is remembered: from off-mic quips to tea with Paddington: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-mO7rbYtgk

You can see her Soul too in these images.

God Bless, Rad

[Helena]

Hi Rad,

That story is delicious 

[Nerissa]

Thanks Rad, I remembered that rule about the sun squares nodes after posted, once again incredibly graphic symbolism.

And thank you sharing those stories about the Queen & Paddington Bear

Helena - when I started studying astrology I used charts of the Royal Family, there are excellent birth data going back centuries - it's fascinating to study.

I'm American - it seems very popular to target the British Monarchy for past sins, but I think that's essentially due to the fact the monarchy still exists.
By that logic though, considering the past sins of the USA I suppose we should torch the constitution, shrug & call it a day. Of course, we won't do that.

Queen Elizabeth was well ahead of her time in creating the common wealth in terms of reparations before it was even a whisper in the US. They also abolished slavery decades before the US.

I also don't think most Americans have educated themselves on the role of the monarchy - as head of state the Queen or King are a check/balance against the powers of parliament.
I have great respect for Queen Elizabeth, & King Charles & Prince William are both very proactive in fighting climate change - so, I have some hope for increasingly progressive stances in future from the monarchy.

It's interesting to note, as of right now, as the procession of the Queen is occurring - the Moon is aligning with the North Node and Uranus - in her sun sign - and the clear symbolism of this momentous collective moment, unity,  plus the feminine nature of the moon - amazing!

[Rad]

HI All,

Here is the story of Vanessa Nakate. This is a noon chart.


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'Africa is on the frontlines but not the front pages': Vanessa Nakate on her climate fight

The new Unicef goodwill ambassador would like to see reparations from nations most responsible for climate crisis

by Nina Lakhani
Guardian   
Sat 17 Sep 2022

Vanessa Nakate knows what it's like to be Black and overlooked. In January 2020, an Associated Press photographer cropped Nakate from a picture of youth climate activists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, leaving her friend Greta Thunberg and three other white young women in the shot.

It triggered widespread outrage, rightly so, but Nakate regards that very personal experience as a symbol of how the voices and experiences of Black – and Brown and Indigenous – communities are routinely erased.

"Africa is on the frontlines of the climate crisis but it's not on the front pages of the world's newspapers. Every activist who speaks out is telling a story about themselves and their community, but if they are ignored, the world will not know what's really happening, what solutions are working. The erasure of our voices is literally the erasure of our histories and what people hold dear to their lives," said Nakate.

Nakate is a 25-year-old, thoughtful, smart and quietly spoken climate activist from Kampala, the capital of Uganda – one of the countries most at risk from climate disasters caused by global heating.

Two climate disasters have struck Uganda this year so far: at least 29 people died and thousands were displaced in the city of Mbale in eastern Uganda after heavy rainfall caused two rivers to burst their banks, submerging homes, shops and roads, and uprooting water pipes. And in the north-east about half a million people are facing starvation due to drought in Karamoja, where hundreds of people – mostly women and children – have already died.

Nakate recently travelled to neighbouring Kenya with Unicef, the UN aid and development agency for children, as its new goodwill ambassador, a role also held by household names like Serena Williams, Amitabh Bachchan, David Beckham and Katy Perry.

The experience in Turkana, one of the areas in north-west Kenya most affected by a prolonged drought that has left more than 37 million people in the greater Horn of Africa on the brink of starvation, was life changing. "It hasn't rained for two years. To experience what that means in a community, to see how much people are suffering and how much help they need, I really got to see how the climate crisis is affecting so many lives and destroying so many livelihoods, and that it's mostly women and children who are suffering the most."

It was Nakate's first time experiencing such extreme climate suffering first-hand. At one hospital treating children with severe malnutrition, she met an emaciated little boy who died the following day. According to the World Health Organisation, an estimated 7 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished in the region, which is experiencing the worst hunger crisis in over 70 years. "I've always said that climate change is more than statistics, it's more than weather, but in Turkana I really got to understand those words."

Of course most people will never witness such catastrophe first-hand, which is why it's crucial that the voices and experiences of those most affected are amplified on the international stage – through the media and at decision making events like the UN climate talks.

Last year in Glasgow at Cop26, very few African activists were able to attend due to challenges with accreditation, funding and Covid vaccinations, which at the time were available to less than 5% of people across the continent. Pledges on loss and damage for developing nations most harmed by global heating were once again shelved at the behest of rich polluting nations.

Cop27 takes place in November this year in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, which will be Nakate's third climate talk, but getting access for most activists is proving to be just as difficult this year. "Many people are calling it an African Cop but it won't be an African Cop if the communities, the activists are not there."

Countries from across Africa – and the wider global south – will be looking to secure billions of dollars of climate financing for adaptation and the green energy transition, as well as separate funds for loss and damage and reparations.

On the recent Kenya trip, Nakate met a young man who asked her why countries in the global north contribute the most emissions but places like Turkana suffer the most. "He thought they must have done something wrong ... it was really hard to explain to him why those being impacted the most are the least responsible, and that's one of the horrible realities of the climate crisis.

"There are people who are looking for answers to a question that needs to be answered through much needed reparations and responsibility from the global north."

The 54 countries in Africa combined account for 15% of the world's population but contribute less than 4% of global greenhouse emissions – in contrast to 23% by China, 19% by the US, and 13% from the European Union.

Nakate, a born-again Christian, said: "Having dominion over the Earth is about responsibility and service to the planet and its people, because God is not a God of waste and exploitation."

Nakate was drawn to climate activism in 2018 after learning about the erratic rainfall and extreme heat affecting Ugandan farmers and food production – including members of her family. Agriculture is the backbone of the country's economy, accounting for a quarter of its GDP. About 70% of people rely on farming and raising livestock.

Inspired by Thunberg's school strikes in Sweden, Nakate launched her own climate movement and for several months in 2019 protested outside the gates of parliament against the government's inaction on the climate crisis. She then founded the Youth for Future Africa and the Africa-based Rise Up Movement, and is now one of the world's most celebrated youth activists.

But her celebrity means that some organisations and journalists regard her as the go-to African voice, which she finds problematic.

"Across the continent many activists are doing incredible work, and there were many before us and the climate strikes in 2018. When the focus is just on one person it erases other experiences and stories. The solution is not to put faces on the climate movement, it has millions of people who are doing incredible work and organising in their communities."

In Nairobi recently, Nakate met young people making briquettes – a cheap, alternative cooking fuel made from waste taken out of rivers – for a grassroots green energy company called Motobrix, creating sustainable local jobs. "It's people and stories like this we really need to listen to," she added.

Making sure activists and impact communities from across Africa can attend – and meaningfully participate – in Egypt is crucial for negotiations on loss and damage – and solutions. If these stories aren't heard, the solutions that are being financed risk being unacceptable or even harmful to affected communities.

"NGOs and governments need to listen and engage with communities about what they want, what works for them, and not dump solutions on them ... We need to have communities at the negotiating tables in Egypt."

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Nakate

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Her natal Lilith is 19 Virgo, N.Node 14 Sagittarius, S.Node 10 Cancer. Her natal Amazon is 19 Pisces. N.Node 22 Taurus, and the S.Node 22 Scorpio.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Goddess Bless, Rad
 

[Rad]

Hi All,

Here is the story of Robina Courtin a Buddhist nun. This is a noon chart.

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'Honey-child, listen to me': a radical Buddhist nun on how to be happy in a crazy world

Robina Courtin is a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa tradition and lineage of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. In 1996 she founded the Liberation Prison Project, which she ran until 2009.

'Our problem is we think the outside world is the main cause of our suffering – and our happiness,' says Buddhist nun Robina Courtin.

From a Catholic convent school in Melbourne to death row in America, Robina Courtin has learned a few things about happiness, suffering ... and Donald Trump

Bronwyn Adcock
Guardian

It's a Tuesday evening in the small country town of Milton on the south coast of New South Wales, and the scent of the freshly brewed chai and homemade soup about to be served is wafting through the draughts in the Country Women's Association hall as discussion veers between death, killing, war, abortion, prison and suffering.

Around 50 people, some longtime members of the local Buddhist group, others curious newcomers, are seated cross-legged on the wooden floor or on plastic chairs, a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II looking down, listening to a Buddhist nun. The topic for the night: "How to stay positive in a negative environment."

"Our problem is we think the outside world is the main cause of our suffering – and our happiness," says Venerable Robina Courtin, an Australian, now 77, who was ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa tradition in the late 1970s.

"We understand that when it comes to becoming a musician, that you program yourself and that you are the main cause of becoming a musician – the work is in your mind, you need precision and clarity and perfect theories and then you practise and practise. We know we create our own selves in that sense," she says.

"But when it comes to turning ourselves into a happy person we do not believe we have this capacity. But the Buddhist approach is that we produce ourselves, whether it's a musician or a happy person. We're the boss."

But what about all the extra suffering of the past few years, asks a woman, citing Covid, floods and war in Ukraine. Courtin relays the story of two imprisoned Tibetan women who were tortured and sexually assaulted, yet were able to "interpret this experience" in a way that "allowed them to bear it".

The questioning woman looks dissatisfied. "What is it?" Courtin asks. "Come on, say it, it's important." Courtin can be at once warm and piercingly direct – when a questioner interrupted her mid-sentence at the previous evening's event she responded, "Can't you hear I'm trying to answer your question!" – and it takes a moment for the woman to reveal what she's thinking. "It just doesn't seem practical," she finally says.

"It is practical when you are being sexually abused in a prison," Courtin says. "We have the power to change the way we interpret our lives, and they were able to do that. And they were even able to have compassion for their torturers. The result of this? They didn't lose their minds. It's not moralistic; it really is practical."

"Honey-child, listen to me," says Courtin, softening. "Our trouble is we can't cope with our own suffering or the suffering out there, so we just want to make it all go away. We can't. All we can do is do our best in this crazy insane asylum called planet Earth."

From convent school to death row

Earlier that day, over lunch, Courtin explains: "I've always been involved in the world. I like the world and I like crazy humans." She's a "newspaper and news junkie"; her favourite publications include the Financial Times, the Economist and the Washington Post.

    I think I'd exhausted all options for who to blame for the suffering of the world

Robina Courtin

Courtin grew up in Melbourne, one of seven children in a rambunctious, poor, Catholic household. The "naughtiest kid in the family", at 12 she was sent to board in a convent school. "I was in heaven, it was bliss," she says. Not only did she finally have her own bed, but "there was no chaos around me, I had discipline. I went to mass every day. I was in love with God and Our Lady and the saints. It was perfect for me."

In her late teens, she discovered boys. Realising she "couldn't have God and boys at the same time", she "very consciously" decided "goodbye God, hello boys". A secondhand record, picked up for sixpence, led her to jazz. "I got this seven-inch LP that said 'Billie Holiday'. I had no idea, I wondered who he was! That opened me up. Just blew my mind because it opened me up to this Black American experience, of suffering human beings."

In the late 1960s, Courtin made her way to London, "rough and ready for revolution". There she joined "radical left" demonstrations and supported the Black Panther movement. In 1971, she started working full-time for "Friends of Soledad", a British political activist group supporting three Black American prisoners charged with the murder of a white prison guard. Then, she moved on to the radical feminist movement. Shedding her taste for men, she became a "radical lesbian feminist", learned martial arts and moved to the US into a lesbian-run dojo in New York City.

In 1976, back in Australia, in Queensland, with a broken foot that stopped her martial arts practice, 31-year old Courtin spotted a poster advertising a talk by two Tibetan Buddhists – Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche – and decided to go along. "That's when I found my path," she says. "I was always looking for a way to see the world, why there is suffering, what are the causes of it? And I think I'd exhausted all options for who to blame for the suffering of the world."

Since she was ordained, 44 years ago, Courtin has worked as an editor of Buddhist magazines and books. In 1996, after receiving a letter from a young Mexican American former gangster serving three life sentences in a maximum security prison in California, she founded the Liberation Prison Project, a nonprofit that offers Buddhist teachings and support to people in prison.

Courtin ran the program for 14 years, assisting thousands of inmates, and still stays in touch with her "prison friends". Recently, she visited one who has been on death row in Kentucky since 1983. "He lives in this garbage dump of a prison, no sensory pleasure whatsoever, the food is just horrible, no freedom to do much at all, he's seen as a monster, and he's this happy guy," she says. A practising Buddhist, "he's fulfilled and content. He's worked on his mind, accepted responsibility for his actions, and although he would love to be released from prison, he accepts his reality. 'I'm ready for that electric jolt,' he told me."

I ask Courtin if she feels any sense of anger about this man's plight. "No, I don't. I try to help him where he's at. That's it," she says. "I remember when I was a radical political activist in London in the early 1970s, that was when I was angry. That was when I was in a rage. Racism, sexism, injustice are just as bad now, if not worse – the prison system in America's fucking outrageous – but I work differently now.

"The trouble is, we conflate seeing a bad thing with being angry. We feel if we give up anger, we chuck the baby out with the bathwater." Courtin says she's "still an activist", but maintaining anger is like stabbing ourselves with a knife – "it just paralyses you". Instead, she practises what she calls courageous compassion. "There's a saying in Buddhism, a bird needs two wings, wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is the internal, putting yourself together. Compassion is when you put your money where your mouth is and help the world."

Living in this world without losing your mind

Since the late 2000s, Courtin's lived out of a suitcase, teaching in Buddhist centres around the globe, only coming to a halt in March 2020 in Sante Fe when the pandemic hit. She started teaching over Zoom – "I adore Zoom" – and a friend set up and runs her social media. Her TikTok account, which has 85,600 followers, has short videos, sometimes responding to current events, with titles such as "How to live in this world without losing your mind".

    There's not a single damn delusion Mr Trump has that I don't have as well

Robina Courtin

"There's a way of using the world to develop your practice," she says. Take former US president Donald Trump, for example. "I'd watch Mr Trump and, instead of ranting and raving about how bad he is, I'd go, 'Well, that's lies, I recognise that. That's anger, I recognise that. That's vanity, I recognise that. That's arrogance, I recognise that'. There's not a single damn delusion Mr Trump has that I don't have as well. The Buddhist view is that we all have these states of mind; we're all in the same boat. So then I go, 'Thank you for showing me how not to be.'"

Recently, Courtin shared on social media that her sister, Jan, had died after an accident at home. She says the huge response to her post "touched me deeply, because people were so kind". She got on a flight from the US as soon as she heard about the accident. Alongside her siblings in a hospital room in Melbourne as Jan's life support was withdrawn, Courtin whispered the Buddhist mantras that accompany death while the rest of the family boisterously sang the Sydney Swans team song.

Robina Courtin is a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa tradition and lineage of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

Once Courtin finishes this current Australian teaching tour, she's moving to New York City, where she plans to settle "for the last years of my life". She plans to write and edit, continue her personal study and Buddhist practice, and teach via Zoom. Maybe "I'll go out to a jazz club in the evening," she says, before adding, "I'm just joking, I probably won't go to the jazz club.

"I'm going to try and not waste my life. Try and stay useful. Be useful before I drop dead."

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robina_Courtin

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Her natal Lilith is 11 Libra, N.Node 22 Sagittarius, S.Node 15 Gemini. Her natal Amazon is 27 Pisces, N.Node 8 Taurus, and the S.Node is 0026Sagittarius.

Goddess Bless, Rad

[Rad]

Hi All,

Here is the story of Mahsa Amini. This is a noon chart.

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Iranian woman dies 'after being beaten by morality police' over hijab law

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd, dies after 'violent arrest' for infringing hijab rules amid Iranian crackdown on women's dress

Weronika Strzyżyńska
Guardian

A 22-year-old woman has died in an Iranian hospital days after being detained by the regime's morality police for allegedly not complying with the country's hijab regulations.

Mahsa Amini was travelling with her family from Iran's western province of Kurdistan to the capital, Tehran, to visit relatives when she was reportedly arrested for failing to meet the country's strict rules on women's dress.

Witnesses reported that Amini was beaten in the police van, an allegation the police deny.

The news comes weeks after Iran's hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, ordered a crackdown on women's rights and called for stricter enforcement of the country's mandatory dress code, which has required all women to wear the hijab head-covering since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Amini's family were notified that she had been taken to hospital hours after her arrest. She was transferred to an intensive-care unit at Kasra hospital.

According to Hrana, an Iranian human rights organisation, Amini's family were told during her arrest that she would be released after a "re-education session".

The police later said that Amini had suffered a heart attack. Amini's family disputed this, however, and said she was healthy and had not been experiencing any health problems.

Amini was in a coma after arriving at the hospital, her family said, adding that they were told by hospital staff that she was brain dead.

Photographs of Amini lying in the hospital bed in a coma with bandages around her head and breathing tubes have circulated on social media.

Her hospitalisation and death drew condemnation from Iranian celebrities and politicians. Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist politician and former MP, called on the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to speak out over Amini's case.

"What does the supreme leader, who rightfully denounced US police over the death of George Floyd, say about the Iranian police's treatment of Mahsa Amini?" Sadeghi tweeted on Friday.

The interior ministry and Tehran's prosecutor launched inquiries into the case after an order from Raisi, state media reported.

Raisi signed a decree on 15 August clamping down on women's dress and stipulating harsher punishments for violating the strict code, both in public and online.

Women have been arrested across the country after the national "hijab and chastity day" declared on 12 July. One of the women was Sepideh Rashno, a writer and artist who was reportedly beaten and tortured in custody before making a forced apology on television.

Human rights groups have reported that extra security forces have been deployed outside Kasra hospital.

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Analysis: Mahsa Amini's brutal death may be moment of reckoning for Iran

Martin Chulov

Signs of groundswell taking shape against state that routinely commits extreme acts of violence against men and women

Mahsa Amini's death in custody is fast becoming another moment of reckoning for the Iranian regime that fears a popular revolt more than it fears staring down the rest of the world.

Four days after Amini died in a Tehran hospital, protests in the Iranian capital show little sign of slowing. Most protests appear peaceful, but some in Kurdish areas of Iran have turned violent.

There are some signs that a groundswell could be taking shape: the first of its kind since 2009, when the death of another young woman sparked days of widespread unrest not seen since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Even now, Neda Agha Soltan's slow demise from a gunshot to the chest remains a testament to how Iran deals with dissent, and with women. Soltan was shot by a sniper as she attended an anti-government protest in June 2009, in a moment that galvanized a revolt and, for a time, exposed the fragility of one of the region's staunchest police states.

Images of Amini being dragged last Thursday into a van by morality police – reportedly for a perceived breach of the hijab head-covering rules – have stirred memories of Soltan's death, and once again raised the spectre of a state that routinely commits extreme acts of violence against women and men who defy it.

The decade plus between both events has been an era of increasing oppression in Iran, where activists have been confined to the shadows and the state itself has crushed all trace of the Green Revolution that followed the disputed 2009 presidential elections.

The the state's henchmen, known as basiji, whose members were responsible for killing Soltan, and the Revolutionary Guards, who enforce the values of the Islamic Revolution, have had the run of the streets, especially since the election of Ebrahim Raisi as president.

A hardliner with deeply conservative views, Raisi has further narrowed the margin for dissent, empowering the morality police and entrenching an inflexible interpretation of Shia Islam across all corners of the country.

Iran's leaders have so far blamed "conspirators" for Amini's death even thought it took place in one of the regime's own cells, and also claimed that riots and protests were the work of foes, such as Saudi Arabia. The playbook is familiar, and so too are platitudes.

At the same time, semi-official state media has flagged an inquiry and claimed that senior officials, such as Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, were likely to have felt sympathy for Amini's death, which had been earlier blamed on a heart condition, or epilepsy, neither of which the 22-year-old Kurd suffered from, according to her parents.

Iran's hardliners have learned lessons from 2009, when a broad uprising nearly escaped the state's control. The country now has some of the best and most pervasive digital security in the region and a firm hold over communities it has terrified into silence.

But it also finds itself up against a formidable expatriate network who want different things for the country and its people, and a strong homegrown activist push that knows how to organise. Whether Amini's death will become another seminal moment in the pursuit of self determination by so many Iranians, or an ember that eventually cools, remains to be seen.

However, Iranian leaders fear a street they can no longer contain. The brutal death of another young woman is the recipe for more unrest. The regime has found itself in tricky waters.

*****

Her natal Lilith is 1 Pisces, N.Node 4 Sagittarius, S.Node 17  Cancer. Her natal Amazon is 28 Virgo, N.Node 10 Gemini, S.Node 11 Scorpio.

Goddess Bless, Rad

[Rad]

Hi All,

Here is the chart for Mallory McMorrow who is a American state Senator from Michigan. This is a noon chart.

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Mallory McMorrow, rising Democratic star, says it's time to answer conservative culture war attacks

Alexander Nazaryan
Alexander Nazaryan·Senior White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON — It is fair to say that until last month, Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow was not a figure of national political prominence. That changed on April 19, when she delivered an impassioned speech countering Republican accusations that Democrats like she were "groomers" for supporting the rights of gay and trans students.

The four-minute broadside immediately roused Democrats who had been huddled in a defensive crouch for months; one circulating version has been viewed more than 15 million times

"I'm going to start talking that way," Democratic consultant James Carville told the Washington Post.

"A role model for the midterms," read a headline in the New Yorker.

The speech came after months of charges from politicians like Ron DeSantis, the ambitious Republican Florida governor, that teachers who wanted to discuss sexuality and gender were, in fact, trying to indoctrinate children. The charges were baseless but effective, and books like "Gender Queer" suddenly became the targets of national bans.

"There was a hesitancy to want to talk about things, at least for me," McMorrow told Yahoo News during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.

That changed on April 13, when Republican state Sen. Lana Theis gave an arresting invocation to open the Michigan State Senate session. "Dear Lord, across the country we're seeing in the news that our children are under attack," Theis said. "That there are forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know. Dear Lord, I pray for Your guidance in this chamber to protect the most vulnerable among us."

McMorrow walked out of the legislative chamber along with two other Democrats, seeing Theis's concern as a thinly disguised reference to the "grooming" line of attack. She did not think much of her response to what had seemed like intentional political provocation, a local Republican trying to replicate the rhetoric of Fox News.

"I guess she took offense to that," McMorrow said of Theis.

Five days later, Theis sent out a fundraising email that seemed to confirm as much. "These are the people we are up against," the email said. "Progressive social media trolls like Senator Mallory McMorrow (D-Snowflake) who are outraged they ... can't groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year-olds are responsible for slavery."

McMorrow said she was stunned to find herself a target of such attacks. "She's a mom, I'm a mom, and being accused of, let's be honest, befriending children for the purpose of molesting them, is horrific," McMorrow recalled.

She and Theis were not exactly friends, but they had been friendly. "I have gone out for coffee in her district. We talked about our families, and she asks about my baby all the time," McMorrow told Yahoo News.

"She likes my truck," adds her husband Ray Wert, who accompanied McMorrow to Washington and is the former editor of automotive website Jalopnik. (Theis did not answer a request for comment from Yahoo News.)

The fundraising email had gone out on a Monday. On Tuesday came McMorrow's response.

"I am the biggest threat to your hollow, hateful scheme," McMorrow said from the statehouse floor.

Describing herself as "a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom," the 35-year-old New Jersey native and Notre Dame graduate positioned herself as precisely the kind of suburban voter whom the GOP "grooming" attacks were trying to court.

She addressed not only Republican attacks on gay and trans kids but also charges that schools were imposing divisive racial justice ideas that are broadly (and often inaccurately) deemed Critical Race Theory.

"No child alive today is responsible for slavery," McMorrow said in her viral speech. "No one in this room is responsible for slavery. But each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history."

Dismaying as it had been to be labeled a pedophile, McMorrow says she tried to imagine what it was like to be gay or Black in a climate she described as relentless "fearmongering" by Republicans. "You are targeted and marginalized," she said. "Just for existing."

Coming amid increasingly downbeat predictions for Democrats in next fall's congressional midterms, McMorrow's rebuttal proved a welcome surprise at a time when Democrats were still reeling from discontent over pandemic-related school closures, not to mention the gender- and race-related attacks that followed.

In Virginia, suburban frustrations helped power the Republican business executive Glenn Youngkin to an upset victory over Democratic candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe in that state's gubernatorial race last fall. The suburbs hugging the Potomac — the same ones that had voted for Biden only months before — provided the crucial difference.

"Suburban moms who have left the Republican Party in big numbers came back," a jubilant Bob McDonnell — Virginia's last Republican governor before Youngkin — told the Washington Post after the latter's unlikely win over McAuliffe.

In McMorrow's Michigan and across the Midwest, Republicans now control nearly all of the state legislatures. Democrats in Washington have found their messages about a post-pandemic economic renewal unconvincing to a suburban and rural electorate uneasy about social issues like education and crime.

Democrats need to reawaken those voters' sense of moral responsibility, McMorrow believes, while acknowledging the challenges they face. "Moms are tired after the past few years with COVID, with school closures, trying to balance work and school, and I've seen attempts to take advantage of that exhaustion," she told Yahoo News. "What I try to say, specifically to other white suburban moms, is this is a moment to decide to take our own identity and back fight for the types of communities we want."

Perhaps precisely because she is herself a straight, white suburbanite, McMorrow has served to remind Democrats of what they stood for when they marched in the summer of 2020 for social justice, what they hoped for when they voted for Biden that fall. "I think I felt the same way a lot of people did on Inauguration Day, which was, we all worked so hard in 2020 to help President Biden get elected," she says. "And it felt like we could breathe a sigh of relief. And I don't think that was naive."

Despite a promising start, new variants of the coronavirus spoiled Biden's promised "summer of freedom," and a sort of pandemic malaise has settled in. A messy withdrawal from Afghanistan added foreign policy woes to domestic ones. Biden's infrastructure plan passed, but his more ambitious raft of social spending programs, known as Build Back Better, didn't. Inflation climbed ever higher, making it increasingly difficult for many people to afford groceries and gas.

McMorrow saw some of her conservative constituents give over to Trump's false claims that the election had been stolen from him. That conspiracy theory has melded with a resistance to coronavirus safety measures and fears of demographic change to fuel a pervasive feeling of grievance and threat.

She describes herself as wanting to speak for other suburban moms: perhaps the ones who put up Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home Here signs in their yards, but have, in the last two years, grown successively more exhausted with school closures, reports of rising crime and inflation.

"The signs are a wonderful signal and reminder of who we are and what kind of community and country we want our kids to grow up in," McMorrow told Yahoo News of front yard progressivism. "But the devastating reality is that Republicans are actively trying to dismantle that vision, and a sign isn't enough without action. Because they'll win unless we stop them."

Almost exactly two years before she gave her now-famous speech, McMorrow watched as heavily armed anti-lockdown protesters invaded the Michigan statehouse.

"When you saw the photo of the four men and guns, what you don't see is I'm right below them. Like literally," she says of that day's iconic image. "They were above our heads, taunting us. You know, fingers on triggers."

"There's ordinary Republican voters who see it as bulls***," she says, even as she worries that many of them have bought into a strident and often false narrative about the country. "I've got a woman in my district who calls our office fairly regularly and leaves voicemails, and you can hear her voice like she's genuinely upset. She believes the election was stolen," she recalled. "She asks how I, as a woman, could support 'biological men' playing in women's sports. When you know in Michigan, there's two kids per year who apply for the waiver for getting to play on a team to match their gender."

After the massacre of 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas, last week, Republicans in the Michigan State Senate ended sessions early, in order, state Democrats said, to prevent a genuine discussion of gun policy.

In response, McMorrow recorded a video from her office. She asked parents to dispense with the notion of a school shooting as "unimaginable" and to instead imagine the horror of their own children caught in the terrifying chaos

"Your phone rings. It's the school," They need you to come down to give a DNA sample," a tearful McMorrow says into the camera. "The bodies are too mutilated to identify. So mutilated that they don't even know how many kids there are."

The video garnered hundreds of thousands of views, more evidence that McMorrow was hitting raw political nerves. Even before the new message, liberal commentator Keith Olbermann was touting her as a presidential candidate in 2024, positing a run with Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke. It was less a realistic ticket than a recognition that many Democrats feel that they need new people to say new things — and to say them more bluntly than their party elders have.

For the record, McMorrow said she isn't going to seek the White House — at least not in 2024. "We're in this mess because Republicans have known for decades to work from the bottom up," she told Yahoo News. "What happens in the states is the most consequential thing on the ballot."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLWo8B1R0MY

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallory_McMorrow

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Her natal Lilith is 16 Pices, N.Node 2 Sagittarius, S.Node 11 Cancer. Her natal Amazon is 18 Cancer, N.Node 11 Gemini, and the S.Node is 6 Scorpio.


Goddess Bless, Rad