Which Stoic? Saturn or Jupiter?

The philosophical view-point by which I seem to be living seems to be more in line with what I have read to be the definition of Stoicism. In reality my philosophy is very simple. I believe in actions over words. I believe in reality over imagination despite my dabbling in poetry and astrological metaphor which describes possible future outcomes.

Generally speaking my quest in life has been contentment, just like all other people. However, I realised fairly early  that fulfilment does not breed contentment but rather doubles the desire, doubles the need for satisfaction. Certain things in life do not bring a calm mind and a peaceful soul and a sober home, the things which make people happy in the end.

The Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions; rather, they sought to transform them by a resolute ‘askēsis‘ which enables a person to develop clear judgment and inner calm.^[22] Logic, reflection, and concentration were the methods of such self-discipline.

What I find interesting about the Stoic standpoint is that it does not deny emotion. It merely acknowledges emotion as part of a deterministic universe. Human beings, like animals are thrown around by seemingly random events which have firm bases in their own actions and thoughts. The Stoic is not meant to deny that emotion exists and thus lead a repressed life. The Stoic is supposed to make judgements in calmness and consideration, in order to minimise suffering.

Obviously self-discipline is required. When one thinks about one´s life, desires, and needs, it is never obvious what is the cause of suffering in many instances. It is only possible to make inferences from previous experiences, and from the experiences of others, and without question logic does not have the power to prevent all human suffering. Logic at times may actually be the cause of human suffering, because reason can be mistaken. The causes and problems of others´ suffering are never universal, because people are different.

My personal philosophy is that the world is fortune. My emotions move up with good news and personal advancement, and in the same way they also move down, with bad news and problems. Clearly emotions will always be with the human species. And in fact emotions are often catalysts for positive action and change. The Stoic is meant to accept all emotion. With analysis, with contemplation before action, and cultivation of the calm sort of mind which is required for deliberation the Stoic does not act in disharmony with the deterministic universe, but rather accepts it and works with it.

In my personal life, I was born into a family, mother, father and sister. The parent´s difficulties with each other and the sister´s waywardness and the emotional “suffering” within the dynamics of the family are deterministic in that I personally had no choice in the matter. Whether these people were or indeed are morally good, virtuous or other, is debatable, and only they, and God will ever really know. They have in my observation been responsible for their own individual and interpersonal sufferings and anguish.

It is not in my right to judge the dignity of any of my family members. But I am able to observe that personal philosophies on their parts or perhaps lack of philosophy and a reliance on the “forces” at work on their emotions are culprits in the personal and secret miseries that do not escape the eyes and senses of a Scorpion.

I do not judge their dignity, for mine is bound up with theirs as I have stated that their presence in my life was, is and will continue to be the inevitable unavoidable circumstance of our natural state. The free will that I do exert is that my life does not have to be impulsively lead the way their lives are. I do not need to be pulled and pushed by whimsical desires and superficial judgements.

The philosophy though treads on a fine wire. The success of such a philosophy is determined greatly on my own reasoning faculties and judgement and logic. Logic of man is highly fallible, because in part desire seems to always be the most logical thing at the time of that particular emotional stimulation. Logic works on highly dubious principles. The example that I like is that of the logic of modernism. The modern world is based on the idea of caring for and providing provision for the less fortunate. You make more food, feed the poor, house the poor, provide healthcare for the poor, but in the end, all that happens is more mouths to feed, more poor and an even bigger logical problem. Those ideas are based on the fact of logic and reason, but not of acceptance, nor a grasp of the bigger, more long term picture. They satisfy immediate desires and wants, they attempt to neutralise unhappy emotions with innovation, with attempts to stop suffering.

In the end though Stoicism knows and has always known that suffering will continue. Something that I find weak and undignified about the modern world, when I read about and learn about the ancient world is that this world does not accept suffering. It is in essence an anti-stoic society based on a false reasoning. Stoics are supposed to try to reduce suffering, but the idea of reducing it through using clever means will always fall short.

For the Stoics, ‘reason‘ meant not only using logic, but also understanding the processes of nature — the logos, or universal reason, inherent in all things. Living according to reason and virtue, they held, is to live in harmony with the divine order of the universe, in recognition of the common reason and essential value of all people.

 

Living in harmony with the divine order of the universe. A man is born with his particular genetic code and with his particular appearance and nature. Ideas that man ought to be different to what he is, is antithetical to the principles of living in harmony with the divine order. There is natural dignity in human aggression, some people are born fighters and they are part of that nature, to deny their right to go to war is against the natural order. What the Stoic warrior ought to do though is to battle with dignity and honour and to accept his inevitable wounds as part of divine justice.

The noise of the world can make it rather difficult to find the “right path”. However, with contemplation and with patience the Stoic finds that path. It takes self-discipline to realise that personal desires will not be fulfilled immediately or even in the way that expectation and illusion has made them out to be.

The Stoic must always be on guard to keep his mind free from clutter, free from overindulgence and from emotions like jealousy, or anger. Eventually the stoic realises the luck that he has for maintaining such a calm and serene mind and optimism. The Stoic is aware that human emotions and situations pass and change like the seasons. But it´s only through observation of the natural order surrounding him in nature that he is able to grasp the meaning of this. The oak tree that stands alone in the field for a century is magnificent and withstands much. It is the job of the stoic to stand firm, to be unmoved by random events and emotions.

The logic which the Stars teaches me is that if I take the long-view, if I look at my life as a whole rather than my immediate satisfaction I can gain a perspective which makes me feel content and calm. When I begin to contemplate life as a whole, I begin to see that as a seed I have been fortunate to have been born in fairly fertile soil with the possibility of great growth and movement and the possibility of a very good view. I do no longer feel the discontent for things that I felt were missing in life or unjust.  Things, qualities, experiences that others possessed but which I did not were causes for my unhappiness. But in the same way that I realised that others had happiness, I´ve also realised just how temporary those happinesses were, observance of my family I have already cited.

I think that the key to understanding Stoic philosophy is that it is not in our interests to pursue, or to chase after illusive dreams, to try to alter or to change the courses of divine nature, but simply to realise its existence around us and that we are also  part of that. For there is nothing in the universe which is wrong, nature has created perfection. Human judgement creates wrong and creates “evil”. But it is also down to human judgement and analysis to put all of nature and to put our human lives into perspective.

Some of the messages which come out of the world of people without Stoic philosophy include messages that “there isn´t enough time, or money” that their lives are not good enough, that they aren´t attractive enough or that they are not respected enough or a countless other list of lacks. When the stoic stops listening to that cranky swell of human emotion which makes up the family, and the friends, when one finds other Stoics or when one is able to weather those unstable emotions that come from society and can make one doubt oneself that is when one is truly free. The divine will of the universe has created all individuals and there is inevitability for all, there are courses which are already dictated. But it is up to individuals to find personal contentment with themselves, within themselves.

Exposure to elements eventually brings resistance to those elements and this is the task of the Stoic. The elements outside of the self are constantly changing, but once inner happiness is found there is little or nothing which can destroy it. The Stoic´s job though is not to suffer needlessly, not to be slapped around, each is due his space in the world, this makes it a tough task, for one does not fight and engage with the wilderness in a war with it, with the human nature of others either.

Botched Horary: TV

This is the horary chart of the invention of television. I was thinking about how much time I´ve wasted in my life watching any old crap, in order to fill the meaningless time while munching on crisps, chocolate and indulging in “down time” or probably more to the point a sort of banal, everyday escapism.

I try not to come to this question with my mind made up. It was just something I thought about analysing and since there is no real “birthdate” for TV, then I may as well make a horary. I have loved many programs throughout my life, during my younger years I watched all the cartoons, during my teens I became interested in sci-fi, and I loved comedy shows, as well as the occasional soap. Later on I moved more into the line of documentaries and nature programs that my Dad always loved since I was small.

Cancer Rising

It is interesting that this mode of communication can provide and reflect dreams for so many countless numbers of people. And indeed we find Cancer (the people) rising in the chart, Cancer ruler of the home and of home comfort is obvious for TV considering that it is placed in our homes as a complement to any relaxing sofa, or even in front of the bed in a bedroom. Ascendant ruler Moon in the 9th then gives more of a focus, TV is an invention which involves mass communication but also being 9th house is without doubt involved in politics, morals and people´s religious or belief systems. Aries Moon is peregrine here. We might hazard that TV is primarily concerned with Aries energy, it is an aggressive medium, and it wouldn´t be far out to say this, since everyone knows that watching TV is a passive experience.

It is curious, TV is just an invention, it is just technology. So it´s not really anyone´s place to judge what it is or what it ought to be used for. But this chart gives us a very powerful 9th ruler conjunct an exalted Venus on the cusp of the 9th house of religion, travel, law, and dreams. Perhaps TV is still in its infancy, with regard to its programming, since that 9th ruler is yet to make it over the cusp of the 9th and into its rightful house.  Pisces is said also to pick up the dregs and institutionalise them, bringing in outcasts and absorbing them as with prison. TV then is without a doubt a political, and a moral instrument having power over peoples´s (9th house) dreams and their unconscious belief systems.

The 8th house

It is said that the 8th house is the house of fear. And I can confirm that there have been times when I have found TV a little unpalatable. (What I mean specifically by this is that while watching something I might have found myself questioning the right of  them, the broadcaster to put whatever images in my head without my own chosing.) Of course, there is something for everyone, and you have to just be selective. But there is no escaping in this chart, Moon is opposed by 8th ruler Saturn T-square with subliminal Pluto in cardinal signs. There is also no escaping the Sun-Neptune-Chiron conjunction in an anaretic Aquarius. Sun as ruler of the 2nd house puts values, along with 9th house beliefs, into the churning 8th, house of fear, house of death. Neptune´s conjunction denotes the grand illusion that is hidden in plain-view.

The 8th house and the Pluto dimension is something we ought to remind ourselves when thinking about the spread of TV and its acceptance into the mass consciousness which really began in the 1930´s. Fascists were the first to use TV for propaganda and for persuading people to fall in line. The most pervasive TV moment of the 21st century is not some soap scene, nor some film preview, nor is it the final of any world cup. What´s the most pervasive and seen bunch of TV images? These are images of Sodom and Gomorrah, these are images which can only describe 9th house beliefs in the house of death and destruction. Hence all of that instinctual uneasiness has firm basis in this horary. The power of TV is great, and it´s use or abuse must be guarded against, it is part of the arsenal of social cohesion which makes nations unite under one language and culture, just as totalitarian dictatorships and democracies alike found out in the 1930´s.

TV has no plan, has no political agenda of its own. This is not something I am arguing over. However, newspapers have always been 3rd house daily events ever since the printing press revolutionised the world back in the 15th century. But obviously in the chart that I have done, TV as a 9th house (mass-communication) invention has more than just the ninth as part of its reach. The large concentration of planets focused around the Sun in the 8th and the 8th ruler in direct opposition with ASC ruler emphasises the 8th house to a great degree.

11th house ruler

According to the chart then it would be fair to say that TV is an aggressive medium, the peregrine ASC ruler and detriment Sun are indicators that it´s not the noblest of inventions. However, the Jupiter Venus conjunction brings together 9th house of beliefs with the 6th of daily routine and also the 11th of hopes and wishes. TV is a great comfort clearly, with the conjunction of those benifics in Pisces. In summary, the great focus on the 8th house is symbol of TV as an invention which controls collective resources and beliefs, it acts in a transformational fashion.

People who control TV have huge power, we can´t argue with this, and power is one of the big 8th house themes, power to transform and change, power over life and power, potentially to influence people without their comprehension. What we ought to be asking is not whether TV is good or bad, that question is superfluous since the genie is out of the bottle. What we ought to be asking is, who controls the airwaves, and what their moral and political agendas are. These are questions that we ask of our politicians, but our politicians are not allowed access to our living rooms the way the media moguls are…

Transits: Saturn to the First (Keep the dreams alive)

When I was eight years old my parents decided to move to Spain, we travelled by car, with a caravan in tow. I was told that this was an “adventure” and so my young impressionable mind was forever impressed with the idea that when life gets dull, for whatever reason, or when you feel like it, you can go on an adventure.

I don´t remember that much about the trip, except that my crayons melted in the ash-tray during the day. In the evening though I do remember something that has stuck with me and is part of what it means to have strong Sagittarius. I remember staring out of the window and seeing mountains filled with pine trees and above the mountains there were the stars. I remember I saw three shooting stars that night, but I don´t remember if I made any wishes. My parents would have probably told us children to make wishes, so no-doubt we would have made some.

Throughout life I´ve been a bit more on the optimistic, hopeful side even though outwardly I cultivate modesty, (Virgo Rising).  Currently, some of that optimism has become a little crushed. I´ve realised that in order to maintain a job and money and for life generally, one has to stay in the same place on a continual basis, one must work, and you can´t just continually be going somewhere else, or even reading about somewhere else. Eventually you run out of places anyway.

But even though I am becoming more or less mature, with the work, with the staying in one place I will not change my essential nature. One has to channel all that Romanticism, that magic of the idea of travel in an unknown land, that expansive mystery that probably comes from Sagittarius Neptune.

At times it feels like the success that I have at work, has come at a price. This price is that my freedom is the sacrifice, that those dreams of freedom and travel even if I wanted to fulfill them are so far from reality that they barely exist.

Whatever Romanticism which was borne in me in my infancy has continued and developed and grown in my life. The long voyage literature that I read and studied, the constant travelling (with the books) both fulfilled, and fed this inner idealism. That idealism, the expansive needs within are still there, and growing and expanding. And to deny this part of life is denial of self.

This dreaming may one day take me to some tragic impasse. But if I one day died on an open boat beneath the stars in unknown waters, without a map, I would be pleased with such a death. So long as my eternal soul found freedom out there.

The Romantic Poets of the 19th Century were not as free as the wind. They needed money from which they could base their lives on. That money may have come from aristocratic  inheritance or from the new wealth of the industrial revolution. But their freedoms had basis either in their own work, or the work of other people within their society.

The freedom of conquistadors, of countless soldiers that went off on “adventures” likewise had its basis in some dreary Capricorn heart, some Emperor adding up resources and weighing up information about possible conquests.  The price that Native Americans paid for their freedom before the advent of “the white man” would have been that the natural forces of the Earth were a lot closer to them and could take their lives with more alacrity: death by poisonous mushroom perhaps, or death by an infected cut.

I´ve made my pact with Saturn. I wish not to die in a gutter on the principle of freedom. Knowledge of the world gives me control, and understanding. The idea that the universe is infinite, provides infinite possibilities of freedom must go into the subconscious or into some forms of fantasy.

The pact with Saturn is that we must all support ourselves materially. This is not to say that the dreams must die, but it does mean that such dreams are to be kept for other times.  Either the psyche is allowed to expand along the roads which are natural to it, or it begins to split into two differing sides. It´s the split personality of a writer.

Saturn transiting my natal 1st house has made me realise that life does consist of work, and that work is a kind of form of benign slavery which binds you to one city in one country with slim chance of going anywhere else, or even the possibility of going anywhere else. The fact of having late Virgo rising has resulted in Saturn in Exaltation making this kind of bind a little more pleasant, or nicer than it might otherwise have been. The place of work is an amiable sort of place, with little touches here and there.  It´s something I am grateful for.

The childhood sense of wonder doesn´t have to die though. A year of work, and I will have money saved and I will have time off. Time will never be infinite with Saturn in the first, however, there will be opportunities further along in life to be reckless with a yacht or to go off to some mountains with a tent. Dreams which were impossible because I didn´t have the money or the will to do some of them will be possible some time. The possibilities of expansion for a disciplined and tempered mind may be even greater, for one is unlikely to make as many mistakes with knowledge.

Make it Concrete

The second realisation is that although it is fine and well to be an optimist, to have an expansive Sagittarian nature that appreciates sci-fi or long books, travel, religion etc.  There is a point in life in which we must actualise things. Expansion and optimism have to be put to a purpose. The Saturnine purpose is a purpose that is repeated, buildings that stand in stone. Work must not just be work. When I am teaching, that inner optimism is still there I hope, the expansion takes the form of speaking, but it is still there.

The question I want to finish this little contemplation of Saturn´s serious transit in contrast to the inner optimist is on the lines of “what do I want to achieve?” or even “what do I want to be?”

No achievement will be satisfactory unless it is a personal inner achievement, something that I myself am pleased with. And it´s interesting that I pose the question of what I want to be with Saturn in the 1st house also. I propose that the measure for any achievement is also in a sense what I become at the same time. To achieve great things and yet to be weak, either morally or physically, would sully the whole thing. Yet to not achieve anything particularly special, but to be respected and liked, and to be strong, (morally or otherwise) would be worth it.

Aquarians & the Practical Uses of The Stars

What have I managed?

There are many who take up the study of the stars. I am one. But I´ve realised recently that although I may have benefited some ways myself, through self-knowledge, I haven´t, I can´t say that I have really helped others through using this information.

What I am getting at here is that this has been a self-study, even when I´ve been studying dozens of other people and their charts. Positive things that I have found include a security and confidence in myself and my vocation as a teacher, in higher education, but only as a language teacher. Something that I needed conclusive proof in order to take those first hard steps that I took.  This is one thing that is “evidence” that this study has benefited me through the knowledge that it has given me, and no-doubt there may be more to come.

But although I have managed to help myself, I can´t say that I´ve helped anyone else take those steps, nor can I say that it is my duty or right either. The advice that I have given sporadically has been ignored, or simply put down as a quaint trick, interesting, almost amusing, but definitely not something to take the slightest bit of notice of. I confess I don´t really know people. I have both luminaries directed by Mars, and that happy couple of Mars and Venus both dignified in the first. I focus on myself at the moment, or I have done, because I didn´t know myself.

Aquarians ?

The study of the stars can be taken up by anyone, and some will be able to put it to some practical use in their lives, as I have done. But I fear that I have spent rather a lot of time weighing up its symbolism without really engaging with the human aspect of it.

In a certain regard, I am not suited to the astrological study, though perhaps I have contributed some interesting writings on the subject.  What I want to argue, is that the stars are there and can be looked at by anyone. But to be a perpetual star-gazer is not everyone´s fate and it´s not a fate that one should wish for.

The Uranian conjunction to my natal Mercury made it possible for me to understand more or less how the study works, the planet of foresight, independence, maybe even of impatience. But I don´t have an ounce of Aquarius in me.

It is to the Aquarians that we ought to look to in order to ask for guidance. Only they are objective and compassionate at the same time, those people are the ones that ought to read the stars for others, and we can be sure that they have no other motives than to help others.

Where else can it take me?

This now comes down to the nature of the study. Like all studies, it is more or less a dogma. It is something that promises infinite enlightenment, and infinite possibility at the outset. However, a couple of years of study, perhaps three or four since I began, and I personally have found a sort of crossroads in philosophical terms. There interest and novelty of the study, although always continuing and always changing, does not seem infinite anymore. It does not satisfy my curiosity anymore, nor does it pacify me with its readerly quality and archetypes which belong to literature.

Puting up my natal chart or that of someone that I know and observing the transits and progressions has been satisfying until now. I´ve been able to prove or merely observe the correspondences between the stars and between life. But until now, I have been content to live in a substitute life, reading novels, or in my teenage years playing computer games, or more recently simply watching films. Looking at the stars is akin to one of these pass-times. It´s beautiful, it´s full of wonder, and it occupies the time, it can give you ideas, and tell you what you ought to be doing. But it´s not “doing”, it´s not living and it´s not “the real thing”.

Difficulty

All of these things are tiring now. Artificial. No book will replace life, and likewise, no amount of star-reading will satisfy real desire for life.  The difficulty is that I´ve lived life for so long without being alive that I don´t really know what it consists of. I imagine it consists of satisfying desires the way a child would. You want an ice-cream you get one.

Everything that you could want in life though is symbolised by the 12 houses. So let´s begin there then. No adventure can really begin unless you´ve got cash. The career must be pushed forward at all costs, cash then comes, and then you can begin to live.

The question that you want to ask yourself, is: “Are you willing to sit around reading about stars´potential all you life”. That´s not life. Reading, or writing about things that you´ve never done and never will do to me seem the biggest waste of a life anyone could let happen. Only certain types are fitted to this kind of life, and people who have already lived it and can then use that experience to help others, it´s why I mentioned Aquarians.

Personal Path

The transits in store for me include having all outer planets Angular this year, except Neptune who melts away into my natal 6th. I am called to action, out of lethargy, out of having most of my life on the back-burner. All of the speculation, all of the study, all of the reading have been useful while I was weak. But I find I don´t need any of that anymore, I don´t need it and I don´t want it.

The Plateau

4 02 2010

Go up to the plateau

Breathe in deep

The thinning air

With company this time

With the one that´s true

Go up to the plateau

In the mountains

In the greyish light

silhouetted

My love is close to me

Up in the plateau

The land spreads out before us

With vastness

And in this higher realm

There is nothing

Except the occasional rock

And an immense wind-bound

Horizon

On the edge of the mountains

In the infinite light

In the crisp cool air

Of the closing night

In the empty lands

As we breathe in our hands

In that empty place

My love and I are all.

Chart: Alan Hovhaness, and The Music of Neptune

On certain days in Summer or Winter, I might have sat under a tree reading on a hillside overlooking green fields and trees. The wind might have come in like a silent companion in a clear sky and made the trees sigh as they do on some quiet or still days when not just the Earth is in harmony, but the mind of it´s observer is in harmony with it. A combination of mental stimulation and nature´s simple beauty sends a shiver of sensual appreciation down the spine.

On days like those the Sun was either conjunct Neptune in the sky or forming an applying trine. I would have to concede these would have been days of Aquarius Neptune, so mental fascination and absorption in the mind would have been appropriate. Neptune in Aquarius would have been a mirror to my contentment of solitude and mental detachment while knowing that friends were still close by, if I wanted them.

This is the birthchart for Alan Hovhaness, (midday chart, 8th March 1911). His grand trine is of particular interest since it is in water, and the Sun Neptune trine is at a fairly close orb of  just under 2 degrees and applying. Hovhaness´s music is impressionistic, it does not have a desire to create rhythm or melody, but rather starts something and then meanders off on other roads.

Venus although in detriment is in mutual reception with Sun by Exaltation. So we can easily say that Venus although detriment and (alien) receives all of the benefits of Pisces, and here we have impressionism, beauty, sensitivity, softness.

It´s not really Hovhaness´s life that interests me, so much as his music. It´s a direct connection to an emotional Neptune (in Cancer). Hovhaness´s music is tidal, like oceans creeping up on you over hours upon hours of listening. And because the melodies are impressionistic and do not aspire to Baroque mental order that other composers like Mozart might do, you´re pushed and pulled continually with the tides.

Neptune is Infinity. Hovhaness captures infinity in his music writing. The Jupiter aspect of the grand trine adds a certain buoyancy, optimism, joy into it all, without which I think the music might be too sad or it would simply not go anywhere. The Saturn Sun semi-square from fixed earth grounds it all. What do I mean by that? Taurus is slow, soft and sensuous, it enjoys the pasture, enjoys staying in one place, and you get the sense in the music too.

One more thing to note about Hovhaness is the detriment Mercury in Pisces, which does not seem to receive dignity from anywhere. It is stated in his biography that he burnt between 500 and 1,000 of his compositions in the 1930´s, decisions which seem to be contrary to common sense.

Hovhaness in 1941:

I propose to create a heroic, monumental style of composition simple enough to inspire all people, completely free from fads, artificial mannerisms and false sophistications, direct, forceful, sincere, always original but never unnatural. Music must be freed from decadence and stagnation. There has been too much emphasis on small things while the great truths have been overlooked. The superficial must be dispensed with. Music must become virile to express big things. It is not my purpose to supply a few pseudo intellectual musicians and critics with more food for brilliant argumentation, but rather to inspire all mankind with new heroism and spiritual nobility. This may appear to be sentimental and impossible to some, but it must be remembered that Palestrina, Handel, and Beethoven would not consider it either sentimental or impossible. In fact, the worthiest creative art has been motivated consciously or unconsciously by the desire for the regeneration of mankind.

Jupiter Pisces and Destiny

There is a homeless man that hangs around outside the University where I work. He is not really a professional beggar, he doesn´t even ask for money or look at you as you walk past. He lies there in his rags and burnt brown skin, with his long hair and facial hair. Sometimes he defecates into a newspaper, and what he´s eating is definitely not luxury food.

I´ve sometimes given him a coin, small change. But I felt a great urge to help this man the other day. He was lying on the pavement, sleeping, the poor cavemen´s body is weedy and thin, and he looked almost fetal, in that position.

It crossed my mind that the times that I had given money I had felt a little afraid. Afraid because when you give something then you establish a norm and a contact, and random people in the street are sometimes drug addicts, thieves, even killers.

But it also occurred to me that some people are given a bad lot in life. Some are born into poverty, and may have Saturn in hard aspect on the IC. Or they may have their 2nd ruler in total debility. I don´t know the primary cause of homelessness, or of sadness in life. But what I do know is that I am privilaged to have my own (rented) flat, and a (temporary) job with an income. These things I fear losing, but I am happy and grateful to have them.

I haven´t thought about how it would be possible to help the homeless. Or rather, I´ve thought about it a lot with regard to the politics that I´ve read and the knowledge that I have about socialism etc.

The question comes down to the fact that the caveman, although anathema to me and probably to all of the middle class University students who walk past him everyday, even though his state is repulsive and elicits great sympathy and empathy, he has a fundamental right to be like that.

As in Heaven so on Earth. Or rather, as on the inside, so on the outside. The homeless caveman that I felt so sorry for, will likely always be homeless and will likely die in that sorry state. Say it was an afflicted Saturn on the IC in his case. Even if you gave the man material wealth, and a home, his inner state would be the same, he would still feel unable to connect with the world and society around him, even though he is dependant at the minute on charity, even if he received everything that anyone could ask for, he would likely still have that dependency and rejection deep inside. He would be a homeless caveman living in the basement of his castle.

It´s not to say that change is not possible. In a lifetime, there are progressions, there are the solar arcs and secondary progressions. Even Jupiter and Saturn can move a number of degrees in the course of a human lifetime adjusting that original blueprint. But these changes however interior and however personal are still a part of destiny. Saturn can in a few short years, maybe even a decade, move from the 30th degree of Sagittarius, into the 1st degree of Capricorn. The poor caveman can for whatever reason muster some determination to improve his condition. But it is unlikely to be through other people´s generosity, only his own will changing on the interior.