The Myth-Industrial Complex: Notes on the Current Skies
“Above all human existence requires stability, the permanence of things. The result is an ambivalence with respect to all great and violent expenditure of strength; such an expenditure, whether in nature or in man, represents the strongest possible threat. The feelings of admiration and of ecstasy induced by them thus mean that we are concerned to admire them from afar. The sun corresponds to that prudent concern. It is all radiance gigantic loss of heat and light, flame, explosion; but remote from men, who can enjoy in safety and quiet the fruits of this cataclysm. To earth belongs the solidity which sustains houses of stone and the steps of men (at least on its surface, for buried within the depths of the earth is the incandescence of lava).”
― Georges Bataille
There’s horny jail and then there’s Venus besieged by the malefics. How are the last days of the enclosure treating you? I can’t remember a time that Venus was forced through such thankless exertions — and for so long.
Still, the snowdrops and crocuses have risen from the mulch, and the tree beside my balcony is tasseled in electric green seed pods. I’ve broken the back of my thesis corrections, after a month of putting in evenings and weekends while working a full-time writing job. In less than a week, I’ll be California bound with a clamshell bra in my carry on luggage —busting my 9th house exile at last.
But damn, it’s been a long winter. Due to Venus’s retrograde tenure in Capricorn, she’s been under Saturn’s baleful eye for much longer than usual. We’ve all mastered the art of deferred gratification by now. Love and pleasure have perhaps been conceptualized more than experienced. All of my friends live in my phone.
Let’s not forget that one of her jailers is empowered in its air domicile of Aquarius. Poor Venus’s butterfly poleaxed by a needle and labeled in Latin. It’s also important to remember that our two stelliums in Aquarius and Pisces cannot see each other by ray. In astrology, this is called aversion: two cosmic ships passing the night. If it feels like reality has all but bifurcated into two hermetically-sealed camps, this would be partly why.
Just out of curiosity, I looked up the astrology of the Cuban Missile Crisis — the last time we were under a nuclear threat of this intensity. I was chilled to see that Jupiter was in Pisces and Saturn was in Aquarius during this period in history too. The greater malefic and benefic respectively, both empowered in their own signs but unable to see each other.
I think this speaks to the simultaneous upwelling of Jupiterian consensus (The West more united than ever) in the face of the highest possible Saturnian stakes (nuclear annihilation). A powerful Jupiter sounds wonderful until you realize that it’s going to take a war to create the conditions of its blessings: the restoration of faith and belief as we see humanity rise to a horrific occasion.
In any case, it’s clear to see we have an arm’s race of myth-making (on all sides) as Jupiter draws ever closer to Neptune. War as spectacle has climaxed in Zelensky’s movie trailer voice documenting the invasion, as he impels NATO to close the skies. Meanwhile, his hero worship produces its own cottage industry of plastic reliquaries at lightning speed: Zelensky funko pops and Lego sets with tiny molotov cocktails.
We have Putin’s harking back to the Russian triumph over the Nazis as he takes the decidedly Trumpian line that Russian will be made great again. In fact, there’s been a rumor circulating that Putin wants to end the war by May 9th to coincide Victory Day (a Russian holiday marking the surrender of the Greater German Reich). Strangely enough, this coincides with Jupiter’s last day in Pisces.
What it all means, I honestly have no idea, but the transits continue to line up in uncanny ways. Jupiter ingresses tend to release a riptide of energy so the date feels significant, whatever happens. The larger question is what Putin is willing to do to save face and conjure a victory.
What I do know is that within late capitalism, and our digital landscape, the myths-industrial-complex is compressed for maximum speed. Given our new air age—our world of winds and flocking bots—informational warfare is the long-game, while “boots on the ground” trad warfare is the spectacle around which this weaponized propaganda can feed. As drones eventually replace human cannon fodder, perhaps what we understand as war itself will be ritualized by gladiator bots — their battle royales piped into our pods via streaming services.
Just last week I sent a photo of a bloodied Ukrainian woman to a friend — moved by the simultaneous horror and beauty of the image. The woman was draped in the golden foil of an emergency blanket and nursing the child she’d shielded from shrapnel. I remarked that it looked like a Renaissance painting in its subject, composition, and lines. A day later the photo had indeed been painted in High Renaissance style — the woman immediately deified as the Ukrainian Madonna.
The aesthetic spoils of war are not given time to settle in our new world of winds. We do not have long to dwell with these horrors before the image-fragments are modified, memed, and dispersed through the shallows of the digital simulacrum. This disturbs me for many reasons.
Meanwhile, the dragon’s tail sweeping through the chthonic depths of Scorpio, releasing old holding patterns of geopolitical power and influence. War is not the anomaly, but a return to business as usual and a Scorpio South Node will ensure we experience this on a visceral level. At the same time, it has become disturbingly apparent that certain wars have mythic privilege, while others rage on without the media frenzy or celebrity endorsement. Where is the deep faked Ghost of Damascus?
The dragon’s head in Taurus, further triggering Uranus’s longer program of destabilization, will likely see our already compromised supply chains finally buckle. The planting season is upon us and Russia has most of the fertilizer. Of course, our production lines were collapsing long before the war, but now politicians have a scapegoat for inflation and empty grocery shelves.
The dragon’s head, generally, has a Jupiterian quality and unleashes all manner of hungry ghosts. Placed in the sign that rules over the resources we need to survive, eclipse season could see very real hunger pangs ramping up the war drums (Just in time for Jupiter and Mars in Aries).
Finally, Mercury, in its “fall” is slumming the cosmic soup of Pisces now too. The spooks, gifters, and spin-doctors of war will be riding these waves of mythos, smuggling in their agendas while focus is elsewhere.
Mercury in Pisces can have a rather slippery grasp on the truth to the point of eventually believing its own bullshit. As the language of culture wars intersects with that of war rhetoric, you get the high Piscean surrealism of Putin comparing “canceled” Russia to J.K. Rowling. Or Biden taking a page from Jupiter-Neptune and telling the Ukrainians in a recent speech, in a high-falutin register — “be not afraid”.
In a time when speech acts can have very real nuclear consequences, a US president with a shaky track record in oration doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Then again, as the mouthpiece of an empire in Plutonic decay his confusion and slurring feel exactly right.
Within days, Venus will shift from the worst of times to the best of times: besieged to exalted. I will say that an exalted Venus, in her martial morning star phase, does not feel particularly peaceful given current circumstances. The pastoral wheel grinds violently forward, as Heliconian muses mingle with Sun Gods in golden chariots (the Sun exalted in Aries too).
I think April will bring sublime spectacle, Shakespearean strokes in both grace and horror, and even more intoxicating flights of escapism. After living in Saturn’s sphincter for months, I think we could all use some dionysian bacchanal this coming month. The benefics in Pisces could indeed broker peace, but I’d worry about iron fists in velvet gloves. A lot could end up being too good to be true as we are returned to something even bloodier via Jupiter and Mars in Aries. For now, redwood groves and mermaid grottos beckon in California. Carpe diem, etc. xoxo
Love this so much. Will you be posting again soon?? xo