Showing posts with label astrology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astrology. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Theme-Story Integration Part 7 - Happily Ever After WHAT exactly?

Theme-Story Integration
Part 7
Happily Ever After WHAT exactly?

Previous Parts in this series are indexed at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/05/index-to-theme-story-integration.html

Theme is what you, the writer, have to say on a topic, and thus includes broad hints about what the topic is as well as about who, exactly, you are. What you SAY, in all instances in life, reveals more about you than about the topic or person discussed.

Story is the sequence of impacts Events have on the fictional Character who is the main driver of the plot (the hero, the protagonist, the Main Character).

The Character "arcs" (or changes) under the impact of the Events which form the "because chain" of the Plot.

Things happening aren't a plot, and they aren't a story, and they aren't a novel.  A list of things that happen isn't even an outline, but it is a necessary ingredient in an outline. 

PLOT is a list of things that happen TO SOMEONE, i.e. that IMPACT a Character and prompt that character to re-examine his/her assumptions and change their mind about some topic -- e.g. to learn some new information, test it experimentally, and integrate that new information into their view of the universe from which they infer that if they DO THIS, then it will cause THAT to happen.

Cause/effect is the foundation of modern civilization, and has its origins in Ancient Hellenistic thinking, but was formulated by Roger Bacon.

-----quote from Wikipedia------
Roger Bacon OFM, also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis, was a medieval English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. Wikipedia
Born: 1214, Ilchester, United Kingdom
Died: 1292, Oxford, United Kingdom
Education: University of Oxford
Nationality: English, British
--------end quote-------

Yet an attitude toward Romance genre widely held across this modern civilization is that the Happily Ever After never happens -- empirically established by anecdotal evidence.  Study nature through empiricism - essentially means anecdotal evidence trumps statistics.

So since we all know Romance never leads to the impossible "HEA" - well, then we don't waste money on  statistical studies that might prompt revision of that idea.

I can wonder if any grad students have been denied Ph.D. thesis go-aheads because their advisors knew they'd never convince a board that the HEA is real, attainable, and actually quite common even today.

So I find it odd that objections to the idea that the HEA is more than silly-girl fantasy never ask, "Happily Ever After What?" 

What Event divides a life from miserable to happy? 

Why is such a fraction of our current population stuck in misery?  Why is the divorce rate so high, the marriage rate dwindling? 

Historians and philosophers have often attributed war and wanton destruction that it causes to a high number of un-married young men plus widespread poverty-misery-oppression. 

Juxtapose that ides to the glorified Hollywood World War II love stories, and yes, as I keep harping on the Classic Helen of Troy story.

We touched on Helen of Troy again in How Do You Know If You've Written A Classic?

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-do-you-know-if-youve-written_25.html

Note that ultra-magnified passionate love that drives men (or women) to feats of derring-do, risking all for Love, is usually coupled to obstacles even more magnified. 

Our war-torn world has millions faced with a lifetime of nothing-but-obstacles, and as the proportion of young men burgeons, we see them leading the charge OUT of one country, seeking to circumvent the wall of obstacles to a good life.

When society melts down, the fabric of law and order collapses, Gangs develop, strong men, alpha-males (or wannabe alphas) gather subordinates and preach takeover, usually in the name of protection.

We see things like MS-13 exported to broader territories where fewer obstacles seem evident.

And then the moving population meets resistance from the entrenched population (think about the Germans just after they invaded France in WWII - and what the everyday French did about that).

And you have CONFLICT, the essence of story. 

Story ends where the Main Character's internal conflict is resolved.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION is the ENDING.

That's a major rule of drama evident in the oldest Greek Plays. 

The audience is grabbed, drawn into the story, fascinated, held through all the ups and downs, and finally RELEASED to go their own way as the "hook" conflict stated at the opening sentence is resolved.

Resolution then is the essence of Story.

A good story is remembered for its resolution -- for example, the tragedy formula where the most beloved character dies. 

The most potent tragedy usually involves death-for-no-apparent-reason -- the collateral damage done by war when explosions hit a hospital and kill newborns.

These giant Events are usually regarded as on the "dark" end of the spectrum, where Romance is on the "light" end, just short of comedy.

The mixing of War/Action genre with Romance (and yes, even comedy) captured two generations of Americans -- The Greatest Generation and The Silent Generation, while even Baby Boomers were generally enamored by the genre mixture.

That being my observation, I'm even more puzzled why Publishers catering to the groups called Gen X and Gen Y so resist the Cross-Genre Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, etc.

Science Fiction was (before Star Trek) considered the literature to entertain adolescent males -- never of interest to females. Thus, it was called "neck up science fiction" (purely intellectual conflicts with no "sappy stuff" that so distresses early adolescent males).

Romance was considered only for adolescent girls.  It was all about attracting men, maybe a little about choosing which among the attracted was the best bet. The female lead character was never a Hero.  This made the entire genre of Romance, by definition, badly constructed literature. 

The world has changed as generations have rolled by.

But, though there is broad discussion of "generations" and the traits that define them, there is no consensus on where the dividing line is, or what exactly the common trait is. 

Look at this article, one of many that comes up on a Google Search. 

https://trend.pewtrusts.org/en/archive/winter-2018/foreword-how-are-generations-named

------quote------
No official commission or group decides what each generation is called and when it starts and ends. Instead, different names and birth year cutoffs are proposed, and through a somewhat haphazard process a consensus slowly develops in the media and popular parlance. Because generations are often shaped by specific events, their labels and spans sometimes differ from one country to another; here, I’ll focus on the U.S.

------end quote--------

But it makes my point about Theme-Story Integration very well.  Generations are shaped by Events.

Those "Events" are the "What" that comes before the Ever After.

The adults that emerge from the currently war-torn Middle East will have an experience in common, and thousands of different responses to those experiences.

The adults who emerge through adolescence during this current strife-torn American Election series will be triumphant or crushed in spirit -- each half forming an audience for fiction writers who artistically rationalize the dominant (and often crippling) emotion. 

Remember, 8 years is time enough to pass through adolescence into the period of adulthood characterized by an ineffable certainty in one's own understanding of reality, the Twenties. 

That period of young adulthood ends with the first Saturn Return, at age 29, a "reality check" on life's chosen course. 

So we come to the Astrological definition of "generation" -- not exactly 20 years, but pretty close, give or take.


Here's a summary I did of how Generations affect the receptivity of your readership to particular Themes (which are statements of the nature of reality), all tied to positions of Pluto, Neptune and Uranus. 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

The astrological definition of Generation that I espouse explains why the media can't identify and tag a "generation" with a name and a trait in common. 

The "edges" of a generation are not clean-cut, as the Planet (OK, argue that with astronomers) Pluto tends to go back and forth several times over maybe a year or so.  This Retrograde Motion phenomenon (which is not real, but an artifact of sitting on a moving observation point) blurs out the precise line between those born with one tendency and those born with another.

Those born over the course of 2-4 years will be divided by having Pluto at the end ozone sign, or the beginning of another -- having the planet be "direct" in motion, or retrograde, and of course being placed in different Houses, with different personal (or fast moving, inner planets like Mercury or the Moon) in different aspects to Pluto.

And Pluto isn't the only factor defining Generations -- as Neptune and Uranus likewise take a long time to transit a sign and therefore large numbers are born with the planet in that sign. One-Twelfth (12 signs, 12 Houses) of those born at any given time, in any given place, share a House position -- but the fast moving planets and the Moon can change a lot, so you get distinct individuals reacting to similar Events all in idiosyncratic ways.

Yeah, it's complicated, and even identical twins don't have the SAME natal chart, or the same life. 

So in your reader's real-reality of everyday existence, Events they had no effect on, did not cause, could not stop, DEFINE who they have to become among all the potential identities they must choose from.

The choice they make from the menu limited by external Events may determine whether they survive to grow up -- or not.

Your readership is composed of the survivors -- and yes, survivors of trauma.  Adolescence is strewn with trauma that shapes the young adult to be.  Those Events seem ginormous to the adolescent, but the 40-year-old can only scoff at the trivialness of the matter.

That's true only of our very sheltered teens.  Those growing up in the rubble of warfare, imbued with hatred of the purely external forces ruining their lives, are dealing with another level of reality.  But even some of them will be potential Romance readers -- because they retain the ability to dream of a better day.

So out there in the real world, your potential readers may not believe in the HEA ending, so you must convince them. To do that, first grasp their view of the world, find the barriers they face that prevents the conceptualization of the HEA, then reduce that barrier using techniques in this book:

The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind Kindle Edition by Jonah Berg

https://www.amazon.com/Catalyst-How-Change-Anyones-Mind-ebook/dp/B07THCZ626/

Use these techniques, combined in different ways, and you can convince most readers that your Character is a real human being (or an Alien with enough in common with humans to make an excellent mate).

One barrier your potential reader may face in believing in the HEA is a lack of seeing how to overcome the obstacles in their own life, and maybe even why bother battling the obstacles? 


We discussed this book in a previous blog:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2020/05/theme-story-integration-part-5-how-to.html
Now we are looking at how PLOT in a novel is the CATALYST that kicks the protagonist into reassessing opinions and changing those opinions, thus resolving an internal conflict. Once you've done one of those resolutions, you learn to hunt down and change other subconscious opinions that have been making you miserable.

If there's no HEA, why strive to overcome vicissitudes?  Now, that thought-train leads to depression, inaction, and despair. 

A good Romance novel can inspire those treading water in a well of hopeless despair.  Make the HEA real, and also realistic, and some readers will catch fire and roar out into their own world to conquer all.

And that's the key idea - Love Conquers All.  It's really true,  It really does.  But few today believe it.  Use THE CATALIST to convince them, and spread happiness.

So how do you do that with a novel?

It's the Main Character, the protagonist, the Hero, who does the convincing.

How can a fictional character do that? 

By overcoming an internal barrier right before the reader's eye, and becoming a CHANGED PERSON. 

That is, by bringing the reader into the story of the character's life, walking the reader through the character's story arc to and through the resolution of the Character's internal conflict.

The "ever after" referred to in the HEA is the period of life lived after that major internal conflict is resolved.  The novel ends, the story ends, the plot ends, and "ever after" begins. 

Ever After is the period when the internal conflict, the eternal pain that can't be faced, that has been suppressed behind psychological barriers, has been resolved and no longer exists. 

Life isn't painful or scary or offensive any more.  The stakes aren't too high.  That's where "happy" can maybe begin.

That happiness is not an uneventful experience, nor one without confrontations with more conflicts.  But the Life Events, the milestone events like burying a parent, naming a baby, sending a kid off to college, are confronted and resolved without having to battle internal barriers.

What is an internal barrier? 

Popular psychology has tagged these things with various names so there are hundreds of good books talking about overcoming your neuroses.

Each generation names these neuroses uniquely because each generation feels they are the first and only ones to ever have this experience.

So we have "don't push my buttons" and "I'm going to find myself" and these days, "I'm offended by that" so therefore you can't do that.

Running through it all is "conform or die."  That is more a Saturn confronts Pluto phenomenon. 

So humans acquire these internal barriers which prevent changing opinions via teenage angst, twenties dreams shattered at age 29 (Saturn return), and relying on anecdotal evidence.

In the course of life, an individual will rise up and drive toward a goal, then meet up with that internal barrier.  If thwarted by their own psychological barrier, scars of earlier experiences, the individual may fail. If this has happened repeatedly, the individual may accept failure as inevitable and such goals unattainable.

This individual is in an INTERNAL CONFLICT. 

Walk this individual through a process of overcoming such a barrier by dragging them into the psyche of a fictional Character with a similar barrier, and the real-life of the individual could change.

The fictional character must not have the same internal barrier, or the same external goal to drive toward, or the same reasons for failing previously.  If they are too similar to the reader's personal plight, the novel just won't be interesting.

But create a model of the reader's reality, using the same shape barrier but different content, different reasons and different excuses, and the reader will be fascinated.

Without even knowing that he/she is applying a fictional lesson to real life, the reader may begin moving life ahead toward an HEA for real.

To reach happiness, we have to confront subconscious demons and drag them into the light of day, into conscious knowledge of what subconscious forces are driving us to self-sabotage, or mis-allocating resources, or whatever mistake we're making.

The journey to happiness is one of changing your own mind, and the catalyst might be a novel, a series, a particular writer's themes. 

If other people change your mind (as per the book, THE CATALYST), you don't come to happiness; you come to compliance.

Take your reader into a mind that the reader can see needs changing, and demonstrate how that mind changes itself, resolves its conflict with long-ago events, dissolves lingering scars, and releases a burgeoning and permanent happiness.

Happiness doesn't mean no challenges, no defeats, no cold, miserable, lonely nights.  Happiness means having the internal stuffings, the strength of character, the vision that brings resiliency in the face of vicissitudes.

For the science fiction reader, happiness means comprehending the mechanism of the world, being certain that when you do THIS, then that causes THAT to happen.  If you don't want that, then don't do this.

For the romance reader, happiness is capturing the high regard of the Soul Mate, requited love, a closed loop of love energy which imparts enough strength to withstand any vicissitudes.

Both genres require the resolution of an internal conflict, and a clear representation of the mechanism of cause-effect that links the resolution of internal conflicts to the resolution of external conflicts.

That is the portrait of reality that creates verisimilitude enough for an everyday reader to accept 6 impossible things before breakfast.

For both types of readers, happiness is having a model of the universe that actually works. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Part 7 - Creating Charisma with Verisimilitude

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction
Part 7
Creating Charisma with Verisimilitude 

Previous parts in How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series are indexed at the bottom of the index post about Astrology

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Tarot posts - Tarot Just For Writers - have been polished up and presented as Kindle books. 5 Individual volumes, or one single collected one (the collected is cheaper).

https://amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

And we have explored Verisimilitude in the various aspects of Worldbuilding, Theme, Plot, and even Marketing.  Seeming "real" at least in some single element, is a novel's most memorable feature.  One "realistic" element can make the imaginary elements vivid, real, fascinating, and memorable.

That distinctive element, original and imaginary, will "tag" your Series in the reader's mind, and they will remember your byline, maybe buy more books.

So here are some of the Posts mentioning Verisimilitude.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-1.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-every-novel-needs-love-story-part-2.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/06/depiction-part-14-depicting-cultural.html

Here's one about Corporate Greed and the Sex Drive -- involving Pluto transits.
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/10/alien-sexuality-part-3-corporate-greed_25.html

And I did say verisimilitude is essential to Theme:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/theme-archetype-integration-part-1.html

The HEA is a hard sell to non-Romance readers, which is most of the science fiction readership, so you have to argue convincingly for the verisimilitude of the Happily Ever After ending.  Here is a discussion of that task for the author of Soul Mate romance.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/12/theme-archetype-integration-part-1.html

And Plot Pacing is paramount.
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/10/mysteries-of-pacing-part-6-how-to.html

In fact "Pacing" as a writing technique can be the most important thing you learn to do. Pacing can be the genre signature -- which scenes or descriptions you spend pages on, and which you cut to less than 1 sentence.

A long time ago, Romance novels were required to omit sex scenes, and still they captured imagination and fueled determination not to settle for less than a Soul Mate.

Romance novels sans sex still presented Characters with potent Charisma.  You could meet a man whose mere glance would sweep you off your feet.

Love at first sight works like that.  After all, it is "first sight" - presumably not after first sex.

Charisma works like that - instant first-sight attention getting, followed by a riveting hint of potential.

Potential for what depends on the problem confronting the person who notices the charismatic figure.

In the era of the "Talkies," film producers were successful if they could recognize a person with Charisma.  People could learn to act, could be promoted widely, could be "made a Star" -- if only they had Charisma.

Today, Hollywood has learned to fake Charisma, but still those with natural Charisma shine above the rest. Football players, even golfers, tennis stars, Olympic figure skaters, some of the better ones never get the round of endorsements and personal appearances because they don't have Charisma.

Today, the politicians that get the most votes do it with Charisma (fake and real), not Policies.

So in real life, it is useful to understand Charisma.

In Fantasy Life, only the writer has to understand Charisma to create such an attractive Character.

However, with the main product Hollywood is selling being Charisma, mature readers have noticed "it's all a sham."  Everyday readers see the gossamer shimmer of beauty ripped away ("Oh, she is so Botoxed!"), and don't want to buy that product anymore.

Yet, we still feel "seeing is believing."  If we see beauty, are attracted by a voice, an idea, a gesture, we respond, and we don't know why.

Likewise, we see ugliness, a disgusting visage, hear an irritating voice, see unacceptable behavior, and we are genuinely repelled.

That repulsion can be created artificially using Hollywood techniques, the same techniques that create Charisma.

That realization is fluttering around the edges of popular consciousness.  Charisma is real, and powerful, but the mature reader of Romance and of Science Fiction is coming to realize how Charisma is being used as a tool to manipulate their opinions and behaviors.  Nobody likes being "manipulated" but Charisma is sneaky - and only becomes apparent after the action (buying a cosmetic product, voting for the wrong person). 

And so Charisma can be the element a writer uses to create verisimilitude connecting the reader to the fantasy world the writer is just imagining.

As noted above, the Happily Ever After ending is a very hard sell.  Real life experience tells us that infatuation passes -- it isn't love at first sight.  Marriage based on infatuation don't last and break up in real agony.

Infatuation happens when a person first encounters a Charismatic Figure who ignites a deeply personal, individualizing vision of the future.  It's usually sugar coated, but reality teaches us the sugar coating hides the bitter truth.

So with age, and experience, we look at Charismatic figures with leery suspicion.

A teen who finds True Love is viewed as Infatuated.

So we have the "second time around" Romance, when a Relationship can proceed to the HEA, while previously it was blocked by the surface illusion of who the other person really is. 

Infatuation is a small scale version of experiencing Charisma.  The person may not be a Soul Mate, but just connecting with a virgin area of Personality.

We need our infatuations to teach us about ourselves.

Charisma, as used by the media for fiction and non-fiction (yes, top newscaster's get to be top by having Charisma, not just brains), refers to that same lure that infatuates younger people, but instead of affecting just one person, Charisma affects a broad swath of a target audience.

Learning to develop and aim Charisma, to weaponize Charisma (obsessive love) was the shaper of modern civilization.

Those who are the "target audience" of the weapon-wielders armed with Charisma are beginning to understand it is all a sham.  That's why the broadest audience now considers the HEA all a sham.

The HEA happens when Soul Mates form a Couple.

Soul Mates often seem infatuated and obsessive as they work toward forming that Couple and surmounting the current obstacles.

The Romance writer of science fiction, fantasy, or paranormal genres has a unique opportunity to explain Charisma to a readership uniquely suited to understanding that explanation.

The explanation the writer chooses has to be embedded in the Worldbuilding behind the story -- at an invisible level of the structure.  The explanation has to be woven into the theme, not at the assumption level but at the more blatant symbolic level.

Here is the index to theme-symbolism integration:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/02/index-to-theme-symbolism-integration.html

Most writers will have developed several solid explanations for the existence of Charisma, but there are always more to be found.

Here is one way Astrology can explain both the Soul Mate attraction, where each person affects the other charismatically but nobody else sees what she sees in him, and the Public Figure Charisma that moves the body politic.

Infatuation, which has the same effect as being attracted to a Charismatic Figure, is an effect of the planet Neptune and the Sign Pisces which Neptune rules.

Neptune has a blurring or dissolving effect on structure (on reality), but at the same time reveals a "higher truth" or a more real truth that is totally unrealistic but nevertheless true.  The quintessential illustration of the Pisces male is the Engineer.  Think Scotty on ST:Tos.

Obsession is all about Pluto.  Remember Pluto is the "upper octave" of Mars, where Mars creates a bar-brawl scene, Pluto creates World War.  Pluto rules Scorpio, the sign notorious for secret sexual obsessions and even perversions.  It is not the sexuality and love depicted by Venus which is so often paired with Mars. Pluto is the raw staying power of life itself.

Pluto magnifies whatever element it connects to, and so it magnifies Neptune's infatuation effect into full blown Charisma, where life itself depends on cleaving to the glamorous object shrouded in Neptune veils (and thus never what it appears to be.)

The reason understanding of Charisma is so illusive is that Charisma is the product of two difficult to understand forces (symbolized by Astrological planet and sign), Neptune/Pisces and Pluto/Scorpio.

How this works between two individuals, Soul Mates, is how the two Natal Chart positions, aspects, signs, houses, midpoints, of Neptune and Pluto relate to each other, and what transits to the natal charts are in effect during the infatuation.

How it works for whole populations lured into following a Charismatic Figure (sometimes to salvation; sometimes over a cliff) has to do with the Figure's natal chart and transits as they relate to the generational positions of Pluto and Neptune.

The third element that determines how Charisma affects actions (Plot) is the notion of Soul.

Soul is a concept that has to be woven into the worldbuilding. Either souls are real in your fictional world -- or not.  Once you make that choice, you discard one set of themes, and lock into another (maybe a genre, too).  It is a basic choice, and determines which audience (and thus which publisher and which editor) you submit your book to.  For audiences that accept Soul as real in everyday life, you would have to work hard to convince them that Souls are not real in your universe, but Love is real.

So if you opt to build a world where Souls are not real, you eliminate the audience that understands the real world through the concept of Soul.

You would have to convince those readers that a world where humans (or Aliens) have no Soul is better than their world, or can be fixed to be as good as Reality.

That argument generates your Themes.

So Theme and Plot become one via the element of Charisma.

THEME: Souls choose to override the infatuating lure of Charisma and break free of Obsession by using (insert a tool, fictional or not, such as Religion, ESP, Magic Glasses).

THEME: People, humans and Aliens, can not choose to override the infatuating lure of Charisma and so become the hapless victim of Obsession at the behest of their "betters." Kings, Queens, Army Generals, Sorcerers, Moguls, Alien Overlords.

Either theme can be subordinated to the Romance Genre envelope theme of "Love Conquers All."  With or without Soul Mates, Love can muscle through any situation (at least to a HFN ending).

With the Soul Hypothesis, you have an HEA potential, but without Soul, you get a predominance of HFN endings.

Learn what your potential readership knows is real, pick one thing that readership bases their life-decisions on, and incorporate that into your worldbuilding. Be absolutely consistent with that one thing, and let imagination loose for the rest.

In science fiction writing, mix an element your readership knows for a fact is not real with elements they know are real.

Science Fiction is all about "What if ...?"  And basically what goes into the ... of that question is something that is widely known and accepted by all the experts suddenly turning out to be wrong.

Being wrong delights the scientist in the SF reader because finding out what has been wrong brings the "If only ..." of potential happiness into view, and makes the "If this goes on ..." prediction subject to revision for the better.

Being the dynamic force in re-creating your own world is the most fun anyone can have in life.

When the Neptune and Pluto transits bestow life-long, innate Charisma in a person, that Charisma attracts followers simply because the person is having fun living.

Charisma just sits there seething until FUN is added.

Charismatic figures enjoy being the center of attention, which makes them the center of attention.

On the smaller scale, of one-on-one relationships, one person can see an infatuating delight in another and become obsessed by it, joining the Charismatic individual in his obsession.

Being obsessed is actually FUN.  It feels good, which is why people don't struggle to break free until the obsession has almost run its course.

So if Charisma is the topic of your Theme, what it is, where it comes from, why it is good, why it is bad, and whether it is even real or just an insanity of the moment, then you need to introduce your reader to a Character who would enthrall them in real life.

Spock was such a figure for ST:ToS (and still is).  But note how many fans of Star Trek never found Spock interesting -- and instead were obsessed with Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, or even Chekov or Sulu.

Each individual fictional character was Charismatic and obsessive to different segments of the audience.

As the characters interacted with each other, the audiences melded together into a social force to be reckoned with by a Hollywood which had, hitherto, looked down on their victims.

Yes, Hollywood thinking disparaged fans (of anything) because those Execs knew the tricks of artificial Charisma that had fooled those fans.

Knowledge is Power.

The fans learned.  Now the fans rule.  Or do they?

Star Trek created an audience (out of pieces that would never have come together into a social force) using Charismatic Characters.

Study the audiences (fanfic reveals all), then study the Characters, and don't forget to study the writers, the producers, and especially those who supply the money (studios - read the Credits).  Study how Charisma has been used, and find a new way to use it to explain the Happily Ever After is real, and not an ending but a beginning.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series Part 6 - Confronting Change

How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series
Part 6
Confronting Change

Previous parts in How to Use Tarot and Astrology in Science Fiction Series are indexed at the bottom of the index post about Astrology

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

In 2020, we are up against the forces of change focused on governments, country sovereignty, borders being moved, annexation of lands, ousting of Kings, plus the looming promise of major shifts in how management decisions are made -- Big Data plus Artificial Intelligence.

Privacy seems gone as facial recognition (however flawed) is deployed.  The recent Coronavirus mutation brought scenes of people marching down airport corridors, outlined by a camera that revealed their body temperature (looking for those running a fever).

The world has already changed -- most haven't noticed it yet.

Humans are averse to change.  Just ask a two year old!

Humans want "the world" to function the way they think it does.

On the other hand, people also want to change the world to make it function the way they want it to function, not as they think it does right now.

On the third hand, people change their opinions throughout a lifetime.

In Part 5 of this series, we looked at "The Story of a Life" -- biography.

The closer a fictional narrative resembles the form and shape of a real life, the more informative and thought-provoking it will be for readers.

The Generational Novel or Series, or Vampire Romance, novels with settings that span long story-arcs, centuries in Time, can put the reader's current world into a new perspective, suggesting new solutions to a reader in a quandary about their current life.

The narrative selected and spun by current news media is not the only narrative in dynamic play at any given moment because generations overlap, interpenetrate, and blend through transitions.

2020 is one of those blending times -- and it could be this whole decade that reveals the swirling dynamic change.

People living through this see it from the perspective of their own generation, and each sees a portion of the truth (like the Blind Men And The Elephant -- though I'd expect the Blind Women and the Elephant to reveal a different story).

Right now, the media portrait of the world appears to be ramming many countries, including the USA, into civil war or some semblance of blood in the streets.

People living through this, people who are your audience looking for you to escort them one an adventure into a different world, are disturbed by the daily confrontation with CHANGE in their everyday life.

In January, 2020, during the Trump Impeachment trial in the Senate, the following article was sited on Facebook:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-showing-many-genocide-warning-signs-donald-trump-expert-very-worried-1483817

-----quote-------
Politically though, Tannehill noted the U.S. trend towards divisive rhetoric and policies under President Donald Trump, who has been repeatedly accused of various forms of racism and has pursued a nativist agenda.

"The politicians enacting it are populists who benefit from stirring Us vs. Them narratives, placing blame for the woes of the nation on others who are somehow less worthy," she wrote. "They yearn for a mythological past [without] these people. It's a highly viable tactic for shoring up support."

--------end quote-------

Writers who study these broad trends are seeing a slide toward genocidal wars -- not just in the USA but world-wide.

This awkward trial of a sitting President is just one component of the thrust of CHANGE at the deepest level of government -- Constitutional level change.

The consensus seems to be that if what he did wasn't a crime, then it ought to be.  We have to do something about this -- that's the Pluto in Capricorn manifestation in the spotlight of media attention.

So how can a Romance writer approach the audience living through having the rug pulled out from under them?

On Facebook, I commented on a thread generated by that Newsweek article posted by someone who sees it as driving the USA toward a genocidal war, thusly:

If we accept a straight line extrapolation, yes, but humanity lurches ahead in a zigzag, often reversing course for a few centuries.

Consider this LONG PERSPECTIVE article from a Time writer.

https://time.com/5770140/millennials-change-american-politics/

That article traces the interactions between generations as Millennials sweep the reins of power from the Baby Boomer generation (as usual ignoring the Silent Generation).

I collect articles like that one on Millennials in one of my Flipboard Magazines, Pluto in Capricorn

https://flipboard.com/@jacquelinelhmqg/pluto-in-capricorn-national-narrative-so8cs2k4y

Pluto in Capricorn is the "magazine" where I collect articles of the far-far past of Ancients, current events, astronomy, astrophysics (FTL drive foundations, plus what we might discover and what we have to go explore), and space travel. That magazine also includes some genetics (most of which I put in a different magazine), Volcanos and other items that might destroy this current Ancient civilization.

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN is where we are now, and it is about CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT, shifting borders (we did that in Channel's Destiny, moved the Territory border to make room for Householdings).

This item on generation gap, shifting views, is related to a Blog post on writing craft I did a long while back:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

About halfway down that blog post is a list of what signs Pluto was in at various points in history and how that played out in "generation gap" thinking.

Get a good grip on this principle, and the spectacle of NEWS today will suddenly make sense.

OK, maybe not less alarming sense, but a kind of sense that clues you in on where to dodge the falling hammer of generation shifts.

It is a double-pattern, an 84 year cycle superimposed on a 248 years, with a transition superimposing one on the other every 165 years (or so).

Kids are born continuously, not usually in waves (like Baby Boomers), so the concept of "generations" all moving in the same way is nonsense, but where the outer planets are when a kid is born indicates a predilection for an affinity to a particular generation's response to life.

All that is modified by that individual kid's own characteristics then reshaped and maybe hammered by environment. None of this is cut-and-dried. Living life is an art-form.

A writer who understands how the portrait of a civilization morphs with the cycles of Pluto can build a world that seems real to people living today.

Consider, the USA is approaching the first Pluto return (to where Pluto was in Capricorn when this nation was born) in history.  With Pluto in mid-Capricorn, we created a NEW FORM of government by blending two old forms (democracy and republic) while firmly excluding the concept of Monarchy or any other form of dictatorship.

People are thinking about Civil War, but it could be an actual Revolutionary War complicated by the advent of the Internet, Artificial Intelligence, and Apple's War For Privacy From Government Intrusion (even if you're a dead criminal.)

Even science fiction writers may not be thinking "big" enough.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 4 - Explore Solutions New To Reader

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction
Part 4
Explore Solutions New To Reader 

The previous entries in this series are:

Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

Part 1
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Part 2
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-astrology-in-science.html

Part 3
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

Last week we looked at copyright, DRM and phone repair as it intersects the Law.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/01/copyright-drm-and-phone-repair.html

And that raised the esoteric aspects of "ownership."

Oddly enough, "ownership" is deeply related to the "Happily Ever After" and perhaps a core issue in the problem of people not believing in the "Happily Ever After."

We've discussed the HEA ending in terms of the Pluto transits in life, testing, transformation, destruction, rebuilding, major relocation or profession changes.  Mars is "war" -- Pluto is "transformation."

We experience Pluto transits as "destruction" -- which it usually coincides with because structures we have built in our lives (tangible and intangible), stand strong and prevent us from moving in a new direction.

Pluto represents "thinking outside the box" in the simple fact that we build boxes around ourselves, houses to be comfortable inside of, protected from the shapeless, fluid, wild, smashing waves of change outside our "house."

The mind is a "house" -- and through early years, we build ourselves boxes, nice strong shipping containers, and even brick walled storehouses, to rely on for protection.

To get outside those boxes, we have to smash through a wall we neglected to put a door into when building it strong.

We have to think the unthinkable. 

We have to face "the unknown" which we hid from as children, building walls around our minds.

Humans value conformity and busily spend childhood building the same walls as their teachers, parents, playmates have so they can all get the same answers to questions -- and "pass the test" in the school of hard knocks.

Science is organized human knowledge.  Science Fiction is "What if ..." and "If only ..." and "If this goes on ..."  --- science fiction is about what does not (yet) exist, what is not (yet) known, but mostly about what is not yet "organized."

Science Fiction novels don't work well as entertainment when the author doesn't know how and why human knowledge got organized in the first place.

A science fiction writer must know some science, and be keeping up with the most recent breakthroughs and farfetched theories on the outskirts of scientific thought.  But the most indispensable knowledge a writer can have is of the organizing principle around which our marvelously successful science is built.

The premise that carries a science fiction novel to the top of the charts, to "classic" status, usually involves challenging one of those core organizing principles.

For example, "no physical object can travel faster than light" is a principle, and most science fiction set in a galaxy spanning civilization postulate one or another way around that limitation.  In the 1940's, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., wrote the Lensman Series which postulated FTL drive based on the ability to cancel out "mass" and thus "inertia" -- many UFO reports cite objects moving in speedy zig-zags that indicate they've got some inertia cancelling ability.

That's how you get out of the box.  Find a firmly believed limitation that is an unconscious assumption among your target readership, and smash a doorway through that wall in their mind with a "What if Science is Wrong ... again?"

What do the Characters in your built world know that your readers don't know?

Our entire world-spanning Civilization in the 21st Century is an outgrowth of Ancient Hellenistic Greek thought - Aristotle, Plato, etc. - and centuries and centuries later, Roger Bacon and the method of proving "knowledge" creating "science."

The Hellenistic civilization grew out of Egyptian Civilization, and there is cultural continuity behind some of that.  Assyrians and other Middle Eastern peoples flourished and collapsed, wave after wave.  None of the people who lived in those times knew they "lived in those times."  Chances are you don't view your life as "those times" either -- the millennia long waves of civilizations aren't apparent to those living inside them.

The science fiction writer's job is to make the current wave apparent to those living inside it by SHOWING (not telling) that wave from outside.

That's what Gene Roddenberry did by staunchly insisting on including Spock in the bridge crew.

One way to gain the perspective on our current state of civilization is to read this book, or to read about it (or its sources), and think hard.



https://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning-ebook/dp/B013VPYYGQ/


That sketches the very-long-view of human doings.  Thinking hard about this view, you can see that we will look just as "primitive" to the future civilization that will (no doubt about it, climate change won't kill us ALL) that will grow out of the shards of our current life.

What survives the destruction of our mental (and physical) boxes?

What does it mean to "think outside the box?"

It means to absorb and internalize "the unknown" (and perhaps unknowable under current conditions).  What has to change in us to shift the unknowable to the merely unknown?

What grand wisdom has survived from Hellenistic Civilization?  We have some art and some literature, but what principles do we live by (what walls do we build in our minds) based on ideas codified by Aristotle but originating far earlier?

One such idea is the "either/or" principle, or the zero-sum-game.  The idea that material reality consists of mutually exclusive states - a thing is, or it is-not.

All computer architecture is based on this -- the 0's and 1's -- on/off switches in combination.  And now, such massive amounts of on/off switches can generate what we term "Artificial Intelligence."  Just how artificial is it?

We look at our reality, and we see a pie to be sliced -- a whole that is a certain size.  If I get some, that part is a part that you can't have.  Mine!  Ownership.  If I own a piece of the finite pie, you don't own it.  And you can't make that pie bigger.  Your piece plus my piece add up to a Constant, the whole pie.  That is the zero sum.  I win; you lose.  No two ways about it.

That is the box we live in, and the box science fiction romance writers have to think outside of, in order to argue readers into suspending disbelief of the Happily Ever After Ending.

Earth is a single planet, not getting any bigger.  In fact, available land is shrinking as the sea level rises, so we'll have to live under water again.

But astronomers are looking at an "expanding universe."

Particle physics and the newest mathematics are describing packets of energy of which matter is composed -- and those energy packets are neither here not there.

"Here" and "there" no longer are so sharply defined you can think of them as either/or --- either you are here in class on time, or you are not here.  Right?
You can't be both here and not-here at a given time.

Or can you?

The Hellenistic Civilization built that either/or box for us, and we're still trying to live inside it.  That could be the reason so many people just can't accept the "Happily Ever After" ending to the story of the life of a couple.

Civilizations rise and fall, but they don't "live happily ever after."

There is not stability long-range.  We are certain of that because of archeology, paleontology, and historic record.

So either there exists stability, or there does not exist stability –– can't have it both ways.  Or can you?

As we have noted, the laws of physics as they apply to subatomic particles are a little different than the laws of physics engineers use to build a bridge or a cracking plant.

Does "happiness" require "stability" and impenetrable walls surrounding what you "own" in order to protect you from the turbulence outside?

Is unchanging stability the necessary condition for human happiness?  Is life either "happiness" or "misery?"  Is the chaos outside our either/or world the source of all threat, all misery, all terror?

If your readers see "happily ever after" as a static situation boxed into protected space they "own" and thus "control," then the solution new to them that you can present and explore might be, "How Can A Couple Enjoy Chaos, Surprise, and meet Uncertainty with Zest, Verve, and Joy?"

The general reader resorts to Tarot and Astrology as tools that can "foretell the future" -- but they can't.  These tools reveal just how dependent your future is on your emotional attitude toward the unknown.  They are built around a notion of reality older than Egypt, one which puts the either/or notion of reality into a special case category -- like physics puts Kepler's Laws.

Fear of the Unknown makes the Unknown fearsome.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

How To Use Tarot & Astrology In Science Fiction Part 2 - Now Speculate

How To Use Tarot & Astrology
 In Science Fiction
Part 2
Now Speculate

Part 1 is found at:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/how-to-use-tarot-and-astrology-in.html

In Part 1, we looked at how to do science using Astrology and History.  The process is simple.  Use what science (archeology, paleontology, literary preservations (such as stone engravings, or the Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls) is using for best current theory, then correlate that with a speculative application of Astrology.

Astrologers aver that planets have no effect on humanity (or do not correlate with Events in history) before they are "discovered."  The "What if ..." we are playing with here, is "What if modern Astrology is all wrong?"

What if there's something to Astrology, but it isn't what the experts think it is, and it isn't what marketers of astrological "wisdom" peddle it as?  What if ...?

What if this speculative idea depicts the actual real world, not some alternate or fantasy reality?

So we are exploring what if planetary movements have indeed correlated with historic movements for thousands (even millions?) of years.

One of the most recently discovered planets is Pluto -- and even recently, after decades of calling it a "planet" astronomers voted to demote it from planetary status (for various reasons, all of them perfectly comprehensible).

Neptune and Pluto are in fact different from the rest of our Sun's planets, but as far as their timing the cycles of human history goes, that probably doesn't matter.  Or it might matter when we find out more, and see how their orbits correlate with some mystical energy ebb and flow -- who knows?

Since nobody knows, we get to speculate.

So we pointed to History (as well as it is known) in Part 1, and correlated the general outline of the pattern of Events in the current news with Events of centuries ago.

Human mass migration (and subsequent interbreeding), conquering, flowing around the globe, often prompted by glaciation, usually in response to a search for resources (and riches), has been mapped by paleontologists and archeologists.

The search for the origins of humanity, or modern humanity, is going on using DNA to trace population movements and interbreeding.  We all bear traces of pre-modern-human DNA.

So humanity survives while thousands die, even huge percentages of a population can die off and humanity still survives (civilization not so much.)

We look at the Headlines of 2018, and look back for when "this" happened before.  We have to think in terms of generations, even centuries, to see the patterns we can use to speculate about.

Currently, humans are once again upending the forms and purposes of government.

https://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/countries-are-dead-so-its-time-to-think-differently/89911

We've noted how this urge to invent or reinvent governing forms has happened in cycles of about 248 years (irregularly!  Pluto's orbit is long ellipse - speculated to be a "capture" by our Sun).  It's "speed" in orbit is not regular -- it goes faster, then slower.  If we can't think of something new, we stage a revolution and behead the King, get a new King and start over.

The USA is about up to its Pluto return (where Pluto is at the same degree it was when the country was born.)

https://www.avclub.com/in-1798-the-u-s-went-to-war-with-france-sort-of-1829615962

Meanwhile, the other planets have whizzed around more times than in any one human life-span, creating all sorts of "well, it's different this time" Events.

Yes, it's always different -- but underlying, there is a trace of a repeating pattern.

This time, we will go exploring Space, trying to live on space stations (do read C. J. Cherry's Foreigner Series), and alien planets.

Here's the Amazon link to the list of books in the Foreigner Series.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FN1PN5Y



The Pluto in Aquarius motivation will carry us into space by the urgent need of the generation born with Pluto in Aquarius to seek FREEDOM, to find identity, to be individually sovereign and collectively free to practice any religion.

The need to get away from other humans waxes and wanes, but when it peaks it is very intense.

One can speculate that Climate Change will make Earth less friendly to human endeavor and drive some of our more freedom-seeking individuals to find a way to get OUT OF HERE.

https://www.sciencealert.com/elon-musk-spacex-mars-plan-timeline-2018

But we have seen that living weightless in orbit is destructive to the human body, cells lose integrity and function, and ills accumulate.  One can speculate that gravity varying too far away from Earth's (maybe the Moon, or Mars?) might be just as destructive to human cells and unlivable.

That's just another problem to be solved -- and our labs are hard at work on mastering cells, and creating whole organisms.  It's just another step toward freedom to be able to re-engineer humans to fit other environments.  Many Science Fiction novels have centered on that.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/fly-reconstructed-genes-140-million-years-ago/

You know the people doing this work on genetics also read/watch science fiction -- they grow up wanting to do what the books depict, just as the current world is largely patterned on a drive toward STAR TREK (except we're trying to sidestep the genetics war).

What do you want this current crop of babies with Pluto in Aquarius to grow up wanting to do?

On the straight line extrapolation from where we've been (exploring and conquering The Americas) to where we are (fighting each other for resources, trying to damp climate change thus depriving undeveloped countries of resources), to where this leads "If this goes on ..." -- we can only see exploring space.

But how do we do that?  What do we try that fails or is too expensive?  What do we invent to sidestep that problem?

A) engineering human genome to withstand broader living conditions (gravity, air, water)

B) sending remote controlled Robots to scout (doing that already)

C) inventing Artificial Intelligence so we can send them exploring?

Well, scientists are madly working on AI, and business people are striving mightily to make enough profit off the first attempts to finance further inventions.

That's where we're going.

But what if AI is more than "Intelligent" -- actually becomes "conscious" and even "self-aware."

What if we send some AI equipped ship out beyond the beyond, and as it goes, it remakes itself and becomes self-aware?

What if biology can't reinvent human cells fast enough to let humans live on Mars?  So we send AI to colonize and mine Mars, the astroids, etc for the raw material we need to fix Earth's climate disaster?

We're close to autonomous cars.  Autonomous AI isn't that far off.  Pluto is slowing in orbit and will be in Aquarius long enough for the general urge to explore to drive us beyond the beyond.

When the departed group (which might be human+AI+whoknowswhat), returns to Earth what will they find? (yes, PLANET OF THE APES scenario asks this question).

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/14/stephen-hawking-predicted-new-race-of-superhumans-essays-reveal

All space travel is time travel, too -- space and time as we've discussed while pointing to various articles, are deeply intertwined. There might, in fact, be no difference between space, time, and gravity.

All of this speculation is to be done with the various novels and series I've reviewed here -- most especially those I've tagged as not being Romance at all.  Those anti-Romance science fiction novels are read by the current people doing the work on genetics and AI that we've discussed here, in Part 2 of this series.

Here are a few of the recent reviews of books where I discuss many of these issues - love stories, yes, but not focused on Romance.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/10/reviews-40-john-dixon-point.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/11/reviews-41-empire-of-silence-by.html

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/reviews-42-simon-r-greens-secret.html

And this one with a pretty strong setup for a hot Romance:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/12/reviews-43-late-great-wizard-by-sara.html

And this one with serious Romance plotting:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2018/08/reviews-39-souls-of-fire-series-by-keri.html

Think about all the other books you've read -- compare those written long ago with those currently being published, and consider two things:

a) where was Pluto when the author was born?
b) where was Pluto when the author's target readership was born?

Here are some of the Astrology Just For Writers series discussing Pluto and how to use Astrology in fiction writing without having to learn any.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/01/astrology-just-for-writers-part-9-high.html

Re-read this blog entry about Pluto and Expository Lumps in writing:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/08/astrology-just-for-writers-part-10.html

And here is the key one -- discussing Pluto's position by sign as each generation is born, and how you can use that information to target a readership, and extrapolate what those children will do when they grow up.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

That's a lot of reading, but writers have to read both fiction and non-fiction, so get to it.  Fiction and non-fiction are NOT two different things.  They correlate.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

How To Use Tarot And Astrology In Science Fiction Part 1 - Real History

How To Use Tarot & Astrology In Science Fiction
Part 1
Real History 

Tarot and Astrology Just For Writers are indexed here:

Tarot:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/10/index-to-posts-about-or-involving-tarot.html

Astrology:
https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Fantasy genre has focused on two major plot-drivers (some call these tropes).
1) Who Gets To Be King (depicting government by Aristocracy)
2) A Secret Society Of Magicians Co-exists With Normals (Muggles)

The secret, underground society that works hard to keep itself un-noticed by mundanes (muggles) tends to dominate "Urban Fantasy" these days.

That concept symbolizes the blurring effect we see with Neptune Transiting Pisces -- which Neptune "rules" -- and thus blurring the edges and meaningfulness of "facts."  This has made "fake news" a feature of daily life, but each points the finger at the other screaming "fake."  That's NEPTUNE on the loose, and is actually not the way Neptune functions best.

That is the "vice" of Neptune.  Each Astrological planet has a way of manifesting as a "Vice" (an anti-life function) and a "Virtue" (a pro-life function).

Neptune is the planet of the "reality" behind reality, the astral plane where one simply thinks and believes and it is so.  Thus as noted so many times in these posts, Neptune is the signature planet of the years of a person's life where Romance dominates.

When Neptune makes a transit contact with key points in a Natal chart, the person's perception of reality shifts -- kind of like the optical illusions that have become such popular memes.  Blink, and it's one thing, blink and it is the opposite -- so "which is it?" becomes the question.

People rage into emotional arguments over optical illusions.

The argument over whether there exists such a thing as Soul Mate, or Happily Ever After, has the same emotional-rage flavor.

Consider whether the cause of the emotional-rage, adamant advocacy for one side or the other, both arise from the same "place" inside the human makeup.

Some philosophers give up and just declare that there is no such thing as "reality" at all -- everything is illusion.

Some adopt the idea that there exists an objective, hard fact, reality that can be discovered by Science -- therefore, "settled science" is to be obeyed if you want to survive.  See the raging, terror-driven argument over Climate Change -- listen to the tone of voice advocating each side -- does it sound the same to you as the argument over "Fake News" or the argument over "Happily Ever After?"

Are all these emotion-fueled raging, adamant, life-or-death depends on forcing the other to accept, believe, act upon, MY VIEW OF REALITY?




Look at the Religious Wars raging around the Globe.  We had the Catholic vs Protestant war in Northern Ireland spilling into London with bombings.

Now we have the Moslem Religion torn apart, sides taken aligning with whichever son inherited The Prophet's mantle, and as far as I've been able to discern the issue, it's all about which side gets the Divine Privilege of destroying all the Jews, ridding the world of that People and bringing the Islamic version of the Messiah.

On another front, we have serious shooting wars raging in skirmishes around the globe, brewing and stewing up Revolution - the exact same emotional tenor and tone as the "Fake News" argument over what is real (Saturn) and what is not (Neptune.)

Writing teachers teach that story is story -- throughout time, always the same -- because human nature never  changes.

"Human Nature Never Changes" is an adamantly declared Universal Truth one must believe in to sell fiction.

Classics of Literature are "classic" because they outline, starkly showcase, some element of Human Nature that all of us must understand to be educated and wise.

As you all know, my series, Sime~Gen, (14 volumes and still growing) is a science fiction series based on the premise that Writing Teachers -- and High School reading teachers, and university Literature Teachers are just plain wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/Sime-Gen-14-Book-Series/dp/B01N4SG08Q/

Human Nature has changed, is changing, and will change.

Not only that, but we (as humans with that nature) get to choose what aspect of us to change into which aspect -- whether to go forward or backward in our Nature Evolution.

We can revert to unmitigated savagery, or we can progress toward unmitigated Kindness.

Sime~Gen is built on the premise that if we, as humans, don't choose to advance in Compassion, then we will be hammered into accepting Compassion, Soul by Individual Soul, whether we like it or not.

We must change our Nature, or it will be changed for us.

The premise that our Professors (what Fantasy Genre based on government by Aristocracy would term our "betters") are just plain wrong is formulated by using the thinking process of the science fiction genre.  Thus the result (whatever esoteric, or fantasy elements might be included) is pure science fiction.

You do the same thing with any branch of science -- What If "They" (Authority) Is WRONG?

What If...
If Only ...
If This Goes On ...

Those are the speculations that science fiction is based on.

"If Only..." is the essence of Neptune's perception of reality.

Many esoteric thinkers regard Neptune influenced opinions as based on a "higher reality" -- a perspective of reality from farther away, from an angle which reveals the interlaced fundamentals of Body and Soul, the juncture of the spiritual and material.

Many call those who see that juncture, "Wise."

Tarot and Astrology are very old disciplines, much older than Science.

Tarot and Astrology are the science of the Unseen (unsee-able).

If you study the historical development of Science, you find that Alchemy is the predecessor of Chemistry.  Now, Chemistry (and Physics) can do much of what Alchemy was believed to do.

In every way, the thinking processes that led to these early attempts to gain ascendancy over Mother Nature -- agriculture, genetics, materials science (flint, copper, iron, bronze) -- all lead to today's "science."

And all of them are rooted deeply into Tarot and Astrology -- but their social acceptance relies on their refutation and rejection of Tarot and Astrology.

Tarot and Astrology are about Human Nature evolving and changing upon interaction with the physical world studied by Science.

Science is about Mother Nature evolving and changing upon interaction with Science.

In other words, they are two halves of a whole.

Science reveals "the truth" about the physical reality in order to give humans complete command over their environment.  That is why the Earth's climate responding to "human activity" is something so terrifying, so horrifying, that these very scientists who measure it can not accept it - the Earth is "out of control" -- and science must control.

Human Nature, on the other hand "never changes."

"What if ..." when human nature refuses to change, and insists on hammering Mother Nature into shape, Mother Nature responds by hammering back?

What if the solution is not to control Earth's Climate but to adapt human nature to the ever-shifting climate?

Look back into pre-history, using archeology and paleontology.  Over many shifts of climate, we see primates adapting and adapting until we find "modern man."  And "Modern Man" migrates and adapts, creates shelter, clothing, hunting tools, agriculture etc etc.

And through all that adapting of human nature (including learning to fight each other with ever-more-powerful weapons), we also developed the studies and wisdom of Tarot and Astrology (which are now disparaged).

So why aren't we accepting climate change and adapting - moving our cities back from the edges where water will rise, building habitats under water, mapping where the arable land will move to as ocean currents shift (farming tropical fruit at the poles?), learning to use the ocean as food source, etc.

Wait a minute.  Who says we won't do this, eventually?  Haven't the survivors of cataclysm done exactly that throughout pre-history?

What do we, today, know that they didn't know?

In Astrology, we know of the existence of planets beyond Saturn.  In Tarot, we know that humans have Free Will and shape fate by choices.  In Religion, we know that the choices that matter involve the Relationship with God developed over a lifetime.  (We know that those who are in critical illness, or dire trouble, benefit when others pray for them.)  Compassion matters. Kindness matters.  We can't quantify it, but Love matters.

There is another dimension where all living things are "stitched" together into some sort of pattern we, with ordinary consciousness, can't see.

So a writer can "reveal" this interface between the esoteric dimensions of creation and the everyday, concrete world studied by Science, using both plot (events in the real world) and story (Character changes on impact of real Events).

The best genre for revealing esoteric truth is Science Fiction Romance -- a science challenge, "what if authority is wrong?" coupled to a Character Arc where the impact of one Character's Soul upon another Character causes them both to change in ways shaped by their ability to understand the sequence of Events.

One good example of this process is the TV Series, X-Files.

So what might such a couple learn as they become a couple?

Look carefully at our Neptune Transiting Pisces (its own sign) shaped world.  Note also that currently Pluto is transiting Capricorn (not at all its own sign).

Neptune's vice is confusion, and Pluto's vice is power run amok (war).

We've noted above how Neptune's illusion and blurring of reality is sowing confusion over the whole globe.  It's not a problem.  It does that periodically, and humanity has survived it -- even learned a thing or two in the process.

Pluto cycles are about 248 years.  Neptune cycles about 165 years, give or take.

So look at now, then look back at Pluto transits and History.  Pluto was only recently "discovered" but that doesn't mean it wasn't active before that (many astrologers accept the idea that a planet is active in human affairs only after it has been discovered -- what if that's not true?)

When the USA was formed, Pluto was in Capricorn (where it is now).  The USA was formed in revolutionary war, and immediately launched a foreign war (Tripoli of Marine Corps Hymn fame).

The USA Natal Pluto is at the end of Capricorn, so the expansion of the 1800's was accompanied by the transit of Pluto into Aquarius, the sign of the USA's Moon and MC.  Aquarius is about Freedom, sudden explosive change, independence, and the "Flower Children's" mission of "Finding Yourself" (otherwise known as the Australian walkabout.)

After stewing through the Articles of Confederation phase, then the intense conflict over writing a Constitution to govern two incompatible ideologies, the Colonies launched a campaign of exploration, conquering the continent.  It was the era of the Mountain Man, the Buffalo Hunter, Gold Discovery in California, Wagon Trains, Oklahoma Land Rush, and of course Indian Wars.

If you know Astrology, you see immediately how all the historical elements in that list are manifestations of Pluto.

The incompatible ideologies that are blended in the USA Constitution are:
A) Government Is Order Imposed By Aristocrats Who Know Better Than the Uneducated In Classics And Science (they wanted George Washington to be King)
B) Government is Order That Protects Citizens From Government (domestic or foreign).  (they wanted Freedom)

The dichotomy is rooted in two incompatible takes on Human Nature.  A) Human Nature Never Changes, and B) Human Nature Rises To The Occasion

A) Humans can't be trusted to govern themselves, but the best among them can Rule better because they are educated.

B)Humans don't need Rulers.  Humans, even the uneducated in classics and science, are good at judging the Nature of other humans, and thus can choose who to hire to run government according to their assessment of Character.

Putting these two incompatible ideologies together was the Pluto in Capricorn innovation (Pluto's virtue is innovation, vice disruption).  A new form of government was established, and to date, at the verge of the USA Pluto return to its place, no other Nation has adopted this Constitution.

So a new governmental form launched a century of Exploration of The Unknown Continent.  And in that century, the 1800's, many other governments went exploring, searching for minerals and resources, and conquered peoples.

The Science Fiction Writer looks at this Pluto through Capricorn and into Aquarius as it manifested last time, and looks back and back through many cycles, seeing innovation and exploration (and war) periodically through history -- usually over resources which were hidden or revealed by advancing or retreating glaciers.

What will happen to human civilization as the oceans rise once again, glaciers retreat revealing what?

Do you see the potential for Science Fiction Romance in postulating what might be revealed by retreating glaciers?  Buried civilizations, UFO, time-travelers time machine?

https://medium.com/@heilygrave/usaf-veteran-films-ufo-flying-at-mach-17-sends-4k-video-to-nasa-49d72bb7ed9e

Tracing the cycle of Pluto backwards through the epochs when it was in Aquarius, extrapolate what might come about this next time, in the 2000's?

Surely we will explore space.  We already are sending robots and remote-controlled devices to planets, asteroids, moons, and telescopes or probes beyond our solar system.

https://www.space.com/42131-asteroid-ryugu-mascot-landing-new-images.html

There may be other planets to discover, too.  Maybe that long-long cycle of outer-planets will trace the way Human Nature has changed and point the way toward future changes. Are we becoming more vicious and ferocious, or are we becoming more kind and compassionate?

Or are some of us becoming one, and some the other?

Does encountering Reality change the human Soul?  Or does encountering a human Soul change Reality?  Or both?

Formulate an answer to those questions and you can create a THEME which will support a very long series, such as the ones I've been reviewing for you here.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com






Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Astrology Just For Writers Part 15 Mercury Retrograde Plot Twist

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 15
Mercury Retrograde Plot Twist
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous entries on Astrology are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

There is a reason we cover our eyes with our hand when we say the words asserting that the Creator of this world/universe/everything is ONE.

This key idea, One as the Origin, has to be the foundation of how we interpret absolutely everything we see, hear, feel, do, perceive with our flesh -- all we want and all we do about what we want (wanting being the condition of not-having) is configured around One.

But One is an IDEA first and foremost.  Once you grab hold of this idea, everything in your life changes significance and you make different choices.

Neurologists have discovered that our brains re-circuit in response to experience, and "learning" (intellectual activity) changes the way our brains light up neurons.  Learning creates new neural pathways.

But no matter what, we live welded to a physical body, so we weight what our physical eyes see heavier than what our mind thinks.  "Seeing is Believing."

Thus, when relearning twice a day, that all is Created by One, we have to take our eyes out of the brain-circuit, by covering them and closing them, so the Idea registers louder than visual impressions.

Astrology (as the precursor of modern Astronomy and Astrophysics) is based on empirical evidence gathered entirely by sight -- naked eye sight, before telescopes.

Over centuries, from Egypt onwards, using parchment and fast-fading ink, industrious geniuses recorded, correlated and experimented with two databases, one of what they could see in the sky, one of what they could see in people's lives.  Their project was to connect these two databases.

Along with these scientific, empirical observation databases (one of the stars/planets and one of human behavior ) curious humans imagined various correlations between the two.  Mostly nonsense, but over centuries of corrections, the imaginary explanations distilled down to some pretty reliable facts.

Once you get the ONE concept wired into your brain, these factual databases of Astrology become as useful as Astronomy but for a different purpose.

You need more to untangle this complex world.

You need to factor in human Free Will and Creativity -- the decision making process and the choices we make at the end of that process.

So our eyes "see" Mercury go Retrograde.  That's what the naked eye sees - Mercury (a dot in the sky) stops and goes backward.  So what?

Today, we all know the planets do not "go retrograde" -- we all ride our orbits around the Sun (oval, not circular, and not even all in the same plane!), and the Sun zips through the circuit of this Galaxy, which is  moving away from some point at an INCREASING rate.  The universe is expanding at an increasing rate!  That factoid has just been discovered and announced in peer-reviewed literature, but nobody really knows why or how this is happening, and you can not discern it with the naked eye.

This dizzying, rapid, systematic but mysterious movement is one reason that our repetitive tasks (like re-asserting twice a day ONE - JUST ONE AND ONLY ONE) are actually not repetitive.  Each time we wash dishes or drive carpool, it is done in a new place, and affects that new place.  Then we move on.  Like plowing a furrow, you don't stop after making a 1-ft long trench.

The human eye sees, and we live or die on the basis of our decisions made from seeing.  Tiger!  Run!.  Avoid getting in front of that Uber autonomous car.

By repetition of this Idea of One we try to grasp that what we see is not what is really there.  Decisions made by factoring in what is really there work better.

Today, most all of Science is founded on what is "really there" as opposed to what the naked eye sees.  Particle physics to advanced agrochemical applications, we live or die on what we understand but can't see.

So Astronomy and Astrophysics lets us understand some of what we can't see, but does not explain (or even try to explain) the observed and documented connection between what we see in the sky with the naked eye, and the decisions and actions of people, individually and collectively.

Fiction, especially fiction involving emotion and soul-growth, is based on "theme."  All themes are based on some theory about that connection between "the stars and planets" and "human decisions."

It is all "imaginary" -- or Idea based.

The one Massive Idea that human imagination barely sketched by itself is the Idea of the Oneness of The Creator.

Egypt had their Sun God and tried to arrange a religion around just that one -- but it didn't work.  Humans tried in every culture all over the world to figure this thing out.  It is said that the Creator offered the Torah to all the other Nations before coming to Abram - because only Abram accepted the Torah simply because it was the Creator offering, and never mind what would be required of him or what consequence or reward might come of it.

That Idea had to be given, to be inserted into our Reality -- we couldn't imagine it.

So when studying Mercury or any "Planet" appearing to go Retrograde (as observed from Earth), we have to start tracing the connection between that Observed Event and the Observed Human Response by understanding what a human is.  To do that, we must start with One.

I once learned in a course that the Soul enters material reality through the dimension of Time.

That one statement rearranged my entire understanding of what everything is about.  It rang true to me because of decades of study of physics, math, chemistry, Tarot, Astrology, human behavior, etc.

The Soul can't be verified by physical instruments because it has no physical dimensions.  It exists only in Time.

Astrology and Astronomy both portray our existence on Earth as riding on one "hand"  of a giant clock, the Earth.  We live inside a clock - the solar system.

That is all the universe is - a clock.

Time is the key idea.  Lately, speculation about whether the "speed of light" is a constant throughout the Universe is disturbing physicists.  We know about Time Dilation, and we know what Gravity does to stretch space.

We also know (though many don't like this idea) that human lifespan is limited.  We "start" somewhere on the clock and eventually we end somewhere on the clock.  The clock ran before we started, and it continues after we leave.

Time Marches On.

But as we live our little segment of Time, we make and implement choices.

Thousands and millions of choices during a lifetime, big choices we are consciously aware of, and little choices which are components of a larger project, habitual choices.

For example, we are driving to the supermarket, but there's a Yellow light -- choose to stop or choose to go.  Chances are, with the Creator's help, you will get to the supermarket regardless of which little choice you make in that split second.

But the consequences of a yellow-light decision can be life-altering.

Thousands of years of observations correlating Mercury with Small Decisions, short and routine trips, smaller movements of all kinds, show that there is a vague ( very vague) correlation between  the Retrograde and the success of tiny decisions that seem on the surface to be trivial.

One time in your life, you decide to run the Yellow, and BANG, you need a new car and five years of litigation.

Mercury goes Retrograde in different places several times a year - but only once in a 100 year lifespan will it produce a significant Event.

It is well known that trivial annoyances mount during a Retrograde Mercury - the airline loses your luggage for 3 days, your car needs a new tire, the dress you ordered for an Event comes the day after.

Shipping snafus don't register on shipping company computers because it just doesn't affect that many people that way.  Only a few times in an individual's life will such snafus pile up and up and up until you want to scream.

It is not Mercury Retrograde that "causes" snafus.  Rather, it is the accumulation of small decisions made over many years - of habits, and of responses to other forces operating in your life, most notably the way you relate to The Creator, conditioning yourself to see the One behind it all.

A hundred times, you'll make it through the Yellow light.  One time, other planets will line up (Uranus, Mars, Saturn, Neptune) and unexpected, aggressive, irresponsible, or drunken drivers will tangle with you.

How you come out of it is up to your Creator.

We live in a clock with 9 Hands (or more) -- which move within our lifetime.  The "fixed stars" don't move visibly in 100 years, but the planets go round and round never coming back to the configuration when you were born.  Nobody lives to see a Pluto-return.  The planets tick off "aspects" to that birth configuration, indicating what "time" of your "life" is going on right now.

It is just a clock.  It tells you what time it is, not what to do about that or what will "happen" because of it.

For example, at a Mercury Station (short trips) on your Natal Saturn (bones), you may have a dentist appointment.  You may run the Yellow light and get there on time, without running out of gas.  But the Mercury clock doesn't tell you whether you will have a cavity or not.  Brushing your teeth regularly (short, frequent, repetitive actions are Mercury) will have contributed to that, but not determined it.

Your genes, your nutrition as a child, and dozens of other small variables will contribute to healthy teeth - The One determines the outcome.

The outcome of the Dentist discovering a small cavity may be a Big Blessing because it averts some more irksome course of events.

But Mercury and other planets' position does not determine whether the Dentist will be in to be at your appointment, nor how long you might have to wait if he's dealing with an emergency, or how long it will take once he gets to you, or how much the bill will be.

Mercury is just one "hand" of the clock we live inside of. The clock has no content.  It is an empty appointment calendar you have to fill -- or not fill.  The clock has no content, no outcome.  We must live our lives providing that content.

Mercury is about small, repetitive things that don't seem to us to "matter" until they annoy.  So Mercury is also about Practice Making Perfect (Gemini and Virgo).  Repeat a minor action, practice practice practice, and you end up at Carnegie Hall.

So at the Stations of Mercury, when they fall at particular points in the Natal Chart, you will find that what you have Practiced will manifest.

If you've practiced getting your brain circuits to see One behind the visible reality of your life, that will manifest clearly, loudly, emphatically, and precisely one time in your life, and very likely at or near a Station of Mercury.

When a planet "goes retrograde" it also eventually stops and goes "direct" again -- as the Earth moves in its orbit relative to the planet that seems to go backwards.

Both points, the retrograde and direct, can coincide with a clear Event.

It coincides because it's time for that Event to happen.

For example, if you're trying to buy a house, you start by saving a down payment and scoring high in Credit.  As you are saving, things happen (often at a Retrograde station) to make you spend some of what you've saved.  Then you keep pushing and scrimping, and trying, and POP you start to see the savings account grow.  That goes on for a year, then interest rates get reduced.  Then you get a raise so you save more.  Someone gives you money, and you save it.  And it goes on and on, three steps ahead and two back.

That's "life" and everyone knows it.  And that is the pattern of the planets, direct and retrograde, ahead and back.

Mercury retrograde often corresponds to a time when you have to do things OVER --you fill out a form, and the office loses it, so you have to do it over.  You pay with a check, and the bank bounces it by mistake, and you have to make a new one and pay a penalty.  You ship a box, and it comes back addressee unknown, and you see you put the wrong number in the zip code.  Retrogrades are also second chances -- when you mess up, you wait a while, and take another whack at it.

So you're saving up for a house, and interest rates tank, houses go on sale, you bid on one -- and Mercury goes Retrograde and your mortgage paperwork doesn't go through.  You try another bank, and a few weeks later Mercury goes Direct, and the mortgage goes through -- but the house got sold out from under you.  So you quick bid on another house, and actually like its location better, and you get it and hold your breath through the Closing.

These are the plot-twists of the story of your life -- and everyone else's.

Fiction writers can use Mercury Retrograde effects without ever mentioning Astrology or Mercury or any such related concept, just by replicating that on-again-off-again-do-it-over pattern in the plot of the Main Character's life.  Everyone recognizes it as real, so you evoke verisimilitude by using Plot Twists based on the twist of what we see planets doing (as opposed to what is really happening.)

Note the intervals between Direct and Retrograde on all the planets, and how many years each takes to complete an Orbit of the Sun.  That is the benchmark fiction writers use (because everyone knows it whether they know Astrology or not) to "pace" the spiritual and emotional maturity of a Character.

If you try to convince a reader that an Event caused a Character to change behavior at a pace different from the master clock we live inside of, the reader won't believe it.  You will seem to be writing a Comic not a novel - the Characters will seem cardboard.  It takes Time for a Soul to change their grip on their body.  TIME is the key.

Life has a rhythm, dramatic Events have a place, framed by life events.  Lives have a shape, pace, and direction.  Read a lot of biographies to pick that up.

You can depict Wise Characters by revealing how they see that pattern in pacing of Events as all to the Good - as a pattern gifted us by the Creator with a message, with information embedded in it.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com