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
Posts
