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wisdomrays · 3 years ago

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TAFAKKUR: Part 433

THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12)

He writes:

‘The rapidity of the spread of Islam, noticeably through extensive provinces which had long been Christian, is a crucial fact of history. The sublime rhetoric of the Qur’an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy…and the urgency of the simple message carried, holds the key to the mystery of one of the greatest catalysms in the history of religion. When all military, political and economic factors have been exhausted, the religious impulse must still be recognized as the most vital and enduring.’

Brockelman, who is usually very unsympathetic and partial, also recognizes the religious values of Islam as the main factor for the spread of Islam (History of the Islamic Peoples, p.37). Rosenthal makes his point as follows: ‘The more important factor for the spread of Islam is the religious Law of Islam (Shari‘a, which is an inclusive, all-embracing, all-comprehensive way of thinking and living) which was designed to cover all manifestations of life.’ (Political Thought in Medieval Islam, p.21).

Besides many other reasons which are responsible for the spread of Islam, it is the exemplary life-style and unceasing efforts of individual Muslims to transmit the message of Islam throughout the world which lie at the root of the conquest of hearts by Islam. Islamic universalism is closely associated with the principle of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf (enjoining the good) for Islam is to be spread by Muslims by means of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf. This principle seeks to convey the message of Islam to all human beings in the world and to establish a model Islamic community on a worldwide basis. The Islamic community is introduced by the Qur’an as a model community: We have made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that you might be witnesses (models) for the peoples, and the Messenger has been a witness for you (2.143). A Muslim or the Muslim community as a whole thus has a goal to achieve. This is the spread of Islam, conveying the truth to the remotest corner of the world, the eradication of oppression and tyranny and the establishment of justice all over the world. This requires the Muslim to live an exemplary life, and thus the moral and the ethical values of Islam have usually played an important part in the spread of Islam. Here follow the impressions of the influence of Islamic ethics on black Africans of a Western writer of the nineteenth century:

‘As to the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Negro tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt? Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with its attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevation is most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule becomes a comparatively rare exception chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and becomes, in fact, one of the commoner virtues. It is idleness that henceforward degrades, and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are henceforward measured by a written code instead of the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain–a step, as everyone will admit, of vast importance in the progress of a tribe. The Mosque gives an idea of architecture at all events higher than any the Negro has yet had. A thirst for literature is created and that for works of science and philosophy as well as for the commentaries on the Qur’an.’ (Quoted from Waitz by B. Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism, pp.42-43)

The tolerance of Islam is another factor in the spread of Islam. Toynbee praises this tolerance towards the People of the Book after comparing it with the attitude of the Christians towards Muslims and Jews in their lands. (A Historian’s Approach to Religion, p.246). T. Link attributes the spread of Islam to the credibility of its principles together with its tolerance, persuasion and other kinds of attractions (A History of Religion). Makarios, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared the harsh treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards Orthodox Christians shown by the Ottoman Government and prayed for the Sultans (T. Link, A History of Religion).

This is not the only example of preference by the followers of the religions for Muslim rule over that of their own co-religionist. The Orthodox Christians of Byzantium openly expressed their preference for the Ottoman turban in Istanbul to the hats of the Catholic cardinals. Elisee Reclus, the French traveller of the nineteenth century, wrote that the Muslim Turk allowed all the followers of different religions to perform their religious duties and rituals, and that the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were more free to live their own lives than the Christians who lived in the lands under the rule of any rival Christian sect (Nouvelle Geographie Universelle, vol. 9). Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the Muslim Turks by stating that it was luck for the Romanian people that they lived under the government of the Turks rather than the domination of the Russians and Austrians. Otherwise, he points out, ‘no trace of the Romanian nation would have remained,’ (La Crise de l’Orient).

The Muslims’ attitude towards the people they conquered is quite clear in the instructions given by the rightly-guided Caliphs: ‘Always keep fear of God in your mind; remember that you cannot afford to do anything without His grace. Do not forget that Islam is a mission of peace and love. Keep the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) before you as a model of bravery and piety. Do not destroy fruit-trees nor fertile fields in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or convents and spare their edifices. Do not kill civilians. Do not outrage the chastity of women and the honour of the conquered. Do not harm old people and children. Do not accept any gifts from the civil population of any place. Do not billet your soldiers or officers in the houses of civilians. Do not forget to perform your daily prayers. Fear God. Remember that death will inevitably come to every one of you some time or other, even if you are thousands of miles away from a battlefield; therefore be always ready to face death.’ (Andrew Miller, Church History; Ali lbn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha)

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance

When Heraclius massed his troops against the Muslims, and the Muslims heard that they were coming to meet them, they refunded the inhabitants of Hims the tribute they had taken from them, saying: ‘We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.’ But the people of Hims replied: ‘We like your rule and justice far better than the state of oppression and tyranny in which we were. The army of Heraclius we shall indeed, with your help, repulse from the city.’ The Jews rose and said: ‘We swear by the Torah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter the city of Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted.’ Saying this, they closed the gates of the city and guarded them. The inhabitants of other cities–Christians and Jews–that had capitulated did the same. When by God’s help the unbelievers were defeated and Muslims won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with singers and players of music, and paid the tribute (Futuh al-Buldan).

To sum up, although most Western writers, under the instigation of biased Orientalists of the Church, have alleged that Islam spread by the force of the sword, the spread of Islam was because of its religious content and values, and ‘its power of appeal and ability to meet the spiritual and material needs of people adhering to cultures totally alien to their Muslim conquerors’, together with some other factors. Some of these factors are the tolerance which Islam showed to people of other religions, the absence of ecclesiastic orders and hierarchy in Islam, mental freedom and absolute justice which Islam envisages and has exercised throughout the centuries, the ethical values it propagates, and Islamic humanitarianism, universalism and brotherhood, and its inclusiveness. Sufi activities, the moral superiority of Muslim tradesmen, the principle of ‘enjoining the good’, and Islamic dynamism and the magnificence of the Islamic civilization contributed of their own to the spread of Islam.

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

(i) the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

(ii) rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

(iii) the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

(iv) the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

(v) the lack of formalism and mediation;

(vi) the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

(vii) the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

(viii) the shortcomings of other theological systems.

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND October 18, 2019 - MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL, ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP, THE LIGHTHOUSE, JOJO RABBIT

We’ll see how far I get on this week’s column because I haven’t seen nearly as much as I want to, I don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like to, and I have a lot of stuff to write for my other gig at The Beat. I know… excuses, excuses.

Well, you can probably already guess that I haven’t seen Disney’s MALEFICENT, MISTRESS OF EVIL, starring Angelina Jolie, because I never saw the original movie, and I have only been invited to one Disney movie in three years. (I got into a few thanks to being in the Critics Choice Association and there being awards screenings, but I have zero interest in this, even less in Frozen 2, and I’ll probably just use my AMC A-List to see Star Wars.)

I did see Sony’s ZOMBIELAND DOUBLE TAP, and that I really liked a lot. You can read my full review of this over at The Beat. I also interviewed director Ruben Fleischer and have an interview with writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick waiting in the wings. I’m pretty amazed that the three of them were able to get the whole gang back together, including Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin

Let’s just get to what I hope you’re reading this column for...

LIMITED RELEASES

I’ll admit freely that I just didn’t have as much time to watch stuff the past week as I’d like to, so some of the movies below I just haven’t gotten around to watching but hopefully they’re as good as others have said.

There are a few “special event” screenings this week, including Kevin Smith’s JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT (Saban Films), which screened nationwide via Fathom Events last night and will get another screening on Thursday night. It’s actually not bad, at least compared to his last movie Yoga Hosers. This one is a direct sequel to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I wasn’t a very big fan of despite liking a few of Smith’s other films like Chasing Amy and Dogma. Reboot harks back to some of Smith’s earlier work with nods to many of his previous films and cameos from almost every actor who has ever worked with him? I also interviewed Jason Mewes for The Beat, and I’ll have an interview with Harley Quinn Smith soon, too.

Also, on Saturday, Bruce Springsteen’s doc WESTERN STARS will get a nationwide screening via Fathom Events. I haven’t seen this one, and I’m not really that big a fan of the Boss, but hey, it’s happening if you’re interested.

The on Tuesday, October 22, you can see Neil Young’s latest movie Mountaintop in a one-night only event via Abramorama, the movie showing Young and his band Crazy Horse getting ready to record their first album in seven years. I haven’t watched it yet, but it’s interesting that Young is letting fans into the process, and I only recently saw Jim Jarmusch’s doc Year of the Dog, so I’m kind of in a Neil Young headspace. This one is directed by Young under his film direction pseudonym “Bernard Sharkey.”

Another movie worth seeking out this weekend is THE LIGHTHOUSE (A24), Robert Eggers’ follow-up to The Witch, this one starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as two men who are sent to care for a lighthouse during a particularly turbulent storm season. Dafoe is a crusty and cranky seadog who really puts Pattinson through his paces, but as the two men are holed up together (and eventually trapped on the location), they each begin their own slow descent into madness. I’ll have an interview with Eggers up at The Beat later today where we talk about the intriguing way he made this film, and it rose out of his frustration with trying to get The Witch financed.

My Interview with Robert Eggers

The movie I was most excited to see this weekend was Taika Waititi’s JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight), since I’ve been a fan of his work going all the way back to when Eagle vs. Shark debuted the Sundance Film Festival. I was really hoping I’d like this enough to feature it at the top of this column, but since it’s not there, you can read my review at the link below to find out why not. Based on Christine Leunens’s novel, it stars newcomer Roman Griffin Davis as Jojo, a 10-year-old German boy in the Hitler Youth who just can’t get his shit together, although he does have an imaginary friend in Adolf Hitler (played by Waititi) who urges the boy on. Injured in an accident, Jojo is homebound when he learns that his mother (Scarlet Johansson) has been hiding a young Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomas McKenzie from Leave No Trace) in the house attic, so he has to figure out whether to report them, or use her to learn more about Jews. You can read my review below to see that I can’t really recommend the movie wholeheartedly, but it will open in New York and L.A. this weekend and you can decide for yourself.

MY REVIEW OF JOJO RABBIT

French auteur Francois Ozon returns with BY THE GRACE OF GOD (Music Box Films), a very serious drama about three grown men (Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet, Swann Arlaud) who team together to expose a priest who molested them as boys but is being protected by the Catholic Church. The story is based on the real French scandal surrounding Cardinal Philippe Barbarin who was convicted earlier this year for concealing the conduct of a preacher, Father Preynat. Ozon is coming off his excellent film Franz and the equally intriguing Double Lover, so he’s definitely upped his game from the sometimes-frivolous earlier fare for which he became known. This is a really tough movie to get through and maybe that made it harder for me to enjoy, but it’s another fine piece of filmmaking by Ozon. It opens at New York’s Film Forum and the Landmark on 57 and probably in a theater in L.A. as well.

Opening at New York’s Angelika Film Center and the Landmark on 57 is Alexis Michalik’s Cyrano My Love (Roadside Attractions) set in Paris 1897 and dealing with the relationship between playwright Edmond Rostand and actor Constant Coquelin, for what becomes the play Cyrano de Bergerac. And I have absolutely zero interest in seeing this.

Another movie that I saw and absolutely loathed was Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s GREENER GRASS (IFC Midnight), a movie that I couldn’t begin to describe except that it takes place in a suburban neighborhood where a yoga teacher has been murdered by a seria killer and all sorts of other strange things are going on. The filmmakers play best friends and soccer moms Jill and Lisa, the latter who borrows the former’s baby, but honestly, the tone of this movie reminded me about the stuff on Adult Swim that I hate such as the Tim and Eric shows and such, where it just seems to be weird for weirdness-sake, and there’s absolutely nothing that kept me even remotely interested. It opens at the IFC Center this weekend.

I still haven’t found the time to watch all of THE CAVE (National Geographic Documentary Films), Feras Fayyad’s follow-up to his Oscar-nominated film Last Man in Aleppo, but I hope to get to it fairly soon, since I was such a fan of that movie. I just need to be right in the headspace to watch this one, if it’s anything like that one.

Apple TV+’s first movie on the streaming channel will be Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone’s THE ELEPHANT QUEEN (A24), a documentary that follows the elephant matriarch Athena, who is forced to protect her family after they leave their watering hole. Although I understand the purpose of this movie to show how climate change is affecting these majestic animals, this one feels very much like something I’ve seen before from DisneyNature and others, so it didn’t really shed any new light on elephants, and it felt very much dummed down for kids. Voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor, it will get a limited theatrical release this weekend before debuting on the channel November 1.

There are a couple other docs out this weekend, including Barbara Miller’s #FEMALEPLEASURE (Abramorama), which follows five women fighting against their patriarchal societies; Serendipity: The Story of French Artist Prune Nourry (Cohen Media Group) directed by French artist Prune Nourry; opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Erin Derham’s doc Stuffed (Music Box Films) about taxidermists, and then there’s Julie Simone and Vicki Vlasic’s doc Fiddlin’ (playing at the Cinema Village) covers the Fiddler’s Convention.

If you’re not quite ready for Halloween, there’s the horror filmTrick (RLJEFilms) from Patrick Lussier (My Bloody Valentine, Drive Angry) about a Halloween party in 2015 where Patrick “Trick” Wever killed a bunch of his classmate and then escaped after being shot five times by a detective (Omar Epps) so everyone thinks he’s dead. But guess what? He’s not!! It also stars Jamie Kennedy and Tom Atkins.

There are a couple other movies, but the main ones you should know about are above.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

The big one this week, at least in New York, is the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, which starts Thursday night with Jeffrey Brown’s The Beach House and continues through the weekend with Daniel Isn’t Real, Swallow, and the World Premiere Fessenden’s Depraved: Making Frankenstein a Brooklyn Loft, a making-of doc about Larry Fessenden’s latest.

Starting Friday at New York’s Cinema Village is the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, which I really don’t know very much about, although they seem to have an interesting selection of nature docs, both features and shorts, none of which I’ve seen.

In L.A., you can catch the Animation is Film Festival starting Friday with animated movies from across the group including I’m anticipating like Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You, and White Snake from China, which will be in competition with films like France’s I Lost My Body. There are special events for Disney’s Frozen 2, Netflix’s Klaus, a special screening of the Chinese hit Ne Zhan and Steven Universe the Movie before it hits Apple TV+ on November 1.

Also happenin’ in New York is the Nordic International Film Festival, which is taking place at the Roxy Hotel, in case you wonder why it’s missing from the repertory section below. That’s why.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Steven Soderbergh’s THE LAUNDROMAT will arrive on Netflix this weekend, and you can read what I thought of that in my previous column here.

Streaming on Netflix Friday is Ed Perkins’ documentary TELL ME WHO I AM about the relationship between two twin brothers, Marcus and Alex Lewis. When Alex wakes up after a motorcycle accident, he relies on Marcus to fill him on who everyone else is over the next 35 years, but Marcus may be keeping a dark family secret from his brother to protect him. (It also will open theatrically at the Quad Cinema on Friday.)

Sinister 2 director Ciaran Foy’s new film Eli will start streaming on Friday, about a boy who receiving treatment for an auto-immune disorder who finds out that his house isn’t as safe as thought. It stars Kelly Reilly, Lili Taylor, Max Martini and Charlie Shotwell in the title role.

There’s also the Spanish film Diecisiete (Seventeen) from Daniel Sánchez Arévalo about a 17-year-old named Héctor who forms a bond with a dog as part of a reintegration program at his juvenile detention center. When the dog is adopted, Héctor goes on a journey to rescue him.

One of the exciting debuts on cable this weekend is HBO’s WATCHMEN series, created by Damon Lindelof, and what I’ve heard about the show is that it’s pretty good, taking place in the modern day of the world created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in the comics (which took place in the ��80s.).

Also, while I haven’t seen it yet, Iranian filmmaker Babak (Under the Shadow) Anvari’s horror thriller WOUNDS will debut on Hulu this weekend, and since I have Hulu, I’ll be able to watch it! It stars Zazie Beetz, Dakota Johnson and Armie Hammer, the latter playing a bartender who has all sorts of weird things happen to him when he picks up a phone at a bar.

REPERTORY

There are a few really awesome repertory series starting this weekend as well as the return of one of New York’s primary midtown rep houses, which has been closed for renovations for most of the summer.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Before I get to the Metrograph’s great new series starting this weekend, I want to draw special attention to Metrograph Pictures’ new 35mm print rerelease of Edo Bertoglio’s 1981 film Downtown ’81. This is a really amazing movie that stars late NYC artist Jean Michel Basquiat, and while it does show him doing his graffiti art, the movie isn’t so much worth seeing for its amazing writing or acting but for it being an amazing time capsule of New York in 1981 with performances by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, DNA, The Plastics and other No Wave bands in the year when punk was transforming into New Wave but New York bands were still experimental and arty, doing whatever it took to avoid getting into the mainstream. Metrograph releasing this reissued restored film makes sense as they were one of the first to herald Glenn O’Brien’s cable show TV Party, so if you get a chance, get down to the Metrograph where the movie will be shown exclusively probably for a week or two.

Another exciting series at my local theater as Julie Andrews will be there in person for “Blake Edwards: A Film Selection by Julie Andrews,” celebrating the life and career of her late husband. The series will include That’s Life (1986), Wild Rovers (1971), 10 (1979), the Inspector Clouseau film A Shot in the Dark (1964), 1981’s S.O.B., 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and a Members Only screening of Victor/Victoria (1982) with a QnA with the actress. Also, the Academy returns to the Metrograph for its monthly series, this one very Halloween-appropriate, as they’ll be showing Fulci’s Zombi 2 (aka Zombie) from 1979.

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is still David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001) and also, because the Metrograph will make any excuse to show Brian De Palma’s 2002 dog Femme Fatale… they’re showing Femme Fatale again. what gives Metrograph? You now taking cues from the IFC Center by showing the same movies over and over? Tsk, tsk… This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Brad Bird’s animated classic The Iron Giant from 1999. Welcome To Metrograph: Redux seems to be taking the weekend off, probably to make room for some of the above.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The other series I’m really excited about is the three-week “Shitamachi: Tales of Downtown Tokyo” but I get to that, I want to mention that I had a chance to see Yoji Yamada’s Tora-San, Our Lovable Tramp (1969), which plays for two more days, and it’s quite wonderful so definitely try to get to it as this became a very popular series in Japan. Okay, back to the other Japanese series, this one runs for three weeks and it’s co-presented with the Japan Foundation. This weekend, you can see Akira Kurosawa’s Drunken Angel (1948) and Stray Dog (1949) on Friday and Saturday as well as Ozu’s Record of a Tenement Gentleman from 1947. Sunday and Monday is Kurusawa’s Ikiru (1952) and a couple others. There’s just an abundance of riches including a couple rare prints that were imported from Japan for the series. Apparently, the Film Forum thinks Milos Forman’s Hair(1979) which I just saw at the Metrograph is okay for kids, which is why it’s programmed as this week’s “Film Forum Jr.”

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The Wednesday matinee is the classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), while Weds. and Thurs. see double features of P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice (2014) with Jacques Demy’s Model Shop (1969). Friday’s matinee is Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), while the weekend “Kiddee Matinee” is the Disney movie Blackbeard’s Ghostfrom 1968. (I wonder if that will be on the Disney+ service.) Friday night’s midnight movie is Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Til Dawnand then Saturday night is an “All Night Horror Show” which is sold out, sadly. Monday’s matinee is The People Under the Stairs (1991), and Monday and Tuesday nights are double features of Tom Laughlin’s The Born Losers (1967) and Billy Jack (1971).

MOMA (NYC):

It’s exciting news that MOMA reopens NEXT MONDAY, and their first two series are Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmand Vision Statement: Early Directorial Works. The first of these is an attempt to recreate some of the early film programs from the early days of the MOMA Film Library, including a screening of the 1914 film A Fool There Was on Monday, and I’ll write more about this next week. “Vision Statement” begins with Andrzej Żuławski’s The Third Part of the Night (1971) and Satyajit Ray’s 1955 film Pather Panchali, and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s 2003 film The Return and Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993) both screen on Tuesday.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

I’ll be at tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” Born of Fire (1987), which is almost sold out but has a few seats left. Monday night’s “Fist City” selection is David Fincher’s 2002 movie Panic Room, starring Jodie Foster and a VERY young Kristen Stewart, while “Video Vortex” presents the horror classic A Night to Dismember: The Original Cut. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is 1983’s Devil Fetus, and what do you know? Julie Andrews will be there doing a QnA right after showing Blake Edwards’ 1982 movie Victor/Victoria – I wonder where they got that idea (or maybe Ms. Andrews is just doing a tour right now). Next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is the 1993 film Fire in the Sky and RottenTomatoes is hosting a party centered around The Craft (1996), which is already sold out.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Recent Spanish Cinema 2019 continues this weekend so no rep stuff but a couple movies worth checking out are the doc The Silence of Others and the animated film Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles.

AERO (LA):

A couple “Facing Off with John Woo” double features with The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992) on Friday, and then Face/Off (1997) and Hard Target (1993) on Saturday afternoon. Saturday night is a screening of Woo’s 1990 film Bullet in the Head. Sunday is a Lina Wertmüller double feature called “Swept Away Again by Lina Wertmüller” which isThe Seduction of Mimi (1972) with Love & Anarchy (1973). Tuesday’s “Tuesdays with Lorre” will a 35mm screening of Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Wednesday night’s “Movies with MZS” (aka Matt Zoller Seitz) is John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987). It doesn’t look like the IFC Center has set its Fall repertory series yet but Friday and Saturday night at midnight you can see the very first official James Bond movieDr. No(1962) and a 4k restoration of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981).That said, “Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases Be Noir” does begin this weekend with Nicolas Ray’s They Live by Night (1948).

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

“See It Big! Ghost Stories” continues this weekend with screenings of one of my all-time faves, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, on Friday, and the Japanese horror classic House (Hausu) on Saturday, as well as the 1965 Japanese horror film Kwaidan, plus James Wan’s Insidiouscloses the series on Sunday evening. The “No Joke: Absurd Comedy as Political Reality” continues with 1985’s The Coca-Cola Kid on Sunday afternoon as well as William Klein’s 1969 movie Mr. Freedom, neither of which I’m familiar with. Saturday afternoon is a special screening of Marlon Brando’s 1961 film One-Eyed Jacks with an introduction by William Mann, who wrote “The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando.”

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Freshly recovered from the New York Film Festival, FilmLinc is screening a 25th Anniversary restoration of Béla Tarr’s 1994 film Sátántangó, which also played at the film festival.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Oh, it looks like the Landmark has been showing Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club Encore all week so you can see it through Thursday. This Friday night’s midnight movie is A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors from 1987.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Still showing Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’aime Moi Non Plus (1976) through the weekend.

Next week, it’s an odds and ends weekend including Deon Taylor’s new police drama Black and Blue, the high-tech horror/thriller Countdownand the historical drama The Current War, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland and Michael Shannon.

#WhatToWatchthisWeekend TheLighthouse Maleficent Zombieland Movies Reviews Streaming JojoRabbit

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marginalgloss · 7 years ago

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the getting of bastards

The Reverse of the Medal features the first proper return of Patrick O’Brian’s historical novels to English shores in what seems like a long time. The internal chronology is difficult to establish, since it seems to have been 1812 for a very long time in this world; but it has been several books since Jack and Stephen were back in London, at any rate. On paper it’s notable for being, like The Mauritius Command, another example of the author casting some of his own characters in the place of actual historical figures. The author’s note is candid in its admission that the story is effectively a retelling of a real scandal that involved Lord Cochrane, one of the great seamen of that period. But the book takes some liberties with history, and pursues its own ends at its own pace in telling this particular story.

(Considerable, unavoidable spoilers to follow.)

After the events of The Far Side of the World, the HMS Surprise is slowly making its way home. The expectation is that it’ll be their last journey on that vessel, perhaps forever; there’s a brief by typically gripping sea chase with a privateer, but otherwise, the central event of the early part of the book is the sudden appearance of a young man bearing proof that he is Jack’s son:

‘‘God’s my life,’ said Jack, and after a moment he slowly began to open the package. It contained a sperm-whale’s tooth upon which he had laboriously engraved HMS Resolution under close-reefed topsails when he was a very young man, younger even than the tall youth facing him; it also contained a small bundle of feathers and elephant’s hair bound together with a strip of leopard’s skin...’

The surprise is not so much that Jack should have fathered a bastard; it’s that the bastard should announce himself so suddenly as an educated young black man. He, Samuel Panda, was raised by Catholic missionaries, and appears to have become one too. His appearance in this book is a curious thing: Samuel pops up with little warning, seemingly asks nothing of his father, and he disappears soon after. Though he merits some mention later, it seems like O’Brian is only setting him up here to do something else with him in a later story.

And yet this idea of the illegitimate child making an unexpected reappearance serves as a perfect thematic touchstone for this novel. There’s much which comes home to roost here, and we see here a great drawing together of many of the political threads that have been spinning out in ever longer, ever tangled lines through the previous books. For a long time our heroes were protected from the consequences of their actions simply by being on a ship far away from the rest of the world; now they are back at the centre of the industrialised world, and the world is very much taking an interest in them.

But here, more so than ever before in the series, the book really feels like a celebration of all that has come before. Not only are all our old favourite characters here and on show, they’re gently re-introduced, and sometimes championed. There are whole sequences here which don’t really have any purpose except to be utterly, utterly charming; I’m thinking in particular of the endless cricket match with Jack and his old crew, into which Maturin wanders; and the long and beautifully absurd sequence where the men quite literally take apart every piece of Jack’s house, clean it all, and put it back together, in time for the long-awaited reappearance of his wife. None of this needs to happen for the plot of the book; but it does, and it’s wonderful. As so often in O’Brian’s writing, the musical quality of his prose reaches a peak in those moments when nothing in particular is happening:

‘A cheer from far away changed the current of his mind, and some moments later this was followed by the peculiarly English sound of a bat striking a ball and then by further cries. He passed quickly through what Jack called the rose-garden – lucus a non lucendo – through the shrubbery to the edge of the hill and there below him on a broad meadow was a game of cricket all laid out, the fielders in their places, keenly attentive to the bowler as he went through his motions, the sound of the stroke again, the batsmen twinkling between the wickets, fielders darting for the ball, tossing it in, and then the whole pattern taking shape again, a formal dance, white shirts on the green.’

Having finished the book I think more and more often of those scenes of togetherness. It is in these, I think, in which the book really shows its inner light. Aubrey’s crew are one big family here, one which at times outshines Aubrey’s own actual family. Sophie and the children are present, but their role is relegated to distant, smiling bystanders; and curiously, Diana Viliers is written out of the story through a strange sort of narrative contrivance. But it is the sailors as a collective who really matter here. Each is given his own little moment — Babbington, who began this series as barely more than a boy, is now a captain, and gets his own romantic sub-plot — and there’s even some good lines for the walk-on Irishman, Padeen (‘Will your honor explain the Saxon game now?’). All of this is necessary because in the end they all step up as required to save Aubrey from himself.

Maturin’s position is, as ever, set askance to the rest. He is a beloved part of the crew, but at the same time, he will never quite be the same as them. It’s significant that his main job here is to keep them together by stumping up from his (conveniently vast, hidden) private fortune: he buys the HMS Surprise, which was otherwise due for the wrecker’s yard, with the intent of giving it to Jack. He states several times throughout this book that he’s doing it to save Jack from ‘going mad’ on shore, but his own true reasons are oblique. There’s a real sense, I think, in which Maturin would submit to something much darker if he were divorced utterly from somebody’s service, and left to his own devices. But though he literally says at one point that his personality makes for a poor deux ex machina, that’s exactly his role here; one is tempted to wonder how many other times Jack Aubrey’s career might have come to an ignoble end, had it not been for Stephen’s quiet machinations.

If the events of the scandal follow history, the outcome differs for dramatic effect. What happens is that Jack Aubrey is set up in a kind of stock exchange fraud, which turns out to be far more serious than his previous trouble for private debts. It’s fairly obvious to all concerned that he’s been put up to it by political enemies of his father, but Jack himself has the utmost faith in the British legal system to clear him of any wrongdoing. His judgment on land is, as ever, entirely misguided; he is sentenced to be pilloried.

This is where the outcome of the story differs from history; Cochrane was also found guilty, but he was never actually put in the stocks, since he was so popular that the authorities feared inciting a riot. Aubrey doesn’t quite have such luck. Though his life is in danger – it wasn’t unknown for people to be very badly hurt from the pillory – the thing that upsets him most is the loss of his position:

‘For to Jack Aubrey the fact of no longer belonging to the Navy counted more than a thousand pillories, the loss of fortune, loss of rank, and loss of future. It was in a way a loss of being, and to those who knew him well it gave his eyes, his whole face, the strangest look.’

This is, in fact, about all we see of his feelings about it. The upstanding Englishman with a distant stare, accepting his fate with a quiet grace that betrays a deeper sense of betrayal. But his men won’t allow him to come to harm. They pour into London, all the old Navy salts who served with him, and they literally crowd out those who’ve arrived with malicious intent. It’s a neat way of drawing a distinction between the good hearted men who serve and the corrupt establishment who command; but again, this seems to me less vital to the novel than the picture of a big, tough, happy family, all gathered around one patriarch to literally shelter him from the world.

It’s an odd thing, the pillory scene. It’s carried off very well. It is not really a serious threat, in the end; it has all the brisk, funny, heartwarming bluster of a Hollywood movie. It might be one of the most affecting moments in the series so far. But what’s remarkable is how sparse it is. O’Brien has this repeated tendency, seen in almost all the novels so far, of cutting off his crescendo just before it hits what we expect to be the most powerful notes. The reader feels they are about to see the scene of Jack in cold irons bound before a jeering crowd; they might even want to know how he would feel, in his head.

But when the thing happens, we’re immediately transported to after the event. We get neither the trauma of the event itself, nor do we encounter his immediate feelings when he’s saved. It’s as though all this might be inconceivable. The author gently whisks us away to someplace else entirely. I can’t quite decide how to feel about this constant sense of climax deferred which comes so often with O’Brian. I enjoy the drama of it, but as so often I’m left with the sense of an author who would prefer not to dwell too long on the worst implications of his own suggestions.

Perhaps the book’s ultimate suggestion is that this what separates great leaders from the merely adequate. Perhaps they belong, in the end, to something bigger than the organisation which sustains them. It would be nice to think so, though I can’t think of many examples from our own age.

For me the vision of Jack’s fall from grace works best on the level of human fantasy. There is something wonderfully comforting about the idea of being protected from the world by an actual body of humanity; a body all the more potent for acting of its own free will, and not through discipline. It is a little like the feeling of comfort I get from reading these books: they really do block out the modern world in a way few other novels can. There’s something redemptive, even triumphant, about it: of how Jack’s small wrongness in the moment is overcome by a wider injustice of his trial, only for that to be overcome again by the moment of solidarity. Any reader would want it for themselves, surely; any writer too, perhaps.

#books #patrick o'brian #the reverse of the medal

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dog-star11-blog · 7 years ago

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Harvey Weinstein is Toppled by Lilith, and Jupiter Sashays into the Underworld

Liberty Leading the People - Christopher Pew

What a highly charged week its been! The fallout from the powder keg of the Aries Full moon has been intense, to say the least. As we now enter into the dark of the moon, the crisis phase of the last quarter moon diminishing, I’d now like to shift my focus from recent unrest in Catalonia, to the explosive Harvey Weinstein scandal, which continues to send seismic ruptures through Hollywood.

The astrological picture reflects the watershed moment of a once untouchable, rapacious predator, protected by a patriarchal institution--now disgraced, and exiled, but seemingly remorseless. Weinstein’s glib ‘apology’ booms out in movie trailer voice, assuring us that Harvey will wrest his demons under control in some posh treatment facility in Arizona, and return to Hollywood for redemption, and ‘second chances’. In the meantime he’s going to take on the NRA. Ah yes, the pathological minimizing of rampant sexual predation as a ‘sex addiction’ that can be cured.

Uranus, in late Aries, seems to be making up for lost time, taking on as many Goliaths as possible before its upcoming transit of Taurus. The iconoclast planet continues to occupy the 26th Aries degree of “a man with more many gifts than he can hold”, hinting that the privileges enjoyed by Rich White Men will begin to topple through shocking bolts from the blue. Lilith, meanwhile, is pissed off and ready to do battle, working hand-in-hand with Uranus on 26 Sagittarius. With that helpful trine to Uranus, shock-tactics and speed will work very much in her favor. Meanwhile, the veil continues to thin as Jupiter begins a tour of the underworld, and Scorpio season approaches. Protection and luck through Libran decorum and social graces just won’t cut it in the coming months as Jupiter asks us to hold ourselves accountable for our actions.

Obviously, it’s impossible to compare revelations of systemic sexual predation in the film industry, with the dissolution of democratic values in Spain, but both events have shockingly opened up festering wounds. It’s not surprising to see Chiron, the wounded healer, in the mix as well at 25 degrees Pisces, squaring Saturn, and more tightly, Lilith. As strobing Uranian light is being shone on the darkest of places, we hope that the outpouring of emotion is powerful enough to finally call us to positive solidarity and action.

The abuse of power is a nightmare as old as the hills. Nevertheless, momentum in recent years to expose some of the world’s most powerful sexual predators, previously irreproachable in iron-clad institutions like Hollywood, the Catholic Church, the BBC, or Can Lit—feels like the beginning of a revolution. Actor Emma Thompson, when asked to comment on the Weinstein revelations, reminded us that there are countless men like him, in an endless list of patriarchal systems. Though the toppling of Weinstein is a watershed moment, shifting our focus from toxic masculinity, which is the symptom, to the system itself, will be paramount when Aries begins its transit of sturdier Taurus in 2018.

Progress will be made in legislation, by revamping the systems of abuse-reporting in all sectors. Progress is also believing victims, who almost always have so much more to lose in coming forward with their allegations. Nevertheless, many of the necessary shifts will be ideological ones, the kind of change that can take generations to execute. The story of the powerful man, so entrenched in our films (unsurprisingly), but also our fairy tales, our deepest myths, our childhood bedtime stories, is not one that will be dismantled overnight.

Nevertheless, I also hold onto the faith that the collective feminine is now rising to redress this imbalance before it’s too late. Though the lancing of the wound of unchecked, and toxic masculinity, may be messy, uncomfortable, and even deeply frightening, this isn’t work to turn our backs on. Now is not the time to fall into numb despair at the endless Weinsteins that lurk in sheep’s clothing.

Lilith Leading the Charge

Lilith - By Unknown Artist

Lilith’s hand in the blowing the lid off of Hollywood’s massive cover-up, cannot be overstated. She is one of the most fascinating and complex archetypes that we work with in astrology, and I will be exploring her mythology in depth in future posts. In general terms, she represents toxic masculinity’s distorted projection of the man-eating woman: seductress, femme-fatal, witch. She is the Madonna/whore complex, and the profound fear, we still seem to hold collectively, of female power. She shows up whenever there is abuse of power, particularly in our patriarchal institutions.

Her myth is that of the original wife created for Adam, who refused to lie beneath him during sex. They were both shaped by God from the same clay, and thus created equal. Nevertheless, her reasonable argument fell on deaf ears, and God eventually exiled her from the Garden of Eden, subjecting her to a punishment of eternally giving birth to, and eating, her demon progeny on the banks of the Dead Sea. This is where her reputation of the child-killer, and succubus comes from, but she is so much more than that.

I find she crops up in the chart of any person, regardless of their gender or sexual identity, who has found themselves betrayed and exiled from the organizations and institutions that purported to protect them. This betrayal is often carried as a wound from childhood to adulthood, with some Lilith figures drawing a wellspring of creativity, and even activism, from the pain. For others, the wound may never be integrated, twisting instead into psychopathy, addiction, suicide, or mental illness.

When Lilith is in aspect with a personal planet in the chart (particularly powerful when in conjunction with the Moon, Sun, or Ascendant), Lilith themes will dominate that person’s life. They will be more likely to internalize her archetype, feeling that they are in some way ‘different’, always outside of society looking in. This powerful wellspring of individuality, and the willingness to embrace the unorthodox, has given way to some of our greatest artists, poets, musicians and actors. Lilith people, often with their own experiences of injustice and extreme abuses of power, emerge from the wilderness with searing intuition, psychic gifts, and a highly tuned bullshit radar. There is also an undeniable charisma to Lilith people that the camera loves, and a mysterious aura of eroticism that they project. With Lilith, however, this eroticism can often feel impersonal, more often than not channeled into creative acts quite separate from sex.

She shows up (though not always) in the charts of people who have been sexually abused, as well as the abusers themselves. Does it come as any surprise then that Weinstein has Lilith in a wide conjunction with Pluto, in the sign of Leo, representing show-business? That she is in aspect with a slow-moving generational planet, such as Pluto, would not be enough to tease out a pattern in the natal chart; however, Weinstein’s Pluto forms a tight square to his secretive, and sexually insatiable Mars in Scorpio. Weinstein’s basic will and drive, and his sexual appetites are directly connected to a desire for power in the entertainment industry (Pluto in Leo), and control over strong, charismatic women. His Pluto’s sextile to Neptune (a planet we associate with photography and the silver screen), and a trine to his Jupiter-Mercury conjunction in Aries, would have allowed that burning desire for power, prestige and enormous wealth to express itself easily in visionary ideas (Jupiter-Mercury), communicated through a film medium (Neptune). That Neptune is in Libra suggests that these films would often sell themselves on beautiful and glamorous actors.

Weinstein’s Neptune also opposes the wheeling-dealing Mercury-Jupiter conjunction in Aries, suggesting both a masterful ability to manipulate those around him, and a tendency to self-delusion. Though there’s no doubt in my mind that Weinstein is a vile predator who got off on the terror in his victim’s eyes, I think there’s an element in his personality of seriously distorted thinking. Though I’m always reluctant to armchair diagnose, sociopathy and narcissism seem to be fit the extravagant promises, love-bombing and grandiosity of Mercury-Jupiter, with the more insidious gaslighting of Neptune. Just as he was able to pull the wool over his victim’s eyes, luring him into hotel rooms through the guise of business meetings, he may have also deluded himself into thinking that these interactions were actually consensual. At the very least, he would have been able to convince those closest to him that his sexual predation was nothing more than an endless string of affairs. Though I think it’s unlikely his friends and family were completely without suspicion, wanting to believe that the worst isn’t happening can be one hell of an addictive drug.

Though I couldn’t locate Harvey Weinstein’s time of birth, it’s entirely possible that he possesses a singleton Sun in Pisces, on the last anaretic degree. The 29th degree can carry significant karmic baggage, and the potential for evil if the tying up of loose ends is not addressed. What is more, singleton planets, unaspected in the chart, will exert enormous power over the person’s life. With no release valve, or opportunity to work with another planet in aspect, the singleton planet is raw and unbridled energy, burning a hole, or a vacuum in the chart.

A singleton Sun is unconstrained ego, and a nearly impenetrable sense of confidence, personal will, and even divine entitlement. Combined with the messianic element of Pisces, it’s entirely possible that Weinstein’s actions stem from extreme delusions of grandeur, and even a savior complex. Just before Weinstein left New York for a treatment facility in Arizona, he told the paparazzi that he was the good guy; he was, in fact, saving these women from a cutthroat industry. The mind reels at such mental gymnastics.

In any case, this streak of delusion, likely born of a narcissistic myth of supreme entitlement, was under extreme pressure on October 5th, the night of the full moon when the New York Times published its explosive exposé on the decade’s long cover-up of Weinstein’s sexual predation. When I say under pressure, I mean that a tight transiting conjunction of Mars and Venus at 18 degrees of Virgo, which smacks of the Hades and Persephone myth, was conjunct his Mercury the night of the full moon, activating the opposition to Neptune, and more widely, Saturn. It also squared Weinstein’s Pluto in Leo, suggesting that these revelations of the hunter (Mars) and hunted (Venus) would deal a direct hit to Weinstein’s seat of power (Pluto) in the film industry (Leo). Transiting Mars conjunct Mercury can also hint at conflict with siblings. Furthermore, the full moon in Aries at 12 degrees exactly opposed his natal Saturn in Libra, while the Sun met it in conjunction, suggesting a revelation that would deal Weinstein some sort of karmic blow.

On top of this fateful lineup of the Full Moon, Mars and Venus, all exerting enormous pressure on critical points in Weinstein’s chart, Lilith had just moved into 26 degrees of Sagittarius, the Sabian degree of the flag-bearer in a battle, symbolizing the necessity to stand up for one’s beliefs, even in the face of extreme adversity. Though The New York Times led the charge, its initial list of a handful of Weinstein’s accusers would grow to a group of 27 women in the industry, (and counting). A second damning expose, written by Ronan Farrow, would be published in The New Yorker just days later, this one detailing the first rape allegations.

Transiting Lilith, at 26 degrees Sagittarius, exactly trined Weinstein’s natal Lilith of 26 degrees Leo at the time of the full moon, ushering an end to decades of silence, pay-outs and cover-ups as a growing army of his victims made their voices heard. Lilith was also supported by the aforementioned trine to Uranus in Aries, echoing the explosive nature of the allegations, as well as the snow-ball effect of victims coming forward. Finally, Transiting Lilith’s square to Chiron in Pisces shows a collective trauma being unleashed, as the victims resurrected memories of their encounters with Weinstein that were likely deeply buried. Interestingly, Chiron rests on the Sabian symbol for “the purging of the priesthood”, echoing Uranus’ men with more many gifts than they can hold.

Both Chiron and Uranus in aspect are now shining a light on the collective wound of being let down, over and over again, by the very institutions that are supposed to uphold moral values. Though our attention is on sex abuse within the temple of Hollyweird, we are reminded of the ongoing shakedown in the Catholic Church. Weinstein’s lavish donations to humanitarian causes, as well as the electoral campaigns of democratic candidates, surely helped to weave the web of complicity that allowed him to prey on his victims for so long. Money and influence are one thing, but I believe it was that sanctimonious veneer of pseudo-liberalism that really cemented his power--a deflection tactic that sociopaths use to disturbing effect.

The Rise of the #Rosearmy

Detail from Liberty Leading the People - Eugene Delacroix

As I began to look at the natal charts of some of Weinstein’s victims—those who have been in the forefront of the news—I found it fascinating to see the prevalence of Lilith in aspect to personal planets in their charts, particularly to the luminaries. The very gift of charisma, emotional vulnerability, and sexual magnetism, which made these women so captivating on screen, seems to have magnetized them, through the Hollywood machine, to a powerful predator and Lilith-catcher.

Actor Ashley Judd, the first of his victims to tell her story to the New York Times, has a tight natal conjunction of Lilith to her Aries Sun. I’ve always admired Judd for the attention she’s brought to mental health issues: she has given candid interviews on her own struggles with bi-polar disorder, helping to destigmatize a heartbreaking disease. The night of the Aries full moon, transiting Lilith trined Judd’s Mercury and her Ascendant, helping to muster up the courage she would need to be the first Hollywood actress to openly name names. Weinstein promptly retaliated by pulled *that* card, alluding to her struggles with bi-polar disorder and questioning her mental stability.

The first woman to come forward with rape allegations, Asia Argento, was born with Lilith tightly conjunct her Sun. She would go onto make a movie called The Scarlet Diva, with a scene that directly depicts her personal experience of sexual predation at the hands of a Weinstein-like Hollywood producer.

Finally, actor Rose McGowan, who for years has been dropping truth bombs about the sexual abuse endemic to Hollywood, also accused Harvey Weinstein of rape, possibly breaching a non-disclosure clause. I was amazed to see that her natal Lilith conjuncts her Moon at none other than 26 degrees Sagittarius. At the time of the full moon, when the New York Times article was published, and Weinstein’s house of cards began tumbling down, transiting Lilith was smouldering right on Rose McGowan’s natal Moon. The expose would have shaken her down to her emotional core. Sure enough, a few days later, with Lilith still on 26 Sagittarius, McGowan made her own rape allegations against Weinstein, and hinted at a much wider boy’s club of sexual abuse in Hollywood.

Twitter later suspended her account, citing a violation of one of their terms of use (McGowan tweeted somebody’s phone number). She would soon become a trending topic herself, as a wave of people came down on Twitter’s decision, pointing out that Donald Trump, aside from coming close to starting nuclear war on the platform, has also tweeted phone numbers without his account being silenced. Nevertheless, McGowan, whose fascinating interviews can be found all over Youtube, is back to fearlessly tweeting about the complicity that allowed Weinstein’s sexual abuse to go on as long as it did. Considering that transiting Lilith has activated her own natal Lilith-Moon on the flag-bearer degree, her hashtag of #rosearmy seems apt indeed.

Twenty seven women in the film industry have now come forward with their individual accounts of traumatic encounters with the disgraced film mogul. Though I have chosen to focus on a core group of women who have put forward allegations of rape, this is not to diminish, or elide, the countless other horrific stories of Weinstein’s sexual harassment that have been shared all over the internet.

Sadly, I expect this list to grow as the shakedown continues, as well as the possibility of fresh rounds of allegations against other big-wigs in Hollywood. Only a few days ago, Jupiter rolled into Scorpio, the sign of sexual power, and I expect that Jupiter’s expansive influence here will see the exposure of similar scandals dominating the news in the months to come. To paraphrase Emma Thompson again, “Weinstein is only the tip of a very gross iceberg”.

In the next few days, Lilith will leave the flag-bearer degree, and enter 27 Sagittarius, an extremely powerful point in the zodiac called the Galactic Centre. The Sun revolves around the galactic centre in a cycle of 240 million years, just as the Earth revolves around the Sun. The black hole at its center suggests both a cosmic womb and the deepest reservoirs of the subconcious mind. As the light of the Moon diminishes, Lilith will be forcing us to confront our shadow, on both secular and societal levels, an uncomfortable though necessary purging that will allow us to lighten our loads and enter into our shortest days fleet of foot, mind and heart.

Lilith in the galactic center is heavy, premenstrual, raging, taboo-breaking and ultimately cathartic. It’s about time we started scaring the shit out of our abusers, and potential abusers. With communicative Mercury about to roll into Scorpio (along with Jupiter), We should lean into the potential extreme awkwardness of calling our misogyny when we see it, even if it’s your best male friend, your boyfriend’s teenage son, your boss, your father. Difficult and deeply-felt conversations will be embraced in the coming weeks.

Here the Sabian symbol shows a sculptor slowly realizing her vision. This first Lilith battle may be over, but the war continues. Events can be manipulated and honed on this degree to have lasting impact and integrity. Your thoughts and intentions at this time may well become your future reality. Now is the perfect time to open the channels of dialogue, to share our experiences of sexual abuse, and to make others aware of the sheer breadth of this problem.

With Lilith occupying this degree for the next week or so, it’s also integral that we take a moment to meditate on the areas in our lives where we we find ourselves locked into patterns of self-sabotage. The energy in the coming days will help to kick the habits, addictions and tangles of negative thinking that have perhaps undermined us. In the dark of the Moon, we may want to write a list of these areas and agents of victimization, and joyfully burn it.

Lilith is also the point in our charts where we hold our deepest reservoirs of regeneration, autonomy and personal integrity. As we enter into the chthonic realms of Jupiter’s transits through Scorpio, we must continue to check in with ourselves, making sure that our words and actions are aligned with our deepest-held personal beliefs. We need to hold ourselves and others accountable. We need to have the courage to call out those instances of everyday casual misogyny, when it’s safe to do so. We need to remind the men in our lives that the line “I do not harass and abuse because I have a mother, daughters”, is a bullshit false-equivalency. Abusers are not always vile people.

As I remember an otherwise charming and kind male acquaintance cupping my ass at a concert the other day, as he walked by (and yes, it was deliberate), and me, nervously laughing it off, for fear of creating a scene--I kindly remind myself to be braver next time. I also hope that this individual, and more like him, will listen to the voices of women that are rising up. Can he imagine what it is like to suddenly be aware of his body-- stripped of its autonomy, a sexual object, a gauche exclamation mark--in a soft moment of blissful, solitary dancing?

I pray that next time I will be granted the courage to assert my boundaries, and to call out this violation for what it is--to hold my abusers accountable. With Jupiter now in Scorpio, minimization, gloss and laughing it off simply will not cut it anymore. Lilith, in the galactic center, has blown the lid off Pandora’s box, and has forced us to look straight into several rings of hell. Though the process will be messy, and triggering, we owe it to ourselves to take a long look at the men who rape, assault, and harass, and the systems who protect them, and show through our actions--difficult conversations, confrontations, boycotts--that this seedy, retrograde 70′s porno shit is just not on anymore.

#lilith jupiterinscorpio harveyweinstein sexualabuse rosemcgowan sabiansymbols astrology scorpio

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wisdomrays · 5 years ago

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THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREADING OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12. He writes:

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance:

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

the lack of formalism and mediation;

the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

the shortcomings of other theological systems.

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