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I've been reading again. This time about arthritis. I used to consider myself somewhat of a bookworm until I went online back in the early nineties. I approach learning differently now. A web search for a topic I'm curious about can be very specific to my subjective inspiration. I don't have to wade through lots of non-related material to get straight to the point. That is, if I know the point.
One of my first reactions to being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and several other bone-related diseases was a clear, distinct image of my mother's sister whose entire life and those of her family was permeated by her "disease", rheumatoid arthritis. The last time I saw her she was over ninety years old, and totally out of it. Her empty eyes neither happy or sad. I didn't think she even knew who we were or cared.
My aunt being that way in her old age probably didn't have that much to do with her arthritis as it did just with getting old. I watched my own mother and father go through the same forgetting, and when I think about it, devaluing what ain't real anymore is just a necessary step along the way. Seeing myself like that from my current perspective is not pleasant.
One of the things I read about arthritis is that about 70% of adults suffer from it to some degree most of their lives. That's what having my condition diagnosed as something recognizable like RA helped me to understand that I've probably had it all my life. It's probably a genetic condition based on inheritance. In a word, it's fairly natural to have arthritic aches and pains when you get old. At 71 years of age, I'm old.
Being seventy-one years old is like not having much to look forward to but more of the same. Astrologically, however, being 71 is one year short of being 72, and that's a big deal spiritually. It's associated with the number twelve, and the initial arrival of puberty that happens around the age of twelve years old.
The ti-me counter here is Saturn, and the fact that it takes Saturn 29 1/2 years to orbit the Sun. When it does that, astrologically, it's called the first Saturn Return, and the end of youth. Saturn immediately begins it's second orbit (based on the native's moment of birth). Twelve years later the native enters a second puberty usually referred to as the mid-life crisis. Men get sports cars and women get plastic surgery.
I endured my second Saturn Return when I was 59 1/2 years old. Sometime between now and the time I'm 72 years old I will enter my third puberty. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's probably not involved with the same features as what happened in my mid-life crisis at 42 years old. I'm not guessing about what happened then. It wasn't pretty.
I've heard it said (or made it up) that reaching that third puberty is a fairly joyous occasion spiritually, but physically it might not be so hot. Like the first puberty has to do with developing the power to make babies, the second puberty has to do with the freedom to walk away from those responsibilities, and the third puberty has to do with attaining spiritual power. Probably at the expense of the body.
Believe it or not I was a shy lad, and I only kissed the Blarney Stone just after my second Saturn Return. It was then that I experienced my remembering vision, and trying to understand in retrospect what happened took up the rest of my life until recently.
I was alone with it after it happened. It was probably the most astounding thing that had ever happened in my life. It put me in the position of believing it happened and trying to figure out what it meant for me, or forgetting it and trying to be the kind of person I was meant to be. A dad, for one thing. I've father three legitimate kids, but I've never been much of a dad. I honestly don't think I was permitted.
One of the reasons I had to figure out what having the remembering vision was all about was that I couldn't let it mean nothing. I just couldn't. I couldn't act like it never happened, because if I did I would have lost my soul. I don't actually know what that means, but I'm convinced it would have happened. I would have forgotten my identity. I would have lost my chance at individuation if I would have shined my vision on.
The fact that my natal chart sets me up with all the tools I need to figure it out makes me even more damned if I let it go. I didn't let it go. I let a lotta other stuff go that damaged all concerned. I can't afford to care. Besides, they're of the blood. They'll make do. Just like me. Either that or they won't. At least two of them have their own babies now.
Setting up my DSL connection to wireless allowed me to move my iMac to any room in the house. Today I moved it downstairs. It's cooler down here and there's a big overhead fan that has kept me fairly cool although the outside ambient temperature is in the mid-nineties with humidity in the eighties.
Not that I get company much anymore, but when I do it seems like they like to visit me mo' bettah if I'm downstairs instead of upstairs. Upstairs I receive visitors in my bedroom, and that appears to make them more uncomfortable than need be. The overhead fan does a good job. I haven't turned the A/C on all day.
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
