The dreaded shadow side of synchronicity…I reluctantly fished for the Sabian Symbol associated with Scorpio 22° after the tragedy of last night: Hunters Shooting Wild Ducks, the keynote of which is the socially accepted release of an individual’s or a group’s aggressive instincts. I am treading lightly: Like it or not, for a large part of society, made up of groups and individuals, last night’s bloodbath was not only acceptable it was favorable. For those on our societal side of the fence, innocent victims were indeed sitting ducks. We say with bravado that we won’t be affected by terrorism, but we are. Who in Paris today is sitting outside in a café without some kind of pit in their stomach. I’m sure people in Rome and Barcelona and Munich and Prague and London and New York and just about anywhere are feeling similarly.

The symbol today is meant to be about the socialization of primitive instincts into an acceptable ritual. Again, what happened in France yesterday, or in Beirut this past week, or (fill in terrorist target site here) is condoned and celebrated by a great many people; we cannot avoid that fact. It is seen by some as retaliation for attrocities that are much worse. We don’t see it that way. But to some people, Friday night revellers at a restaurant or sports match or music concert are the enemy because they are enjoying themselves, seemingly unawares or uncaring toward the plight of a long put-upon slide of the human population. That’s not how I see it; but I can’t deny that’s how some people, and surely those who perpetrated this massacre, do. I’m loath to say that just as seasonal animal hunting is an accepted and approved channel for masculine aggression (because really they are not hunting wild ducks for survivial) killing westerners is likewise a socially smiled upon, increasingly ritualized endeavor for the suicide-bombing would-be-martyr sector of society. That slice of society may be small; but it’s big enough to do the kind of damage we saw yesterday or on 911 or in Madrid in 2004 or just about anywhere and worse. I’m so angry not just at the terrorists or at the chain of western and middle-eastern countries and leaders who suppressed a people to the point of this sort of sick, violent militarism; I’m also angry at the finger pointers who jump on social media to condemn the west, from their cozy apartments in New York and London, as the leading culprits. This is not your opportunity to grandstand how fucking liberal you are. It makes me nuts.

There is no answer. There are only questions. But I do think it would be helpful to follow the money. Greed is always at the root of all evil. I think, if we able to follow the money, that which has armed ISIS and other militant groups, we might be very surprised where that trail leads. Paris will never be the same. New York has never been the same. The world is not the same. And it doesn’t help to lament it. Real change is needed, not sentimental remember-when journeys down East 10th Street in the late 1970s. I have nothing to add to the conversation, but there is much to take away.

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