Waves

The para­dox in ques­tion cov­ers 1892Neptune-Pluto2384. Every Neptune-Pluto wave con­tains a para­dox, an over­whelm­ing rid­dle a col­lec­tive or col­lec­tive must address. Because it’s a rid­dle, a para­dox, there is no right answer. The really cool part about see­ing the para­dox through the prism of Mea­sur­ing His­tory is that the meth­ods pro­vide a plethora of mea­sur­ing points to scale against. I plan to, at first, com­pare all main top­ics in this mind map to the quad­ra­ture  align­ments of 1893Neptune-Pluto2384. All that comes later. The ini­tial task defines the paradox.

Like any class­sic rid­dle, the ques­tion proves more impor­tant than the answer. Progress is our para­dox, but progress is the ques­tion and not the answer. How this is so is the sub­ject of many posts. For now the Para­dox MindMap shows the direc­tion I’m headed with this.

On My Shelf: What I Read and Why

Holy Mad­ness: cov­ers the French Rev­o­lu­tion from ~1770s through ~1870. Adam Zamoyski pulls no punches and not only details fresh ground about the con­fla­gra­tion, but also brings in adven­tur­ers inspired by the French and Amer­i­can affairs. He dis­plays many char­ac­ters, most of them flawed in the nor­mal ways, who fought for inde­pen­dence in var­i­ous places around the globe. You will find few heroes in this work, but a more com­plete view of recent history.

Guns, Germs and Steel: I rec­om­mend this work to any­one, inter­ested in his­tory or not. Why do we eat what we eat? Why do some cul­tures have an advan­tage over oth­ers? Sim­ply stated, Jared Dia­mond writes an over­all his­tory using his anthro­pol­o­gist, anthro­b­ot­anist back­ground. He explains that veg­e­ta­tion spreads best east to west, ver­sus south to north, affect­ing where peo­ple sim­ply sus­tain life or thrive. He also shows how large domes­ti­cated ani­mals gave Euro­peans and the Chi­nese great advan­tage over oth­ers. Over­all, he puts much of his­tory in more clear per­spec­tive and gives us ways to help us bet­ter assist var­i­ous cul­tures. Put this on the top of your list.

Eco­log­i­cal Impe­ri­al­ism: this work cov­ers some of the same ground as Guns, Germs & Steel, but in more detail. Mr. Crosby details the eco­log­i­cal inva­sion that accom­pa­nied the Euro­pean inva­sion of var­i­ous regions. Pigs, omniv­o­rous sur­vival spe­cial­ists, not only spread their own kind, but also brought Euro­pean seeds of all types to an ecosys­tem with no defense against them. Not only did Native Amer­i­cans have to fight off dis­ease brought by the invaders, but they sud­denly lived in land infil­trated by plants and ani­mals not nat­ural to them.

Cos­mos & Psy­che: I con­sider this a com­pan­ion to the Mea­sur­ing His­tory: The Series. Mr. Tar­nas, who also wrote Beauty of the West­ern Mind, cov­ers the same topic as Mea­sur­ing His­tory, but from a more gen­er­al­ist view­point. Cos­mos & Psy­che explains how Mea­sur­ing His­tory, but is not a work of his­tory. Nonethe­less, we both reach the same con­clu­sions. Neptune-Pluto, Uranus-Pluto, Uranus-Neptune pair­ings help define his­tor­i­cal turn­ing points. The method works because peo­ple born under planet com­bi­na­tions of these and the other outer plan­ets carry their sig­na­ture through­out their life­time. To my joy he includes a trea­sure trove of exam­ples. Highly rec­om­mended, but with the warn­ing that it’s a dif­fi­cult read.

Mun­dane Astrol­ogy: this out of print title needs a replace­ment. Mea­sur­ing His­tory applies only one the many tech­niques laid out in the work. Mun­dane Astrol­ogy is gen­eral work that sur­veys var­i­ous tech­niques used to inter­pret charts of nations, worldly events and other top­ics cov­ered under the astrol­ogy of his­tory and pol­i­tics. If you find this book, buy it; If you have it, keep it! It needs some updat­ing but serves as a good base to stir imagination.

Waves accom­pa­nies the Mea­sur­ing His­tory and is part of the Used­Karma fam­ily of pub­li­ca­tions. These include Used­Karma and mundaneastrology.net. This Word­press pow­ered blog intends to com­ple­ment these other web pub­li­ca­tions and expand on the pos­si­bil­i­ties Mea­sur­ing His­tory presents. Since begin­ning in earnest to dis­cover how to best apply Mun­dane Astrol­ogy to his­tory and social com­men­tary, I con­tin­u­ally amaze at the pos­si­bilites avail­able in this under used field. I under­stand that few yet see the value of tying astrol­ogy to his­tory, but worry not. Used­Karma, Mea­sur­ing His­tory and mundaneastrology.net takes a middle-of-the-road, will not com­ment until researched approach to both his­tory and astrology.

One of the prob­lems of his­tory comes from its wordi­ness. A few thin vol­umes cover a spe­cific short-period or local con­cern, but most tomes on the topic begin at 200 pages and grow from there. Few alter­na­tives than telling the com­plete story arise. Mea­sur­ing His­tory does not dif­fer. At the same time, blogs and the Inter­net present the oppor­tu­nity both to cull and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion more widely and effi­ciently than any pre­vi­ous time. Much of the research the reader will find here was eas­ily found and is ref­er­enced through search engines. In this light, view Waves as a con­duit between more exten­sive work and easy-to-follow lesson

Since this is until now a solo effort with lit­tle back­ing, my time is lim­ited but over time that cir­cum­stance will change. Please know that Waves, Mea­sur­ing His­tory and her sis­ter pub­li­ca­tions will grow from a rich soil of knowl­edge I have only begun to cultivate.

One aspect Mea­sur­ing His­tory is an abil­ity to extrap­o­late future expec­ta­tions based on mea­sure­ments of the past. Expect to see much work in this vein.

Mea­sur­ing His­tory is in con­stant research mode. Often my idea of slack­ing is catch­ing up my  back­log of books that rest around my bed. Read­ers will know what I have read, what I am read­ing and their rel­e­vance both to Mea­sur­ing His­tory and our time. Of course, we live in a mul­ti­me­dia world, so reviews will reflect this reality.

Lastly, the chal­lenge of pen­ning Mea­sur­ing His­tory, the Series, is a unique under­tak­ing of which  I know no par­al­lel. Expect to learn of the chal­lenges and joys of cre­at­ing a project few if any have ever undertaken.