The Wesak/Taurus Festival 2024

Topics (linked to paragraphs): Taurus Buddhism Elephants and will Wesak The full moon Current events Corruption… Ukraine update The spending bill “Operation True Promise” Avoidance of the wider war The new formula Israel has lost What needs to happen War with Iran? Where are the anti-war movements? The current state of NATO forces Social media The outlook from now In conclusion

Greetings Everyone!

The first Saturday of every month here in Rovereto our city is invaded by the monthly flea markets. This month we had a bumper crop – of markets, not fleas. The weather was beautiful and the streets were full of vendors and potential buyers. One could find just about anything at the various tables that were set up, so long as the items were old, vintage or used. I have had my eyes set on a mandolin for some months now and it beckons me every month. I have yet to bite. Someday…The flea markets take one back to an older time, when there actually were fleas in the clothes items that were sold that such markets. Hygiene was not high on the agenda those days. Thankfully society has evolved. But my wife and I stroll through the markets every month. She has her favorite tables, and we recently scored a very nice painting to put on the wall to replace one that she didn’t like too much. The markets start promptly at 7 o’clock and go on into the evening. The vendors come from all over the region.

Speaking of markets, to hear the reporting in the mainstream media, the markets, meaning the stock markets are all doing very well – so they say. We are told that is supposed to be a measure of how the real economy actually works. Instead, the stock markets are the playground of the wealthy and corporations. Meanwhile, here at our little flea markets, we see in many cases people seeking to make a buck (or euro) as they seek to get shed of the past, or the pasts of other people. Some people love the old vintage items. For me, it is just interesting to look back over the bygone days, represented among the various sundry items there and remember the times of my youth. Even here in Italy, I can see the American influence, with the old vinyl records, signs advertising anything from Coca-Cola to motor oil – if you frequent flea markets, you know the score. There was even a telescope on offer one day for a hundred euros. Once again, I didn’t bite. But I do remember my first experience with a telescope at seven years of age and being introduced to the planet Saturn at the time. From then on I was hooked on astronomy, science fiction, space flight and fancy, science fact and eventually astrology. But I digress.

As Uranus transits through the sign of Taurus every 84 years, the reshuffling of markets and economies is always on the table, as well as the wars that have eventuated from them. Since its discovery in 1781, meaning when collective humanity began to respond to its presence in the outer reaches of the solar system, it’s transits through Taurus have brought about fundamental changes in the way we see and deal with matter, resulting in discoveries that have completely altered our way of life and our worldview, our economies as a result, and revolutions in politics, the latter largely as a result of economic realities and the new availability and use of resources. We cannot go into all that here, but it is something to keep in mind as we go along. The one thing we will add here is that the current transit of Uranus through Taurus has seen the explosion of the AI phenomenon, privatization of spaceflight, the disruption of economies due to the COVID pandemic (which in reality was a political manipulation across the West), and the rise of the multipolar world, which is changing the world economy as a result. There is much more we could say about all that, but will leave it for now. We finish the transit of Uranus through Taurus this year and a little bit into next year. We hope this time to see the end of major conflicts over property and resources as Uranus finishes its transit through Taurus this time around.

Taurus: From here we move on to our consideration of the sign Taurus, with a special focus this letter on the Wesak moon and Buddhism, including some interesting information that has come to light. The reasons for the focus of the Wesak this year is because of the profound political changes that are taking place. Politics is associated with the first ray.^[1] Taurus^[2] as well as Buddhism^[3] are also both associated with the first ray. The earlier forms of Buddhism emerged toward the end of the age of Aries, with that sign’s emphasis on pioneering spirit and new ideas. The so-called ‘turnings of the wheel of the Dharma’ by Gautama, the Buddha then gave us the rapid method of mind training that gave closer interaction between a person’s soul and personality. Gautama was said to have been born with the Sun in Taurus. He gave us the graded steps to the realization of the clear light in meditative practice, all the way to buddhahood.

Buddhism has been called one of the world’s great religions. But the practice of Buddhism is not in itself a religion. There is no creator God in Buddhism and there is no object of worship. In mundane Buddhism, the Buddha himself is worshiped as a deity. In Vajrayana Buddhism one encounters all the deities associated with the long Buddhist sadhanas. But none of that is the essence of Buddhism. In its purest essence, Buddhism is mind training, nothing more. But it is mind training with an end goal in mind – full enlightenment and liberation from samsara, the wheel of birth and death. Mind training implies a disciplined approach, with regular practice, that practice being meditation. But training also implies something else – willpower. It takes willpower to train in anything and to stick to it in the process. All of the worldly desires and distractions of everyday life descend on a person who earnestly undertakes Buddhist mind training, with a vengeance, or so it would seem. What it means in reality is that one becomes aware of the machinations of the mind. We know what it means to train athletically, with regular training sessions being essential to success. It is no different with meditative practice, except that mind training is more difficult than physical training, because it addresses the very seat of the personality – the mind itself. As we have examined before, this mind training is shown in toto in the shamatha diagram.

Elephants and will: Elephants are a first ray expression^[4] in the animal kingdom. In the shamatha diagram, which is a pictorial synthesis of Buddhist practice, the elephant represents the development of the will, as well as the taming of the mind. In the early stages on the winding path of that diagram, there is a monkey, representing the totally untamed ‘monkey-mind’, which keeps one’s will at bay and distracted. It is not until the seventh stage in that diagram when the monkey finally disappears, which we examined in Libra. It is not until this point when the deeper stages of meditation are attained and real willpower takes over. What we have represented in the shamatha diagram is the development of the will-to-liberation. It represents the gradual and step-by-step forging of that instrument that enables self-liberation. From the seventh stage onward progress along the path becomes rapid, because the will is by then fully enough developed to keep the mind steady and focused upon objectives. The ‘forging of an instrument’ also speaks to Taurus, with Vulcan as the esoteric ruler of the sign.^[5] Vulcan was the Roman name for the Greek Hephaistos, god of smiths, fire and the forge (metalworking) in Greek mythology, who fashioned the armor and instruments of the gods. The mental plane is associated with fire,^[6] hence we have Vulcan’s association with the forging of a fit mental instrument for the herculean task of taming the mind and developing willpower. This is where some additional information has come to light.

Wesak: The full moon when the Sun is in Taurus marks the Wesak festival every year, normally in May.^[7] This is the festival of the Buddha, where he reappears subjectively to our planet at the time of that full moon to give his blessing and impulse for the year ahead. It is little known, but there was a Greek Buddhist community that formed in Greece during the early days of Buddhism, a group of which eventually settled in the region of what is now Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were about 30,000 members of that community. But the really interesting part is that they conflated Hercules (Herakles to them) with the Buddhist protector deity known as Vajrapani. There are stone carvings depicting Hercules hovering over the Buddha as a protector. Now, Vajrapani means ‘vajra in hand’. He is the 1^st ray expression of the Buddha, the protector of the dharma. We will come back to him in a moment. Hercules was said to have a 1^st ray soul, the Buddha a 1^st ray personality (2^nd ray soul) and the Christ a 1^st ray mind and 2^nd ray soul. Of them the following was stated:

“…All of Them were part of the directing group of Lives Who are working out the plans of God, founded upon the love of God. The Buddha and the Christ are still closely connected with, and working in cooperation with, the Hierarchy. Hercules has gone over into the Shamballa centre, but still works in a basic association with the Buddha Who is one of the Forces linking Shamballa and the Hierarchy.”^[8]

What is the point here? Each of these beings had the 1^st ray prominent in part of their nature, the part that enabled them to sense the will of God and put it into action on the physical plane. The 1^st ray enabled them to pierce through the veils of the mind and thereby reveal the truth of our existence to those who followed their teaching and/or method. Vajrapani, known as a dharmapala, was known as the ‘power of the Buddha’. The vajra is synonymous with the lightning bolt – instantaneous enlightenment. He was said to have accompanied Gautama throughout his life. I will write more about this at some point, but it is worth mentioning here to show there was a connection between the Greeks and Buddhism before the birth of Jesus, that teachings are more or less universal and that religions and practices borrow from each other all the time. What does this have to do with Wesak, though? Simply this: With the Wesak moon and festival each year we get the ‘lightning bolt’, the will of God meant for implementation for the 12 months of the year. The other 11 full moons (there are sometimes 13 in a solar year) distribute and add their coloring to the impulse of will sent forth at Wesak. This has meaning for all 1^st ray expressions of human life, particularly in the field of politics. And this year is of particular importance in that regard, because we are about to see some very great changes in politics over the next twelve months. With all this in mind we move on to consider the full moon and topical events.

The full moon takes place on 23 April 2024 at 23:49 UTC. So for Europe, the full moon is on the 24^th early in the morning, whereas in the Americas the full moon is on the 23^rd. The full moon of Wesak forms a t-square with Pluto as the apex planet, accentuating the first ray emphasis of Wesak, and suggesting a very strong transformative dynamic to develop over the following 12 months. Add to this the eclipses that we just had, and we are about to witness some very rapid and life-changing events. Nowhere will this be more evident than in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East/West Asia. Events in those places will in turn invoke or provoke actions to be taken in three key Western powers – United States the UK and France. In fact the whole of Europe will be affected over the intervening months. For the West, the Sabian symbol for the Sun is quite revealing and reads as follows:

• A widow at an open grave. (5^th degree of Taurus)

The Sabian symbol for the lunar degree complements that of the solar degree and reads as follows:

• A massive rocky shore resists the pounding of the sea (5^th degree of Scorpio)

We can add to these two symbols the symbol for the degree of Pluto as well which reads as follows:

• A deserter from the Navy (3^rd degree of Aquarius)

We say these Sabian symbols are important for the West because they are distinctly American symbols, and America is driving and funding much of the conflict we see in the two aforementioned regions. In the analysis for 8 April 2024 eclipse, it was noted the eclipse will have very strong repercussions throughout the American body politic. Those will follow quickly upon the first Mars activation, catalyzed subjectively with the energies of this full moon, the Mars activation coming at the end of May and with events starting now.

The symbols are quite evocative.^[9] The solar degree has implications for the American elites and oligarchs, who see their plans in Ukraine and Israel coming undone. They stare at the open grave of Western hegemony on its way to be buried, all while they face increasing isolation from the wider world, i.e. outside the G7. This symbol is a call to discard the past, to look forward and toward self-renewal once the past is buried. On a larger theme, it is a symbol that points to the abandonment of attachments – a very Buddhist theme, indeed. The forces that resist that change and renewal are indicated in the lunar symbol, in this case representing the institutions that have been developed over many decades that have dictated the course of American and Western policy since the end of World War II. In America we call this the Deep State, comprised of the so-called ‘Beltway Bubble’, the denizens thereof resistant to any suggestion that there are alternatives to the American Way of doing things, at the same time while the waves of change pound on the doors of their erstwhile bastions of ‘freedom and democracy’. The Western elites are stuck with doctrines and dogmas to which they have held since WWII. Yet, change is happening before our eyes, with the catalyst for change, represented by Pluto, showing the nations that are one-by-one abandoning – deserting – the American rules-based order and the land-based aircraft carrier which is Israel. Since these letters are primarily directed to a Western readership, with the United States leading the pack, as it were, the symbols are quite indicative. The rest of the world has their own symbols and cultures.

With these points in mind we may as well begin our investigation of current events and what they might mean for the immediate future. What follows will not be easy reading. Yet, at the same time the events in development now will contribute much to the end of the two ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, at which point healing can come along with the new security infrastructure for those regions. The Western powers just mentioned will thereafter go through a period of subsequent re-evaluation of their policies and directions.

Current events: The following major events since the last full moon bear our attention here:

• Veteran Intelligence professionals sent an urgent memo to Biden about French intentions in sending 2,000 French troops to Ukraine, warning against French provocations that might spark a sharp escalation in the conflict. There were worries about Art. 5 of NATO and possible nuclear exchanges. The latter is highly unlikely. WWIII is even more unlikely, which will be partly explained in what follows.
• A major conference on Palestine was held in Sana’a, Yemen: “The second scientific conference entitled “Palestine: The Central Cause of the Nation” commenced in Sana’a under the slogan “You Are Not Alone,” featuring extensive local, Arab, Islamic, and international participation. The Mufti of Yemen urged scholars of the nation to fulfill their duty in elucidating the injustice against Palestinians, emphasizing scholars’ responsibility to raise awareness and galvanize support for Palestine. He underscored any negligence or silence on this matter as a betrayal.” The Houthis, we recall, are targeting shipping to and from Israel in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean until Israel stops the genocide against Palestine.
• Pakistan began building a gas pipeline with Iran. Washington is unhappy.
• On April Fools’ Day the Israelis launched an attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, killing two Iranian generals and five other Iranian military personnel, along with six civilians. It was a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and thereby a direct attack on Iranian sovereign territory. The Iranians responded on the 14^th, which we will cover in a bit. The Israeli action was no April Fools’ joke. Its clear intention was to escalate the conflict in an effort to draw in the United States.
• Janet Yellen was dispatched to Beijing to beg China for a face-saving slow-down in its economy, citing Chinese ‘overcapacity’. It didn’t go well for her or for the US. Her trip appears to be all about American jobs in an election year. Just so you know, this is an election year in the US. As quoted from an obscure dictionary:

Overcapacity: noun – o·​ver·​ca·​pac·​i·​ty: ō′vər-kə-ˈpa-sə-tē

• 1: When an insolent upstart nation’s surging economic activity totally humiliates the reigning hegemon’s own faltering economy, causing the many expensive dentures and porcelain veneers of the ruling class gerontocracy to rattle and grate with moral outrage and jealousy.
• 1b: An undesirable situation causing Janet Yellen and Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio to droop like a pair of botox-sapped jowls. (yes, this ‘dictionary’ entry is satire)

Not satire is this quote from her press statement: “When the global market is flooded with cheap Chinese goods, the viability of American firms is put into question.” ‘Nuff said.

• The IOF’s killing machine (literally) was outed. AI has been used to target tens-of-thousands of Gazans, with little human oversight, resulting in over 70% of Gazans killed being women and children. The ‘machine’ is called ‘Lavender’. It was used to target alleged junior Hamas operatives, but in so doing it targeted those alleged operatives when they were at home with their families. It puts one in mind of the film, Minority Report. As Elon Musk once quipped, ‘With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.’
• The US vetoed a motion at the UNSC for full recognition of the State of Palestine in the UN. There were two abstentions – Switzerland and the UK, the latter wholly unsurprising. The UK is bit-by-bit seeking to wash its hands of the mess it created in West Asia after WWI. The US and the UK are the two nations who have done the most to wreck the Middle East/West Asia. If there was ever any doubt, Washington has made it very clear with this veto that that two-state solution in old Palestine was only lip service and a ruse to allow the Israelis to eventually clear the Mandatory Palestine (at least) from the Palestinians, ‘from the river to the sea’.
• The Israelis launched their counterstrike against the Iranian counterstrike against Israel’s provocation in Damascus. It was a face-saving measure and overall a damp squib – several small children’s drones, according to the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Then there was another far more fantastic version that lit up social media from Pepe Escobar, about which there are many questions. We will have a bit of a look at all this also later here.
• The funding bill for Ukraine was passed after Speaker the House Mike Johnson did a U-turn on his previous stance. He was obviously under considerable pressure from the vested interests in the defense industry. Trump also championed the passage of this bill much to his discredit to his supporters (he has always claimed to be anti-war), but also unsurprisingly. We will have more on this topic as well. But just so you know, the total bill was $95 billion – 61 billion to Ukraine, 26 billion so Israel could continue its genocide, and 8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region (‘containing’ China, in other words). That wasn’t all. They also passed a bill potentially banning a social media platform (Tik Tok) that they believe is making young Americans question the wisdom of their country’s warlike nature. The bills represent war, war, war and more pro-war censorship. There should be no further questions about the intentions of the American establishment. Oh, and the FISA law that enables the government to spy on Americans without a warrant was extended. Trump championed that one, too. Apparently Mar-a-Lago is a new American ‘Mecca’, with politicians making pilgrimages there. David Cameron also went there to secure funding for Ukraine.
• There are reports of another Freedom Flotilla set to sail from Turkey in an effort to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. We’ll see…Now we move on to deeper look at these events.

Corruption…: My father had a little phrase he would quip whenever he got too frustrated with a situation: “Damnation! Cor-ruption!”, with the emphasis on the first syllable of ‘corruption’. We heard the phrase often, especially when it came to politics and institutions. Before we even start with our wider considerations, there is one point that should be clearly evident as we go along – it is corruption that is behind the ongoing conflicts we are looking at here. And in the two main nations who are pushing these wars – the US and the UK – the political systems there have become so corrupted that the political class and the media trumpet the ‘need’ to continue funding these wars, saying ‘it’s the right thing to do’. And if those are not enough, there is an ample supply of ‘enemies’ to go around, so we are told. Orwell’s 1984 was a prophetic work, now a feature among the power elites in the Anglo-American political arena. It should also be clear by now that we are not in an ideological struggle between ‘democracies and autocracies’, but instead in a battle to oust the materialistic elements that have kept our nations in thrall for many decades now:

“…we’re not in an ideological struggle at all, even though the US sometimes wants to make it into one with its “democracy vs autocracy” rhetoric. Which is ridiculous: no-one out there believes in “autocracy” as a system of government and the systems between countries the US classifies as its adversaries (China, Russia, Iran, etc.) are extremely different from each others. For one thing Iran is an Islamic republic and China is passionately secular.

We are however clearly in a transition period where, in the famous words of Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” And the US is of course desperate to keep the old world alive because its death means the death of its hegemony and the exorbitant privileges that come with it.”

It is in its transition to death now. American politicians and for the most part British politicians as well – Galloway being an exception in the UK, for an example – depend upon campaign funding for their re-election from the vested interests, like the defense industry and the Zionist lobby in the US. Thus, they are beholden to their donors instead of the will of their constituents. Members of Congress are also terrified of the intel agencies like the CIA. Figures differ, but the majority of Americans opposed further funding for Ukraine, while an increasing number of Americans oppose funding for Israel as well. Europeans and the EU in general are not immune from American politics, either. EU foreign policy is largely dictated by the United States, along with its British proxy. American money and influence has also corrupted the leadership within the EU over the years. With this in mind, we turn to Ukraine.

Ukraine update: The end of the war in Ukraine is coming increasingly into view, with a Ukrainian loss. The Western elites are beside themselves with worries. Boris Johnson – the man who sent the message to scuttle the peace agreement of April 2022 – was recently heard to state “…the fall of Ukraine would be “the end of Western hegemony.” He just said the obvious part out loud, as to what that war was really all about. He also stated there that the Western powers would only have themselves to blame for such a ‘catastrophe’. His statement was a big reason why the House passed the spending bill for Ukraine, cited above. It will make no difference to the outcome of the war. This was one of the primary reasons for Mike Johnson to push the passing of the Ukraine funding bill. There is also the added factor of the American jobs that will be secured into the immediate future, jobs in the defense industry. The war lobby in Congress is quite powerful. Tied to the Ukraine bill is also a bill for Israel. Anyone who thinks Trump will end the war in Israel should take another look at what he’s pushing here. Well, a loss in Ukraine will be a catastrophe for the Western elites, but the World Majority (85% of the world’s populace) will cheer the day. Jeffrey Sachs recently had some very pointed remarks about British audacity, hubris and hypocrisy, which is worth a listen (finishing at 16:46 in the video). But we come back to Ukraine.

If you want to know how the war in Ukraine is to end, the words of the Russian ambassador to the UN Security Council, Nebenzia, have spelled it out, addressing the other attendees at that UNSC meeting:

“Very soon, the only topic for any international meetings on Ukraine will be the unconditional surrender of the Kiev regime, I advise all of you to prepare for this.”

The reason why was prefaced by these words, speaking of the regime in Kiev:

“This is how it will go down in history – as an inhuman and hateful regime of terrorists and Nazis who betrayed the interest of their people and sacrificed it for Western money and for Zelenski and his closest circle. In these conditions, attempts by the head of the Kiev regime to promote his formula and convene summits in support of the Kiev regime cause only confusion.”

We note particularly the words ‘very soon’ and ‘unconditional surrender’ in the first part of the quote. Thus it is, given recent developments, that the war in Ukraine will come to such an end, probably this year – the surrender of the nationalist regime and the expulsion of NATO (not stated) at the end of the conflict. This bears a closer look, because it will have carry-on effects for Europe for years to come. For the US and its non-European ‘allies’, they will just walk away from Ukraine when the war is over and Ukraine will fade from our newsfeeds. Europe, on the other hand, will be left holding the bag.

The spending bill: The passage of the spending bill in Congress will do nothing but perhaps prolong war in Ukraine just a little bit. Scott Ritter gives it until July before the Western elites start barracking for even more money and weapons, because what will be sent now will be gone by then. Most of the present funding will go to American defense industries. Then we have the passage of the conscription bill in the Ukrainian Rada which has lowered than the conscription age to 25 from 27 after months of heated debate in the Rada and over 4,000 amendments to get it passed. Apparently there are long queues of Ukrainians in Warsaw and Prague seeking foreign passports in avoidance if the new law. Those poor souls who are conscripted will be forced to the front lines. All the spending bill from Congress will do will be to prolong the suffering of Ukraine and its people, while further enriching the utterly corrupt leadership there and the oligarchs and defence corporations in the US. You can watch in the US now that the bill finally passed how the stock prices – the market – rises on the news that more billions will be forwarded to weapons manufacturing. In the Ukrainian military, with the passage of the conscription bill we will probably begin to see insurrections within the ranks. The Ukrainian people see what is happening and they’re not happy about it, which is an understatement.

Meanwhile, the Russians keep hitting the essential infrastructure for the major cities and towns in eastern Ukraine, which is designed to provoke an exodus of the civilians from the area. What that exodus will do, in fact, is to overcrowd western Ukrainian cities like Lvov with refugees, provoking unrest there as well. The additional funding plus the conscription in Ukraine will give a brief gust of wind to the sails in the conflict, but the ultimate end will remain, as described by Nebenzia, above – the unconditional surrender of the nationalist regime in Kiev. One added note here is that the NATO forces in Europe are increasingly in panic because they have effectively been demilitarized from a lack of ammunition. And having given all their old Soviet and European military gear to Ukraine, they no longer have the wherewithal either to confront Russia or to defend themselves should anything untoward happened.

To rearm themselves the Europeans would have to endure a long process of reconstituting their native defence industries, which the US would oppose, or they would have to pay exorbitant prices for US armaments. The United States over the decades has seen to it that European security depends upon the United States, and they have been quite happy to see the Europeans divest themselves of their defense industries, even though American politicians complain about the Europeans not spending enough on defense. We say here once again, war is a racket. So, a defeat for NATO in Ukraine means the defeat of Western hegemony. But that is only part of the story. There is another facet to that hegemony, which was the creation of Israel and the ongoing conflict in West Asia. There are a few things that are essential to understand regarding that war, because Israel’s defeat is also another defeat of Western hegemony.

Speaking of Iran: On 14 April Iran launched its retaliatory strike on Israel (see previous bullet point, above). In the Western press and among the Western politicians the strike was branded as an ‘unprovoked’ and ‘unjustified’ attack on Israel. That response may ring a few bells now. It was deemed to be a failure by the Western pundits and the Biden administration, but such is the case when one has to avoid panicking the public. It is a lie of course, which will be explained in the following. In fact, the strike was a major success for the Iranians (video, watch the whole thing, really) and it has changed the equation of escalation in the region:

“…the fact is the underlying policy objective of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of the past 30-plus years, namely to drag the US into a war with Iran, has been put into checkmate by Iran. Moreover, Iran has been able to accomplish this without either disrupting its strategic pivot to the east or undermining the cause of Palestinian statehood. “Operation True Promise,” as Iran named its retaliatory attack on Israel, will go down in history as one of the most important military victories in the history of modern Iran, keeping in mind that war is but an extension of politics by other means. The fact that Iran has established a credible deterrence posture without disrupting major policy goals and objectives is the very definition of victory.”

“Operation True Promise” was in retaliation for the bombing by Israel of the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, which killed 13 people including seven officers of the IRGC. But that is not the only time the Israelis have struck at Iran. Israel’s pinprick strikes against Iran have been ongoing for years. For their part, Iran has exercised strategic patience and not responded to those pinprick strikes, all the while they have built up their considerable defense capability. After the strike on the 14^th, American politicians were running around shrieking their full-throated support for Israel, and seeking support for an Israeli attack on Iranian soil. Support for an Israeli strike on Iranian soil was quickly quashed by the Biden administration, who wished to avoid a regional war. Statements like that of striking Iran are unrealistic, not to mention ignorant, because military analysis has shown a direct attack on Iran would be a disaster and a fool’s errand for the United States and any other nation who sought to join in.

In Iran’s retaliatory strike they launched hundreds of decoy missiles and drones along with seven missiles that hit their mark, which were to Israeli airbases in the Negev desert and the command centers in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights that organized the Israeli attack on the embassy in Damascus. Just as we saw with the retaliatory strike on the al-Assad air base in Iraq after the assassination of Soleimani, the Western powers including Israel were warned beforehand and there were minimal casualties. The spin out of Washington is that the Iranians were aiming for the Israeli nuclear facility, but that is fog of war. The point of the strike was not to be devastating to Israel, but instead to restore deterrence and to send a strong message, the message being, “We can hit you regardless of your air defences, regardless of your allied nations.” And they warned Israel and the United States after the fact that if Iran was attacked again the next response would in fact be devastating to Israel, and whatever other nations were involved would be struck as well.

The Iranians gathered very valuable intelligence from their strike, as well as from the combined response by the Western powers. The Jordanians aided in shooting down the drones and missiles fired from Iran, while the French and the Americans shot down most of them. Jordan has finally shown itself to be the Western vassal that it has been. The claim of the 99% shoot-down of those missiles and drones is also fog of war and spin to the Israeli public. It was also as if to say to the Israelis they had a win and to let it go and not escalate. For to claim the truth about the number shot down, it would panic the Israeli public as well as show the Western public the ineffectiveness of the Israeli air defences. The fact that the French and American forces had to intervene in the Iranian counterstrike is quite telling, because it shows that Israeli air defences against the strike themselves are wholly ineffective in countering a major Iranian strike. But the Iranian strike did even more: it signaled the end of the Western hegemony in the region, as outlined by veteran US ambassador Charles Freeman in a recent video.

Avoidance of the wider war: Biden has declined to aid Israel in any of what the Israelis are calling a ‘retaliatory strike’ against Iran. As far as Iran is concerned with the conclusion of this strike, the matter is closed. And as far as Washington and all the neighboring Arab states are concerned, that is just fine by them. The reason the Israelis struck at Iran in Damascus was an attempt to draw the US into the conflict, knowing the Iranians would retaliate. It was a bad bet. It is an election year in the US and at the present moment if the wider war were to take place it would ruin the US economy and much of the West, by virtue of the fact that the first thing the Iranians would do would be to close the Strait of Hormuz, immediately stopping the flow of oil from the Gulf States. We will not go into the details of the Iranian strike on Israel, which has been covered very well elsewhere, because it does not serve our purposes here. But this strike has been one of the most important events in a conflict that has already gone on far too long.

What the Iranian actions have done is to put to rest once and for all the idea that Israel can restore its security, that Israelis will feel safe because of the dominance of the IOF in the region, that the United States will not be running to the rescue – this last point being the primary reason why Israel has been able to act with impunity for many decades now. The United States may say that they stand by Israel all the way, no matter what, but we keep in mind, too, that they said the same thing to the Ukrainians. And now Washington is looking at walking away from Ukraine. Another dynamic that has occurred in recent years is that Iran now has a comprehensive security agreement with Russia and China, and when it comes to military matters – that is if one of the three are threatened – their response will be all for one and one for all. The Iranians have been staying in close dialogue with their Russian counterparts since this conflict started, and the aim all along with The Resistance, with Russia and with China has been to maintain escalation dominance, meaning keeping the conflict at manageable levels so as to avoid a wider regional conflict. That was the aim of the strike by the Iranians.

The new formula: So the formula now is that every time Israel hits any of Iran’s military or diplomatic stations or envoys, the Iranians will respond in kind – this time within Israeli territory. It doesn’t matter if the Iranian military or diplomatic people are in another country. From what we have seen, the Iranians are good to their word and they say now that every Israeli strike against Iran will be met with a tenfold retaliatory force. For this reason, the conflict from now on will be one of attrition rather than escalation. It is the same sort of dynamic we see in the Ukrainian conflict.

Israel has lost: The more level-headed people in Israel have said the unthinkable: Israel has lost. Even Western media is saying Israel has lost. It is time for a diplomatic solution, yet none is on the horizon. Hamas is not been defeated. The hostages have not been returned. The economy is in a parlous state. You can read it for yourselves at Haaretz, penned on the 11^th, a few days before ‘Operation True Promise’, with the following closing words from Chaim Levinson:

“The more the mouthpieces shout that “we’re winning,” the clearer it is that we’re losing. Lying is their craft. We need to get used to that. Life is less secure than before October 7. The beating we took will sting for years to come. The international ostracism won’t go away. And, of course, the dead won’t be coming back. Nor will many of the hostages. For some of us, life will get back on track, with the petrifying fear of an imminent repeat. And for some of us, life won’t get back on track. Those people will walk among us like the living dead. That’s what we voted for. That’s how it is. We need to get used to the sad reality in our homeland.”

That may sound pessimistic, especially from what we hear on the evening news, but when one reads further afield, outside of the West, the truth for Israel is painfully clear. Now the U.S. Congress is sending more support, all the while indoctrinated Israelis seem to be doing all they can to completely ruin their international standing. In the twilight of empires vassal states like Israel and Ukraine get swallowed up by their rising neighbors as the main Empire recedes in power and no longer has the wherewithal to support them. In their attempts to draw the United States into the war, the Israelis have instead painted themselves into a corner from which they cannot escape. And then to add even more to the mix, the Iranians have taken to stopping ships going to and from Israel in the Strait of Hormuz, thus cutting the land bridge that has been in service across Saudi Arabia and Jordan since the Houthis cut the Red Sea route. And if The Resistance finds a way to stop the ships coming in from the Mediterranean, then Israel will be starved of its lifeblood.

What needs to happen: In a recent roundtable on George Galloway’s new program Israeli author and activist Miko Peled spelled out what needs to happen with Israel (which probably will happen in some way or another over time): severe sanctions against the Israeli regime, an immediate end to the fighting (an end – not a ceasefire), an embargo on weapons, a naval blockade of Israel, a no-fly zone over Gaza, and billions of dollars for the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Gaza and its people. Anyone who expects the Israelis to agree and adhere to a ceasefire is out of their minds, according to Peled. Israel, like Washington, is non-agreement-capable. We need to demand of our governments to end all trade with Israel and to close down diplomatic missions. The regime there needs to be dismantled as quickly as possible. Nothing else will end the bloodshed, both immediately and in the long term. The Israelis must unconditionally release the 10,000 or so Palestinians it currently holds in its prisons. These points are his view and there is a small but growing consensus in various commentaries which agree with him on many points. It has become clear that the final solution for the conflict there is a unitary state ‘from the river to the sea’ with equal rights for all people who live there, whether that state remains as Israel, Palestine or some other iteration. It may even come to pass that ‘Israel’ is broken up and absorbed by neighboring states. In other words, apartheid and Zionism would end. The two state solution is dead, as the current populace of Israel would never agree to such. It would only mean further instability in the region.

The fear and uncertainty in Israel among its citizens is now palpable. The strike by the Iranians has cemented that as a permanent feature. The Israelis had planned an attack on Iranian soil, which would have only fuelled further escalation, still in an effort to draw the United States into the conflict. Instead there was the weak response by them of a few drones. The invasion of Rafah has been put on hold since the Iranian action. The hubris of the Israeli administration that they can easily manipulate the United States into a wider conflict is now on full display. If the Israelis do launch another attack on Iran and the Iranians respond immediately in kind, as they said they would do (and we have no reason to doubt them) the pressure on the Biden administration would be enormous to enter the fray and strike at Iran – pressure from the Jewish lobby, from members of Congress who depend on that lobby for their re-election, from the American public, who by and large have no real idea what this is all about but have been led to believe that Iran is led by an evil regime, and from pressures by a few Western states who have a vested interest in seeing Israel survive. The American press and media would be up in arms for Biden to do something. Meanwhile the world holds its breath awaiting any further Israeli response.

War with Iran?: The only people who would benefit from such an American intervention in Iran would be a handful of American and foreign oligarchs, banking interests and arms manufacturers with their associated suppliers. The average American would be burdened with a needlessly ruined economy and increasing international ostracism. Then there is the question of the American troops stationed at the 30+ American bases surrounding Iran, who have now ceased to be ‘deterrents’ and who have instead become targets. Do we as Americans and Europeans really want to go to war with Iran for the Zionists and the oligarchs? We really do need an urgent reappraisal of Iran, to understand Iran. War with Iran? We need to talk about Iran, informed, calmly and openly. (Both of the articles just linked are from 2018, but still hold true. Presidents may change, but policy remains the same in the US.) We need to know about its military capabilities, too, and what a war there would mean.

Where are the anti-war movements?: It could be argued one of the main reasons we see no anti-war movements in the West is because there is no compulsory military service in the West on the whole. Exceptions are the Scandinavian states, Switzerland and Austria. That argument may seem to be a contradictory statement – until one is faced with conscription. Looking back on the Vietnam era, the anti-war movement was one of the biggest reasons the government did away with the draft. If one is faced with having to go to war one will question government policy more deeply as to the reasons why, questioning policy being something governments in general seek to avoid. Of interest are Switzerland and Austria in that regard. Every Swiss household has a uniform and a rifle in the closet – just in case. What ‘just in case’ means is if the country is invaded there are already trained soldiers and arms at the ready – or – if a government is silly enough to go to war for no good reason there is a ready and armed resistance movement to it. It is called ‘enforced neutrality’. It is the same argument many American firearms owners have for owning firearms. We won’t argue those points here, nor go into gun violence in the US.

The reason all this is brought up here is to point to a question I have heard many times since February of 2022: Why is there no widespread and viable opposition to the Western support for the war in Ukraine? And also, why are there growing calls by the younger generations in the US to send troops to Ukraine to ‘stop the Russians’? Perhaps the younger set calling for such should put their money where their mouths are and go enlist, get the requisite training and then go over as mercenaries and join the ‘Ukrainian foreign legion’ against what has turned out to be a very formidable Russian army. There is a pretty good reason why foreign mercenaries are now leaving Ukraine in droves: War, they found out, is not guts and glory. War is hell. So, would most of the younger set still call for troops to go to Ukraine if they themselves had to go? No, I didn’t think so. I remember the Vietnam era. I remember having to sign up for the draft. It was at the end of the war, around the time they ended the draft, but the memory of the possibility of having to go was most unpleasant.

The current state of NATO forces: A recent post went into detail about the current state of NATO (American) forces. It is a long read, but worth the time. The American public and probably soon to follow other liberal democracies will soon be soft-peddling the ‘need’ for limited conscription – reintroducing the draft, in other words. What does this mean? Well, it means the US military and the security state are still intent on waging war abroad, simply because the Americans and Canadians face no foreign invasion force. Two wide oceans are a pretty formidable deterrent for invading armies. So here is an interesting twist on anti-war movements: If we want to see an enforced demilitarization, reintroduce the draft. Think about it, and consider the following:

“In fact, the Military.com article admits that the draft was abolished and replaced with the ‘all volunteer’ system in 1973 primarily due to the American public’s disgust and weariness with the Vietnam War. You can see how the propaganda pipeline works: the U.S. lost an unpopular war and was forced to change its system. Then, this system is subsequently valorized in every military publication, pop-culture representation, etc., as the “superior” one to whatever backwards system that Russia used. Yet it’s clear that the U.S. only differed from the Russian system due to lack of choice and under duress from its own public.”

But even in that same Military.com article, the author recognizes reintroducing the draft would lead to public pressure to end and avoid long, open-ended wars, like Iraq and Afghanistan:

“This increased public interest might also have the added effect of increasing public pressure to prevent open-ended wars led by unaccountable senior leaders like we experienced in our national debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

‘Unaccountable senior leaders’ – well, that describes part of the American and EU problem with wars right there. And those unaccountable leaders profit handsomely from such wars. So you see, the problem is not cut and dried, but at the same time it is rather obvious. Having said all this, in no way do I advocate reintroducing conscription. I am of the mind to ‘make peace/love, not war’. So much could be done for this world with cooperation instead of confrontation and the effort to control everything and everyone. Even Col. Larry Wilkerson (ret.) is now saying people are crazy if they want to enlist in the various branches of the US military. There is one more thing to add before we close out this letter.

Social media: I must admit here that my presence on social media has been lackluster, putting it mildly. The reasons for that are several, which I will not go into, but the primary reason is lack of time. It is something that I must correct. The reason for presence on social media these days is because much of the public gets their information from social media now, instead of the mainstream networks. This is particularly true in the United States as far as the West is concerned. But social media, as we know, is a minefield, a swamp, with platforms like Facebook and Instagram being some of the worst. The aforementioned adhere mainly to the mainstream narrative and promptly remove ‘offensive content’ – in other words content that contradicts the prevailing narrative. Hence, I have not posted most of my material on Facebook in the past few years. I have had some of it removed because ‘someone’ found it offensive. Oh, my. It appears some people are informationally-challenged. We saw this with the pandemic and with the war in Ukraine, and it is all too apparent with the conflict in Palestine.

However, there are platforms outside of the US that reach a very wide audience and should be considered in terms of reaching a world populace, and not simply the Western public. One of those was revealed in a recent Tucker Carlson interview with the creator of the Telegram and VK platforms. There is a reason you never hear about platforms like Telegram in a positive light in the US, because there is an overwhelming amount of content on Telegram that runs counter to the media narratives the Western establishment wants us to believe. The spin out of Washington regarding Telegram in particular is that it is run by the Russian state. That is false. It is a privately owned, privately run platform, currently based in Dubai. True, it was created by a Russian, but that is where the story on influence ends. The creator was actually forced out of Russia because of his belief in freedom of speech. And before one nods in agreement, thinking Russia to be autocratic, the same was true of his stay in the United States, where he was visited by the FBI at his house and questioned extensively on the platform and as to whether or not he would allow backdoors into it. No dice. He was also assaulted in the US, by three thugs trying to steal his phone.

Tik Tok is another platform the establishment in the US wants banned, or at least wants to be able to control. There are many other such platforms, some outside the US. The point here is, if we want to reach a worldwide audience, then platforms like Telegram and Tik Tok become indispensable toward that end. Once again, we have to employ our own filters in terms of our own reason and consciousness as to what is true or not, because no social media platform is free of the biases of the people using them. That said, if you only use social media to stay in touch with family and friends the platforms like Facebook serve the purpose. But even there we have to be aware of the effort to steer public discourse. And there are only a few platforms that claim to be relatively free of any censorship (a.k.a. ‘moderation’) of content, and they are relatively unknown.

The outlook from now: With all that we have examined in this letter there are certain things that stand out, primary among them being the establishment of a momentum toward a worldwide return toward traditional values, the end of colonialism and Empire, a more cooperative spirit between nations and a steady decline in the dominance of Western interests. Since the last full moon we have seen the Iranians finally assert their regional influence, with the result being the era of Israeli impunity is finally ended. What has emerged is a more sovereign Asian bloc in terms of security and economic interests. The Taurean soul of Moscow and the Taurean soul of China are more pronounced in their expression, especially in the past decade. There is a call toward security for their people, markets based on commodities of real value instead of fiat currency, a mixed economy with state ownership of essential infrastructure yet while also allowing private ownership and initiative, and they have formed a magnetic center toward which an increasing number of nations are attracted. Of course, we in the West are all told there is something intrinsically wrong with their approach, that it will fall apart eventually, and on and on. We need only to turn on the television or read legacy media to see how the Western powers view the rise of Russia and China. And now we can include in that pairing the rise of Iran also. We are not told the rays or astrological signatures of that nation, but perhaps we will know soon enough. In the case of China and Iran especially, these are very ancient civilizations which have stood the test of time.

Looking further ahead, and reading between the lines, we need not worry about another world war in terms of a hot military conflict, nor do we need worry about nuclear war. If Pepe Escobar’s story turns out to be true, then what we witnessed with the Israeli strike at Iran was a Russian intervention to prevent a nuclear exchange. The jury is still out on that story and there are many doubts about its veracity, but it is interesting and quite revealing if true. But what has also emerged since last full moon is that nobody wants an expansion of the war in West Asia. Along with that is the implication that the Zionist project has been put on notice and from here on will begin its fracture and eventual much-needed demise. What it will be replaced with is anyone’s guess, but the best hope would be a unitary state with equal rights for all the people there.

In conclusion: Someday political leadership will reflect and express the will of God. And in the case of our little planet, the will of God is to love, meaning to enable all people to ‘attain to God’ – to fully realize our innate, intrinsic divine nature. We all have it in us, and thus have it within ourselves to act as souls. The fact we do not see political will in our liberal democracies is because the politicians are beholden to the vested interests and lobby groups, who only act for the attainment of their own ends. In nations where there is true political will the wealthy are beholden to the advancement of the welfare of the people. At the same time those wealthy are allowed to maintain a certain level of their wealth. It will be a long while yet before we see nations acting in concert for the betterment of all humanity and the other kingdoms in nature, but those days will come, as surely as the seasons change and the cycles turn. In the meantime we work on our own efforts at developing real willpower in the service to the greater good. In so doing, we advance humanity as well as ourselves. At every Wesak moon we are touched by the Will of God. Let us see to it that we learn to sense that will, and thus to act accordingly, with willpower in the spirit of a loving heart. As a Buddhist teacher once stated, speaking to a student, “My mind is like the iron of a sword, but my heart is as soft as butter.” Great compassion always accompanies the will of God.