We can be Heroes

During a cold, wet and wintry August 2009, I watched many great documentaries during the controversial Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). The controversy involved the showing of a film The 10 Conditions of Love by documentary maker Jeff Daniels, about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, whom the Chinese government call a liar and a terrorist. The Chinese embassy demanded the film be pulled from the festival, but when Richard Moore, the festivals director decided to screen the film and even move it to a 1500-seat showing at the Melbourne Town Hall, he showed China that it has no right to dictate what we see here in Australia. As a protest by the Chinese, the MIFF website was hacked and replaced with a waving Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans.



Subsequently the controversy has sparked great interest in the film around the world.In addition to this, during this time there were protesters campaigning outside MIFF movie theatres against the partnership of MIFF with the Israeli film industry, sparking more controversy and attracting attention to the festival. With a gay rights march passing by the Victorian State Parliament, campaigning in support of gay marriage, there definitely seemed to be something in the air. As we find ourselves between another Saturn (rules, restrictions, status quo) / Uranus (change, rebellion, revolution) opposition and with the current astrological line-up of Neptune (film, imagination, the collective unconscious, water, divine connections), Chiron (the asteroid associated with the maverick healer) and Jupiter (the seeker of truth, meaning and justice) – all part of the planetary signature of 2009 and 2010 – these protests and the documentaries I watched are a great example of the archetypal energies in effect at the moment.

Movies I watched included The Cove, The Yes Men - Fix the World and Food Inc., all very informative documentaries dealing with the depletion and deteriorating quality of our air, our water, our land and the spirit of the people around the globe and already these films have motivated and activated many people’s imaginations with respect to these issues. These documentaries reflect the Saturn/Uranus opposition, people taking action, acting from their own sense of authority, not waiting for a green light or a nod from bureaucracy in order to be allowed to expose, film or speak the truth, but just getting on and doing it. Saturn and Uranus denote the concept of the old and the new, stagnation and renewal, control and freedom.

The triple conjunction of planets Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune is in Aquarius, the sign of the commons, the community and the future. As we collectively look to the future and our personal role in its unfolding, Jupiter reminds us to speak and seek truth, Chiron reminds us of the painful mess (and its self-inflicted nature), and Neptune gives us hope, bringing with it a strong idealistic urge for selfless action and self-sacrifice. Together we search for truth behind deception, cover-ups, the lies and corruption that lurk behind the motivations for greed, money and power in every country around the world at the moment. There is a sense of there being no hope for the future if we all don’t take serious action and do something about it.

If you’re not doing something yet to be part of the great changes that need to take place, then these movies are bound to inspire you into some kind of action, or at the least make you question why you’re not playing your part. It is through the tribes we are building on the internet, online communities who share the same goals and values, that differences are being made today. It is through movies, like these documentaries, that we are also making progress, reaching audiences through the universal language of film, activating and motivating people to join a cause. These planets in Aquarius – together with Uranus currently in Pisces – bring hope and possibilities within the collective to understand our universal cause, to share our common goals and visions which can lead us to at least some of the changes necessary in this world.

Neptune and film have a strong connection. Neptune and photography materialized in consciousness at the same time. Like photography, Neptune reflects the moving zeitgeist of our culture through fashion, music, celebrities, imagery and art. It is the essence of Neptune which carries us off, enchanted, to different realms and ways of experience. Movies, for an hour or two, put us under their spell and lose us in romance, illusions, fantasy and drama, and through this they manipulate our emotions. A movie can make you feel bad, angry or elated; it can make you weep, make you laugh or make you want to turn a blind eye. Watching a movie has the ability to stir up all sorts of emotional experiences. The music, the images, real or imagined, are all part of Neptune’s realm.

The first compelling documentary I watched was The Cove, a film that delves into the deception and cover-up behind the slaughter of dolphins in a cove behind the picturesque town of Taiji in Japan. The filmmaker, Louie Psihoyos, and a brave troop of activists and free divers together take on a mission, using covert surveillance tactics to penetrate the hidden operations at this secret cove, successfully bringing this information to the world. The filmmaker said “we didn’t need filmmakers” to make this film, “we needed pirates.” This story in particular has an incredible correlation with the Jupiter /Chiron / Neptune configuration, as it is about the mistreatment of one of the most beloved creatures on this planet, the dolphin, the wild creature of Neptune’s marine realm and the deception, the lies and the illusions of this whole cover-up.

The film documents the passion behind the man Ric O’Barry, the trainer of the dolphin “Flipper.” This series started in 1964, during which time Ric lived with the dolphins in an idyllic setting in a bay in the Bahamas where the star dolphins roamed freely during the duration of the series and became Ric’s great loves. Ric’s love of dolphins and later the death of his beloved dolphin Kate, led to his passion and the mission to relentlessly try and stop what happens to dolphins in captivity around the world. After the series finished and Kate was returned to captivity, where she died in his arms, Ric explains that this was suicide. Dolphins and captivity don’t mix, they have the ability to stop breathing at will and do so all the time in the back pools of Seaworld and other such places around the globe. Ric explains that every breath of a dolphin is a completely conscious decision, and they can choose to just not take the next breath, if so inclined. The constant smile a dolphin wears, whether in captivity or not, is as Ric says, one of the biggest illusions of life. A dolphin will appear to be constantly happy, but in captivity they are miserable and because of this they commit suicide constantly, unbeknownst to well-paying tourists watching the show from the grandstand. The suicide of Kate transformed Ric to campaign and continue to free dolphins in captivity and in any sort of trouble around the world, leading him to Taiji in Japan.

Taiji is a lovely tourist village full of cutesy boats in shapes of whales and dolphins taking tourists out to see whales and dolphins roaming free in the nearby waters, where just behind the next hill, around the next cove, dolphins are being herded into coves by fishing boats. Using metal rods that they tap on, the fishermen disturb and disorient the dolphins into the cove exactly where they want them, net them off, and trap them ready for slaughter the next morning. The dolphins’ most acute sense is their hearing, so disturbing the sound of the oceans leads them straight into this trap. Here they slaughter 2500 dolphins every season which starts in September and lasts until March, keeping some alive to trade to the Seaworlds of the world and then selling the rest as dolphin meat to an unsuspecting Japanese public.

Dolphin meat is highly toxic, full of mercury. Dolphins exist at the top of the food chain in the oceans with sharks, marlin, swordfish and tuna and should be eaten minimally. The toxicity of our oceans due to growing pollution levels in our waters, causes diseases such as Minamata disease, mercury poisoning causing severe neurological problems. High levels of mercury and lead can be found in our air too, due to the highly toxic output associated with coal burning, petrol fumes and industry. During the film we are also alerted to the complete ineffectiveness of bureaucratic governing bodies like the International Whaling Commission, heavily influenced and controlled by Japanese magnates, holding all the power who couldn’t care less about the dwindling numbers of whales in our oceans. It makes you want to scream, because nothing is changing and it is all so corrupt.

When Neptune was in Scorpio during the 1960’s, anti-whaling demonstrations started with fervour around the globe, this was due mainly to the fact that during this time we heard the first whale sounds, alerting man to the sound of the oceans and these incredible beings.* Currently in the last 10 degrees of Aquarius, Neptune squares its previous position in Scorpio and dredges up some issues of the past that still haven’t been resolved. Although Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd have been active trying to protect our oceans for a long time now, not for many years has there been so much attention placed onto whaling and the rights of the Japanese to kill them as we have seen during 2009. The plight of the great cetaceans in our oceans, the state of our oceanic realm and quality of our water will become even more desperate as Neptune moves into Pisces during 2011.

The power of the moving image to show it how it really is, is unprecedented. The brave warriors that came together to secretly film and organize getting their cameras into restricted zones, setting them up underwater, to get this out to the world, have done an incredible job to save these dolphins. The Yes Men too, accomplish brave feats to tell their story, unravel the truth and activate change. By impersonating high profile CEO’s from companies such as Dow Chemicals, the Yes Men manage to expose the truth very effectively to an unsuspecting public, but also completely aggravate and expose the true motivations behind some of these large corporations, ultimately motivated by profits only, with no regard for human life and suffering. In places like Bhopal, India, where 20 years ago a huge chemical explosion happened, due to Dow Chemical, then known as Union Carbide, the victims are still waiting for compensation, as this company continues to make billions of dollars in profits year in year out. It’s a joy to see what these brave warriors in film get away with and even more so, what they accomplish.

Food Inc. moves us into the world of food production, the mistreatment of animals to gain greater yields, the under compensating of farmers by powerful corporations, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, as the food industry gets mightier and stronger with not much hope for the little guy. Our supermarkets are full of food owned by a handful of companies; if you can afford it it is better to shop at farmers’ markets, support them, they need it more, but as the movie shows us, the big guys undercut the small guys by amounts that matter a great deal to people who just can’t afford a bunch of broccoli, but can still afford a crappy hamburger. This movie wakes you up to the harsh reality of what we consume, what we eat, where it comes from, and it’s frightening. The message, buy what’s in season and start a veggie patch or even think of starting a communal one. Think globally, buy locally.

In a world where Big Brother may be watching us all, satellites that can film you in your back yard, CCTV on nearly every corner, it is these brave and courageous people, these heroes, who by making these documentaries and bringing them to the world, are creating activism and stirring up controversy, showing us all what we can do to compensate, watch back and expose all. This is a Pluto in Capricorn signature that comes together with the previously mentioned alignments, exposing what’s lurking underneath, what the powerful and greedy are doing to accumulate wealth and our global resources, to the detriment of the masses involved. All of these movies involved hidden cameras, agendas, impersonations and people willing to tell the truth to get these stories our there. Not all of us can or will ever be so daring, but we can all most certainly join a cause, via the net, join a tribe and by working together, something can be done.

It may be hard to watch The Cove. As I watched in horror, knowing that many more unjust, corrupt, inhumane occurrences are happening everywhere around this planet, I felt a strong admiration for these brave warriors and others like them, that are getting on with the quest, doing what they can to promote effective change around the globe. I held back tears many times throughout this film, but when the titles began rolling at the end of the film, I cried and cried and cried when I heard my all time favourite very Neptunian song……………………………..

I - I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins - like dolphins can swim
Though nothing - nothing will keep us together
We can beat them - for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes - just for one day
I - I will be king
And you - you will be Queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes - just for one day
We can beat them - just for one day

I - I can remember
Standing - by the wall
And the guns - shot above our heads
And we kissed - as though nothing could fall
And the shame - fell on the other side
Oh we can beat them - forever and ever
Then we could be heroes - just for one day

You - you can be me
And I - I’ll drink all the time
Cause we’re lovers and that is the fact
Yes we’re lovers and that is that
Oh nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them forever and ever
Yeah we can be Heroes - just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay
But we could be safer, just for one day
Oh, oh, oh, ohhh-oh, oh, oh, ohhh, just for one day
Oh, just for one day

Heroes - David Bowie, 1977
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keoJMgD5QZQ

Julija Simas - Agent 12 July 2009

* the first recordings were only released for sale in 1970’s when Neptune was in Sagittarius by Roger Payne and Scott McVay

http://www.thecovemovie.com/ See the Movie

http://www.seashepherd.org/ The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - a non-profit organization, protecting marine species and environments. It operates a fleet of vessels it calls Neptune's Navy.

www.theyesmen.org - www.theyesmenfixtheworld.com - Lots of great ideas to rock the boat.
http://www.theyesmen.org/blog/become-a-tabloid-writer


http://www.foodincmovie.com/
Find our where your food comes from, who owns it all and what they do to keep control of this massive industry of food production in the USA.