Secret Cinema
“…In J.G. Ballard’s short story Chronopolis,the inhabitants of a run-down city live without clocks. Time-keeping has been outlawed. But a young man’s curiousity (his name is Newman) leads him to a deserted part of the city where time once ruled peoples’ lives absolutely. Clocks are everywhere here, on the side’s of skyscrapers and in the central plaza that was ground zero for a civilisation controlled by time.
All the clocks have long since stopped at the exact time of the revolution that overthrew them. Newman sets his sights on restoring the enormous central clock through which all the others were once run. The idea of the story is that free of the tyranny of time, people gradually stagnate, society runs down, that while a society controlled by time may be highly efficent it is nevertheless soulless, a fascist state where human autonomy is virtually outlawed.
Let time take over and it will rule you like a dictator, ignore it and you’ll sink into boundless lethargy. It captures our natural fascination with clocks, with questing minds setting out in search of answers, but it also articulates our unease with time as a personal and political tool of oppression….”
J.G. Ballard (Surrealist, Scorpio) short stories are amazing and Chronopolis, as you can see from the above, has the most stunningly Saturnine themes. Essential Saturn transit reading for sure.
And the above dilemmas so aptly describe the task of coming to grips with our own personal Saturns. Â Don’t you think? Â In fact you could just replace the word “time” above with “Saturn” and you’d have some real useful astro advice.
The alternative name for Saturn  is, of course, Chronos.
see – it’s my other half butting in LOL
GneissMoon
Well, hmm, you can throw away your clock, but you can’t throw away your sun and he’ll do as he pleases coming up and going down each day. So a certain sense of time passing is forced on us each day. We retaliate with our artificial lights because we refused to be controlled, but then we malfunction internally because the programmer designed us to operate within a timeframe. We are such a rebellious lot.
Nicely put ArieanScorp. With no time measurement we wouldn’t have astrology either with all its degrees and marvellous mathematics. I love the measurement of time and all sorts of other things. Not as an oppressive rule but as an aid to consciousness. Did you see “Catalyst” on ABC TV this week? There was an item about the internal time-clocks in every cell in our bodies. Deep in the brain we have a master clock that helps regulate all the biological processes in our body. And guess what gets it out of whack and cause our processes to go haywire? Yep,… Read more »
I dunno, there was astro before clocks.
And there was no Pluto.
ahhh true – or chiron or uranus
thanks for the insights above, i’m reassured to know others are experiencing syn-chnronicities like moi… it’s like a parallel universe astrology consciousness and daily reality happenings, seeing both realms play out in each other at the same time doesn’t make life necessarily easier, but it certainly makes it a whole lot more interesting and maybe understandable eventually i have become a temporary shift worker due to saturn transit of my will, luckily i’m doing what i want to be doing even though it’s hard slog, could be worse, like M says, so keeping that in mind all the time to… Read more »
A rebellious lot, hmmm. I commented above about our uncle lucifer and all his rebellious children…we cant help it, we are the product of rebellion.
We all have god complexes. We want to run everything our way. And we bump into everyone else wanting to run things THEIR way. And then whole groups of people with the same idea try to force their ideas on others. And on it goes. There you are — the meaning of life. No wonder we have so many myths of heaven and happy peaceful places. And what are we doing in those places? Having everything our way. 😉 What is a happy relationship? One where each person feels they get their way enough of the time to be content.… Read more »
great point- my whole chart seems to be a study of polarities-can’t quite figure out that one myself. I do know being positive feels better.
Good raving there AS. Sorry to keep harking back to Lucifer and the rebellion but there is a great story in there. Lucifer basically says to the creator, look, I luv ya and all, but I need ‘freedom’ to decide for myself what it is that I want to do. Simple, not an evil inclination, a seemingly natural one to have freedom from the creators all pervading power. Well a no. of other angels agreed in the concept and chose earth as the place to express this ‘freedom’. And here we are, killing for freedom, demanding the right to do… Read more »
Goddam the media for writing it up as a “I told you so” story.
R.I.P. Amy. Very sad.
I know huh? People are so self righteous. It’s just a very sad and was very completely unnecessary.
I know right!!!People are so arrogant that when we hear stories like this they say “well im not surprised” ….”we all know it was a matter of time”. The whole i told u so is plain annoying. Yes i am a fan of her but it just annoys the hell out of me when things happen to people like her ….its like people cannot control themselves and feel the need to say how they themself (the one and only always knew this would happen). Anyway sorry for the rant. As some of us have heard already she id now in… Read more »
It is very hard to hear blunt opinions that reduce someone’s life to a solitary judgment. However, it helps me to feel less angry about that if i think of it as people’s need for order and logic. Death is obvious and mysterious all at once, so it seems some can barely cope without creating a nice little box to pop it into. In that vein i wouldn’t like to group any period of famous deaths, past or future into that category. I do find your comment interesting, jordan, but i can’t bring myself to do that. I guess i… Read more »
Oh god, the tradgedys just keep on coming in a global grand scale. I went to sleep last night feeling like it was too much and wake to more this morning.
How does one belly ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune’? ‘to die? Perchance to sleep?’.
“Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.” ~John Wheeler (physicist). I love this quote because it calms my busy Virgo mind, which often attempts to have everything happening and being resolved at once.
Ooh I like it too :).
Great quote , Inchy. So true. Chronos/ time = calamity control. I’m sure that’s why those Victorians loved watches and clocks so much. Apparently the Swiss got into clock making as a winter season special craft and then became the best/ obsessed with clocks. Could there be a more saturnian style than the Swiss conservative, getting things done and counting the beans. Their rail system is the most punctual in the world. Interesting too that a watch was considered a good gift for a young man in the 20th century. Now it may be the latest communication device. It’s like,… Read more »
Interesting. I stopped wearing a watch in November 1994. My wristwatch just decided to stop on a cross Atlantic flight and I never replaced it. Since then I’ve intuitively adjusted my internal clock and can sense how much time has elapsed. It’s actually uncanny how fine-tuned my sense of time has become. And yeah, I’m a Scorp too.
Being able to accurately sense how much time has elapsed (without a clock) is a measure of intelligence.
Oh, thank god for that, Inchy; once again, you make my day. Maybe heavy Scorp influence has preserved my inner time-radar in spite of brain atrophy, George? Have never worn a watch….but I didn’t think about this til just now (a saggo fuq u gesture to Saturn, who is squared by my venus and opposed by my Mars yet still manages to fuq up both equally?) But I can still decide that I have to wake up at whatever time and do just that, even if I’ve been working til 4am, and generally just tell the time by observing the… Read more »
Oh weird, I just calculated how old I was in November 1994 and I was 28 — my first Saturn Return!
GS, oooh, that’s uncanny synchronicity. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
How did I make your day, Fi? By confirming that you’re intelligent? Pfft, woman, your intelligence is as radiant as the sun. But happy to make your day!
My saturn return got me in touch with what I called Saturn time. Elastic , through years and possibly lives and yet bang on target with specificity to crumble the exact item of bullshit that was in the way. So I came to associate Saturn with synchronicity, not so much in a clockwork sense of time but as a kind of real life theatre stage with ques and ad- libbing. We are the players through time and space, like we arrive and things happen within this reality of the moment now, but it only works within the framework of the… Read more »
no, not at all twinfish. ”tis fascinating, continue please
Love the idea of treating the patient as is in present. Couldn’t agree more ! I am really loving the groove I am in during healing sessions–I sense the vast energy within and without and am re-invigorated afterwards, filled with peace and knowing my place in the universal cosmic tide. Although it is space more than place, and everywhen rather than time. Twinfish, I keep thinking of how I saw this phesant crossing the road on my way to work one morning. In 13 years I had not once seen a pheasant cross my path. This totem, bringing a random… Read more »
you must read ‘the arcturus probe’ Jose Arguelles..he has created a wonderful story around the saturn time beam. x
Oh thanks davidl, I definately will, I should have the other crystal book you mentioned in the po box soon
Blah. I dont do them time. Thank you very much scholarship.
But fuck me, just had the weirdest evening of past/future melding a la running into someone from another place and time in the pub. Yes typing this on my phone is hard. Lovely to see him but sad to hear stories of some men I cared about, 15 years ago, who aren’t doing so well. That wasn’t quite the mars/node thing I was expecting to process. Pub randomness is value laden in my world.
Ok, I’ve been drinking since 4ish.
Ps. I like clocks.
You cannot subvert the dominant paradigm unless there is a dominant paradigm to subvert.
Of course I’m saturns bitch. I’d be whipped for saying otherwise.
Pps. JGB. There is no time like vegemite on toast time. Yes or bed time.
Hooray for bed time if nothing else … Yes I’m going now.
In fact given I’m saturns bitch I’m going to suggest he enshrine vegemite on toast time in law. There’ll be some flexibility, 10 am or pm every day. There’s a lot of good that would come from that. That and my big band cure for depression which I guess is another drunken story for another drunken time.
Good morning, good morning. Its great to stay up late. Good morning, good morning to yooooou! I don’t know what old movie that song is from but I always sing it when I am hung over. Hows your hangover shell? Nothing that veg toast won’t fix I hope. Sorry to hear that you got news re men from your past not doing too well. Sounds like classic Mars/South Node. I am detecting men having dramas atm. Fighting with each other, getting all dramatic & aggro about ego stuff. Yawn. But Mars is in Gemini – shouldn’t they be chatty and… Read more »
good morning, good morning
we danced the whole night through!
good morning, good morning
to yooooooou!
I don’t know where it comes from either, but it was a jolly way to start the day in my more debauched days!
Love your mono, conversation, which proves one can be a genius talking to themselves. Vegemite toast is enshrined in time in my world, 7am or 2hours either side if it : )
Ha ha! I was on Skype to a friend in N. Africa this morn asking what the equivalent to 2 am vegemite on toast binges is there?
Yes, i think show tunes could defn be part of the big band depression cure, though maybe not Mary Poppins ones (is that where good morning is from?), I think Mary Poppins tunes may be a tad too cliched. I think also my head may hurt a little. Yes Natty I’ve come across a few men wondering about their stuff lately, but some either just have, or need to, change their life path, so not surprising the wondering thing. Re those past people, it’s no big deal, they are long gone from my life, and they are fine, just not… Read more »
a few weeks ago when I was feeling the pressure of more temporally oriented eyes tsk tsk upon me I heard these words come out of my mouth “I’m not late. See my clock says it’s 5 minutes before yours does and if I ruled the world this would be the clock we’d use so let’s just accept that I’m not late and move on.” So startled were they by my genius response that I got away with it. I’m pretty sure they hate me now though. They’ve been a bit weird ever since.
they expected you to grovel and apologise. for 5 measly minutes? come on!
im a serial offender – by their clock
time is money
For the record, I have no “natural fascination with clocks”. Maybe a more precise species of human does I suppose.
I think that’s hilarious. I live in an old hippy commune at the moment (my parents’ old hippy commune to be precise), and all the old hippies act like time is irrelevant. Lethargy is too polite to describe what has happened to them. Marijuana has a way of eliminating time in the way JG describes, and the relsuts ain’t pretty. Mind you, Sydney is a good example to me of the opposite. I liked where I lived in the M.E. Time existed there, people went to work, but it didn’t run their lives. If they had to be somewhere else… Read more »
m.e. time – yes exactly what i mean awareness of time but not rigid enslavement to it. It puts you off kilter.
i was just thinking today if we are to overthrow man made fibres – one of my priorities – why stop there why not overthrow what we perceive to be the passing of time as it is essentially a man made concept
and yes i get it time does pass but clocks and the measuring of it are human in(ter)ventions
ohmigod my latest happy place is a multi-dimensional transport and life support bubble that utilises dark matter as an energy source for manifestation of all things from a portable loo that disappears when I say “finished” and space-time energy fabric that apparently is non allergenic.
It even manifests a decent latte.
see this is what i need. good people around me who support my theories and are willing to run with and enhance them. does your bubble do a good brow? my last human operative was mediocre at best and I’m on a quest for the perfect arch
Did you watch the universe program on the abc last week? Taking about the arrow of time and how in the end all the stars in the universe will die. Yes, all of them. Kinda full on.
Kinda full on? God yesm shell. I watched hoping I would be inspired, since I think that (1) the Great Attractor (very close to my degree of sagg when i was born) is sucking me into its black hole. A feeling compounded by (2) reading something on kajama about how the level of vibration tends to drop in most people in middle age…Ah, that’s what’s going on, I thought. My electrical impulses – which some would say is all that we are – are slowing down. Anyway, so in spite of the rather adorable and almost spiritual wonder and awe… Read more »
That is brilliant Fi.
The ultimate failure of saturns main goal, brilliant!
Yeah. WOW. I find it really hard to grasp the concept of middle age being a downward spiral/reason for depression. There’s a whole other half to grab by the balls if you’re in the middle. Is it a blanket statement for a whole lot of small things combined? Middle age? Saturn is depressing though I sure as hell grasp that. Pumping beats and a mad dance will raise your vibration while you wait for the thing to come.
Ok, so I didn’t word that carefully enough since the post was largely tongue in cheek. So no, I’m not saying that middle age per se is a REASON for depression, whatevs. I’ve just discovered I need surgery on two related leg-injuries before I can mad dance – let alone find it easy getting up the stairs to my flat/office – again so I’m hoping the lamp will help in the mean time.
oh fuq that’s horrible Fi I’m really sorry to hear that I hope it’s not major – but both at the same time is totally major right? Can you stagger the ops? Having the middle aged thing right at the beginning put me off the tongue in cheek scent soz 😀 I’ve always been easily distracted. Gem ascendant. Is it wrong to astrofiend on your news…? cos the timing is way interesting as in legs = neptune in pisces + mars is opposite neptune at the moment + saturn schism manifesting? Maybe once you’ve worked out your plan of attack… Read more »
Uranus is outside time; intuitive flashes energy zaps from otherwhere threads to the universe inside our heads like universe synapses tapping our cellular biochem communications networks
After writing today I realized I am a walking contradiction…too much Neptune to be Saturn, Neptune can’t express Leo, and Uranus/Pluto conj Sun don’t give a fuq anyway
ok multi-verse: apperate a lime float *snap* and a cabana boy to go with 🙂 mmmnowweretalkin…
In the 5th dimension Uranus is outside time. and every other bloody thing is too. Entropy is just pre planned escape from Luciferworld or 3D/ earth as we call it. The 12 / 60 time beam coming from Saturn was established some years ago and will take a lot of hard work to unplug..Uranus is definitely the key, the return of the uranian timeship. The fulfilment of ‘the arcturus probe’.
I commented then I read your priorities…how ’bout that…someone else with the same priorities as me! I feel happy!
god at least your parents are true to their word and not afraid to commit one of mine went from a similar lifestyle to yours and then something weird happened – is suspect it was the leo wife – and he became some kind of hard nosed mogul with a penchant for louis the 14th antiques – never gave up eliminating time tho – he must’ve been onto a different more motivating strain.
How did my comment get all the way down here? This was for you whatevs and your fibre crusade!
Hey, I caught your high five 😀 plastic fibres. don’t get me started. It’s a toxic process with all manner of hideous toxic metal by-products that poison the waterways and soil not to mention that they’re derived from petrol which is running out and at some point in the not so distant future we may have to revert to the staples of wool, cotton, linen, silk and yes, fur will be on the agenda again because the climate is changing and it will be colder in some places and there will be no oil to make clothes from and the… Read more »
Not at all! I was imagining all these people clothed in luxurious real fabrics, and heard Elizabeth Taylor chortling about the return of fur. She said, “Honey, fur’s never out of style.”
She’s probably coming back as an Inuit.
it’d be ironic if she came back as a fur seal
Aaargh-ha-ha-HAAAAA!
The mouth on it…swearing but coming out as seal-yelps… and no middle finger…only a flipper.
Hope she doesn’t end up at Sea World Gold Coast. Performing to the adoring public, of course.