Ceres; Babies, Losing my Mind and the Politics of Seeds


It started couple of weeks ago when I went to the doctor. She called me in after my physical and wanted to go over my results. I was kind of worried because I didn’t know why she wanted to see me, but it seemed that she just wanted to talk to me about how great she thought things were going and how my results looked really good. Then the real reason seemed to come out. She asked me if I had planned to have children. I didn’t know. I don’t have a guy. Yes, I thought before about a donor bank Dad. Did I want a referral, she asked. I told her yes and thought to myself that I would have it figured out in the six months that it would take to get in to see the specialist. Then, I got into my car and I said out loud “If I need to see a doctor so that I can get drugs, I need to do it soon because my benefits run out in two weeks.” The good ones that cover this kind of stuff, anyhow. By the end of the day, the clinic had called me and I was booked for an appointment the following week. Unheard of in Canada; I asked and I received! This started a whirlwind of activity and I had appointments bang, bang, bang! Blood, ultrasounds, a sonohysterogram and magically, within the two week period, the needed prescription for drugs. I know what you’re thinking… I should try this with money or lottery tickets or a sports car!

In total confusion, I did what I normally do. I threw myself into my work. I needed to write my monthly horoscope and that I did. As I wrote, I noticed that a configuration in the sky, the North Node and Saturn were coming together. These two would also be sextile to Ceres. Sextiles are normally a good thing, but this time I looked at it and became concerned.  The North Node and Saturn both karmic, made me wonder… Would we have an agricultural crisis? Ceres is the Asteroid responsible for motherly love, fertility and food… agriculture.To make things even more baffling, for the third time a friend, oh so generously, offered me his “seed’. 

With this, I began to obsess about seeds. An episode of Lisa Ling’s America came on the TV. She highlighted an older couple who had lost everything in the economic crisis. They were in retirement and getting jobs was not an option. But they set forth to grow a garden to feed themselves. They made bread from the wheat they grew and canned with their extra vegetables. Hmm… Interesting. Then I went to see a friend downtown. Along with some gemstone crystals, she had decorated a table in her house with a seed. This seed, she said, was her boyfriend’s lucky seed and she told me she felt moved to put it on the table when I came. Neither of us knew what kind of a seed it was. We chatted for a while and then I left there and went to my sister’s house to babysit my nephew.

 

As my nephew and I sat and played we also watched an animated movie called The Lorax. Suddenly, I realized the movie was about the outlawing of seeds.

 

And then on the weekend I went to a cottage with a bunch of friends. One friend was very concerned about the recent discovery of radiation levels from Fukushima moving across the Pacific and hitting the LA coast. I shared with her my recent seeds trend and the astrology that made me wonder. “Oh,” she said, “I happen to be selling seeds.” She had arranged for vegetable and flower seeds to be sold to raise funds for her athletes to go to Europe.

Okay, now this seed thing was starting to become a little strange. With this I began to obsess about seeds. I found myself online researching emergency seed kits. I ordered a tin of seeds through the www.rareseeds.com and then jumped on their online forum. As I researched I remembered the politics around seeds. I had seen it in a documentary called The Corporation, where Dr. Vandana Shiva fought alongside advocacy groups in India against the outlawing of saving seeds. I discovered that there were seeds created by corporations to “commit suicide”. I realized that what was important was to find seeds that would produce other seeds so that you could save them and continue to produce future gardens. Not all seeds are created alike. There are God-made seeds and man-made seeds. I made sure to order the former.

But ordering seeds did not stop my seed obsession. Suddenly, I was lying awake at 3 a.m. thinking about the seeds that commit suicide and the corporations that try to make laws to prevent people from saving seeds. This is greed. Pure and simple Greed. It bothered me that people in poverty would not be allowed to provide for themselves. It bothered me that those corporations do not have more accountability and social responsibility. I know there are programs and funding available, at least in the City of Toronto, to build gardens on rooftops. I know there is even funding for corporations. I thought about how I could make team-building exercises using corporate rooftop gardening. I imagined how building gardens on rooftops of corporations could help feed people going to the food banks with healthy foods (rather than peanut butter and pasta) and I imagined how it could help seed-saving programs. My seed obsession was being transmuted into activism and community-building. I started to formulate my first project for Mother Clan. Mother Clan is an online community that I will be launching soon as part of my other website called www.thecorporateculturedetox.com. The Mother Clan community will be a mastermind group of leaders dedicated to corporate change and social responsibility within corporations.

One question remained. What was making me so seed obsessed? I had looked at what was going on in the sky in general but I had not looked at my own astrology. I decided to pull up my own chart. Aha! I have the progressed Moon opposing Ceres almost on the dot! My Ceres is in earthy Taurus, which makes me very concerned about food and security. I nurture myself and others by feeding and ensuring security of needs. But that wasn’t the only thing going on. I also have a progressed Moon trine my Pallas. Pallas and Ceres are in a tight sextile in my chart – a combination that creates political activism around nurturing and caring for the basic need of others. My end-of-the-world/end-of-fertility doom and gloom had solid astrological roots! It never ceases to amaze me how the energy of the planets and asteroids play out in our lives!

So, in two weeks to a month, I will have a two-year garden of seeds in a tin, the seeds of a project for corporate social responsibility begun and a floor plan for my new house. After all, I live in a condo… Where am I going to plant my two-year garden? 

As for the baby… I leave that mustard seed up to God! 

Don’t forget to like me on Google+ and Facebook. Also, if you are interested in becoming a part of Mother Clan, check my new website www.thecorporateculturedetox.com and leave your email address. I’ll notify you when it’s up and running.