An Equinox for 2013 that Kenya will Never Forget

An equinox for 2013 that Kenya will never forget takes place today, as I write on 22^nd September: her capital city and the country have been shocked to their core by the terrorist attack on the Westgate Shopping Centre, and it is a warning to the world as well as Kenya about interference in the ambitions of al-Qaeda related terrorists. The terrible incident highlights the dilemma facing countries close to or distant from Africa and the Middle East as to how far they go, and in what way, to resist the growing, destabilising power of Islamist militants. The equinox today is memorable for other reasons too. It is ironic that a time of ancient spiritual celebration to mark the transition of one season to another, and a rare time of balance when day and night each are 12 hours long, is a day of violence in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as Kenya. From an astrological perspective,  many of the planetary alignments are similar to the patterns and influences experienced in the early 1930s, and so it is unsurprising, perhaps, that this time is one so dominated by violence and war. It does not mean that the outcome will be the same as 80 years ago when world war broke out, for it is our choice now, as it was then, as to whether we allow the challenges to be an opportunity for enduring peace or ones that continue to test all of us who share life on Earth. Meanwhile, this equinox for 2013 is one that Kenya will never forget, a nightmare day of horror and pain when forgiveness and understanding seem impossible. It may be that one day, far away perhaps, it will be seen as the day when the world changed course, invisibly but definitively – for the sad and many deaths today will not have been in vain.   [byline]]]>