A read­er wrote back with a very sim­ple yet pro­found request:

Please explain the statement:

Con­verse­ly, to the extent that you remain igno­rant of your true self (and there­by of your world too), to that same extent will your life be “fat­ed”; life will hap­pen to you and your free will equal­ly diminished.

I thought it would be use­ful to share my response:

This comes from the core teach­ing that we are all sub­ject to the law of cause and effects, known gen­er­al­ly as the Law of Kar­ma. When we are unaware or more igno­rant of our­selves and our world it will seem as if things “just hap­pen” to us, with no expla­na­tion as to where this good or bad expe­ri­ence came from. If we con­sid­er it at all we may just think of it as good or bad luck or believe in “gods” who play with us mor­tals by help­ing and hurt­ing us.

As we become more aware of our true nature and our cen­tral role in cre­at­ing the world around us we can take more respon­si­bil­i­ty for our life and the world that we cre­ate. Because the truth is: every thought we think, every feel­ing we feel, and every action that we take goes out from us AND ulti­mate­ly returns to us its author…As we become more aware of this we can begin to see that we have con­trol over what will hap­pen to us by begin­ning to exer­cise more self-con­trol. We can choose to con­trol our think­ing so as to reduce or min­i­mize fear­ful or bad thoughts, feel­ings and actions so that over time our lives will improve…as will the lives of those around us.

The good news is that you and I and all of us made the world as it is…and that means we can also change it!

If enough peo­ple begin to believe, think, feel and act in bet­ter ways then the con­di­tions for our world will dra­mat­i­cal­ly change for the better.

I have men­tioned this core ele­ment of the Ancient Teach­ings in ear­li­er post­ings, but it is always good to be remind­ed of it.

Today begins a new cycle of your inner­most with the out­er­most; the Sun aligns with Plu­to and you should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter under­stand the rela­tion­ship between your pure poten­tial or Self (Sun) and your will (Plu­to). It is the com­bi­na­tion of these two prin­ci­ples that cre­ates your self-real­iza­tion by bring­ing your poten­tial­i­ty into actuality.

Plu­to rules your willpow­er which you use to define the sacred space of you, the space of your “self”. By going more deeply with­in your­self, by obtain­ing more self-knowl­edge, you cre­ate the con­di­tions for greater self-con­trol and self-deter­mi­na­tion. It is through this self-dis­cov­ery and self-con­trol that you enlarge the capac­i­ty to bring into being what you will; you will expe­ri­ence, mea­sure for mea­sure, that greater degree of free will to the extent that you know you.

Con­verse­ly, to the extent that you remain igno­rant of your true self (and there­by of your world too), to that same extent will your life be “fat­ed”; life will hap­pen to you and your free will equal­ly diminished.

Today you can use this align­ment of the Sun and Plu­to to probe more deeply into the true nature of you; to plumb the depths of your inner­most tem­ple. There, in the silence, you will find an answer; you will move clos­er to that great­est trea­sure, the “pearl of great price”, which is your truth, your path and your purpose.

But remem­ber always, “Let thy will be done”…

Four months ago you turned around; you went on an inner jour­ney of dis­cov­ery, reex­am­i­na­tion and renew­al of your under­stand­ing. Your great­est good growth was not “out there”…your path of progress was bend­ing back, turn­ing ’round…your advance­ment was to be found on those sub­tler planes of intu­ition as you re-con­sid­ered the val­ues that give mean­ing and sub­stance to your life.

Today Jupiter turns direct and your plans, projects and dreams can start mov­ing ahead! You and your dreams have ben­e­fit­ed from those four months of revaluations…you have come to bet­ter under­stand what val­ues you have, what val­ues you wish to cre­ate and what val­ues you will share.

There are times and sea­sons for going inward and times to move out­wards again…now you go for­ward to make the future you wish to be!

Cel­e­brate Jupiter’s turning…

Be joy­ful, be opti­mistic and may your heart be filled with the spir­it of generosity.

You have jour­neyed through nine moons this year; you have walked that cir­cuitous path­way, lift­ing your­self up and up the ancient stair­way that climbs the steep­en­ing mountain…This is your ascent, the unfold­ment of your “self”; it is your becoming…your life after life’s jour­ney. Each les­son that you have encoun­tered, each lev­el and por­tal that you have passed, has point­ed you onwards to the next, and then to the next, and then ever onwards…till…now…

Now you reach a sum­mit, you have come to the apex of the year­ly Astro­log­i­cal Cycle; you have arrived at your moment of truth, your des­tiny is now to be made more clear in the New Moon of this epiphanal dark…a dark­ness that con­ceals so as to reveal the bright­est of lights, the light that shines within.

This, the tenth release of Solar/Lunar ener­gy in the Astro­log­i­cal Year, is that moment that brings to a cli­max all the efforts to unfold and real­ize your poten­tial in the year­ly cycle. What began 9 months ago in Aries, was root­ed and secured through Can­cer and moved out­ward into the larg­er world in Libra, all of that has led to this moment…and so you must ask your­self, “Am I ready? Have I pre­pared the Way? What am I to do?”…

Of course you are ready…your prepa­ra­tion was the journey…and you must do what you must do!

This is your time of Capri­corn; it is your time for Duty, your time for Ful­fill­ment…your time to be Respon­si­ble. Now at the New Moon you can and should re-ded­i­cate your­self to the ever-renew­ing, time­less tra­di­tions that have always been there to guide your jour­ney. You stand upon the shoul­ders of many, many lives that have brought you to this time of con­se­quence, who have labored long and hard to unfold the poten­tials of this great spir­i­tu­al jour­ney. There is much to appre­ci­ate, hon­or and be thank­ful for. And, as it has always been, much of what was won must and should be passed on to those that fol­low you…

But the winds of change blow stronger every day…The foun­da­tions of your world seem to bend and break as the chal­lenge of the ever-resur­gent, liv­ing spir­it seeks to extend the spaces of free­dom and so crash­es against the old orders of your world. It must do so, it will do so…because the one and true con­stant of this jour­ney of spir­it is growth and change.

And so you must ask your­self at this New Moon, “What am I to do?”…and the Sun and the Moon (and the stars) will pro­vide an answer, (as they always have).

You must do your duty; and you estab­lish that sense of duty by your ded­i­ca­tion to walk the path of spir­it. You must ful­fill your­self; and that ful­fill­ment you under­stand is to always seek to grow clos­er to and release your spir­i­tu­al truth. You must be respon­si­ble; and that respon­si­bil­i­ty is ever guid­ed by your aware­ness that you are part of a great riv­er of life, a spi­ral of Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it that extends behind and ahead of you…And so you know and feel that Truth, that you are nev­er alone, not ever, and that as much as you can extend your hand to help those beneath you, so too will hands above reach down and lift you up…always.

As you reach this epiphanal Moon, as you mount the heights of that greater under­stand­ing, you must get down and touch your home, this Earth…get down upon your knees and acknowl­edge and be grate­ful to every and all that have come before.

Reaf­firm and ded­i­cate your life to the spir­i­tu­al path…“May thy will be done”.…

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

Peace to one and all…

The Sun has just begun to walk those hal­lowed halls, to stroll through the ancient tem­ples that pro­claim, pre­serve and pass down your tra­di­tion­al val­ues. The Sun is mov­ing through those sacred spaces where Capri­corn rules when, all of a sud­den, he encoun­ters the plan­et of con­tra­dic­tion, inde­pen­dence and rev­o­lu­tion him­self, Uranus…Oh boy, this is going to be a bumpy start to Capri­corn’s month…

The Sun in Capri­corn seeks to guide you now upon the path­ways of preser­va­tion, of ful­fill­ing your pur­pose as defined by the real­i­ty around you. You do your duty because it is the right and prop­er thing to do…but this square says you face a chal­lenge, you face a choice…

Uranus squares the Sun and says, “Are you being you? Have you freely cho­sen this task, this role, this duty? And, whom do you serve?” These are good and nec­es­sary ques­tions because you can become part of a sys­tem that has lost its way, enmeshed into per­form­ing your duty in a real­i­ty which has become increas­ing­ly devoid of mean­ing, that is, in effect, spir­i­tu­al­ly “dying”…and if you con­tin­ue to act with­in such hol­low roles your own light will become dimin­ished too…

So, Uranus comes along, like a breath of fresh air, (or more like­ly a strong gale), and chal­lenges that sta­tus quo and the assump­tions that under­lie it. Uranus in Aries pro­claims the neces­si­ty of striv­ing for inde­pen­dence and orig­i­nal­i­ty; it chal­lenges the hier­ar­chies of the sta­tus quo and rais­es the flag of new path­ways and freedom.

Here the Sun stands for tra­di­tion and order and with­out these there would be noth­ing to stand upon; Uranus stands for the indi­vid­ual spir­it that must chal­lenge a bro­ken sys­tem, the spir­i­tu­al path of self-unfold­ment and liberty.

Both are speak­ing truths, both must be honored…So you must find that high­er path of blend and balance…you must walk the syn­cretis­tic path­way of the spir­i­tu­al war­rior where you can be both pre­serv­er and reformer, respon­si­ble and trans­form­ing too.

The way of spir­it is the way of bal­ance and whole­ness, of nei­ther too much this or too much that. Today you must try and find your way between the ancient and mod­ern, between tra­di­tion and the undiscovered…

You are always learn­ing, always seek­ing for this mid­dle path…and it is found today by being tra­di­tion­al and transformational…together.