Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As we attempt to dis­cern the spir­i­tu­al themes of the com­ing year, it is help­ful to con­sid­er what we have just encoun­tered in 2018. It is most cer­tain­ly true that the tests faced, and the lessons learned in any one year may con­tin­ue into the fol­low­ing year (or sev­er­al years), as the unfold­ment of one day into the next is cer­tain­ly dri­ven and informed by ener­gies and expe­ri­ences that wax and wane over many weeks, months and years.

Plu­to in Capri­corn — The End of an Age

For Earth as a whole, the most impor­tant plan­e­tary influ­ences remain in place, with some vari­a­tions on a theme we have been faced with for some time now. Cer­tain­ly, the pas­sage of Plu­to through the Sign of Capri­corn, (2008 through 2024), con­tin­ues to pro­vide the pri­ma­ry heart­beat of our spir­i­tu­al chal­lenge. I have called this once every 250-year cyclic peri­od the “end of an age”, which was clear­ly so for the pre­vi­ous pas­sages in the ear­ly 1500’s and the 1700’s. In those ear­li­er peri­ods, and I would think most by now would agree it is true for our own time too, the world seemed to fall apart as Polit­i­cal, Eco­nom­ic and Cul­tur­al dis­in­te­gra­tions rever­ber­at­ed through all realms. But these spir­i­tu­al earth­quakes also her­ald­ed each time that a new age was dawning.

A new world is com­ing, but that requires that an old order give way. Of course, the fun­da­men­tal nature of what it means to be human, our needs for food, shel­ter, com­pan­ion­ship, love and secu­ri­ty are ever-present, but they are also evolving/transforming, seem­ing­ly (or actu­al­ly) at an expo­nen­tial rate, which is in large part due to what is known as “the sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tion” that began sev­er­al cen­turies ago.

Coper­ni­cus, Bacon, Galileo, New­ton among many oth­er “less­er knowns”, ques­tioned assump­tions passed down from time immemo­r­i­al. This quick­en­ing of the human capa­bil­i­ty to know and alter our world has endowed human­i­ty with pow­ers that have seem­ing­ly out­stripped our wis­dom to wield them, whether in Physics = Nuclear weapons, or Biol­o­gy = Bio-engineering.

Much that was will con­tin­ue in some form of course, but much more of our social, eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal struc­tures will be reformed/transformed into new modes of expres­sion, and they will cer­tain­ly be informed by new ideas (or old ideas renewed) and mean­ings. The ques­tion remains, will we devel­op enough wis­dom and humil­i­ty to wield our “ring of pow­er” (Intel­li­gence) with uncon­di­tion­al love and compassion.

Uranus and Nep­tune — Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty vs. Communality

Con­tribut­ing to this shift of his­tor­i­cal pat­terns last year (and the year before), was the first major align­ment of Uranus with Nep­tune after their his­toric con­junc­tion in 1993. From 2017 on through into the begin­ning of 2019, we have been influ­enced by the Uranus/Neptune Semi­Square which is the first sig­nif­i­cant aspect in their 170 cycle from con­junc­tion to conjunction.

Uranus rules “Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty”; I call Uranus the “Awak­en­er”, as it is the Avatar of the High­er or Freer Mind that forms one of the three aspects of Spir­it. Nep­tune rules “Com­mu­nal­i­ty”; Nep­tune is the Avatar of the Ener­gy-Form that holds the whole of Cre­ation as One, the one abid­ing force that binds all to all, Uni­ver­sal or Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

The inte­gral rela­tion­ship between these two reveals the para­dox­i­cal truth behind the mys­tery of the Universe’s con­sti­tu­tion. Every­thing, every par­ti­cle and every “Being” in this Uni­verse is an indi­vid­ual that is a unique instance of spir­it informed by its own Quin­tes­sence; yet all of these “ones” are One in Spir­it and fun­da­men­tal­ly indi­vis­i­ble from one anoth­er. Through­out all king­doms of life, in age after age, there is an ever-shift­ing bal­ance between these two prin­ci­ples, between the One and the many.

The ten­sion between the Indi­vid­ual and the Com­mu­ni­ty wax­es and wanes in any cul­ture or civ­i­liza­tion. Whether we look at human “types” like Hunter/Gatherer, Farmer/Craftsperson or Rural/Urban (among many pos­si­ble dis­tinc­tions and dif­fer­ences), there will be found dif­fer­ing mix­tures and bal­ances (and often­times like now, imbal­ances), between these two great Ener­gy-Forms that deter­mine the degree to which Indi­vid­ual Free­dom and Com­mu­nal Har­mo­ny does or does not co-exist.

The recent past has seen a world­wide upheaval, marked now by the extremes of anar­chic indi­vid­u­al­ism and suf­fo­cat­ing com­mu­nal­ism, which sig­nals we are at a most crit­i­cal stage, where the old mod­el of bal­anc­ing Individuality/Communality has bro­ken down, and the yet to emerge new mod­el has not been ful­ly formed nor under­stood. This world-wide con­fu­sion has pro­duced a cri­sis of order and mean­ing­ful­ness for the many who yearn for a life and world that is “Fair and Free”. With­out a sig­nif­i­cant major­i­ty of peo­ple who hold to and act through an accept­ed inte­gra­tion of these two ener­gy-forms, we are liv­ing through a peri­od that is like an “in-between world”, where extrem­ists are dri­ving and divid­ing us fur­ther from one another.

How we hold these prin­ci­pals of Free­dom and Com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er with­in our­selves, and between one anoth­er, is part of our Spir­i­tu­al Jour­ney which can only be formed and forged by hold­ing to an Inte­gral Way of Liv­ing. We are on a jour­ney from uncon­scious­ness to full spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing, and as we remake our­selves and our world, we must strive towards ever more encom­pass­ing ways of hold­ing togeth­er our “par­a­digms of under­stand­ing” and our “ways of being”.

From the phys­i­cal through the spir­i­tu­al, from the sim­plest to the most com­plex enti­ties and sys­tems, we must always strive to live a whole life, a good and beau­ty-filled life, which can be found and restored by remem­ber­ing that there is a way to do this. That way can be found by remem­ber­ing that these crises have come before, and at each moment our ances­tors found a way by hold­ing firm to the great­est truths, those pre­cious jew­els of spir­it which nev­er fade or fal­ter. We need to remem­ber that these lumi­nous truths were dis­cov­ered and passed down to us from the very begin­ning of our journey.

The Way

When­ev­er you are in doubt, you should turn (and so return) to the eter­nal truths of the Ancient Wis­dom that con­tin­u­al­ly re-emerge in age after age. This is so because Truth is equal­ly with­in you as it forms all the worlds that sur­round you too. These Spir­i­tu­al Truths are to be found every­where you look, but most impor­tant­ly, those very answers that you find “out there” will res­onate with­in you because your high­er self, your intu­itive-know­ing-self, will gen­tly whis­per “this is true”. This is because these Ancient Truths form the very sub­stance of your heart and mind too.

At the true core of any Reli­gion or Phi­los­o­phy, with­in what is known as the Eso­teric as dis­tinct from the Exo­teric forms of under­stand­ing, the Peren­ni­al Teach­ings are revealed and illu­mi­nate for you the one essen­tial path. The Great Ones, the teach­ers who form a lumi­nous riv­er of truth about life and love, all of them came to serve this cause of spir­i­tu­al integri­ty and truth, and they were guid­ed in their heart and through their soul by the fun­da­men­tal pre­cept that there is “no reli­gion high­er than truth”.

As you look back now to the year that was, and turn to face the year that is dawn­ing, take com­fort from those who showed you the way long, long ago. You will be filled with a renewed faith, and you will know that you will make a bet­ter future for your­self and for one anoth­er. Remem­ber you are nev­er alone, and you walk the same path of the Great Souls who came before you, and they strug­gled for their self-mas­tery which you will achieve one day too:

Be guid­ed by the Wise Ones, who know there is no reli­gion high­er than Truth.
Walk the path of the Great-Souls, who prac­tice the Wis­dom of Love.
Find inspi­ra­tion in the Lone­ly Ones, their Will­ing-Sac­ri­fice hon­ored by 
the Angels and Devas above.
Lis­ten for the Voice of the Silence, attend the gen­tle whis­pers in your Heart,
And you will find “The Way”.

Next, “Where are we now?”