Aries, by Johfra Bosschart

The First Step

Today begins your year­ly jour­ney around our star. At this time of the year, and wher­ev­er you have Aries in your very own chart too, you should give thanks for and cel­e­brate the won­der and the joy of the most pre­cious gift that flows from the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones.

This most sub­lime truth is root­ed in the essen­tial promise of the One, cre­at­ed and pre­served and made man­i­fest by your very own Spark of the Divine. And what is that? It is this, that the truth of you, your quin­tes­sence, is revealed by your ever-renew­ing well­spring of Spir­it, in that inef­fa­ble agency by which you are here, right now and for­ev­er as the liv­ing spir­it who is sim­ply here to “be and become what you are, the Divine made man­i­fest upon this Earth”.

Aries is the gate­way of Spir­it, it is the com­ing of the Tran­scen­dent into Form, the word made man­i­fest in the phys­i­cal world. Yes, it is by this first Sign of Fire, of Spir­it, it is by Aries that you move through the por­tal between yes­ter­day and tomor­row, between what you were and what you are yet to be. Because, and this you must know, you can only be and become by mov­ing out of the shad­ows and into the light, by mov­ing through what we call space-time. You are tru­ly you at the cross­ing point between the Dark­ness and the Light, between what you were and what you will be. You are here to know this, that you are what you are, and you only exist, by mov­ing for­ev­er in The Eter­nal Now.

For the last 30 days, you loved and lost, you laughed and cried, as you walked in that most sacred realm of the Twelve Holy Ones, in the time and place of Pisces. Yes, Pisces brings the gift of clo­sure, as you sift through the har­vest of the past year and under­stand the immutable law which holds one and all togeth­er in the “Great Work”, the fun­da­men­tal keep­er of the flame which holds you to it, which is that “you will reap what you sow”. It is there that you tru­ly under­stood the unbreak­able bond between the growth of your wis­dom being root­ed in the deep­en­ing of your humil­i­ty. And you were held by the grace of for­give­ness, hum­bled by the under­stand­ing that it was your very stum­bles and over-com­ings that form the dia­mond body of your char­ac­ter and faith today. In the Waters of Pisces, you found the way to hold it all, the good and the so-called bad, to hold it all because of the com­pas­sion and love of the One who loves us all.

And now a New Year begins, and the Fire of Aries is upon you. Aries seizes you with the gift of Inspi­ra­tion, with Ideas that just come upon you, and that bend your heart and soul to the joy­ful exhil­a­ra­tion, the brand-new day filled by the light and by the pow­er of new beginnings.

Yes, in Aries you leap into action, to be and become what­ev­er you will be. But the les­son you must learn, the first les­son on the path of life is here too. At each por­tal, in each sign, you are asked a ques­tion, and the one before you now, well it is prob­a­bly the most pro­found. Quite sim­ply put, the ques­tion the uni­verse asks you now is this, “Who are you?”

To answer this seems sim­ple enough, but do not take this light­ly, for every­thing rests upon this. To tru­ly know the right answer, you must under­stand the “real” ques­tion now, which is “Why are you?”

Why are you here, what is this real­ly all about? Quite sim­ply and tru­ly, you are here to learn to be a bet­ter human. To dis­cov­er through Inspi­ra­tion and Per­spi­ra­tion, by Tri­al and by Error, through Suc­cess and Fail­ure, you are here to learn by Cause and Effect how to be a whole per­son, and how to become a wise being who choos­es to live by Love.

And it all begins here, with the first step, your next step. And then the one after that. Life is, well life is a jour­ney, of mov­ing in the Eter­nal Now, but from moment to moment and from one space into anoth­er. I like to imag­ine Life as like mov­ing through a series of doors, with you leav­ing one space and enter­ing anoth­er. And here you will encounter the ever­last­ing gift and test that is Aries, the gift of devel­op­ing your char­ac­ter, of your bear­ing, of forg­ing your presence.

As you go through each door, you will find that there is always some­one who is going through just ahead of you. And if you are for­tu­nate, you will have that per­son who is ahead of you hold the door open for you and per­haps lend you a hand. But often­times you will find that the one who is ahead is trou­bled, or thought­less, or angry, or what­ev­er, and that they do not con­sid­er who is behind them and they slam the door in your face.

And now you have it, your quin­tes­sen­tial test is upon you. What hap­pened just then, well that was bad, that was “bad” ener­gy that fell upon you. But now comes the ques­tion, “what will you do”, what will you do with this energy?

It would be so very easy, and real­ly in some ways effort­less, to just take that neg­a­tive ener­gy, and to pass it on to whomev­er is fol­low­ing you. The bad came at you, and you just got rid of it. That is so easy…but your life will not be easy if you do this, you will not grow and change, and you will not be bet­ter unless you are the change.

Instead, you must stop, for you need to real­ize that you do have a choice. You are sup­posed to choose here. If you real­ize that the neg­a­tive ener­gy-form you received is just an acci­dent of fate, per­haps a neg­a­tive “emo­tion” that has been passed down for many, many years. And you, well you can change it by choos­ing to take the path not tak­en, and to hold the door open for the one who fol­lows you.

And if you do this, you will change the world, and you will have changed your­self too.

And if we all do this, if we choose to turn the neg­a­tive into the good, to turn the dark­ness into light, to turn fear into faith and hate into love, well…

Well, that is the whole point after all.

Because you are a spark of the Divine.

And the rea­son you are here is because of love.

And you are here to be that love by lov­ing one another.

Today, and in all your many days to come.

May you make the first step be the right step.

May you be the Love that was the First Step.

May you be a one like the One.

And you will shine like the Sun.

Oh yes, that is the way, the only way.

The Way of Light, and of Truth and Love.