Hap­py Astro­log­i­cal New Year!

The Les­son of Pres­ence — Mov­ing through the Eter­nal Now

What are you going to do now; how do you begin; where do you begin? How should you start the day, the week, the year? Because this is most impor­tant, it is fate­ful­ly impor­tant to you.

The first thoughts you think, the first feel­ings you feel, the first actions you take, they flow forth from you, and they will both mold you and give form to what you cre­ate. By these first steps, “you make what you make of you”.

Each and every step you take will set in motion a chain of cau­sa­tion that echoes down through time and space. Though every sin­gle step mat­ters, it is the first one that sets the pat­tern for what is to fol­low. So, con­sid­er wise­ly what are you going to do; who are you going to become?

Today you begin the Astro­log­i­cal New Year in the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, the fun­da­men­tal Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of Life you know as the Zodi­ac. Today you start the next jour­ney of you in Aries.

In your life, as in all things, first things come first…This is the Les­son of Aries, this is your les­son of “Pres­ence”. It is here, right now in Aries, it is always here that your past and your future are brought togeth­er in the only place you are free to be the cre­ator, here in the Eter­nal Now.

You must remem­ber this, that you are in fact a unique com­bi­na­tion of all twelve ener­gy-forms of the Zodi­ac. Some part of you is Aries, some oth­er part Tau­rus and even Gem­i­ni is part of you too. This is because these Sacred Twelve form the Spir­it-Sub­stance of Cre­ation. From the small­est infin­i­tes­i­mal on up to the grand­est stel­lar won­ders of Galax­ies and beyond, each part and par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is at its core a radi­ant par­ti­cle of the One Spir­it whose “Cen­ter is Every­where and whose Cir­cum­fer­ence is Nowhere”.

In life after life and through all the moments in any life, you move through Space-Time in this “vehi­cle” of you: your body, feel­ings, thoughts and spir­it. In each moment, you bring your­self into some “space”, and that space changes, and so do you. You turn a cor­ner and encounter something/someone; you enter a room and are faced with the Ener­gy-Forms that were already present. And in the very next instant, you must deter­mine how you will be, what you will be, and who you will become.

Aries is the begin­ning, it is you aware of you. It is by Aries that you take the first step. It is by Aries that you are self-aware and new­ly awak­ened to and so inspired by the pow­er and joy of new begin­nings. But before you leap into the next moment or the new day, before you move out you must under­stand you…before you go “out” you must look within.

How you meet the moment before you is formed by your lev­el of self-aware­ness, which is most cer­tain­ly revealed by what informs your “Pres­ence”, your Moti­va­tions and Inten­tions. What is in your head and heart, what do you “Desire”? Because if you wish to know “where” and “how” you might be going, you must look with­in to under­stand the “why” you are com­ing from.

As you move through space-time, as you enter a “new-space”, you must imme­di­ate­ly ascer­tain what you should bring to bear to meet this moment well. If the sit­u­a­tion is already too ener­gized, then you need to bring your calm­ing self. And if the sit­u­a­tion is lack­ing in ener­gy, then you must bring more live­li­ness to bear.

If you lean in too much, you will be over­whelm­ing; and if you hold back over­much you will be under­whelm­ing. But it you can bring to bear in each moment that per­fect bal­ance of you that fits, then you will be wel­com­ing and wel­comed, and you will be well-met indeed.

For each encounter with the Now, there is a hier­ar­chy of con­sid­er­a­tions that should be formed into your pres­ence. It will often mat­ter how you are attired. It will very much mat­ter how you hold your­self, as your demeanor or dis­po­si­tion will be crit­i­cal to your recep­tion. It will mat­ter how well you speak, and how well you listen.

But all of this and more will flow from your aware­ness; all of this comes from your inte­gral com­bi­na­tion of Right-Inten­tion, Right-Think­ing, and Right-Feel­ing. It is by this that you are tru­ly you in Right-Action. Your spir­i­tu­al aware­ness, your lev­el of inten­tion, will deter­mine how you will be and what you will next become.

If you under­stand the “Why” of you, then you will know that you are one of many ones whose jour­ney is the Song of Spir­it. If you can tru­ly under­stand that each of you is pre­cious, then you will know that you are equal­ly pre­cious for one anoth­er too. Then you will under­stand this “Why”; you will know that the truth of you is Love. Then you will stand in the Eter­nal Now, the place of Free­dom and Truth, and when you do this you will tru­ly shine.

You are here to be who and what you are, and only you will make it so. If you have lis­tened to your soul’s true nature, you will bring ever increas­ing Light and Love into every moment met in the Eter­nal Now. You will take your next step in your self-becom­ing as you:

Lead with Kindness
Act with Courage
And love one anoth­er as you love yourself.

Because this is who you are; this is who we are.
You are one of the ones of the One.
You are here because of Love,
You are you to be this Love.

Fol­low the Wis­dom of the Ages,
It is writ­ten there in your heart.
Know Thy­self; Love One Another,
And you will be you as you,
Live by Love in the Eter­nal Now.

The Sto­ry of Love

Your Avatar of Val­ue is turn­ing around; your plan­et of love is going ret­ro­grade once again.

Of course, what is real­ly hap­pen­ing is that, like on a cir­cu­lar race track, Venus is pass­ing Earth on its “inside track”. Where­as Mer­cury will turn ret­ro­grade every 3.8 months for about 21 days, Venus turns ret­ro­grade every 19.2 months for about 40 days. (The last two times it turned were July 2015 and Decem­ber 2013, and the next time will be in Octo­ber 2018).

The gift of Venus ret­ro­grade is to take you on a jour­ney with­in your­self so that you may recon­sid­er your expe­ri­ence of val­ue. You are offered a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to refresh-renew-restore your rela­tion­ship to beau­ty in the world, and to lov­ing­ly reaf­firm your affec­tions for one anoth­er. But this is all because the prin­ci­ple gift of Venus ret­ro­grade is to bring you back to the fun­da­men­tal truth that that the true foun­da­tion-source of val­ue is to be found in Spir­it, in that spark of the divine shin­ing there in all that sur­rounds you and equal­ly with­in you. It is this, this divine love, that is source of the immea­sur­able val­ue with­in your­self and your world too.

Venus retrograde’s gift will be mod­u­lat­ed by what­ev­er Sign Venus is mov­ing through. In this turn­ing, Venus moves from Aries back into Pisces, and so there will real­ly be two dis­tinct offer­ings of Venus for you this time.

While Venus loops back through Aries you are offered an oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-con­sid­er how well you have formed your nature or val­ue into your “per­sona”, into your “pres­ence”. Aries rules the way in which you meet and greet your world, it is your bear­ing, your demeanor and your atti­tude. All these ways you are you, all of it is ulti­mate­ly formed by what lies beneath, there in your heart of hearts, all made by your love. How you love (and what you love) flows out­ward to be revealed in the ways in which you move through time and space.

The fun­da­men­tal ques­tion of Venus in Aries is this: Do you under­stand that first you must love your­self. Or more exact­ly, do you under­stand that you are loved, and that you are always loved by your own high­er self, who is your ever-present beloved in life after life?

If you can move a lit­tle clos­er to this, then this will be reflect­ed in how you hold and con­duct your­self as you move through your world and how you treat one anoth­er. And how will you know?

Do you move with grace and ease? Do you encounter oth­ers with a lov­ing warmth and gra­cious­ness? Do you shine with what is with­in you, a lov­ing char­ac­ter and kind­ly pres­ence? Or, does your coun­te­nance reveal a soul that is more trou­bled, more inse­cure, in lack­ing true healthy self-love?

For you should know this by now, it is how you meet the world, and how you treat one anoth­er, it is by this that you sow the seeds of kar­ma, and of what will come back to you one day. The real­i­ty you encounter tomor­row you made today, by how you held your­self and by how you treat­ed one anoth­er. You and only you can make a bet­ter you.

Then on April 2^nd, Venus will ret­ro­grade back into Pisces for her sec­ond gift of spir­it. Here again the par­tic­u­lar expe­ri­ence of Venus-val­ue will be focused through the prin­ci­pal sen­si­bil­i­ty that Pisces encom­pass­es. As much as the expe­ri­ence of Aries is about your­self, about know­ing that the source of love must first to be found and held with­in your­self, and that it comes from your High­er Self lov­ing you…the expe­ri­ence of Pisces is the per­fect com­ple­ment to this.

For it is here in Pisces that you under­stand that the entire­ty of Cre­ation, from the small­est forms up to the grand­est stel­lar expans­es, you expe­ri­ence the feel­ing-know­ing that all of this is because of Love. You see that this Cre­ation is Love, and that it is resplen­dent with the Light of Love.

You feel exalt­ed and hum­bled by a Liv­ing Faith, know­ing that in the end there is but One Spir­it hold­ing one and all togeth­er, and that behind and through­out every part of Cre­ation, there is the One from whom all came, and whose true Nature is Pure Love.

And from this you under­stand that as much as you are here to love your­self, you are here to love one anoth­er too…for there is no dif­fer­ence. If you tru­ly under­stand, and know why and how you love your­self, then you will inevitably turn around and feel and live this uncon­di­tion­al love towards one anoth­er, and for all of Cre­ation too.

True Self-Love begets Self­less Love; the many return to the One.

The First Sign and the Last Sign of the Zodi­ac are tru­ly the Alpha and Omega of Life. You begin your jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery, of being a one among many oth­er ones.

And you end your jour­ney being one of many who are held togeth­er by the One.

But through it all, from Sign to Sign and from Life to Life, you are a pre­cious spark in this Lumi­nous Jour­ney of Spirit.

You are in this great­est sto­ry ever told, the sto­ry of Love.

THE WAY

The hard­est and most impor­tant thing to do…is to end some­thing well.

It is often quite easy to make a beginning.

To sal­ly forth on some small (or great) enter­prise or adventure.

And then you fill in the chap­ters of the expe­ri­ence with var­i­ous chal­lenges and lessons, rid­ing the waves of stum­bles and achieve­ments, of set­backs and break­throughs that lead you onwards to your bet­ter days.

But in the end, at the end of each day, each month and every year, it all comes down to this…Did you under­stand? Were you able encom­pass the whole arc of this expe­ri­ence, and fold this pre­cious fruit into the mean­ing­ful pur­pos­es of your life? Did you reap the har­vest of your well-won desserts, or did you become weighed down by bit­ter mem­o­ries and regrets? Will you begin once more at a high­er lev­el of poten­tial­i­ty, or will you have to regroup and start over and try once again?

The Twelve Astro­log­i­cal Signs are the fun­da­men­tal Ener­gy-Forms that Shape and Inform the Uni­verse. This Twelve-Fold Dimen­sion­al-Divi­sion of Spir­it per­me­ates the small­est speck and mote on up to the grand­est and great­est embod­i­ments of Spir­it that you see sweep­ing before you in those Cos­mic Beings you know as Stars and Galaxies.

The essen­tial prin­ci­ple of your Cos­mic Order, found in the Ancient Teach­ings and the Eso­teric heart of all reli­gions, affirms that every sin­gle part of Cre­ation is “Con­scious”. The entire­ty of Cre­ation is com­posed of a vast array of ever more evolved lev­els of con­scious­ness, who in their total­i­ty form the Mind of the Cos­mos, the Mind of the One.

The whole point of your spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing is for you to become ever more Self-Aware and there­by Self-Mas­ter­ful; it is your Des­tiny to be ever more con­scious­ly con­tribut­ing to the Jour­ney of Spir­it. You do this by under­stand­ing and weav­ing togeth­er all Twelve of these Ener­gy-Forms into the unique being you are in this one life, as well as all your many forms and lives you lived and will live too.

Even­tu­al­ly, you will achieve your full­ness as “human”, you will become an “Awak­ened One”, and be no longer (uncon­scious­ly) bound to the Karmic Cycles of Death and Rebirth. You will be “free” to choose, to move on in your own spir­i­tu­al evo­lu­tion beyond the human, or turn and lend a help­ing hand to those who trail behind you.

Yes, even in your moment of lib­er­a­tion, you are giv­en a choice. Even when you are a tru­ly radi­ant being, a “Deva”, an “Angel” or a “Shin­ing One”, even here you can still be “self­ish”. It is here, (more than oth­er time before), that you will reveal your true spir­i­tu­al nature, as you choose between the paths of Sep­a­ra­tion and Dark­ness, or the Path of Love and Light.

This is the heart of the mes­sage of Pisces. That here in the final sign of the Zodi­ac, hav­ing come through each of the pre­vi­ous Eleven Sacred Signs in this year, (and in life after life too), it is here that you will encom­pass your jour­ney, and tru­ly know and under­stand the nature of your Love for your­self and for one anoth­er too. You will under­stand that this love of self and for one anoth­er is the same Love, because true Love is uncon­di­tion­al, insep­a­ra­ble and indivisible.

You have been through every sign when you reach Pisces, and so you have moved into a much greater real­i­ty, filled with true empa­thy and heart-felt com­pas­sion for all of human­i­ty, and tru­ly for all of life. You have come that much clos­er to break­ing the fun­da­men­tal illu­sion of your sep­a­ra­tion from one anoth­er, the sep­a­ra­tion which brought about your self-cast shad­ows formed by your anx­i­eties, doubts and fears.

In Pisces, you see the full­ness of the arc of your sto­ry. You under­stand that it is through fear that you stum­bled into error and met your “fate” as some­thing that befell you. You learn to accept your part in why this hap­pened. You learn to choose wise­ly; you have faith that you will do bet­ter. But to do this you must for­give your­self, as you must equal­ly for­give one anoth­er too.

Your first step is to know your­self; your first step is found in love. Your first cir­cle of com­pas­sion is from your Self to your­self, for you can­not grow with­out for­give­ness. You turn to your “high­er self”, to that qui­et, steady lov­ing voice of the eter­nal with­in you. You feel the love there that is Uncon­di­tion­al, and you are hum­bled and exalt­ed. Then you turn in for­give­ness and love, help­ing to lift the shad­ow of fear for those with whom you jour­ney, there­by lift­ing your­self and them into a bet­ter world too.

By this turn­ing inwards, to the lamp of love with­in you, you find your Liv­ing Faith in the knowl­edge that it is you who is the mak­er-cre­ator, it is you that made yourself…and this Truth is the source of your boun­ti­ful faith. Your essen­tial nature, that you are a spark of the Divine, endows you with the awe­some pow­er to Cre­ate. That what you dream, will become your thoughts; and, what you think will become who you are.

You under­stand and accept, that you cre­at­ed this “fact” of what you meet in the today. Your “today” was made long, long ago by you, (and many oth­ers). You can­not change the past, and you can­not per­fect­ly know the future…but you can be here in this present moment. By act­ing with Wis­dom and Love here and now you will redeem your past and cre­ate a more per­fect tomorrow.

It is only here in the “Now”, in the ever-renew­ing “Present”, it is here that you will ride the razor’s edge between oppor­tu­ni­ty and dan­ger. Always you will face the great choice: Will you rise up in faith or fall back in fear? If you remain true to the steady, lov­ing spir­it with­in you, you will always find your way to a bet­ter you and a brighter tomorrow.

It is from such Spir­i­tu­al Prax­is, that you become more awak­ened, more ful­ly human. You embody a “Liv­ing Faith” from the spir­it with­in you now joined to the wis­dom that you have earned. You are your great­est cre­ation. You have made you more “you” again and again. Your Divine Spark is the ker­nel of Light that holds your unique­ness, your Quin­tes­sence. You will always find your way upon the Dhar­ma-Kar­ma path by remain­ing true to and by abid­ing in the lov­ing pres­ence of your High­er Self.

You can and will, with oth­er Faith-Filled com­pan­ions, meet what comes upon your path today and build from it your “shin­ing city on a hill”, an ever-expand­ing present of bet­ter tomor­rows. First you must for­give your­self; then you must equal­ly love and for­give them too. Then, togeth­er, you will release your “gifts of the spir­it” to heal one anoth­er and your world.

Pisces is the “end”, it is the har­vest of the fruits of your spir­i­tu­al jour­ney. It is equal­ly the Foun­tain-Source for all your begin­nings. For your path is not a line or an arc. You are part of a vast spi­ral­ing hier­ar­chy of Spir­it that is trav­el­ling through Space-Time, ascend­ing from less­er forms of con­scious­ness to the greater and even greater beyond that.

There is but one injunc­tion for your journey.

Every day…Every month…Every year…

Fol­low the Path of Compassion.

Live a Life of Uncon­di­tion­al Love,

Lis­ten to the Voice of the Silence,

The Wis­dom of your Heart.

Gath­er your har­vest of well-earned rewards,

And, plant your resplen­dent seeds of bet­ter days.

For now, and for­ev­er and ever,

Smile,

Extend your lov­ing hand,

Have Faith,

Love one Another.

And when trou­bled or in doubt, remem­ber the Great Invocation:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

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

Trump’s Tran­sits

In the pre­vi­ous essay, I delin­eat­ed some of the sig­nif­i­cant natal fea­tures in Don­ald Trump’s chart. Today I will exam­ine some of the major tran­sits in Trump’s chart for 2016–17. Then I will exam­ine the con­nec­tions between his chart and the chart of the USA in the fol­low­ing essay.

The tim­ing for plan­e­tary tran­sits will often cross over from one cal­en­dar year to the next. Dur­ing 2016, there were two very sig­nif­i­cant tran­sits to Trump’s chart, Uranus squar­ing his Sat­urn from spring 2016 until ear­ly April 2017, and Plu­to squar­ing his Jupiter, which is in effect from spring 2016 and will last until the late fall of 2017.

Uranus/Saturn

Uranus align­ing with Sat­urn in a “strong” man­ner such as this will occur about every 21–22 years or so. When­ev­er this tran­sit occurs, Real­i­ty is shak­en and can in fact be shat­tered; it is a call to reform/remake that real­i­ty (or your under­stand­ing and inter­fac­ing with Real­i­ty), to deal with the neces­si­ty for change. It can appear as a great loss; but it is equal­ly the call to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a new way of being. For Don­ald, the two pre­vi­ous pass­es were 1994 and 1973–74.

The more recent date coin­cid­ed with his suc­cess­ful escape from his fail­ing casi­no ven­tures by “going pub­lic”; he end­ed up sell­ing shares in his pri­vate­ly owned and deeply indebt­ed enter­pris­es. He trans­formed his “real­i­ty” from a fail­ure to suc­cess. He “social­ized” his debt and came out a win­ner. In the ear­li­er peri­od, the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion, his father and he, were charged with a con­sis­tent and very long prac­tice of racial bias with regards to their rental prop­er­ty empire, in Brook­lyn and Queens. They were found to have used var­i­ous tac­tics to deny leas­es to “peo­ple of col­or”. Uranus forced them to change their ille­gal prac­tices and con­form to Real­i­ty, to abide by the let­ter and spir­it of the law.

Giv­en the promi­nence and impor­tance of Uranus in Trump’s chart, he will respond/react even more notice­ably than most to this influ­ence. As I not­ed in the pre­vi­ous essay, Trump is very much a “Uran­ian man”, with both his Sun/Uranus and Moon/Uranus align­ments. His self-char­ac­ter­i­za­tion fol­lows this theme of Uranus, in his often-stat­ed asser­tion of being an excep­tion­al man, a genius to whom the nor­mal rules and norms will not apply. He believes in his spe­cial­ness. He will blaze “new trails”, he will smash the “icons” and break the “bound­aries” of nor­mal­cy. Trump will most cer­tain­ly be the car­ri­er for and instru­ment of change; he will be dis­rup­tive and destabilizing.

Sat­urn is the Avatar of Real­i­ty, the struc­tures of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, but it also indi­cates where you will encounter the “shad­ow” in this life. It is where you have old wounds and fears. But it will be also, by your efforts to deal with your shad­ow and fear, it is where you may end of wield­ing your Author­i­ty, where you may find your “Role”.

For Trump, with Sat­urn in the sign of Can­cer and in his 11^th house, his fears would be cen­tered upon his expe­ri­ence of nur­tur­ing and care-giv­ing, the ques­tion would be whether he felt secure and hap­py in his child­hood, or did he expe­ri­ence nurturing/security as some­thing that was lost or was nev­er tru­ly there. It is the chal­lenge of Spir­it, to real­ize that each of us must find our way to our own true self, and so become tru­ly cen­tered and sta­ble indi­vid­u­als. Then we are to use that expe­ri­ence to help oth­ers find their way to their cen­ter and secu­ri­ty too.

And, with Sat­urn in the 11^th house, he would long for true friend­ship, and would feel his des­tiny is to become a leader of a group or groups. But, he would like­ly suf­fer from the expe­ri­ence of var­i­ous forms of alien­ation, of not fit­ting in or belong­ing, of being “dif­fer­ent”. Trump, if not healed of this Sat­urn test, could end up lead­ing in a group or a cause that was not tru­ly of him.

In 2016–17, Uranus squar­ing Sat­urn has elicit­ed once again Trump’s promethean abil­i­ty to con­found the “sta­tus quo”, by rebelling against the main­stream in both polit­i­cal par­ties. He finds him­self as the fig­ure­head rid­ing a wave of pop­ulist anger direct­ed towards elites and the sta­tus quo. More than a few observers have not­ed the irony of a bil­lion­aire, who has pushed the enve­lope of bend­ing finan­cial reg­u­la­tions, norms and bound­aries for his per­son­al gain, hav­ing become the leader of a move­ment born out of the out­rage erupt­ing from these very abus­es of privilege.

Pluto/Jupiter

But it is the sec­ond major tran­sit, of Plu­to over Trump’s Jupiter, that reveals a more com­plex sto­ry with his present rise and exer­cise of pow­er. Plu­to is the Avatar of Will and Pow­er; Jupiter is the Avatar of Truth, Sci­ence, Reli­gion and Law. When Plu­to is mov­ing over Jupiter in a chal­leng­ing man­ner, per­haps twice in a life­time, the com­bi­na­tion of the plan­et of Pow­er and the plan­et of Expan­sion and Growth may lead to tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ties. But, if this pow­er is mis­han­dled or mis­di­rect­ed it will lead to great dif­fi­cul­ties with Jus­tice and the Law.

The pre­vi­ous pas­sage of Plu­to to Trump’s Jupiter, a con­junc­tion or plant­i­ng of a seed, was in 1978–79. This was exact­ly when he became known as a pre­mier devel­op­er. By tak­ing advan­tage of the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in the US econ­o­my in gen­er­al and in NYC, Trump was able to arrange a “sweet­heart deal” of a 40-year tax abate­ment in con­struct­ing the Grand Hyatt hotel at Grand Cen­tral. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, this was also when Trump leased a site on Fifth Avenue, just down from Tiffany, and built his sig­na­ture build­ing and cur­rent home, known as Trump Tow­er. This was when Don­ald Trump became a nation­al name and brand.

In 2016–17, almost 40 years lat­er, Trump has Plu­to pass­ing over his Jupiter once more, but this time it is the square aspect which means there will be a much greater chal­lenge and choice in how these ener­gy-forms will com­bine. The plant­i­ng of the seed of Pluto/Jupiter in the late 70’s has brought him to this major cross­road and fork in his life. The ques­tion will be put to him regard­ing the exer­cise of Pow­er as informed, guid­ed and so direct­ed by his Beliefs.

The Plu­ton­ian “Test of Pow­er” is an awe­some yet chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence. Fun­da­men­tal­ly, the ques­tion for any indi­vid­ual, in exer­cis­ing their will in any realm, whether that be con­fined to just the first cir­cle of the fam­i­ly, or in one’s imme­di­ate com­mu­ni­ty, in a busi­ness or oth­er large enter­pris­es, on up to the lead­er­ship of a major world insti­tu­tion, (like the USA), the ques­tion will be for that individual:

“Do you under­stand how you are to be prop­er­ly guid­ed and direct­ed to wield this pow­er. Do you under­stand where this pow­er comes from, do you under­stand whom and what you serve? Will you then fol­low the path of wis­dom so that you are guid­ed to faith­ful­ly wield this pow­er and ful­fill your purpose?”

The “Test of Pow­er” will come to all of us in many forms. It will always con­cern this spir­i­tu­al truth:

We are all vehi­cles for chan­nel­ing and focus­ing the power(s) that we have devel­oped or have had con­ferred upon us. If we serve “the Source of this pow­er”, under­stand­ing what is to be used for, then we will remain cen­tered and ground­ed in the right exer­cise of our duty.

If we mis­tak­en­ly believe that some­how “we are the pow­er”, if we become “inflat­ed” or infat­u­at­ed with self-ref­er­en­tial absolutes and unques­tion­ing cer­tain­ties, then like in all the great sto­ries, whether in Greek mytholo­gies or the Polit­i­cal dra­mas in Shake­speare, in the his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of lead­ers such as Napoleon or Richard Nixon, for those who come to believe they are “it”, it is inevitable and nec­es­sary that they must fall. What we will always see is that when a human com­mits the clas­si­cal error of “hubris”, then it will not be very long before their mis­use of pow­er is fol­lowed by this reac­tion, a con­se­quence that they have brought upon them­selves through the agency of kar­ma known as “neme­sis”.

Real­ly, it is all about Kar­ma, of action and reac­tion. And the test of pow­er is one of the most pro­found. That is why we look to those who assume greater author­i­ty, to equal­ly be exem­plars of humil­i­ty and grace. This not only pro­tects them but also reas­sures those over whom they rule that there is a right­ful order­ing to the world based upon trust and mutu­al respect.

Trump is fac­ing his great­est test of pow­er, of how well he will faith­ful­ly fol­low the rules gov­ern­ing the exer­cise of Pres­i­den­tial Pow­er. When Plu­to reach­es his Sat­urn in 2020, we will per­haps see the next or final chap­ter in how well or poor­ly he under­stands his test of pow­er and humility.

Your jour­ney for these past 30 days has been in the final Earth and Car­di­nal sign of Capri­corn. You have pon­dered well and long your spi­ral jour­ney. You found your­self look­ing back into the dis­tant mists of your past; as you also turned your gaze ahead to espy the mys­te­ri­ous paths not yet tak­en. You have felt the hum­bling and awe-inspir­ing gift of what your many lives, and all the steps in this life, have been all about.

You are here for one spir­i­tu­al pur­pose, you are to grow, you are here to be Ful­filled. You achieve self-mas­tery as you become ever more self-aware. This is how you become ful­ly human, this is how you are able to con­scious­ly forge your Des­tiny. You have drawn clos­er to assum­ing your right­ful place as a self-con­scious, co-cre­ator in the Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy that is the jour­ney of Life-Conscious-Spirit.

Under­stand­ing how you got here, and know­ing in your heart what your sacred duty is, you have extend­ed your hand to those ahead, seek­ing their lov­ing guid­ance and wis­dom to light your way; and, you have equal­ly turned to those who fol­low you, extend­ing your­self in love and con­sid­er­a­tion for those who yearn to lift them­selves to where you now stand.

This is how you ful­fill your des­tiny; this is the way you are Respon­si­ble. You have looked up and you have looked down…and now it is time to look around.

Today you move into the next realm in the “Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones”, what you know as the Zodi­ac. Today begins your heart-warm­ing return to the space-time known as Aquar­ius. Your respon­si­bil­i­ties, duties and ful­fill­ments met in Capri­corn will always be present. How could they not? They form the sub­stan­tial core of your life, and for the lives of all with whom you jour­ney. But now you must con­sid­er what is my larg­er pur­pose? And as you look around you smile to your­self and laugh once again:

“Oh yes, I see it so clear­ly now, we are here for one anoth­er. We are here to ful­fill our dreams which are made of one anoth­er, we are here again amongst our dear ones, our sacred band of fel­low-seek­ers. Here I am once again where I belong, here I am myself with my very dear­est friends”.

Yes, in the end you see your jour­ney would nev­er have meant any­thing at all, it could not even have come true, if it were not for all the ones with whom you jour­ney. Aquar­ius is about your dreams; it is about your fond­est hopes ful­filled, fill­ing your heart with the know­ing that bet­ter days are just ahead. And when you real­ly con­sid­er what your dreams are all about, you smile again and laugh.

You know, because you are human, because you are alive, that all these things you wish for, dream of and long for, that all these things are just the reflect­ed shad­ows of your true heart’s desire. Your dreams, your abid­ing hope, is to share your lives with one anoth­er. When your time is done, and you tell your tales, you real­ize that this is what life is for, to sim­ply be with those who ask for noth­ing more, wish for noth­ing more, than for you to just be yourself.

And you equal­ly know and under­stand, that all you want for these dear­est ones, is that they are free to be them­selves too. Because you get it now, you see it so clear­ly. That all your times with one anoth­er have made you part of one anoth­er. They are in you for­ev­er and always; and you are in them. You are tru­ly now, and for life after life, free yet tru­ly insep­a­ra­ble too. You cry tears of joy, for these are the shin­ing ones of your hap­py days, these are your stal­wart and steady friends for­ev­er and ever.

And to be the best of who you are, and for them to be the best of who they are, to have your dreams come true, and for their dreams to come true too, what you must sim­ply but pro­found­ly do for one anoth­er is just let your­selves be. To be your­self, for them to be them­selves too, this is what it means to see your heart’s desire liv­ing true. You are the lumi­nous spir­its of the eter­nal dance of Light and Love. You are one of a kind, but you are of a kind. You find your­self through one anoth­er because this is equal­ly the foun­tain-source of your free­dom to be your­self. This is how you shine…

Today, tonight and in all your days to come.

Gath­er with your friends and companions.

See in one anoth­er the dreams of your future.

Be for one anoth­er exact­ly who you are.

Smile, laugh and remember.

Why you came, why you have met again.

You are here again because of Love.

You are here quite sim­ply to Love one another.

To be for one anoth­er true and free.

You are you because of true Love.