Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As our civ­il cal­en­dar turns the page to a New Year, it seems most fit­ting to look back upon the year just past so that we might bet­ter under­stand from whence we have come; to con­sid­er where we are now; and to look out ahead and see if we might dis­cern more clear­ly whith­er we are going.

Regard­less what the plan­ets and stars may pro­vide, we must always remem­ber that although they are the Avatars of the ener­gies that inform and guide our lives, it remains for us to deter­mine what use we will make of these “Gifts of the Spir­it”. As the great bard, Shake­speare wrote in his play Julius Cae­sar:

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars,
But in our­selves, that we are underlings.”

It is upon each of us to do our part, to lis­ten for our “voice of the silence”, our high­er self, our spir­i­tu­al com­pass, and choose how we shall strive to make our­selves bet­ter and so cre­ate a bet­ter world for those who come after us. How these ener­gies play out, as they sur­round, inform and hold us as one to one anoth­er, depend upon the devel­op­ment of our spir­i­tu­al tri­ad, our Wis­dom-Love-Will. It is by our self-unfold­ment or spir­i­tu­al growth that we may more grace­ful­ly embody these ener­gies, and find our way to their best appli­ca­tion and most benef­i­cent manifestation.

The most con­se­quen­tial Astro­log­i­cal align­ment for 2016 was the square between the plan­ets Sat­urn and Nep­tune. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, is about 36 years in dura­tion and they will form their most chal­leng­ing aspects, (con­junc­tion, wax­ing square, oppo­si­tion and wan­ing square), rough­ly 9 years apart. Their most recent cycle began at the con­junc­tion of 1989, lead­ing to their wax­ing square of 1998 and to their oppo­si­tion of 2006-07, and final­ly to their wan­ing square this past year, (they will start a new cycle at their con­junc­tion in 2026).

Their ser­i­al rev­o­lu­tions artic­u­late the rela­tion­ship between Order (Sat­urn) and Dreams (Nep­tune), or Real­i­ty and Fan­ta­sy, or Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Sac­ri­fice. In the realm of Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, of Polit­i­cal-Eco­nom­ic-Cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na, it is inter­est­ing to note that the three most recent con­junc­tions of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, per­fect­ly align with the birth of the USSR (1917), the Cold War (1952–3) and the col­lapse of the Com­mu­nist order (1989).

For Per­son-Cen­tered Astrol­o­gy, for you and I, when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these align­ments of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, we should see it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine how close­ly we are hold­ing togeth­er, in a mean­ing­ful and respon­si­ble man­ner, the del­i­cate and inte­gral bal­ance between our dreams and our real­i­ty. There are pre­cious moments in any one life, or in the lives of a peo­ple, when their dream becomes real­i­ty. But there are those despair-filled times too, when the chasm between real­i­ty and the dream is (seem­ing­ly) unbridgeable.

There are those pre­cious moments in time and space when what we believe and what we expe­ri­ence are in greater res­o­nance, so that what we imag­ine our world should be like is what we indeed encounter. And there are times, such as this past year, when what is “real­ly real”, what is unde­ni­ably a “fact” and what is fic­tion­al (or false) become hope­less­ly confused.

What are we, (or what were we sup­posed), to do when faced with such con­fu­sion and mis­un­der­stand­ing? The square aspect between two plan­ets quite lit­er­al­ly calls upon us to face this these two Avatars, in this case Sat­urn and Nep­tune, not with fear or appre­hen­sion, but with a renewed and Rea­son­able Faith com­bined with a Com­pas­sion­ate Real­ism. We need to bring the two Ener­gy-Forms togeth­er, for that is the path of Spir­it, the Inte­gral Path, for it is by this that you will find and forge a new or bet­ter way. We should embrace this and every such turn­ing as a nec­es­sary chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for growth.

If all the Great Teach­ings are true, then the entire­ty of Cre­ation is Spir­it. If so, then the one con­stant of this Uni­verse is Growth. Then it fol­lows that the oth­er con­stant of this Uni­verse of Spir­it is Change too. We need to con­sid­er how we can find a Path­way that helps us to con­tin­u­al­ly clar­i­fy our Dreams and to fold them into an ever more mean­ing-filled Real­i­ty. We need to find a way through both our inter­nal divi­sions and the divi­sions between one anoth­er, so that we might heal the divide between our present Real­i­ty and our Hopes and Dreams for a bet­ter world.

Since Nep­tune is the dom­i­nant influ­ence, (being the out­er­most plan­et), the challenge/opportunity was for each of us to allow Nep­tune to help us to slip beyond our assumptions/certainties about the nature of our real­i­ty and at least imag­ine (if not come to under­stand and believe) that there were oth­er dreams and real­i­ties that are co-present and co-exist­ing. That all of these sub-real­i­ties, from the small­est to the largest “Dream-Real­i­ties”, are part of the One, the Greater Real­i­ty in which we tru­ly abide.

Part of Neptune’s way is to dis­solve or eat away at the fab­ric of our per­cep­tion of real­i­ty so that it can be re-formed, re-shaped and trans­formed into a more encom­pass­ing expe­ri­ence of what we tru­ly abide in, that Greater Real­i­ty. Typ­i­cal­ly, we move from a peri­od of cer­tain­ty about our assump­tions about our world into a peri­od of doubt and mis­un­der­stand­ing. These will begin to grow and cre­ate greater dis­so­nance lead­ing to greater doubts, claims and counter-claims as to what is true or false. Final­ly, many if not most will find them­selves in a state of great con­fu­sion and mis­trust, doubt­ing them­selves and one anoth­er, as a com­mon­ly accept­ed dream-real­i­ty gives way because the bonds of affin­i­ty between indi­vid­u­als and groups dissolve.

With­out a shared under­stand­ing, with­out an agree­ment as to what are the dreams we share and what is the real­i­ty we face, with­out this wide­ly shared Dream-Real­i­ty, the shad­ows of fear and blame are unleashed. This break­down in a shared Dream-Real­i­ty erodes our trust in one anoth­er, and under­mines our shared sense of com­mit­ment to, and will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice for, the good of one another.

But do not “blame” the Plan­et Nep­tune. This Nep­tun­ian fog of dis­so­lu­tion is not here to bring about harm to you or your world. It is mere­ly there to reveal what was and is becom­ing more and more appar­ent. That for­ev­er and always you and your world were chang­ing, and you had reached a time which required a let­ting go of your lim­it­ed assump­tions so that you might find a way to cre­ate a more encom­pass­ing Dream-Real­i­ty for your­self and your world.

These Illu­mi­na­tions of Nep­tune are stronger now than they have been for a very long time, and that is because Nep­tune is cur­rent­ly mov­ing through its own sign of Pisces from 2011 until 2026. The last time Nep­tune was in Pisces was from 1848–1862, and it was a time of great Spir­i­tu­al, Artis­tic and Social transformation…and it will be so in our own time too.

Then as now the par­a­digm of beliefs shift­ed, and for a time the mean­ing and pur­pose of what should be the foun­da­tion of Dream-Real­i­ty was con­test­ed by indi­vid­u­als and groups. Cer­tain­ly, it was no acci­dent that here in Amer­i­ca, it was when the awful crime against Spir­it at the found­ing of our nation, the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery, was con­front­ed and ulti­mate­ly abolished.

May you find a sim­i­lar courage to face your shad­ows and fears today.

You can find your way for­ward by remem­ber­ing to hon­or and to hold to the fun­da­men­tal teach­ings that have guid­ed you through the best and the worst of times.

May you find com­fort and guid­ance in the great teach­ings, sto­ries and lives of those who have walked these same paths that you must fol­low too. Their exam­ple of Wis­dom, Love and Cen­tered Will is there for you:

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?”

Des­tiny

You trav­el on the Path of Self-Becoming,

Pass­ing through the Sacred Four,

The Sea­son­al Turn­ings that mark each year.

By Por­tals of Fire, Water, Air and Earth,

You learn by Tri­al and Error, as you help one another,

To be true to who you are, to remem­ber your Des­tiny as you walk,

The Immor­tal Path­way of Perfection.

Today marks the begin­ning of Capri­corn, the time of the Win­ter Sol­stice. The Sun has been ris­ing lat­er and set­ting ear­li­er, so that now the pre­cious light of life is fee­ble and fleet­ing, and shad­ows are grow­ing ever longer, and your days are short and nights far too long and cold. You gath­er with loved ones for reas­sur­ance, in com­pan­ion­ship and love, light­ing can­dles, build­ing bon­fires, bring­ing green­ery indoors and dec­o­rat­ing your trees of hope.

You draw clos­er togeth­er, to remem­ber and share in the wis­dom ways of old. Always and for­ev­er, the Ancient Ways will bring you through these tri­als of faith. Your Foun­tain-Source of Beliefs, found in your tra­di­tions, songs and sto­ries have stood the tests of time. And you know because you remem­ber, you have Faith and Hope that brighter days are just ahead, because Life and Love will return even stronger, and the shad­ows will flee the lumi­nous glo­ry that is the return­ing of the Light.

You leave the realm of Sagit­tar­ius, bring­ing with you the Wis­dom of the Ages, the sto­ries and teach­ings found in the Philoso­phies, Sci­ences and Reli­gions that pro­vide the mean­ings and guid­ance to your many lives and jour­neys. You have come a lit­tle clos­er, to the Greater Under­stand­ing, to the Truth behind the truths, and can take some com­fort and find accep­tance of the World and your insep­a­ra­ble expe­ri­ences of Love and Pain. You lis­ten in the Silence, for the Lone­ly Ones, the Wise Ones and Wis­dom-Keep­ers who help you hold to the Noble Path of Truth.

But it is not enough to know the Truth, it is not enough to have your Faith, it is not enough to Feel the Love…you must Live the Truth, and you must Act by Faith, and you must Be this Love too. This is the mean­ing of Capri­corn, it is here that you face your Test of Respon­si­bil­i­ty, and it is here you will find your Reward of Ful­fill­ment. In Sagit­tar­i­an Fire, you encounter the Ideals of Spir­it, but it is in Earthy Capri­corn that you bring these mighty Truths into Manifestation.

Capri­corn rules the struc­tures of your world; Capri­corn rules Real­i­ty. From the most inti­mate and cen­tral build­ing block of Fam­i­ly, where you take care to love and nur­ture one anoth­er, to the mid­dle ranges of local com­mu­ni­ties and small enter­pris­es, to the most com­plex struc­tures of Church, Econ­o­my and State, all of this is Capricorn’s realm, this is your World made Manifest.

Your Soci­ety and Cul­ture is the prod­uct of many, many life­times of strug­gles and loves, a gift from your Ances­tors so that you would be able to con­tin­ue this jour­ney of Self-Becom­ing for you and yours. So that you too, by assum­ing this awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty of pre­serv­ing, pro­tect­ing and improv­ing this Path of Light, that you too would find the Lov­ing Strength to pass this Spi­ral Chord of Light and Love to your children’s, children’s chil­dren, and ful­fill your Des­tiny, Keep­ers of the Flame of the One Divine Light.

But, the shad­ows cross­ing your path seem stronger now, and your world seems to be stag­ger­ing and stum­bling towards some yawn­ing abyss. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last. The Path­way of Per­fec­tion is not a straight line but a cir­cuitous one that ris­es and falls, and only by falling into error and then cor­rect­ing, only in this man­ner do you become wise and find a bet­ter way as you move into a greater light.

Your world has not trem­bled like this for over 240 years, dur­ing the 1700’s (and before that in the 1500’s), as the plan­et Plu­to swept through the sign of Capri­corn to her­ald the end of those ages. The Real­i­ty struc­tures of those times had ful­filled their pur­pose, it was their time to be swept away, and it was equal­ly the ris­ing of a new world from within.

This is what is hap­pen­ing now…Whether in Gov­ern­ment or Reli­gion, in the Econ­o­my or Cul­ture, the world is being turned upside down as the old order gives way to a New Age that is dawn­ing. The good news? You, (and your ances­tors), have been here before, and if you read about what they were expe­ri­enc­ing in their time, they too thought that their world was end­ing, (and they were right), but they lived to see a new world dawn too.

You face an awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty now, the chal­lenge to pre­serve what we must and to let go of the rest…What are you to do? How will you know what to pre­serve, and what you must sur­ren­der? Where can one find the way through?

As always, the Wis­dom of the Ages, and its reflect­ed Wis­dom in your Heart, will guide you tru­ly in your Thoughts, Feel­ings and Actions. The Laws of Life and Truth, of Spir­i­tu­al Light are the Immor­tal guide­posts which will light your way out of any dark­ness. Look to the inner core, the Eso­teric Heart found in Meta­physics, Phi­los­o­phy and Reli­gion. Fol­low the Ancient Wis­dom, and be guid­ed by your lov­ing heart…and you will find a way.

Remem­ber that the real strug­gle for your world is not hap­pen­ing “out there”, but is in fact hap­pen­ing in each human heart. Each per­son must come to their own change of mind and heart, and remem­ber what is the greater good. Each must find their way and be will­ing to sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. To remem­ber that there is only one Path: to love, to be com­pas­sion­ate and filled with humil­i­ty and for­give­ness for one anoth­er. Most espe­cial­ly, each must be will­ing to car­ry the weight of respon­si­bil­i­ty, not just for our own lives and time, but for those who will come long after we have departed.

What is your respon­si­bil­i­ty? Look around, and take care in your dai­ly life and imme­di­ate sur­round­ings, be tru­ly human, a self-aware spir­it of con­sid­er­a­tion, con­scious­ness and love. From below and from with­in out­wards your new world will dawn.

The New Age is coming…

It is wait­ing on you…

It is count­ing on you…

It is your Destiny.

When in doubt or when­ev­er in need, hold in your Heart and Mind 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.

Right Thinking—Right Action

One more time, for the fourth time in 2016, and this could not be more “time­ly”!

Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is always a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn your mind back upon itself, to make some pre­cious time for self-reflec­tion. It is a time to bend your mind inwards so that you may con­tem­plate and self-cor­rect. It is a gift and not an annoy­ance at all, for it is offered to you in order that you may con­tin­ue your jour­ney of self-becom­ing, of rais­ing your con­scious­ness as you learn to exer­cise ever greater Mindfulness.

The sign of Mercury’s ret­ro­grade indi­cates in what mat­ter and to what objec­tive you should direct your Inner Sight now. For this cir­cuitous round of ret­ro­grade, Mer­cury will be mov­ing through the sign of Capricorn.

The prin­ci­pal mes­sage of Capri­corn can be best summed up by one word, Respon­si­bil­i­ty. The ques­tion that you must ask your­self as Mer­cury takes you inward is exact­ly this, “Have you been respon­si­ble in your gath­er­ing of infor­ma­tion; Have you been dili­gent in your exam­i­na­tion of the var­i­ous facts, view­points, teach­ings and truths by which you have formed your view of your world?” And most impor­tant­ly, “Have you been respon­si­ble in your shar­ing of these facts, opin­ions, view­points with the world around you as well”?

You jour­ney through an inte­gral Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it, with innu­mer­able fel­low humans clus­tered around, above and below your­self. But this Rib­bon of Light and Love extends far below you to less evolved life-forms yearn­ing to become “human”, and equal­ly far above you too, into the realms of the Deva’s or “shin­ing ones” to whom you look for guid­ance and inspi­ra­tion. And this Hier­ar­chy con­tin­ues fur­ther onwards with­out end, to the plan­ets, stars and galaxies…and much more.

Your jour­ney of self-becom­ing is aid­ed by those who extend their love and con­sid­er­a­tion to you from above, while you give and receive com­fort with those who abide on your own human plane of con­scious­ness. And so then equal­ly guid­ed by your true nature, that you are a pre­cious spark of the One Divine, fol­low­ing your heart and High­er Self, you will also reach below your­self to extend your love and help to the innu­mer­able life-forms below who look up to you with wonder.

This Spir­i­tu­al Hier­ar­chy of Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it is the Body and Life of the One, and because of this, the whole of Cre­ation is bound to one anoth­er by the Love of the One for one and all. It is this that forms the true source of your expe­ri­ence and expres­sion of Respon­si­bil­i­ty. You are here because you were and will always be Loved. And you are here to be Lov­ing too. You are cared for and have been guid­ed to become who you are…And you in turn will care for many, many oth­ers for all your lives that were and are yet to be, for this is your nature, this is the Heart of all the teach­ings, “You are here to love one anoth­er as you love yourself”.

The word Respon­si­bil­i­ty lit­er­al­ly means “your abil­i­ty to respond”. But “what” is it that you are here to respond to you might ask. Most fun­da­men­tal­ly, you are here to be Respon­si­ble to this Hier­ar­chy of Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it, and that means espe­cial­ly on your own plane of learn­ing and lov­ing, you are here to take care of and be con­sid­er­ate towards your fel­low human beings. With regards to Mer­cury, with regards to your thought-forms and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, you must take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what you do in this most pow­er­ful realm of Consciousness.

All in this Cre­ation are sub­ject to what is known as The Law of Kar­ma, of “cause and effect”. It is in fact how the Uni­verse (or the One) brings about or fos­ters Respon­si­bil­i­ty! Quite sim­ply this law of the uni­verse means that what you do, in any form, will return to you its author or cre­ator. The actions you take with regards to any oth­er will come back to you. If you harm them, you will even­tu­al­ly suf­fer in turn. And, this is equal­ly true for the thoughts that you think, and most espe­cial­ly for the words and images that you “share”.

The sym­bol of Mer­cury, the Caduceus, was adopt­ed by the med­ical pro­fes­sion as its sign or sym­bol. Like­wise, in this realm of thought, it would be a great bless­ing if one and all fol­lowed the truth embod­ied in the Hip­po­crat­ic Oath of med­i­cine with regards to thoughts and com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Heart and Soul of this teach­ing is this: “First, do no harm!”

With regards to the recep­tion and adop­tion of infor­ma­tion, data or “facts” for your­self, you must take the time to under­stand the source or prove­nance of this infor­ma­tion. If you fill your mind with too many dis­so­nant, con­flict-filled or neg­a­tive thoughts, you will turn away from the path of Light. Your mind will become cloudy and con­fused, your thoughts shad­owed and self-destruc­tive, and you will lose your­self in a web of dark­ness and fear.

Like­wise, and even more impor­tant­ly, you must con­sid­er care­ful­ly the thought-forms you share, whether in speech, or writ­ings or post­ings, or what­ev­er forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in which you par­take. If you spread mis­be­got­ten ideas, if you share half-truths or false­hoods, you con­tribute to the loss of clar­i­ty and trust upon which your life and the lives of oth­ers depend. You are by act­ing in this man­ner being very, very irre­spon­si­ble. If you do not con­tribute to the Light of Love and Rea­son, you will bring about deep­er shad­ows; if you spread false­hood and fos­ter hatreds, you turn away from your own true self, you turn away from love, and you do harm to your­self and to many oth­ers as well.

For it is from the fos­ter­ing and spread­ing of Lies that wrong actions fol­low, and so great harm will come to one and all by the will­ful and delib­er­ate actions of some, as well as by the unknow­ing or uncon­scious spread of these fears and dark­ness by the many who did not under­stand what they did.

But igno­rance of the Law of Kar­ma is no excuse, nor will Jus­tice be denied. You will reap what you sow, so choose wise­ly. If you do not know, real­ly know, if some­thing is “true” or fac­tu­al, then do not pass it on, ever!

A cacoph­o­ny of false­hoods is over­whelm­ing rea­son and love in the world now. Choose to be a cham­pi­on of Light and Love. Do not har­bor or hold onto neg­a­tive thoughts or half-truths. Do not share what is harm­ful or false, do not be used by the dark and destruc­tive forces that are tear­ing your world apart.

Let Mer­cury take you on an inner jour­ney of Mindfulness.

Choose to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for what you know and understand.

Let this turn­ing of Mer­cury cleanse your mind of false­hoods and fears.

Help one anoth­er by illu­mi­nat­ing the shad­ows that cloud one another’s minds.

Think clear­ly by fol­low­ing the Wis­dom Ways that have stood the tests of time,

Cen­tered by the qui­et con­fir­ma­tions of your own High­er Self’s lov­ing affirmations.

Look to the Foun­tain-Source of Truth found in the Ancient Teachings,

The Ancient Wis­dom found­ed upon the Wis­dom of Love.

This same Love is this Lumi­nous Hier­ar­chy of Life,

Built and formed by Love, Trust and Sharing.

Choose to stand in the Light, and

Be a light for one another.

Choose Rea­son over Fear; Choose Love over Hatred.

Live in Light,

Live by Love.