Alchemist Heat­ing a Pot, by David Teniers the Younger

Astro­log­i­cal Mus­ings — 2024 Pre­view, a look ahead

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

As we move into 2024, it is time for us to con­sid­er what Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions will pre­vail dur­ing this year and beyond. The major plan­e­tary align­ment of this year includes the first major aspect of Sat­urn to Plu­to since their last con­junc­tion in Jan­u­ary 2020, which is a semi-square that is exact in May, Sep­tem­ber, and Jan­u­ary of 2025. 2024 will also be the final year of Pluto’s tran­si­tion from the sign of Capri­corn to Aquar­ius, and it will the final full year for both Nep­tune in Pisces before it tran­si­tions to Aries, and final full year for Uranus in Tau­rus before it tran­si­tions to Gem­i­ni. Those shifts indi­cate that we will cer­tain­ly be in a much dif­fer­ent world by 2025 and beyond.

This year will also have the usu­al repeat­ing phe­nom­e­na of the Solar and Lunar eclipses, three Mer­cury in ret­ro­grades, and Jupiter chang­ing signs. I will do anoth­er show soon where we will look at some of the major nation­al and lead­er­ship charts to see what we might under­stand about the year ahead from that per­spec­tive as well.

Sat­urn semi-square Pluto
The most impor­tant aspect in the heav­ens this year is the first align­ment of Sat­urn with Plu­to since their con­junc­tion or “new moon” of Jan­u­ary 2020. The cycle of Sat­urn and Plu­to, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, lasts from between 33 to 38 years, and it con­cerns the inte­gral bal­ance between Order (Sat­urn) and Will (Plu­to), or Struc­ture and Sacred Space, or Spir­it mate­ri­al­ized and the Alchem­i­cal force that is behind the entire­ty of Cre­ation. In Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, this cycle informs the birth/death/rebirth of new polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and social struc­tures. Often the cycle begins with the end­ing of some kind of order, a break­down and then a rebuild­ing of the ways of the exer­cise of pow­er through struc­ture, of the ways in which order and dis­or­der and reorder echo down the ages. The most recent con­junc­tions have been:

The first of the 20^th cen­tu­ry occurred in 1914, with World War I which we could see as the penul­ti­mate war in the his­to­ry of col­o­niza­tion. The sub­se­quent semi-square of 1918 brought the end of that war but also the great Influen­za epi­dem­ic of 1918–1919. The con­junc­tion of 1947–48, saw the real begin­nings of decol­o­niza­tion, with the par­ti­tion of India and Pak­istan, the emer­gence of Chi­na final­ly free from for­eign con­trol, but also the estab­lish­ment of the state of Israel. The sub­se­quent semi-square in 1951 saw the Kore­an War, and many oth­er South Asian and African wars of post-colo­nial strug­gles; the Saturn/Pluto con­junc­tion of 1982–83 saw Israel invade Lebanon, (which it did not com­plete­ly leave until 2000), but also the “birth” of the inter­net, and a num­ber of mil­i­tary gov­ern­ments being replaced by civil­ian ones in as in Argenti­na and Turkey. The sub­se­quent semi-square in 1988 saw the first inter­net virus, and the begin­ning of the end to the Iron Cur­tain and cold war as the Sovi­et Union tried to open up its eco­nom­ic sys­tem and Hun­gary opened up to trav­el between the east and the west.

Now we have our most recent con­junc­tion of 2020, and we have cer­tain­ly expe­ri­enced the struc­tures and sys­tems around the world being over­matched and over­whelmed by a world-wide pan­dem­ic. We have been made aware how our sys­tem of meet­ing human needs by means of an intri­cate glob­al trade struc­ture has been proven to be vul­ner­a­ble and lack­ing in resilien­cy. The very way in which we have become inter­con­nect­ed and inter­de­pen­dent, both mate­ri­al­ly and vir­tu­al­ly, has over­whelmed and thrown into dis­re­pute the gov­ern­ing insti­tu­tions with­in and between nations, as what had been assumed to be a uni­ver­sal lib­er­al polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic order has been bat­tered and some­times shat­tered by forces of reac­tion and rev­o­lu­tion, by extrem­ists on the right and the left. What we are see­ing around the world is a glob­al expe­ri­ence of Mil­len­ni­al move­ments, whose adher­ents either want to return their world to a myth­ic “gold­en age”, or to a final judge­ment in which their fol­low­ers will be spared and exalted.

What this year’s semi-square may hold for us, there is tru­ly no way to know for cer­tain. All we can know is that the essen­tial inter­de­pen­den­cies and inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ties of the nat­ur­al world, the beau­ti­ful yet vul­ner­a­ble hier­ar­chy of nature’s ecosys­tems, com­bined with the effects of our eco­nom­ic world dri­ven by infi­nite con­sump­tion on a finite plan­et are grow­ing not fad­ing. We will cer­tain­ly expe­ri­ence ever greater waves of dis­tur­bances, mass migra­tions of peo­ples flee­ing cli­mate dis­as­ters and insti­tu­tion­al fail­ures, and this inescapable real­i­ty is being brought to bear as the pri­ma­ry and exis­ten­tial chal­lenge fac­ing human­i­ty is the threat of cli­mate change, a trans­for­ma­tion of our world that we have cre­at­ed, and which is becom­ing ever weird­er and wilder.

The Out­er Planets
But we must always remem­ber that the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions from Uranus, Nep­tune and Plu­to are still the major shapers for any peri­od of his­to­ry. We have looked at them recent­ly, and we will look at them again in a lat­er show, but we need to remem­ber that we are at the cusp of three major tran­si­tions. Plu­to is mov­ing into Aquar­ius in 2024 until 2044, Nep­tune is begin­ning its move into Aries next year until 2039, and Uranus is begin­ning its move into Gem­i­ni next year until 2033. The last time Plu­to was in Aquar­ius was 1778 to 1798, the same time as the Amer­i­can and French Rev­o­lu­tions and Napoleon Bona­parte. The last time Nep­tune was in the sign of Aries was 1862 to 1875, encom­pass­ing the US Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion. The last time Uranus was in Gem­i­ni was 1935 to 1942, the first half of the Sec­ond World War. As much as we may have been frus­trat­ed by the rigid­i­ty between groups and fac­tions over the past many years, these shifts of the major plan­ets will mean that we are going to see a rearrangement/realignment of issues and peo­ples from 2025 onwards.

With so many out­er plan­ets mov­ing into new signs, the com­bi­na­tion­al or ener­getic spir­i­tu­al vibra­tions will cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties (and new solu­tions) to our present-day chal­lenges. But they will also nec­es­sar­i­ly give rise to new prob­lems too. It is upon each one of us to under­stand the mean­ings and mes­sages of the plan­ets, but most espe­cial­ly remem­ber the fun­da­men­tal truths and wis­dom that should guide our thoughts and shape our actions year after year. If we can remain cen­tered by the ever­last­ing truths, then we will be able to respond much bet­ter to these plan­e­tary influ­ences and not react with fear.

Eclipses
Nor­mal­ly every year we will have two Solar and two Lunar eclipses, and this is also true for 2024, with a Lunar eclipse on March 25, a Solar eclipse on April 8, a Lunar eclipse on Sep­tem­ber 18, and a Solar eclipse on Octo­ber 2.

Solar eclipses are more sig­nif­i­cant, and their influ­ence can be expect­ed to last until the next Solar eclipse around six months lat­er, until the next Solar eclipse. The Lunar eclipses are under­stood to influ­ence the next 30 days, until the next full Moon.

Solar and Lunar eclipses hap­pen when the orbital posi­tion of the Earth around the Sun, and the orbital posi­tion of the Moon around Earth match up so that either the Moon cre­ates a shad­ow by block­ing out the Sun (at the New Moon), or the Earth cre­ates a shad­ow that falls upon the Moon when it is full.

The March 25^th penum­bral lunar eclipse, which means the Moon only enters the penum­bra of the Earth’s shad­ow and just dims, hap­pens around 3 am EDT at 5 degrees and 7 min­utes in Libra, and weath­er per­mit­ting it will be vis­i­ble in the USA. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing for the next month or so.

The April 8^th total solar eclipse is exact at 2:20 pm EDT at 19 degrees and 24 min­utes of Aries, and the eclipse path of total­i­ty will sweep across the USA from the south­west to the north­east. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be very impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing to you for the next six months, and the area of your chart it falls in will be high­light­ed for that same period.

The path of total­i­ty will sweep from Mex­i­co and into Texas, then up through Arkansas and Mis­souri into South­ern Illi­nois, and into Indi­ana and Ohio, then on into west­ern New York and through north­ern Ver­mont and New Hamp­shire, through Maine before final­ly end­ing in the east­ern provinces of Canada.
Here is a map of the April Eclipse Path:

I had actu­al­ly men­tioned this eclipse in 2017, because in August of that year we had anoth­er total eclipse sweep across the USA from the north­west to the south­east, start­ing in Ore­gon and arch­ing through the Mid­west and inter­sect­ing the 2024 eclipse in south­ern Illi­nois and mov­ing fur­ther south­east to exit in South Carolina.

It seems rather sig­nif­i­cant to me, and I am sure to many oth­ers, that the USA will have expe­ri­enced two total Solar eclipses, 7 years apart, that form a per­fect “X” cen­tered just east of the con­ti­nen­tal cen­ter of the USA, and actu­al­ly right on the medi­an spot for pop­u­la­tion of the USA. Here is a map of the two Eclipse paths:

The Sep­tem­ber 17^th par­tial lunar eclipse, which means the Moon enters most of the full shad­ow of the Earth, but a small cres­cent appears on one side, is exact at 10:34 pm at 25 degrees and 41 min­utes of Pisces, and weath­er per­mit­ting will be vis­i­ble in the USA. If you have any plan­et or chart angle around this degree, it will be impor­tant to con­sid­er its mean­ing for the next month.

Final­ly, the Octo­ber 2 annu­lar solar eclipse, which means the Moon is a lit­tle too far away from the Earth, so that a small ring of sun­light, which is called the “annu­lus”, is seen around the Moon and is exact at 2:49 pm EDT at 10 degrees and 4 min­utes of Libra. It begins in the Cen­tral Pacif­ic and arch­es down to South Amer­i­ca pass­ing through south­ern Chile and Argenti­na. If you have a sig­nif­i­cant plan­et of chart angle around 10 degrees of Libra, you will expe­ri­ence this area of your life becom­ing more con­se­quen­tial for the next six months.
Here is a map of the Octo­ber Eclipse path:

Mer­cury Retrogrades
Let us now con­sid­er the Mer­cury ret­ro­grades for 2024. Usu­al­ly, we will have three Mer­cury ret­ro­grades in a year, and that is true for 2024. Of course, we did begin this New Year with Mer­cury turn­ing direct on Jan­u­ary 1, as it had been ret­ro­grad­ing since Decem­ber 13^th.

The mean­ing and mes­sage of each ret­ro­grade peri­od will be indi­cat­ed by what sign or signs Mer­cury is mov­ing back­wards through, and for each of us indi­vid­u­al­ly by what house or hous­es of your chart it is mov­ing through as well.

No mat­ter what, the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade peri­od presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty for every­one to become more reflec­tive and pen­sive, more drawn to and more able to take advan­tage of this time of intro­spec­tion, so as to help clear up poor think­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tion by self-crit­i­cal analy­sis. In so doing, your man­ner of observ­ing, think­ing, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with one anoth­er is improved and uplifted.

But each peri­od also requires that we remem­ber that the “weath­er” has changed for one and all, and although every­one is affect­ed by this shift of ener­gy-forms, many do not know what is hap­pen­ing or how to man­age it. That is why we expe­ri­ence a rise in mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions and a surge of mis­un­der­stand­ings in the world gen­er­al­ly. In each encounter between one per­son and anoth­er, the gen­er­al con­di­tion for all minds means that either one or both indi­vid­u­als are not receiv­ing as well as they might think, nor are they trans­mit­ting as well as they should.

So, dur­ing these peri­ods we should use this time for mind­ful, thought­ful self-renew­al, but when engaged in com­mu­ni­ca­tions with oth­ers we must strive to lis­ten or read more care­ful­ly and speak or write more clearly.

The first Mer­cury ret­ro­grade of 2024 begins on April 1^st and ends on April 25^th, with Mer­cury mov­ing from 27 degrees of Aries back to 16 degrees of Aries. What­ev­er area of your chart this involves, by which I mean what­ev­er house or house it is mov­ing through and what plan­ets it may con­tact, you will find it impor­tant or nec­es­sary to review and revise your thoughts about this area of your life. For one and all, since this ret­ro­grade is in Aries, behind the issues being addressed will be the Aries expe­ri­ence of being more mind­ful of your “pres­ence”, by your atti­tude and demeanor, so that you can meet each moment of the eter­nal now in the most mean­ing­ful manner.

The sec­ond Mer­cury ret­ro­grade begins ear­ly on August 5^th for the USA east coast, but in the late evening of the 4^th for the rest of the USA, mov­ing from 4 degrees of Vir­go back to 21 degrees of Leo when it turns direct on August 28th. Again, what­ev­er area of your chart this involves you will need to review and revise your under­stand­ing of that. For one and for all, since this ret­ro­grade involves both Vir­go and Leo, it will encom­pass and link both sign’s mean­ings. For the Vir­go phase, a time to reflect and amend the “order” of one’s life, to strive to main­tain or bring into greater inte­gra­tion all the parts of your life, and dur­ing the Leo phase to reflect on the mean­ing of respect for one­self and for one another.

The third and final Mer­cury ret­ro­grade begins on Novem­ber 25, and ends on Decem­ber 15^th, mov­ing from 23 degrees Sagit­tar­ius back to 6 degrees Sagit­tar­ius. As before, what­ev­er area of your chart this involves, you should use these three weeks to reflect and revise your under­stand­ing of that. For one and all, the ret­ro­grade through Sagit­tar­ius will pro­vide a peri­od to ques­tion the hier­ar­chy of truths and beliefs that form and guide your under­stand­ing and actions.

Jupiter
The plan­et Jupiter is the largest in our solar sys­tem and com­pletes an orbit of the Sun rough­ly every 12 years. That means Jupiter will spend about one year in each sign. Since May 16, 2023, Jupiter has been in the sign of Tau­rus. It will enter Gem­i­ni on May 25, 2024, and remain there until it moves into Can­cer on June 9, 2025.

Jupiter is the path­way to and the ves­sel of Truth, whether those truths be Spir­i­tu­al or Meta­phys­i­cal or Sci­en­tif­ic or Cul­tur­al. What­ev­er sign your Jupiter is in your chart, it will indi­cate the type of truths you will guide your life by, and the path­way you will fol­low to reach a greater under­stand­ing. But just as there are many paths that will lead us to our even­tu­al awak­en­ing, we should be open each year to the var­i­ous forms of truth that Jupiter will hold for us as it moves through the signs.

When Jupiter is in Tau­rus, it will fos­ter a pur­pose­ful and per­sis­tent search for the truth. Those who have Jupiter in Tau­rus will hold to a firm belief in Teach­ings and Val­ues that are Eter­nal. Any indi­vid­ual with Jupiter in Tau­rus has an under­ly­ing opti­mism and faith in human­i­ty, or real­ly in all of life or Spir­it. Most indi­vid­u­als with Jupiter in Tau­rus have an abid­ing belief that human­i­ty is on a con­tin­u­ous and upward path that will lead to the ful­fill­ment of some form of a Divine Plan. Dur­ing this past year and until May 25^th, human­i­ty has been influ­enced by Jupiter to fol­low a path to Truth that is found­ed and forged by Ever­last­ing Val­ue, which is of course Divine Love.

When Jupiter is in Gem­i­ni, it will fos­ter a path of devel­op­ment that is formed by an insa­tiable curios­i­ty and con­stant exchange of infor­ma­tion. Any indi­vid­ual with Jupiter in Gem­i­ni will be more able to take the often-times chaot­ic mul­ti­plic­i­ties of inputs from the uni­verse and be more capa­ble of orga­niz­ing and giv­ing them coher­ent mean­ings, where­as for many for oth­ers they might expe­ri­ence this surge of ener­gy as noise or even chaos.

Dur­ing the upcom­ing peri­od of Jupiter in Gem­i­ni, human­i­ty will be influ­enced to fol­low a path to Truth that is filled with insa­tiable curios­i­ty and won­der. The injunc­tion with Jupiter in Gem­i­ni is that no mat­ter what lev­el of under­stand­ing you have achieved, in order to remain true to your spir­i­tu­al nature you must fol­low the eter­nal Voice of the Silence which whis­pers, “Walk On!” Those who claim to have all the answers will be seen for who they tru­ly are, they know nothing.

More­over, 2024 will be the first of the four major align­ments that Jupiter will make with Sat­urn dur­ing their cycle of 20 years, which is the wax­ing square. The begin­ning of their last cycle in Decem­ber of 2020 was his­toric, as it was the start of a new 200-year cycle of Jupiter and Sat­urn con­junc­tions in the Air signs, start­ing with Aquar­ius. The pre­vi­ous con­junc­tions of Jupiter and Sat­urn were: 1980–81, 1961, 1940–41 and 1921. And the moments like our own of pre­vi­ous wax­ing squares were: 1986, 1965, 1945 and 1926.

What was released at the end of 2020 has reached a crit­i­cal turn­ing point. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is put before us to choose which way we will go now, either to rise with courage and faith, or to fall back­wards because of fear.

The wax­ing square presents us with a chal­lenge, whether we should choose one way or the oth­er, or whether we can find a way to hold togeth­er two very dif­fer­ent ener­gy-forms, to find a way to blend two very dif­fer­ent mes­sages and ways of act­ing in order to meet this moment of the chal­lenges laid before us, (and we must always remem­ber that those real chal­lenges are what we forged in the past by our pri­or actions and inactions).

The ques­tion posed by the square is in our case between Sat­urn in Pisces and Jupiter in Gem­i­ni. If we can find a way to hold them togeth­er, we will find the wis­dom that is there on the mid­dle path of spir­it. If we choose to hold to one and deny the oth­er, then we will like­ly fail to make the most of the choic­es we need to make.

Since Sat­urn is the “slow­er” mov­ing plan­et in this pair­ing, we should con­sid­er that its mean­ing and mes­sage should shape and guide the expres­sion of Jupiter as we face what­ev­er chal­lenge is before us. Sat­urn in Pisces reminds you of your ulti­mate test, which is that the only thing you have to fear is fear itself. That means if are you still a cap­tive of fear, cir­cum­scribed by your own self-cast shad­ows and a fear-filled fatal­ist about your life, if this is so you will be unable to pierce through the cacoph­o­ny of Jupiter in Gem­i­ni, with those count­less points of views and dis­trac­tions will lead you into a morass of half-truths and confusion.

But if you have begun to under­stand that you are a Creator/Dreamer, who has a liv­ing faith that is found­ed upon your Immor­tal spir­i­tu­al nature, then you will know that you have noth­ing to fear what­so­ev­er. Anchored by your high­er self, you will be able to dis­cern fact from fic­tion, truth from half-truths, and you will know in your heart and in your mind what you must do. You will see through the shad­ows and fog, and the bright shin­ing light that is there with­in every one of us, the light sub­lime, Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love, will inspire your thoughts and guide your steps as you meet the choic­es that 2024 will bring.

May the Light of Truth, Love and Under­stand­ing be with you all, now and for­ev­er more.

May it be.

This month, Suzane wel­comes a spe­cial guest, Bill Attride to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ties for 2024.

Bill is known for his unique inte­gra­tion of the spir­i­tu­al and the psy­cho­log­i­cal dimen­sions of Astrol­o­gy. He has been fea­tured in arti­cles in such diverse pub­li­ca­tions as New Woman Mag­a­zine, Avenue Mag­a­zine and the Sun­day Busi­ness sec­tion of The New York Times.

Bill is a bril­liant astrologer who can shed fur­ther light on what to expect in 2024. Suzane had Bill on as her guest for the first show of the last sev­er­al years; he got great reviews each time, so he is return­ing for Suzane’s first show of 2024!

Join me tonight on Suzane’s BlogTalk radio show at 6 pm EST.

Here is the link to her show:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/suzanenorthrop/2024/01/15/bill-attride-2024-astrological-forecast–the-suzane-northrop-show

In my first show of 2024, we will con­sid­er the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions for 2024 (and beyond).

Among the more sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors we will look at are the Solar and Lunar Eclipses and Mer­cury in ret­ro­grade peri­ods. Jupiter will be mov­ing into Gem­i­ni and squar­ing Sat­urn, which is their first major aspect since their con­junc­tion in 2020. And Sat­urn will be mak­ing its first sig­nif­i­cant align­ment with Plu­to since their con­junc­tion in 2020 too.

2024 is also the final year of Pluto’s tran­si­tion­ing from Capri­corn into Aquar­ius, and 2024 will be the last year before Uranus begins to move into Gem­i­ni and the last year before Nep­tune begins to move into Aries. If we have time, I might begin to address the 2024 major influ­ences in the USA chart as well.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 7^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2024/01/07/astrological-musings-2024-preview-a-look-ahead

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638.

Please join me on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 7^th @ 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

The Path of Wisdom

The Sun “stands still”, and the whole world waits. As the shad­ows grow longer and as the light of our world grows fainter by the day, we look for a sign, we wait for a sig­nal, because we need to know that life and light will pre­vail, and that our path­way will become bright and beau­ti­ful once more. For the next few days, the Sun will set at the same point on the hori­zon, as the word “sol­stice” lit­er­al­ly means “sun stands still”. But on the third or fourth day, around Decem­ber 25^th every year, the Sun will begin to set fur­ther and fur­ther to the north, and the days will grow longer…and “the Light” of our world will return once more.

Today we begin our time in the realm of Capri­corn, and at this time of year, and also some­where in your very own chart too, we should bow our heads and get down upon our knees and give thanks and praise to the Eter­nal, which is the ever­last­ing light of the Divine that shines in and through every one of us and equal­ly through­out all the realms of Cre­ation too.

Yes, the light divine is there in the Sun, but it is also found with­in every speck and mote of Cre­ation, from the most infin­i­tes­i­mal of parts of the uni­verse on up to the count­less galax­ies, because what forms every mon­ad of the cos­mos is the eter­nal light of the One, which we humans feel and expe­ri­ence as the uncon­di­tion­al Love that made all of this and forms us too.

You have spent the last 30 days in the fiery realm of Sagit­tar­ius, where you found the mean­ings of your life, where you shared your sto­ry and found the sto­ries and truths of the uni­verse, and more per­son­al­ly under­stood “the what and the why” of you as well. But hav­ing under­stood this truth of who and what you are, you should also know that it is not enough to sim­ply know the truth, no that is not near­ly enough. You are the liv­ing spir­it, and your pur­pose is to align your­self with your high­er self, so that you become, day after day and in life after life, an ever more per­fect embod­i­ment of ever­last­ing truth too.

This is the realm of Capri­corn, and this fourth “por­tal of iden­ti­ty” holds the key to your des­tiny. The four por­tal points are: “who am I, who are you, where did I come from, where am I going?” Yes, it is here at the fourth turn­ing that you must seek to under­stand the mean­ing of your life, to know your pur­pose and your path. But tru­ly where you are going is bound for­ev­er to where you began, because it is your ori­gin and your essen­tial nature which form the path that you are on. And what is this seed? It is that you began as a unique, lumi­nous spark of the Divine, a mon­ad wing­ing its way through cre­ation. Your des­tiny is to be the quin­tes­sence of your spark of the divine, which is exem­pli­fied by you becom­ing an ever more con­scious co-cre­ator of Creation.

Then long, long ago you moved into the realm of beings who have reached self-aware­ness, and you became con­scious­ly respon­si­ble for your thoughts and deeds. You became more capa­ble and respon­si­ble for your devel­op­ment, and equal­ly and most impor­tant­ly, you under­stood that because you are human, you are also respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment of one anoth­er too. You do not jour­ney alone, and you could not be human with­out one anoth­er as you have each become part of one anoth­er in life after life. Yes, the only way you became a bet­ter human was by shap­ing, inform­ing, and lov­ing one anoth­er too.

By word and by deed, you have made what you are today. Day by day and life after life, you have learned from your past mis­takes, and that by fail­ing and falling and ris­ing again, by learn­ing what not to do and how to do bet­ter, you have become a bet­ter you. This is the fun­da­men­tal truth found in “The Law of Kar­ma”. Quite sim­ply and equi­tably it holds the entire­ty of Cre­ation by the uni­ver­sal law of “cause and effect”, so that “what­ev­er you sow, so shall you reap”.

But think what this tru­ly means. Your life is not “fat­ed” because it is made by you; it is forged in the cru­cible of how you lived and live your life. What­ev­er is before you today, that is deter­mined by what you set in motion before; and the future that you will meet tomor­row, that is being made by your con­duct today. The aware­ness forged in Capri­corn is that you are respon­si­ble for what you were and what you will become. Though many will say that the mea­sure of self-worth is found in fame or for­tune or pow­er. But what we find by Capri­corn is that the true pur­pose of your life is to remain true to one­self, to hold to the path of Self-Ful­fill­ment; the worth of you is forged by being a bet­ter you day after day.

As much as Sagit­tar­ius is the sign of the search for and shar­ing of the Truth, Capricorn’s realm is where the truth is made real by your becom­ing and being this truth, so that truth is lived. The climb to self-mas­tery is ardu­ous but reward­ing because the end result is that you will become a sage, a tru­ly wise one.

How will you know that you are mov­ing towards your ful­fill­ment? The tru­ly wise are not proud or boast­ful, they do not claim to have all the answers or per­fec­tion. They will always offer their sup­port and guid­ance to those who ask for it, but they will give their help with kind­li­ness and gen­tle­ness, with the com­pas­sion born of what they know you have endured and what still lies before you. They will always extend a lov­ing, help­ing hand because they are what you will be one day. Yes, as much as we are to be lovers of wis­dom, the wise know the heart of the teach­ing, which is the wis­dom of love.

Yes, you have made you. And you are what you are as revealed by your moti­va­tions and your inten­tions, in the man­ner of your bear­ing or what we under­stand as “Char­ac­ter”, which is the emo­tion­al and the intel­lec­tu­al, the moral and the spir­i­tu­al stature that you embody. You stand revealed by your under­stand­ing and moral com­pass, and from these qual­i­ties and by your shin­ing exam­ple of ful­fill­ing your respon­si­bil­i­ties, you will take your place in the Hier­ar­chy of Light and Love, as you weave your path into the paths of each and every one of us, and to the One who holds us all.

As the world waits today for a sign that the ever­last­ing light will not fade away, we gath­er togeth­er and pledge to one anoth­er our devo­tion to the source of one and all:

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.