Inspirations: Archives

What prepares us for our dying?  What practices help final steps courageously leap toward the most formidable of unknowns?  Need you be Thelma & Louise?  Is religion a balm?  Will belief stave off fear?  Can love do the trick?  All are helpful, except when religion forever damns us, or the beliefs are nihilistic.  And love?  What happens to love when the dying is long and arduous, taking every measure of Grace from slow years of pain?  Sometimes love prevails, often not.  So what, then?  What supports the journey from this moment’s rich, fullness –to what?  Even if it turns out to be a magnificent what, still, from this side it’s a wide and wooly chasm. From an Astrological POV, Jupiter and Saturn are the threshold planets beyond the personal.  They are the social energies of teachings, beliefs, and large organizational deployment.  Death is often associated with them for very different reasons.  Jupiter, the planet of expansiveness, beliefs, and long distance journeys opens to the great adventure in dying.  The counter point to Jupiter’s jolly largesse is Saturn’s loneliness, timing, structure, and responsibility which often accompany the death of someone loved. Both Jupiter and Saturn can be Astrological signatures of Master Teachers as well as dying. This third ‘Breath,’ exploring the make up of great teachers, those shape-shifters who transform lives, could provide one of the best answers in preparing for death.  Great teachers supply Saturn’s structure and system, a sense of pacing and stamina.  They require students grow responsible to their own highest good, their inherent abilities.  But teachers  become masters because they are truly Jupiter’s children.  Their delight is in sharing knowledge, being curious, exploring new realms, expanding horizons. Their long distance journeys are often of the mind, from a good book, the internet, and ideas ruminated with friends… Read more »