Inspiration

When someone we love leaves, it’s their mess, the originality of their marvelous salmagundi that we miss. You don’t long after excellence, or do you? I find myself missing the quirky, mis-shapen oddness, that funny, off-centered way they had of arriving, then departing, their bizarre sounds, that pitch perfect flaw, announcing they were within earshot. Many of us spend hours of effort toward a text book turn-out in order to fit in, climb the ladder, and be as close to perfect as possible. To come from another perspective is dangerous. Messes reveal us. They speak of an innate, intimate piece of who we really are. They express the opposite of the ideal facade, overcome in a moment of letting go. Those who bear witness when we are a mess know something deep and true about us, It is one of the great reasons we love our pets, perhaps our children, certainly great friends. Not only do they silently witness our abandoned moments without judgment, (until they become teens) but they are a mess, forcing us in to letting go of unimportant chich in order to love. And love we do, without preconceives, judgment, expectation, or hope of clean floors and clothes…lucky, lucky us. Asana: Viranchyasana/Seated lLg-Wrap Pose. (Viranchi is one of the names of Brahma, the first deity of the Hindu Trinity who created the world.)* *(B.K.S. Iyengar.) When you accomplish this pose, you too can create the world. This pose is a mess of arms & legs, and accomplishing it will make all your friends laugh. Sit with legs extended, bending R knee, place foot close to groin, or reverse it, placing foot beside L hip. grab L leg and pull it up over the head and around the back of the neck. (See what I mean?) Keep back……

The economic climate, the Astrologic climate, and the emotional climate are singularly hot and climbing. If we are not to repeat the reactionary extremes of the 1930’s; think great depression, rise of Nazism, Fascism, and war, we’d best be formatting better/higher/wider visions. There are many wonderful qualities connected with the energy-framework we are entering, as there were back then: individualism, creative innovation, self-reliance, along with desires for autonomy. It is when they are taken to revolutionary extremes, we suffer. When anything grows too far off-center, suffering prevails. The question is…have we progressed enough since the tumultuous ‘30’s to pull these very similar planetary energies toward higher evolutionary expression? Or, will we fail to fairness, with Self and in the world? Will we fail to hold center ground, in our hearts as well as in our speech? Will we surrender to zealots by lack of spine along with lack of sighted-planning? Can we grow co-ops of compassion, where everyone has equal say/ equal vote, equal responsibility? We can. Question remains, can we do it fast enough to save one another, and the plant & animal kingdoms of Ma-Earth? Calling All Angels (This ‘Breath’ spiked by Michele Finey’s article for Mt. Astrologer, “Uranus In Aries; A spark of Hope for the Future”) Asana: Parivritta Parsvakonasana/Revolved Side Angle Pose. Move into pose from Vira I, R leg forward, knee bent, thigh parallel to floor. Exhale to rotate trunk into R thigh, bringing L arm (armpit) to outside of R knee, placing L hand on floor by R foot, or on a block. Take another breath, extending R arm overhead by ear. Maintain strong, extended back leg. Continue to deepen twist through the breath by extending on inhale, twisting deeper on exhale. Health Notes: Because abdominals are contracted, digestion is improved, as more blood……

How do we give ourselves a fighting chance when the deck is stacked? How do we change someone who overwhelms the psyche? How do we fight constipated bonfires of rage, destruction, and carelessness? As usual, I have no idea, but in order to change something we must alter the energy that creates it. Therefore all seemingly enormous forces outside of self must first be addressed within. It is an opportunity to see them as part of our makeup, a mask of our mysterious spiritual-soul self. Caroline Myss, author and intuitive healer, speaks of universal archetypes, as did Carl Jung, who proposed that the collective unconscious was populated by faces of psychological patterns, such as victim, mother, trickster, or Queen. Myss feels that a combination of 12 archetypal patterns, much like the 12 houses of the zodiac, work within each of us, creating personae and personality, mainly creating shadow material from childhood as grist for our adult spiritual mill. Learning to identify these faces, or energies, observing them rise up again and again to sabotage the creative self, we begin to have a fighting chance to overcome a stacked deck. As we open perception to name our hidden subversive powers, be it contracts with the saboteur, prostitute, or innocent, we can then “invoke it, assimilate it, and express it.” * What overwhelms the psyche, is us. As Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We change us by awakening our own divine potential, liberating ourselves from childhood/societal limitations of old parental decrees. These shadow-archetypes, destructive when hidden by darkness, become our strongest ally’s when illuminated. The spiritual challenge is not to fight the constipated bonfire, first we let go the ‘old shit,’ and second, we do not sit so close to the fire that we cannot……

Faced With Decisions of change, which way do you leap? How large is this shift? Which trajectory to choose? Since we are all in the frying pan this summer, we sizzle, for the heat’s on high! It is no longer a question of ‘if,’ only how and when, and where these ‘alternate routes,’ these high jumps of transformation occur. As your ‘Astrologer’ I cannot tell you the right decision to make, rather, I offer ways in which to consider and design best outcomes, like…make time to consider options now, before jumping. Practice take-offs, and if possible, landings. Consider all styles, view the competition, sit still and quiet, listening to instinctual nudges. Because everyone is edgy and nervous with intimations of sea-change, relationships are being pushed and pressured every which way. Can we grow awareness of what the important ones need, and be willing to let others go? “Who do you love and how deeply do they matter.” is a mantra we are returning to time and again, and again. There will be bodies by the roadside. Becoming clear helps prevent regret about those wayside bodies. Rule # 1, Stay focused on essentials. Rule # 2, Remember it’s easier to accept others, rather than change them. (Like we could.) Getting ourselves, particularly judgment, out of the way is paramount to having clear vision of what is, not what we think it/they should be. Because the heat is so high, anger is a BIG issue. ‘Going ballistic’ is sadly becoming more the norm. Rule # 3, Call up unknown wells of empathy to see their POV, rather than become furious with it. We need this energy for other things and people. Spewing and fuming eat enormous amounts of prana/life force. Why waste it? Rule # 4, We have far more fun loving……

We near the Solstice Standstill, the western hemisphere’s longest day. This was a celebration of life, and its richness, nights when the ancestors called down the Gods through dance and love making, asking for good crops, and plentiful hunts. It remains a celebration when we may connect more vibrantly to the earth and her waters, and because this Solstice lies at the foot of the spring eclipses, doors to the unknown open and close more powerfully; T’is indeed a time of purposeful creation. “Earthly things must be known to be loved. Divine things must be loved to be known.” Blaise Pascal As part of our Sadhana/spiritual Practice, we are learning to synthesize and embrace both these expansive ideas. We are coming to understand that physics embraces the spiritual nature of existence, that quantum mechanics teaches us to have a more encompassing view of mysticism. Brains are wired not only to physical existence but invisisble Universal laws. The non-physical and the physical are one, as all bodies are one, as we and the earth are one, divided only by thought and deed. Through these Solstice nights, let us create that magical ‘ONENESS,’ let us stand-still in true communion with one another, and with Gaia, and call healing to flow through us all. As I finish writing this the following arrives from a dear friend. Read it, do it, rejoice in magical coincidences, and our power to create good out of evil; a perfect incantation for this Solstice. Dr. Masaru Emoto is the scientist from Japan who has done the research and publications about the characteristics of water. Among other things, his research revealed that water physically responds to emotions. Many people have predominantly angry emotions thinking about what is happening in the Gulf. While justified, we may be of greater assistance……

To expand daily life and make it more livable, I vote for ritual, instead of chores. Or, chores as loving ritual. I vote for celebration instead of speed and mayhem, or… celebration of speed. Being caught in the crosshairs of too many chores and too little time is the crazy-making struggle. In olde days, ritual referred to religious rites within a church. Today, everything can be made sacred with intention. We need this. Faced with a world moving in machine gun rapidity, we need comfort and order and beauty in small, repeated moments like beads run through fingers, or one minute of silent sitting in a mudra. There are a thousand ways to light our erratic, unfathomable path. It’s the body that craves simple ceremony. Ritual can be a mindless reflex that sets emotion into motion, or it can be a profoundly thoughtful, attentive effort, connecting mind & body in profound contemplation. Both serve. How many layers of psyche are affected when we draw 1000 circles in sand, polish 90 stones, Practice 108 Sun Salutations, sing 60 chants in walking vigil? We are better fed when intention and sacred time are welcomed and set aside. Our scrawny, puny lives take on luxuriance and luster when ritual oils are poured over desiccated skin. Perhaps it’s a return to rich and fabled childhoods and the ceremonies of bedtime; old books, hot chocolate in marshmallows, and lullabies. If you didn’t have that, then give it to yourself now. It is the hour to make profane, irreverent days high and holy. Asana: The joy of repeating Sun Salutations at dawn. A remarkable way to open a day, especially in the first light of Brahma Mutra, a sacred time when renewing life is offered time & again. Health Notes: Suns open lungs and heart, set……