On Nov 20, 2013 I was Kristin Fontana's guest on her Evolutionary Astrology Guiding Stars radio show on http://healthylife.net
Our topic was Saturn in Scorpio.
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On March 6th 2013 I was Kristin Fontana's guest on her Guiding Stars radio show on http://healthylife.net.
The show topic was How to Cope With the Uranus - Pluto Square Nodal Returns. It was a good show.
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On March 21st I was Kristin Fontana's guest on her Guiding Starts radio show on http://healthylife.net.
The show topic was Nodal Returns, Cycles of Change. I was very happy with the quality of this presentation. While I discussed some astrology principles, the main topic really was cycles of growth, release, resistance, and change.
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I read once a saying of one of the great beings from India, that we are not going from falseness to truth, but from truth to greater truth. In other words, what we have been operating from has been the place of the deepest truth we have grasped. There are always truths beyond what we have grasped no matter how far along we get, because we are ultimately dealing with a force that is infinite. There is no end.
The "reward" for diligently carrying out our present truth as far as we can take it is we gradually see the limitations inherent in what we have perceived as truth - we start grasping deeper truth. Without having all we'd done to get to the present point we would not be seeing the new deeper truth. Thus everything that proceeded this moment was completely necessary. And, that greater truth makes it clear we now must release from elements of the reality we have created that are invalidated by the deeper truth we've now come to see as a direct result of our efforts to date.
This is just the way life is constructed. And this cycle repeats again and again, infinitely. The problem that humans have created is when we come to see that what we have called truth was actually at least partially delusional that we tend to start judging ourselves as stupid and failing. When in fact it has all been entirely necessary and part of the inevitable process.
The realization that all I can work with is what I know, and that what I know will inevitably be revealed as only partial truth, is the essence of learning humility. And humility is what keeps our hearts and minds open to the inevitable entrance of even greater truth. Acceptance that all this is the Way of Life seems like the key to truly developing inner peace.
On June 9th 2010 I was Kristin Fontana's guest on her internet radio show Guiding Stars, a weekly Evolutionary Astrology show on www.healthylife.net, Wednesdays at 10 AM Pacific time.
I discussed the Evolutionary Astrology principle of levels of Soul evolution, including how to recognize a person's stage of development based on their choice of language, beliefs, and desire nature. I also explained how the evolutionary impulse works through various symbols we may find in the chart, including Mars-Pluto phase and retrograde planets.
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On March 24th 2010 I was again Kristin Fontana's guest on the internet radio show Guiding Stars, a weekly Evolutionary Astrology show on www.healthylife.net, Wednesdays at 10 AM.
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A friend shared this with me the other day (thank you, friend). It speaks so deeply to what I am looking at in my life. I finally realized I would like to share it.
All things arise, Suffer change, And pass away.
This is their nature.
When you know this, Nothing perturbs you, Nothing hurts you.
You become still.
It is easy.
-Ashtavakra Gita 11:1 From "The Heart of Awareness: A Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita," by Thomas Byrom, 1990.
I received this quote in today's inbox which to me says quite a lot, the essence of what I've been feeling for some years now. It's from the Mother, from her book "The Sunlit Path". For those who don't know, she was associated with Sri Aurobindo, a wise, illumined person from India who lived in the first half of the 20th century. The Call To Adventure
We are in a very special situation, extremely special, without precedent. We are now witnessing the birth of a new world; it is very young, very weak -- not in its essence but in its outer manifestation -- not yet recognised, not even felt, denied by the majority. But it is here. It is here, making an effort to grow, absolutely *sure* of the result. But the road to it is a completely new road which has never before been traced out -- nobody has gone there, nobody has done that! It is a beginning, a *universal beginning*. So it is an absolutely unexpected and unpredicatable adventure.
There are people who love adventure. It is these I call, and I tell them this: "I invite you to the great adventure."
It is not a question of repeating spiritually what others have done before us, for our adventure begins beyond that. It is a question of a new creation, entirely new, with all the unforeseen events, the risks, the hazards it entails -- a *real adventure*, whose goal is certain victory, but the road to which is unknown and must be traced out step by step in the unexplored. Something that has never been in this present universe and that will *never* be again in the same way. If that interests you... well, let us embark. What will happen to you tomorrow -- I have no idea.
One must put aside all that has been foreseen, all that has been devised, all that has been constructed, and then set off walking into the unknown. And -- come what may! There. [...]
This courage, this heroism ... why not use it to fight against one's own difficulties, one's own imperfections, one's own obscurities? Why not heroically face the furnace of inner purification so that it does not become necessary to pass once more through one of those terrible, gigantic destructions which plunge the entire civilisation into darkness?
This is the problem before us. It is for each one to solve it in his own way.
What follows is my edited version of an old fable. Life has been teaching me for some years now to live in this fashion.
There once was an old Chinese farmer. One day the old farmer's only horse broke out of the corral and ran away. The farmer's neighbors, all hearing of the horse running away, came to the farmer's house to view the corral. As they stood there, the neighbors all said, "Oh what bad luck!" The old Chinese farmer replied, "We shall see."
About a week later the horse returned, bringing with it a whole herd of wild horses, which the old farmer and his son quickly corralled. The neighbors, hearing of the corralling of the horses, came to see for themselves. As they stood there looking at the corral filled with horses, the neighbors said, "Oh what good luck!" The farmer replied, "We shall see."
A couple of weeks later, the old farmer's son's leg was badly broken when he was thrown from a horse he was trying to break. A few days later the broken leg became infected and the son became delirious with fever. The neighbors, all hearing of the incident, came to see the son. As they stood there, the neighbors said, "Oh what bad luck!" The farmer replied, "We shall see."
At that same time in China, there was a war going on between two rival warlords. The warlord of the old farmer's village was involved in this war. In need of more soldiers, he sent one of his captains to the village to conscript young men to fight in the war. When the captain came to take the farmer's son he found a young man with a broken leg who was delirious with fever. Knowing there was no way the son could fight, the captain left him there. A few days later, the son's fever broke. The neighbors, hearing of the son's not being taken to fight in the war and of his return to good health, all came to see him. As they stood there, each one said, "Oh what good luck!" The farmer replied, "We shall see." I gradually realized it had always been my investment in desired or undesired outcomes that was the source of a lot of the pain I experienced. Life started showing me the natural way to live is to stay centered in this moment. When I found myself off center, I began asking myself "OK, what is wrong in this moment?" Not in an hour or a week or when the rent will be due or the new tranny needs to be be paid for, but right now, this moment, what is wrong? I started noticed that, 95% of the time, my answer was "Nothing".Then I started noticing that almost all of the worst case scenarios I’d feared might occur generally never happened. And then I noticed that the expectations I placed on what would be to me future wonderful outcomes also rarely unfolded in the ways I’d hoped they would. Gradually I learned to stop having so many expectations and demands on Life. Now I set intention, sort of like placing an order. Then I let it go, learning to be OK with whatever happens. If what I ordered is out of stock, so to speak, I learn to be fine with that. I started seeing I only experience disappointment when I hold expectations. The more accepting and appreciative of whatever Life brings I am, the less disappointment I experience.
Gradually I started observing that, in the long run, EVERYTHING that occurred proved in the end to have been for my overall best interest, even things I initially experienced as unpleasant or unwanted. All of them taught me things that moved me further along towards realizing my deepest desires, which are about understanding. Gradually I experienced, knew from within, that Life is on my side, no matter how much it may at certain moments feel otherwise. I saw that I am never being punished, I am always only being given what is necessary to fulfill, over the long haul, my own deepest hopes and aspirations. Which simply can not be fulfilled while I am the way I presently am, simply because the container (the way I view myself) is not yet large enough to hold the truths which would quench my thirst. Thus the container (my sense of who I am) is continually being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d so I CAN receive the answers, the insights and gifts I seek, which Life would be delighted to fulfill for me, to have them "added unto me", if only I could be open wide enough to receive them! (And it is LITERALLY being "added unto me", for it changes who I see myself as, makes me see myself in a larger way – thus "added unto me".) That I saw is what this while sometimes uncomfortable process is all about – preparing me to be wide open enough to receive the very things I most deeply seek, yet resist.
Sure, it is best to not juice up negative expectation, like "if I think about what could go wrong I am just feeding that possible reality.” Yes, that is true. However, I found that going neurotic in such ways every time I found myself with a negative expectation, is just as self-defeating as thinking negative thoughts. The most important thing of all I have learned is, for me anyway, the core change necessary is to learn to be kind to myself, no matter WHAT is going on, no matter how many of my limits and "flaws" are in my face in this moment. The most significant issue to me is how I treat myself when I find I have "slipped" from being aligned to my highest intentions.
I experience those moments as possibly the most potent moments of all for growth potential. For only when my old familiar stuff is in my face, have I the total opportunity to make a different choice. To be kind where previously I have been brutal, ten thousand times. In those moments, more powerful than any other moment, I have an incredible opportunity to make a different choice, a new choice. And in making a new choice enough times, gradually those old hardened thought habits soften and are naturally replaced with others more aligned to where I am NOW.
And so it goes. Like the old Chinese farmer, I strive to face every blow with "We shall see", and every joy with "We shall see". I am the witness, the observer, while at the same time participating in the play. Yet I am also attuned to a deeper play, one that knows that all of this was going on long before "I" was born, and will remain going on long after "I" am gone. From THAT perspective, nothing can ever be wrong.
I tend to see my life as a sculpture or work of art in progress, a continuous state of becoming. Will I ever really feel "done", like I have FINALLY achieved all I wanted, there is no more, and now I can retire to Florida for the rest of my happy little days? I don't envision I will EVER feel "done. I expect to be growing and changing and tweaking and sharing until my last breath. That's my intention anyway.
Astrology has taught me that all of the phases of a life are natural and necessary and inevitable, from early youth to the final passage in old age. That we can't hang on to any one phase, and that no one phase is any better than any other. Each has its natural time to thrive and its natural time to fade away, so that the next phase can be born to replace it, ready or not, willing or not. Learning to feel these and observe them; there is natural poetry and meter to it all. A flow of natural creativity, the same impulse as the comings and goings of the seasons, and the gardens the warmer ones bring forth. That we are totally a part of this.
The Demanding Artist (aka "me"...) is never completely satisfied with his creation, so far anyway. Always tweaking this, adjusting that, reworking some other part. As my insights deepen, as I realize that TODAY i would have done this part differently, I proceed to rework it. As my capacity to empathize (meaning to listen deeply to another) grows; as I grow. - Life as art.
That which I express in an outer way, whether or not the world considers it art - could be as simple as washing dishes more consciously, or observing the changes in a Spring leaf between two days ago and now. This is all the flow of creativity, Life as Art.
My outer expressions merely reflect my shifting inner realities - are my attempts to give form to them, to what is continuously growing and shifting. Why do I feel I must express this? I don't even know. The desire to express lives in a deep place within and simply at times demands action and expression - some of which the world may label as Creative.
