Soft Landing Although the Millennium Contraction continues to clamp down, affecting broader areas of life and more people, The Celestial Wheel always seeks opportunity for a soft landing. No matter how challenging situations are, there is always a path ahead to resolve issues and achieve improvements. If there weren't, free will would overcome fate, and there would be no valid purpose to this forecasting! Crash and burn can be avoided, or at least mitigated. Regardless of the outcome, the end result is a necessary purification of society's excesses. That in itself is a benefit clothed in loss, even as the process is painful -- like the dentist drilling out cavities from eating too much sugar. This being said, the combination of a tough objective reality and a heavy subjective reality is a high and steep hill to climb for all of us. Over three years into the economic decline, his holiday season is naturally tough. As material expectations aren't met, emotional (subjective) needs are also denied. It's not the toy, the shirt nor the electronic gadget that gratifies, but rather the emotional support and rapport connected to the gift. And this results whether one is unable to gift others or doesn't receive gifts. While, the process is integral to the Millennium Contraction's essential nature of purification -- certainly at least some carefree holiday shopping with a full checkbook would be uplifting.
Eclipses Block As discussed beginning in the November 21 VedicLeaks, we're in the midst of the twice-annual eclipse season, an unstable interval made more so by occurring in treacherous Scorpio, together with a tough Mercury retrograde. Eclipses of the Sun (self) and the Moon (mind) block, which is what the word eclipse means. Everything in the world now is like pushing a string. The eclipses, of course, aggravate the holiday season woes discussed above. The eclipse season is, however, good for contemplation, examining ourselves. With outer achievement restricted, inner achievement is the alternative. In fact, the blocking effect stimulates contemplation -- an attraction to the void. Too, if going outside isn't working, then go inside. Spiritual practices, whether traditional and formalized church services, meditation, yoga, prayer... offer environments needed to cultivate the self examination -- detaching the ego know what is real. You can also find contemplative opportunities in non-traditional modes, solitary activities you do that are away from the hustle and bustle of your daily life -- which relax the body and calm the internal churning. Each of us has various ways to tune into this mode via repetitive activities. Some walk or jog. Others fish or knit. Some listen to music, or cook or garden. Ritual is a good word to describe the core structure of spiritual practices enabling contemplation. Rituals have form, substance and repetition needed to shift consciousness to the inner realm.
Eclipses Reveal Astrologically, eclipses bring insight via their other quality -- to reveal. As the light of the Sun is blocked, the sky darkens, revealing the stars. The same phenomena happens in a lunar eclipse although in a different way. The stars around the Moon can then be seen. With the eclipse season blocking worldly endeavors and stimulating contemplation, we can gain insight -- information which is revealed. The opportunity is here to turn the eclipse season blocking effect into a positive by gaining insight through contemplation. Note that contemplation is a solitary endeavor. Usually done alone, it continues to be individualistic when participating in group spiritual practices -- whether mediation, chanting, yoga, a church service or other shared spiritual endeavor. After all, the group around you is only a support function for you to go inside personally -- by yourself. As Yogananda said, Seclusion is the price of greatness.
Karmic Ruts Is the process easy, enjoyable? No and no. It's challenging, for essentially, you confront yourself, asking how and why what you are doing -- or more accurately, being -- isn't working, or is unsatisfactory. The concept of karmic ruts applies here. As we journey through life, we settle into ruts -- accustomed behaviors that are comfortable and also rewarding in the development of abilities, career, home, family... the routines and habits in our lives. True contemplation forces us examine our karmic ruts, question them and divine new ones. And then we have to actually jump out of those karmic ruts no longer useful and needed. Well, that's scary! Change always is -- keying in a new destination in our personal GPS. But, it's necessary, unavoidable really because unless we change, we will all certainly suffer further losses as society transforms, and these can be catastrophic. This Celestial Wheel offers you the information that we must all transform our lives and that the Sun and Moon now in eclipse encourage that progress through contemplation. It proposes a soft landing, as opposed to a crash and burn. There's a final point about this transformation, what I've termed, fitting our old square pegs into new round holes -- it's a process, not a result. There is no final destination, for as society continues to change, we must all adapt. Similarly, we routinely change our wardrobes as the seasons change. The suggestion here is not only moving into new karmic ruts, but finding and changing new and better karmic ruts on an ongoing basis. Only from this instability can we find stability. This does not suggest wholesale uprooting of all aspects of our lives. Everyone has many karmic ruts. Some need to be abandoned and replaced -- like the McMansions, gas guzzlers, a bad job and other material things. We also have to deal with immaterial ruts -- how we relate to ourselves and others, what and how we contribute to society, how our values have gone astray and need to be changed from me, me me to we, we we.... So, again, we have to consider both our objective and subjective realities. Other karmic ruts, like family obligations and basic ethical tenants, must continue out of love and obligation - because they are the right things to do.
The Law of Karma This section appears at first to be out of place. But it's not. The law of karma is simple -- action and reaction. Thus, karma mirrors life. It's absolutely true that if you perform positive actions -- things that help others, but also yourself -- you will plant and nurture a crop of good to harvest. That is the objective side. It's also true that you need to similarly nurture your subjective reality. Your emotional energy fuels your engine of objective actions. Fatigue is not just a physical condition. Beyond insight gained from contemplation and then implementing change, we can first stimulate the process. Objective reality actions improve the subjective reality. That is cause and effect. Throw a few coins in the Salvation Amy kettle, comfort a friend who's down, donate your time to a holiday event... As you perform these objectively positive actions, you are subjectively uplifted. You begin to get out of your own skin, which is a necessary first step in true and honest contemplation. This is priming the pump. It's interesting that therapists have recently begun using this technique -- instead of just talking with their clients about dysfunctions, they encourage them to conquor in small steps. For example, if someone freezes up when doing public speaking, the counselor asks the client start by addressing a small group of friends or family, then later a larger group... changing their objective and subjective realities by gradual improvements in the objective reality. Well, this, isn't new. Remember the old saying about what to do when you fall off a horse?
In Closing These thoughts elicit from Hinduism, for Vedic Astrology integral to that philosophy. However, it is not a scholarly effort. There are no footnotes nor bibliography. Instead, they reflect understanding gained by interpreting personal Vedic charts since 1999 and composing The Celestial Wheel since 2002. For both, planetary karmas in Vedic charts have been examined, interpreted and finally explained. The short and long term results have then be used to refine understanding and technique. Of primary importance is learning about change -- when the karmic influences indicate the person, nation and even the entire globe is propelling change, encouraging and sometimes even forcing contemplation to gain insight. then, one can lift out of old and outdated karmic ruts onto a new and productive paths ahead. Otherwise, people do as my first Vedic teacher once complained, They never listen! The combination of the Millennium Contraction and this challenging eclipse season, just before the holiday season, gives a confluence of karmas for change -- even to those who are the most stubborn! The other piece of this karma for change is that Jupiter, the great benefic (luck, fortune, wisdom, optimism and thereby opportunity), ends a long retrograde Christmas day. He has been weak in retrograde since the end of August. Jupiter in today's skies is advantageously placed in Aries, ruled by energetic Mars and the first house of the self in the natural zodiac -- representing global planetary weather. Address your issues now via contemplation and then begin to jump out of your old and no longer useful karmic ruts at Christmas with Jupiter's opportunities for success. Make 2012 a new beginning.
|
