SunnyCat Astrology

NEW HEART, CLEAN SLATE

zanemaser — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:16:32 +0000

In the womb, as the fetus begins to gather itself,
its tiny heart is the initial organ created.
All else about the body grows later.
All else about the upcoming life has its beginning
and end in the heart center.
Live from your heart.

I had a flash of insight a few days ago—an illumined realization of deep understanding, of sudden knowing. A psychological epiphany opened my eyes! I experienced clarity and pure emptiness in my heart, which resulted in a huge belly laugh, because it was so clear. I felt an instantaneous liberation, joy, and expansion.

Over the holidays, I was surprised to have ancient family issues triggered again, ones I was sure I had long settled within me and put to rest. That emotional thread got tweaked again, and down I went right into an aged childhood story line of “feeling left out.” Strange to find myself once more extracting mileage out of this moldy, over-ripe drama! Like my husband said, “sometimes we’re sure of things we’re unsure of.” I was blinded momentarily to the fact that I am the creator of my own experience. It is never created outside of me.

The absolute freedom I felt, while getting a clean emotional slate in that moment of awareness, was about dealing with my siblings as though there was no past history of strain, no emotional baggage to hinder or block a spontaneous “yes” to meeting up again for a family reunion this summer. In this new state of being and self-empowerment, my childlike exuberance was, “oh how fun, let’s do it.” But prior to my brief ecstatic understanding, I was back and forth whether to go or not, because I had been “nursing” my wounds and sulking. “Who’d miss me anyway if I wasn’t there?” quipped my ego.

Fortunately, I was lifted out of my old “separate” self and born anew emotionally in that clear moment of revelation regarding my reactive patterns. Though words are inadequate to describe the transcendent essence of what I felt, perhaps light-hearted captures it best. Carolyn Myss attests to such a mystical moment: “The power of a fresh perception has the voltage to reorder your entire reality in an instant.” William James calls this “noetic,” that is, a mystical occurrence that bypasses the outer, rational mind wherein pure insight, knowledge, and illumination is imparted.

If each moment is indeed a fresh emotional slate, we are free—totally. Think of the power and magnitude of this one Truth. We are unencumbered to act with total openness, as yesterday’s disempowering interactions do not exist and thus cannot be dragged forward to contaminate this beautiful moment. All is gone forever. Dysfunctional history vaporized! We are truly released and purified. Our heart is sparkling and spacious.

Each of us can choose to create a clean, inexhaustible heart slate now—in this eternal moment—and experience whatever we desire, because this moment contains the power. After all, the heart is “the seat of our greatest intelligence,” according to Joseph Chilton-Pearce, author of “The Biology of Transcendence,” and its high function comprises much more than to pump blood throughout our body. It provides us with an emotional intelligence. Rebecca Cherry tells us “the heart is also the source of the body’s strongest electromagnetic field. Each heart cell is unique in that it not only pulsates in synchrony with all the other heart cells, but also produces an electromagnetic signal that radiates out beyond the cell.”¹ Thus, on a vibrational level, we radiate what we are—our essential nature—and that returns to us in the form of “our life.”

This electromagnetic field of the heart is holographic in that One point of the field represents the whole, and the Whole represents the one. The Heart Hologram connects us to every other atom in the entire Universe, all of which, on the highest level, emit the same Field of Cosmic Truth, Grace, and Love.

A Few Quiet Moments to experience New Heart, Clean Slate

Take a few moments now, if you will, to read these words at a leisurely pace and to rest your mind and body from all busy activity. Allow yourself a small break to slow down, to follow your breath with awareness as the air moves into your lungs a little more deeply. Then slowly breath all the air out from the bottom of your lungs, always with ease and softness, taking as much time as you need to get into synch with the sacred rhythm of your breathe as you come to a place of greater stillness and tranquility, of releasing all tension and tightness in your body.

You are beginning to loosen up and settle down. Feel yourself going to the quiet, calm, serene center of your being. Here, you experience what true peace is. At its fullest, this is the peace that passeth all understanding. Here, you feel all is perfect in this eternal moment—nowhere to go, nothing to do, just to be in this ageless moment. Breathe peace. Ineffable peace. This is the Golden Chamber of your Heart.

Know that while you are in this Golden Place, all disharmony, the outer so-called reality, all pain of any kind on any level, all haste and worry have no existence here. All judgment is suspended. There is only this instant to be in your heart, a divine moment when you also rest in the Heart of God. Feel yourself bathed now in these healing, uplifting rays of this Golden Light—in the Heart of the Divine. Each breath fills you with a golden, holy essence, with complete relaxation. You feel whole.

You are aware of a special radiance. Your Higher Self is beside you now, accompanied by your Guardian Angel. With your outer mind at rest and quiet, if you feel inwardly guided to do so, ask your Higher Self to reveal an unresolved, emotional wound you have harbored secretly in your heart. Allow yourself to recall it, the whole emotional charge of it, the dark depth of pain. Stay with these feelings for a few moments. What are you sensing in your body? How is it different than a moment ago?

Then, because you choose to experience the amazing clarity, freedom and joy of what it feels like to have an open heart NOW, in this timeless moment, ask your Higher Self to wipe your heart slate clean. Let your self experience fully this liberated state. The lightness. The spontaneity of it when there is no emotional residue left to trigger a reaction. Nothing remains. No emotion-laden charge that can take you by surprise and swamp you again. You feel pure inner space, filled only with the Golden Light of Understanding. Here, you are at one with the Universal Heart.

Feel that you really have a new heart, a clean emotional slate. You feel expanded, unlimited. Joyous. Every part of you, every cell feels warmly loved and nourished. You realize you are truly your self—all your power is unified, readily available. Anything coming your way is now a fresh, new experience. You can choose and act with innocence and trust, with wisdom and gratitude, with childlike joy and enthusiastic optimism. Feel yourself genuinely blessed and reverently loved. Take this love and blessing into every cell of your being.

Wait quietly, for as many delicious moments as you need and want, until you feel complete. When you are ready, come back slowly and easily to resume your contact with the outer world. Breathe a little more deeply, feeling the chair you are sitting in, the room around you, the sensation of peace and wellness throughout your being. Rejoin life refreshed, with a quiet heart and renewed strength, focus, confidence, and elation. You now know you are truly part of the Universal Heart Hologram, connected with every other atom in the entire Cosmos, all held lovingly within the same Field of Eternal Truth, Grace, and Love.

Words really do not teach. Your true knowledge
comes from your own life experience. And while you will be
a constant gatherer of experience and knowledge,
your life is not only about that—
it is about fulfillment, satisfaction, and joy.
The Teachings of Abraham™

Related Posts:

• Ego Benders

• Pain Body Attack

• The Hunchback in Each of Us

• Self-Acceptance Heals the World

• Be of Understanding Heart

• Arise Anew!

• Mental Pole Shift

• Greatness Within

Endnotes

1. Rebecca Cherry’s article “Follow Your Heart” is accessed at http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/follow-your-heart-its-smarter-than-you-think

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

GREAT WATER DRAGON YEAR

zanemaser — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:07:30 +0000

O to be a dragon,  a symbol of the power of Heaven —
of silk worm  size or immense; at times invisible. 
Felicitous phenomenon!
Marianne Moore, in “O To Be a Dragon” (1957)

Where I live, the prelude to the entry of the Chinese Year of the Water Dragon on January 23 has been copious amounts of rain, an appropriate expression for a year specifically associated with the element of Water, as well as the Dragon’s natural element of Wood. In the past week, our bioregion is saturated with well over 5 ½ inches of rain, with more to come, and many rivers already cresting at flood stage while others overflow their banks. The mighty Willamette River is bursting its watery seams in places. No wonder Water is having its way with us, because dragons are believed to be the rulers of moving bodies of water, like rivers and seas! The process of cleansing is at hand.

Astrologically, the Chinese New Year—also know as the Lunar New Year—commences at sunset, following the first New Moon after the Sun leaves its sojourn in the Earth sign of Capricorn, to take up residence in Water-bearing Aquarius. This is the portal of the first day of the Chinese calendar, a luni-solar calendar, which includes both the lunar phase and the time of the solar year. It marks the end of the winter season in China and the beginning of the longest, most important holiday and celebration of the Chinese calendar—the “Spring Festival.”

A tradition originating centuries ago, New Year’s Eve, what the Chinese call the “Eve of the Passing Year,” is a sacred time of family reunion when they gather for their annual dinner. New Year festivities are predominantly colored with red, symbolizing joy, sincerity, virtue, and truth.¹

As a legendary, mystical, magical creature, the dragon is attributed with numerous cross-cultural qualities, many of which include enormous powers to both destroy and create, for evil and good. In Greek, the word dragon is derived from two words that carry the meaning of “a serpent or giant seafish” and the ability “to see clearly.” Most dragons are known to fly, where they are able to obtain a higher, broader perspective, although wings are not needed for them to do so. Supernatural gifts they have in abundance.

According to Terah Kathryn Collins, director of the Western School of Feng Shui, the Water Dragon, being the only mythical animal of the twelve in Chinese astrology “is known for bringing Heaven to Earth and making dreams come true. Visions you’ve been holding deep within your heart could manifest right before your eyes.”² So be sure your desires and dreams for 2012 are truly the ones you most want!

Power, strength, and good fortune are among the attributes of the dragon, including his connection as a central symbol denoting the imperial power of the Emperor of China. None were above the Emperor—or the dragon. The Chinese so revere the dragon that within the twelve-year cycle of all the animals of the Chinese zodiac, more babies are born in a Dragon year. Considering the dragon’s reputation, it’s a powerful and fortunate time for birth—on more than the physical level.

There is a lovely correspondence between the symbolism of the Year of the Water Dragon and the significant astrological signatures for the year. 2012 has been variously described as a year of great power and an evolutionary turning point, both personally and collectively. Life has shifted, period. The old patterns, template, and ways of being are gone, and this year is the time to move, to create, and to bring to earth a higher vibrational pattern of connection and unity than we’ve heretofore known. Together, we have reached a Higher Ascent, and the snow-clad Mountain Peak is now in a cloudless view. Like the dragon, we can see and create more clearly now. It is our responsibility to do so.

I’m an outlaw, not a hero. I never intended to rescue you.
We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes,
and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
Tom Robbins, Still Like with Woopecker (1981)

Also on January 23, Mars, planet of energy and direct assertion, began its long awaited three-month retrograde period in Virgo, where it will re-commence a forward motion on April 13. It moves fully beyond the retrograde degrees on June 19 and will then dash ahead. While Mars’ energy is now personalized inwardly and intensified in Virgo, the sign of ordering the particulars in life, it’s time to clean, sort, clear out, simplify, organize, economize, choose wisely, and lighten the load physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Release, forget, forgive, heal, and serve, allowing the purifying waters of the river to carry the relinquished weight out to sea.

A momentous “spiritual” event will occur on February 3 when Neptune moves into transcendent Pisces, the sign it rules. Neptune last traversed Pisces in the early 1860’s, and it will remain in heart-centered, Watery Pisces until 2025. The Neptune in Pisces energy, expressed on the higher side, will have an enormously spiritualizing effect on us all to embrace our divine heritage and inheritance. Moreover, the Water and Wood elements of the Water Dragon are associated with spirituality and intuition, respectively. Many of us will increasingly feel the veil dissolving between this outer level of impermanent life and the Inner Worlds of Light and Beauty.

We’ll have greater trust in and deeper access to our intuitive insights, to multi-dimensional healing, to our Angelic guidance and the presence of our loved ones in the non-physical realm, to the animating spirit within the nature and animal kingdoms, to fortunate synchronicities and miraculous outcomes—to name a few. Unity and connection may have greater ascendancy than separation, polarities, and fear. “What is in the One is in the Whole,” as Carolyn Myss puts it, is a mystical principle whose time is now, ushered in by the Water Dragon who brings Heavenly Grace to earth this year.

The upcoming Uranus/Pluto square in the summer and fall suggests that, through darker days of traumatic upheaval and radical shifts, a higher level of conscious awareness and personal empowerment will be worth the risk, change, and evolutionary growth that will precede the turmoil. The evolutionary gift of the Uranus/Pluto square is a colossal course correction for us personally and globally: to use our resources, power, and wealth in ways that serve the Whole—the “One Body” for which we are all a unique, magnificent part. The noble, generous spirit of the Water Dragon encourages us to become transparent in the Light of the Truth and to honor our own truths as the divine gifts we contribute in this pivotal year of 2012.

Similar themes will be underscored later in the year when Saturn enters the penetrating, regenerative Watery sign of Scorpio on October 6 (where it will remain until mid-September 2015). Scorpio’s energy is a truly intense, demanding Path, because the very nature of it as both a Fixed and a Water sign implies a potentially relentless, on-going process of gain and loss, change and adaptation, sorrow and joy, turmoil and peace. Scorpio, and its co-ruling planet, Pluto require that we probe into and experience life in all its facets, coupled with the need to heal and regenerate our self through periodic stages of suffering “little deaths.”

Symbolically and literally, these transformative ordeals and subsequent experiences of resurrection that we all undergo when Scorpio energy is emphasized, as it will be with Saturn’s occupancy, are part of this sign’s pattern of destiny and processes of evolution. They take us past superficialities to the brink of this “known” world and into the deeper Mysteries of “transitional states,” described by Mary Plumb.³ Though not easy, these sorts of fallings away or “re-makings” are required of us in the years ahead. They are the waters of breakdown (the Water Dragon!), of letting go, of transmuting selfish desires, and of subsequent inner renewal, because these major sufferings, tests, metamorphoses, and initiations are the threshold we have all entered together.

Jean Houston, eminent scholar and researcher into “human potential,” describes humanity as entering the “Great Times” of the “possible human in the possible culture.” She contends we can all live larger lives if we honor the fullness of who or what we are to be. For Jean, within each of us resides both a “sheer immensity” and “extraordinary splendor” of what we are inwardly, and NOW is the time to grasp and walk toward that Higher Meaning and Destiny encoded within our spiritual DNA.

The Water Dragon has flown into our midst as a fortunate guide and way shower. Will you accept the Call of Transformation to walk the crucial steps of advancement this year and in the years ahead? If so, see you on the illumined Summit of the Mountain!

I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists,
even if it’s in your mind.
Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares
aren’t as real as the here and now?
John Lennon, quoted in Secret of the Dragon’s Eye: Book One
Derek Hart (2007)

Related Posts:

• Awakening Your Dreams For 2012

• A New Unity

• Getting My Bearings (in part a description of the purpose and value of the retrograde cycle of Mars)

• The Beastly & Blessed Moments of Mars

• “One Body”

• Readiness

• Evolutionary Upgrade

• The Timeless Trek

Endnotes

1. Wikipedia is the source of information about the Chinese New Year and dragons.

2. http://www.westernschooloffengshui.com/

3. Mary Plumb’s excellent article about the mysteries and hidden forces of Scorpio

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

LOVE PREVAILS: PART 1

zanemaser — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:46:59 +0000

Be thankful for everything, for your life and for all
the opportunities which  ome to you. If you think over these things
you will find there  are many, many opportunities given to you
to do  the right thing, to love, to be forgiving, to be kind.  
We would point out to you that these simple things 
Are the keys which open the gates to the mysteries of heaven.  
White Eagle

There is a farm on the east coast of America called “Green Hope Farm,” which produces an incredible variety of flower essences for humans and animals. A small segment of the farm is devoted to the “Venus Garden.” During the course of its evolution, this Garden was planted in the form of a 6-pointed Star, and the essences made from it can help a person to re-member and re-attune to the Fifth Dimension and to Divine Love. Now termed the Love-Star configuration, a number of different flower combinations have been grown in the transformative energies of this Garden over the past few years through the tender care by humans, Elementals, and Angels.¹

In 2003, one of the essences distilled from a mix of flowers from this Venus Garden was named “Love Prevails.”² One of its principal components was the ever-renewing Pink Cleome, a tall beauty that blooms continuously from the same flower head until frost kills it for the year. This particular flower essence helps a person to set aside the temporary illusion that love comes and goes whimsically, but rather to know what farm owner Molly Sheehan discovered: “Love is. Love is here. It never left and never will. Love prevails.”

As a universal given, love prevails at all times and in all things despite external appearances. This prevalence of love is what spiritual teacher, White Eagle, alludes to when he says, as he often does, “all is well.” James Allen states it, “as the heart, so is the life.” The core homeopathic principle of “Do no harm” is yet another way to remember and practice love all of the time, first inwardly in worth of self and then outwardly toward a kindly embrace for all life.

The notion of love’s prevalence got me wondering about all the benevolent ways Universal Spirit expresses Itself. Perhaps one of the most evocative symbols of hope and reassurance we have to continually remind us of Love’s timeless presence is the symbol that denotes the Earth: the equal-sided cross of trials and sacrifices surrounded by the Circle of Universal Love. Even as we endure our personal cross of soul-crucifixion in a given lifetime, Divine Love upholds us. It is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.

The cross always symbolizes the human soul interlocked and unified with that of the Divine. As we participate with life in all its maturing processes, we learn that Love is our equal partner even within the anguish and surrender of some moments. This is but saying that as we let go of the demands of our outwardly driven self we come into a fuller radiant alignment with the purity and grace of our Higher Self. Each moment becomes the Divine Moment.

How Love Prevails in the Natal Birth Chart

Applied to the realm of astrology, the notion of love’s prevalence set me on the discovery course of the many ways in which our soul and spirit guide us to create the blueprint of our natal chart for the upcoming incarnation—for the perfectly orchestrated moment of our first birth. Given this evolutionary choice, we construct the most promising Path to be able to feel and experience first hand how Love truly prevails as we mature and encounter the progressions and transits of our natal template, which aid in the dynamic, ever-changing, organic process of remembering our true identity.

The following ideas are but a few of the many possible examples of how love prevails, as suggested in our astrological chart and myriad life experiences. Our natal blueprint can reveal the potential ways in which we must grapple this lifetime with the results of the thoughts, acts, and words we previously set in motion. Thus, we are the singular design agent and not helpless observer to the patterns and cycles of development we encounter in a given lifetime.

Our chart offers helpful pointers that show us how to correct our mistakes and so progress along Love’s Path. For example, the various “Saturnian” tests and hardships that we meet at scheduled intervals (of about seven or so years) along the way are intended to season us and so strengthen our faith in the beneficence of the Creator and our capacity to love unconditionally. All that is secreted within can only blossom outward. According to Universal Law, everything in life reflects back to us what we have first put into it.

From time to time, when life’s circumstances become daunting and unbearable, it is vital to recall that the symbolic language of spirit encoded in your chart is the language of love. The purpose of this language is to encourage and open the Eternal Love within your heart and soul, because the expansion of the love within us is the greatest gift we have to offer life. The underlying prevalence of love does not minimize or sugar coat the difficult cross currents and conflicting messages within many charts or when a current planetary lineup ushers in a particularly adverse period. However, in any given chart, with its difficult, tension-producing squares, and oppositions (angular relationships of 90° and 180°) there is ever the compensating blessing of sextiles and trines (angular relationships of 60° and 120°) to balance the tribulations with fortunate flows of energy, which eases some of the tension. It is much like our Guardian Angel nudging us forward to engage life bravely, all the while keeping us upright under pressure!

As well, a birth chart often contains a few quintiles (an aspect of 72°), those often overlooked aspects that can reveal potential creative talents, mystical inclinations, and/or innate genius. Moreover, to attain greater harmony and balance, the so-called “hard” aspects help us hone the specific spiritual lessons indicated by the aspect, while giving us multiple encounters and tryouts through the sequence of transits and progressions. All systems, whether astrological or biophysical, have an inherent balancing mechanism, yet it is up to us to choose the positive or negative end of the scale. With accruing experience and self-discipline, perceptive individuals move wisely closer to the Middle Way! This is the “supreme task of rightfully ordering our life,” noted by James Allen.

Messages of the Astrological Aspects: How the Planets Interconnect

What might the corrective effect of a challenging aspect be, say a square or an inconjunct (an angular relationship of 150°), in the context of a whole chart? How might it work at the causal level to create a more functional pattern than merely at the outer symptomatic level? What is the significant theme and process denoted by the aspect? Whether inherently strained or relaxed, aspects include both constructive and negative outcomes, again depending on how and at what level the individual chooses to use the energies of a specific planetary linkage. But the soul maturity of the person cannot be assessed via the chart.

Further, in any given chart, there would likely be a planet strongly placed by house and sign to offset a planet that can suggest a weakened, problematic, or undermining influence. With a planet in the sign of its fall (indicating a measure of “debility”), such as the Moon in Scorpio, the same chart might have Saturn in its exaltation sign of Libra, where the energies can operate ideally with power and dignity. While the former can indicate the possibility to cope with some extremes in temperament and a decided stubbornness, the latter suggests an ability to cooperate with others through allowing a variety of viewpoints on the table and negotiating with gentle diplomacy, which accentuates what a love-centered attitude might accomplish. With an exalted Saturn in this case, it’s perhaps more natural to take a Higher Road.

If you take a moment to reflect on the overall outworking of your life, you will discover that 95 percent or more of the negative things you conjured and needlessly worried about either never materialized or did so in a far kinder way than you imagined. This is akin to the saying that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it. Should you conduct this life review, you would also find that your life has been punctuated by significantly more moments of satisfactory joy and enduring love than by moments of despair and darkness.

How many of us think about and truly acknowledge the half-full cup? How many of us, when confronted with a stark upheaval, a dreaded circumstance, or change stop and actually realize the comforting notion that there is an almighty, loving pattern contained within our chart as revealed in the hills and valleys of our life? We most likely forget the maxim “this too shall pass,” as the pendulum swings in steady rhythm to help us grow and reach towards a higher level of consciousness, knowing full well that every action—wise or unwise—creates an equal and opposite reaction. In remarkable ways, the symbolic language of astrology can help us to understand and astutely use the events and circumstances that come our way to provide the earthly practicum we need to meet life’s demands with poise and dispassion.

Related Posts:

• Love Prevails: Part 2

• A Psycho-Spiritual Principle

• Ego Benders

• Mental Pole Shift

• A Test of Tooth

• Approach and Avoidance

• New Kitchen Look, A Sign of the Times

• Spiritual Uprightness

• Giving Way in The Natural Order

Endnotes

1. In the right-hand column under “Animal Resources,” you can click on Flower Essences for Animals, which is the Green Hope Farm website.

2. Here is the write up for the flower essence “Love Prevails”: http://www.greenhopeessences.com/Essences/Venus/loveprevails.html

Text © by Zane Maser, 2012. (This article was originally published in 2004 in Altair, Journal of the White Eagle School of Astrology, Volume XII, 2:23-31.) Photos © by Chris and Zane Maser, 2012. All rights reserved worldwide.

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband. (Photograph by Barbara Shaw)

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

LOVE PREVAILS: PART 2

zanemaser — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:44:30 +0000

The context of the chart is the whole tapestry.
Each piece, such as the aspects, is a vital thread of the story.

Depending on how the planetary conduits of energies are used, even positive, ease-filled aspects have their shadow side, by which I mean that one person might tend to react to a trine of Venus to Jupiter with self-absorption, indulgence, overspending, and laziness, thus entirely misusing the earned potential of the aspect. Conversely, another person might use the Moon square to Saturn as an impetus to build a solid, positive sense of self: first, by deprogramming the negative messages, decisions, or beliefs from childhood through a focused affirmation, such as “I let go and fully release the pain of my mother’s lack of emotional support, filling that space now with Creative Light and Love.” Secondly, the person would need to reprogram a new message, one like “I am a worthy, lovable, and loving person with many gifts to offer. Doors of opportunity open for me now, and I move forward with confidence and strength.”

Thus, a person steps into the role of a loving parent to their fragmented, inner orphan and retrieves that part of their precious life’s energy to become whole again. They make a conscious decision to use the qualities of a difficult Moon/Saturn square in a constructive way, which moves them along a completely new track of positive self-esteem and greater emotional openness. Their psychological foundation is actually restructured along a positive groove that begins to magnetize a new, fulfilling life populated with individuals who are encouraging, supportive, and optimistic. Life is what we make it!

As a further example, for someone with the Moon’s North Node in the 6^th house, a part of the crucial learning is to develop a full-bodied faith, which would eliminate the inner negativity and lurking subconscious fears—buried fears that are likely not relevant to the current lifetime. By consciously shifting the thought currents to a positive and productive attitude toward life, the power of their indomitable faith could actually work miracles, because this person has the capacity to be a natural-born healer, to give a remarkable gift to the world through their useful service to others. This individual also has the opportunity to overcome an inherent tendency to be critical of others, due to the realization that imperfections seen in others are really disowned, projected qualities within the self.

These few examples show how our spirit and soul decides, prior to embodiment, on the deck of cards—the natal map—that they will “deal with” in that given lifetime. We can either choose to accept our personal deck and do the best we can with our earned strengths and shortcomings (to be redeemed) or face an even weightier deck in a future life. Energy that is not dealt with becomes even more forceful, often at the most inopportune or inappropriate moments.

A Quick Look at the 7^th House: How Love Can Prevail

Continuing on with a similar theme, here’s another illustration of how life and our chart tend to bring us what we most need to learn through the outer people, circumstances, and events of our life. This particular descriptor is shown by looking at the sign (and its ruler) on the cusp of the 7^th house of marital and business partnerships and the planets therein, if any, and their aspects. The individuals we tend to attract to our self, especially our most intimate partners, seem to be the ones who personify the qualities we most need to develop in our self—those hidden, shadowy even golden parts of us that, when developed and integrated, make us complete.

While this tendency can be quite an annoying and painful mirror at times, it is also liberating. If we see and hear the message of our 7^th house, we can make tremendous progress in manifesting these heretofore latent qualities. Through our own awareness and efforts, we become inwardly whole and thus able to attract partners who complement us rather than surreptitiously trying to supply our missing parts because we struggle with an inner sense of emptiness. Our significant partners are chosen from preference—not extreme neediness.

Electrifying the house of intimate alliances, the eventful and sometimes dreaded process of transiting Uranus—representing independence and autonomy, as well as separation and divorce—will inevitably stir up our 7^th house issues of one-to-one relationships. Transiting Uranus signals the opportunity to make beneficial changes, even in the best of relationships. As the unpredictable planet of startling shifts, its purpose signifies a time to break free of outworn conditions, often in agonizing and drastic ways, and to make any desirable, progressive changes. This 7^th house transit, or phase of one’s growth, can be the catalyst to bring previously glossed-over problems to the fore, perhaps as episodes of irritation and disruptive anger that severely test a marriage, as well as other important partnerships.

The flip side is that, when energies are suppressed, there is the potential time bomb for unexpected explosions that create sudden estrangements or endings of such relationships. If, perchance, the individuals in a close relationship do part ways under the awakening process of transiting Uranus, it would be an external, concrete effect of this transit, yet may not reveal the true purpose, or essence, of the transit, which can be to open the door to a greater authenticity and aliveness between partners, marital or otherwise. Through the inventive energy of Uranus, a greater integrity is possible in that one is freed from loveless relationships and outmoded commitments that no longer serve the growth of either person. Put differently, it can be a liberating time to let the truth speak—if it’s over, it’s over—and to give full allowance to each person for being who they are in the present moment.

Because such a Uranian transit has the potential to affect relationships in quite a positive way, due to the radical shifts that are made, it is an important passageway to renegotiate the love and honesty in one’s contracts—both marital and business—in order to reflect the higher level of consciousness one has achieved. Profound insight and a greater acceptance of one another’s true needs can result. This reveals the inward, psychological shift of the transit in terms of an authentic change in feelings, behavior, outlook, and awareness. Thus, out of the short-term craziness and disintegration comes a long-term sense of liberation and revitalized well-being. If love was the bedrock of the partnership in the first place, love will deepen and become even more real.

Enduring Love Shown Through the Transits

A few questions that might apply to any transit, particularly the outer planet transits, are: What is the essence or intent of this transit? How does it reveal where I am in the process of my learning and growth? In terms of the issues I am currently working on, what insight(s) does it bring? What direction does it point to in my growth? What eventual benefits might come from this long-lasting period of change and re-arrangement? Looked at in this way, a significant transit or progression, such as transiting Pluto crossing the Ascendant or Midheaven, signifies a crucial stage or fundamental piece of inner work during a given lifetime—one chapter closes, another opens.

An additional example of how love prevails is relevant here. Consider the effect of Venus and Jupiter (described as the “benefic” planets) when juxtaposed to that of Mars and Saturn (described as the “malefic” duo). Natally, and in their transits and progressions, the first pair of “lucky charms” tends to bring opportunities, prosperity, an active social life, and blessings, while the second pair can test us with a build up of harmful or destructive energy that motivates impulsive and unwise action, which leads to self-willed displays, strife, frustrations, sorrows, and separations. There are abundant occasions for both harmonious and challenging contacts as these planets travel because, while Venus takes about one year (approximately one month/sign) to travel around the zodiac, Mars takes an average of two years (generally two months/sign) to move through the signs. So, the brief but harmonious encounters of Venus for valuable and loving assistance in our life occur at about twice the rate as those of fierce and forceful Mars.

A similar advantageous dynamic occurs between Jupiter and Saturn, where Jupiter’s movement around the astrological wheel is more than twice the speed of Saturn’s. Hence, Saturn’s dampening tests and restricting lessons occur far less frequently than the relaxation, expansive growth, and grace bestowed by Jupiter. Besides, with the steadying hand of Saturn, we get time to exercise patience and for quiet reflection of our possible shortsightedness and previous errors in order to prepare for the next upswing in energy and learning. Because Saturn also has a goodly dose of Cosmic humor, we are being gently nudged to take ourselves less seriously by seeing the hilarity in our own foibles. Seen in this light and levity, there is marvelous wisdom in the flows and ebbs of Venus and Jupiter juxtaposed with Mars and Saturn, for they create the space Love fills.

Even the so-called malefics are a necessary, contrasting segment of a loving Universe when we contemplate the psychological tasks they invite us to undergo. What vital processes of emotional maturation do they call us to take care of? With Mars, we are encouraged to look at how we use our energy in our multiplicity of desires and drives that motivate us. As the agent of self-mastery, Saturn can help us focus our precious energy so we’re able to bear our tests of winnowing until we reach a greater level of perfection.

In the case of transiting Pluto, the planet of power that purges and removes, we must descend to the deepest layers of our unconscious and to the very center of our DNA. This necessity disallows the loophole of superficiality when it comes to the work required for greater self-awareness. Besides, we might not uncover our true power, strength, and determination were we given the chance to circumvent the deeper layers of our psychological muck. Is it even possible for us to fully heal without the required inner work these various planetary principles call us to confront? Not according to Carl Jung, who warned there’s no coming to consciousness without its attendant pain. After all, in the travail and tears, the full spectrum of the rainbow’s radiance lies hidden. What’s more, a rainbow is actually a full circle, but we normally see only half the picture!

Fortunately, we’re generally given adequate breathers between the strenuous efforts required to make little strides of spiritual headway during our lifetime. When we’re in the middle of such a disorienting, ego-dissolving episode of transiting Neptune opposing the Ascendant, for instance, it can feel overwhelming as the psychic waters rise above our head! Even with Mars and Saturn hitting us hard from time to time, there is the secreted opportunity that James Tyman referred to when he said, “We do not know how deep a lesson has gone until we have the chance to practice it.” This statement accurately sums up difficult transits that strike a sensitive point in the chart, say transiting Saturn moving into the 12^th house, so we can finish an entire cycle, releasing the past and anticipating the future, or the restriction of energy and hard work suggested by Saturn aligning with the natal Sun.

Conjunctions and other aspectual contacts made by a transiting planet generally occur three times, occasionally more, due to its retrograde motion. The world catalyzing, much anticipated Uranus/Pluto square that will last from 2012 to 2015, creating seven exact squares, is an exception. At the commencement of such a process, the initial planetary contact is frequently overpowering, as though we are hit by a huge wave that knocks us to our knees. Our first rattled impression is “wow, what was that?” This sort of intensity occurs only if we have been living without much emotional awareness. When the wave dissipates, we pick ourselves up and go on, often without further reflection about its possible meaning or with flat-out denial that a problem even existed.

The second hit of a transit is a further wake-up-call that denial, inertia, avoidance, or lack of attention cannot continue because the issue at hand will not magically disappear. Too often, though, we operate under the illusion that we can continue to do the same old things, in the same old way or pattern, and somehow derive a new outcome! As the pain or crisis meter increases, some sort of constructive action is required. And if two direct bonks are not enough for some individuals, the third contact provides the final opportunity get moving to resolve the situation or thematic problem suggested by the transit. For the ones who are positively engaging the energies, it coalesces their learning for the much-deserved step up the ladder of growth. Earned rewards arrive!

How many of us would willingly make the required changes and risk if our feet were not held to the fire three or more times? With resistance to change and the avoidance of uncertainty such an integral part of human nature, it is likely these infrequent, sometimes once-in-a-lifetime opportunities would pass us by, only to leave us functioning in the outworn patterns of stagnation and ineffectiveness wherein we have entrenched ourselves, be they jobs, relationships, or living situations. We are left to endure the rest of our life, but not to live it as fully as possible according the natal blueprint.

Perhaps the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth occurs when a given transiting aspect sets off a similar difficult natal aspect, such as the leg of a T-square, or hits a concentrated area of the chart occupied by a stellium (3 or more planets grouped together in the same sign). If the issue highlighted by the natal aspect remains unresolved, the transiting aspect illuminates the long-term pattern of crippling dysfunction. When a series of transits keep sensitizing a given point or area, they can pave the way for a major crisis and surge of growth. These challenging episodes provide the option for modifying or discarding long-standing patterns of homeostasis, particularly true of outer-planet transits that evoke major distress, upheaval, or significant loss. The intense suffering caused by such a transit often induces soul searching and powerful modification. “Outer planets create a lot of reality for everyone,” affirms Donna Cunningham. Though grueling at the time of their occurrence, outer-planet transits are a potent impetus for core transformation.

In our orderly Universe, it seems evident that a pervading goodness underlies the larger planetary cycles that we encounter over the course of a lifetime, such as the 12-year cycle of Jupiter or the 29 1/2-year cycle of Saturn. There is also an evident helpfulness in the laws governing life, which, as they unfold in our daily experiences, embody the potential for movement to a higher level of functioning and progress along our given Path. The larger, life-sculpting processes are actually merciful ones, because the level of intensity is moderated during these multiple, transiting contacts, which are alternately in our face and then back off for us to incorporate new information. The whole course of some outer-planet transiting aspects may last two to three years or longer, enabling us to assess the fall-out, assimilate the ruins, contemplate required changes, and formulate a psychologically mature plan of how best to respond. If, after a necessary period of reflection, an individual decides that a pragmatic course is the better part of wisdom, there are only two relevant questions one needs to ask: (1) What can I learn from this? and (2) What do I do about it now?

A final example of another merciful process is the Sun moving a degree per year as it progresses over our lifetime. Again, it’s a 30-year process, wherein the Sun travels from its natal degree, to the same degree in the following sign, and then onto another sign, or possibly two. This can be thought of as the evolution of the Self in progress. Over these 30 years of vital character training within a sign—day by manageable day—an individual is given a chance to determine how best to use the positive energies of the sign and thereby cast off any undesirable traits, which impede, rather than serve, the highest, long-term strivings of the soul and potential of the natal template.

In her writings, astrologer Isabel Hickey contends: “Space is curved. There is no such thing as a straight line in the universe. Everything, by cosmic law, must return to its source.” This statement is well worth contemplating, especially as it relates to the premise of a benign Universe and the power of prevailing Love at the beginning and end of any cyclic path. Whatever we want to receive, we must first send it forth unconditionally, because we meet our vibratory state (such as fear, selfishness, envy, kindness, generosity, or love) at every moment. Thus, inward tranquility can only beget peaceful effects. A nice beginning is to endeavor to express the highest qualities of our Sun sign, the Sun being the vital, spiritual center or heart of the chart. It is our essential self.

When we daily live with love and goodwill as our co-partners in thought, word, and deed we create an authentic lovingness as who we are that will be carried over as a subsequent spiritual and earthly inheritance, as shown in future natal charts. Thus, one day in a near or far lifetime, we can elect to be born with a chart with its goodly share of sextiles, trines, and/or amazingly fortunate placements by sign, house, and aspects of Venus, Jupiter, Neptune, and the North Node of the Moon, for instance. We might also have dignified planets in their own signs or the sign of their exaltation, or otherwise very strongly placed in an angular house. For good measure, we would want to sprinkle in a few squares and oppositions that help us cleverly channel our energies into wise achievement and masterful results. Harmony and balance are the ultimate expressions of a life lived well and of a Loving Universe.

Love is the underpinning of every chart.
Love is the alpha and omega.
Love is the ultimate gift from Divine Source.

Related Posts:

• Love Prevails: Part 1

• A Psycho-Spiritual Principle

• Ego Benders

• Mental Pole Shift

• A Test of Tooth

• Approach and Avoidance

• New Kitchen Look, A Sign of the Times

• Spiritual Uprightness

• Giving Way in The Natural Order

Text © by Zane Maser, 2012. (This article was originally published in 2004 in Altair, Journal of the White Eagle School of Astrology, Volume XII, 2:23-31.) Photos © by Chris and Zane Maser, 2012. All rights reserved worldwide.

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband. (Photograph by Barbara Shaw)

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

A VISUAL CELEBRATION OF WINTER

zanemaser — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:08:34 +0000

When there’s snow on the ground, I like to
pretend I’m walking on clouds.
Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata
Animal Crossing: Wild World

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure
of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling
of winter. Something waits beneath it,
the whole story doesn’t show. 
Andrew Wyeth

Adversity draws men together and produces beauty
and harmony in life’s relationships, just as the cold
of winter produces ice-flowers on the window-panes,
which vanish with the warmth.
Soren Kierkegaard

One kind word can warm three winter months.
Japanese Proverb

Love winter when the plant says nothing.
Thomas Merton

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk
beside the fire: it is the time for home.
Edith Sitwell

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
Victor Hugo

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.
Who would think that those branches would turn
green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Winter, which, being full of care,
Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet LVI

January was named after Janus, the Roman guardian
of gateways who was depicted with two faces: one
contemplating the past; the other, the future. Derived from
jauna, archaic Italian for “door,” Janus and January
represent the crossing of an important threshold.
Stephanie Austin, astrologer

It takes courage to push yourself to places that you
have never been before…to test your limits…to break
through barriers. And the day comes when the risk
it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful
than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin

An Indian’s dress of deer skins, which is wet a hundred
times upon his back, dries soft; and his lodge also,
which stands in the rains, and even through
the severity of winter, is taken down as soft
and as clean as when it was first put up.
George Catlin

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill…
Great works are performed, not by strength,
but perseverance.
Samuel Jackson

On earth all you want has to be earned or worked for.
In the same way all true joy and attainment comes
only through effort, through the growth, the development
of your spirit. So may you not grow weary in your effort.
Keep on keeping on your path, and when times are difficult, … always remember the angels are guiding you
individually and the world as a whole.
White Eagle

Related Posts:

• Quiet Spring

• A Visual Autumn Feast

• Winter Solstice

• Cycles Upon Cycles

• Resilience

• Believe and Conquer

• Bittersweet

• Life Circulates

• Giving Way in The Natural Order

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

PEACE

zanemaser — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:45:33 +0000

Peace is a section from the book “Patterns of Oneness” 
© Second printing 1994 by Linda Saurenman

Zane: In keeping with the theme of peace from the last post—“Dove of Peace”—and the dove’s associations with purity, truth, love, and peace, the post below is shared from my friend Linda’s book, drawn from several places within the text. Linda’s piece follows on perfectly as we move into 2012 with the feeling of peace in our own hearts creates Peace in the Heart of the World.

Unfortunately, much of the “2012 hype” depicted by the mainstream media has played to the worst-case scenario for humanity’s survival at the next Winter Solstice (yet another end-of-the-world prediction), distorting the true information and heightening people’s irrational fears and forebodings. The Long Count Mayan Calendar, lasting 5,126 years, does in fact “turn over” next December, but this merely signifies the end of one larger cycle and the beginning of the next evolutionary cycle of humanity’s consciousness. The Mayans proclaimed no end in sight!

The other noteworthy newsmaker is the legendary interaction of Uranus with Pluto, a dynamic square aspect (an angle of 90°) that has been building and will become exact in 2012: on June 24 and September 19, the first two culminating squares that will repeat a whooping five more times through March 16, 2015. This far-reaching planetary alignment is a potent combination that points to collective upheaval, radical change, and regeneration on a “grand scale” personally and globally. We have already previewed the dramatic surge of this “era-changing” energy in the “Arab Spring” throughout the Middle East—and the spreading wave of protesting dissent in Europe, Wall Street, and Russia, to name but a few.

This disruptive, intense, power-packed Uranus/Pluto duo is meant to break up old patterns and structures in order to destabilize and then promote transformational revolution that will create new paradigms and re-arrange life as we know it. This is a New Chapter, which heralds great potential, but it will neither be easy, as we’ve already experienced, nor come with a small price tag, as we’ve already experienced. Greater social justice, authenticity, lasting renewal, and deep transformation are the Light at the end of the tunnel as we work cooperatively to create a better, sustainable world.

The surprises and unexpected changes, as well as the enormous opportunities that will occur in the upcoming years, will be worth the ride! Having done its work of “awakening,” Uranus will move on from metamorphic Pluto in mid 2015. Through our collective efforts and higher level of consciousness, we may indeed awake to a Braver Unified World! Meanwhile, it will be more important than ever to create and maintain peace in our hearts and lives in every way possible. Take mini breaks, whenever you can, to renew peace in your heart and then take it out into the larger world through the example of your own life.

It’s fascinating that what Linda wrote back in 1994 is a timely message as we enter 2012: “Each change that you are presented with is a challenge to drop limitations and see yourself just a little more vast.
. . . Let yourself move forward and in the forward motion allow your strength and courage to pull you forward into ever greater changes.”

Here are a few words from Linda’s book to set the stage: I channeled a great deal of material in the fall and winter of 1992-1993 in conjunction with my own energy work. Where the three paragraphs below are italicized, “Spirit” is being directly quoted and again after the quiet moments spent in meditation. The words of Spirit move in and out of my words as if we are one. Ultimately, we are one. At the end, there is a guided meditation on “Peace.” You may find it helpful to read the meditation onto a tape, using any of your own words to customize and expand the ideas. When you are ready to meditate, relax, and listen to the tape.

You are seeds who were planted at the dawn of creation.
It has been through careful loving care that you have
moved to the point where you stretch ever seeking the light.
Words from Spirit

Just as we began in the beginning, we come to the end. We find that we originated from the One and became two, with sound. Two became three, with the addition of light. Three became four, manifesting on earth. This is the natural expansion of you as an individual expressing the Will of God. That is what we are here to do. We are here to express all aspects of God through our physical vehicle. By so doing, we experience the Divine moving through us, and the Divine expands its understanding and pushes into new areas.

The language that is available to do this is one of light, love, and willingness. These used together form the basis for how we move in this world and assist all the parts of us that move outside our awareness. The day is coming when we will surrender to our spirit and, in that process, will allow our small personal ego to rest in the Divine Will. Then we will really begin to recognize the vastness that we are.

This is a time of wondrous growth personal, planetary, and universally. Each small change made on an individual level spreads far in this dimension, parallel planes, past lives, and on and on. Spreading out and instituting change as it gently touches all it meets. Why are we reluctant to embrace the changes that are coming? We are human, after all. These changes are in a series of changes that seem to come from the Infinite and stretch all the way back into the Infinite. It is true. We are change. We are growth. We are movement. It is not the time to be faint hearted but the time to yet again embrace the changes as they are presented to us.

Each change that you are presented with is a challenge to drop limitations and see yourself just a little more vast. To move your vision from the ground and lift it to the stars. To recognize that you are the earth and you are the stars. That you stretch beyond the stars to the edges of the universe and beyond.

Let yourself move forward and in the forward motion allow your strength and courage to pull you forward into ever greater changes. You can and do initiate change and in that initiation you take your place as a co-creator with the Divine, as a builder of what is.

Rest in your light. Rest in your love. Rest in the deep knowing that you are creating as you are created. Let the knowledge of your magnificence bring you the peace in your life, and for the planet, that you so truly desire.

ΩΩΩΩΩΩ
Peace Meditation

Sit in a comfortable position for meditation. Bring your awareness into your body. Feel your body. Bring light and relaxation to any places where you are holding tension. Let your body release and relax. Gently, turn your focus to your Heart center. Open to the all that you are. Come into harmony with the Deepest part of yourself. Let that harmony fill your Heart center and spill over into all that you are. Rest in the total harmony of you.

Create harmony with the Heart Center of the earth. Feel its rhythm, and feel your own rhythm. Recognize the harmony present in your communication. Send your love to the Heart of the earth. Open to receive the love the earth has for you. Notice the beauty and magnitude of love you have to share with each other. Enjoy the sharing.

Create harmony between your Heart center and the Heart Center of the universe. Feel the power and strength in yourself and in the universe. Feel the joy in the communication. Feel the joy in the creative expression that you have together. Open to the love the universe has for you. Allow yourself to feel the love you have for the universe. Feel the joy and love you share with the universe. Feel the vibrant flow.

Feel the earth join the conversation. Let the energy flow freely between your Heart, the Heart of the earth, and the Heart of the universe. Feel what that communication holds. What are the feelings and emotions joining you and the extended column of light that you are. Become aware of your magnificent Light. See it reflected in the earth. Allow yourself to see the deep beauty and love that is the earth. Feel that reflection in yourself. Let yourself see the power and creativity present in the universe. See it reflected in yourself. See the Divine in the earth. See the Divine in the universe. Watch as the earth and universe reflect to each other. Notice what happens as the reflections move. Recognize you own Divine Reflection.

Know that you are always able to choose your expression. Choose what you wish to express. Knowing that you have total choice over your expression. You may choose to honor and engage any or all energies. Feel the beauty and power that you are. Know your ability to choose.

Watch the light as it continues to move. Begin to recognize your reflection in the earth, the earth’s reflection in you. Watch your reflection in the universe, the universe’s reflection in you. You are you, and you are Divine. Rest in your Divine Center. Notice, as you rest in your Divine Center, all motion comes to rest. There is a feeling of quiet, of stillness. This is your peace. Rest in the peace that is the Center of who you are. Focus on the ease and quiet that is present. Let the peace that is the I Am radiate through your entire being. Let this peace be strong in your inner light. You might choose inner peace as one of your expressions. Embrace the peace that you are.

Rest in the peace of your being. Ask that your inner tone and outer tone become one note. Let the tone, which is the Deepest part of you, become the tone of you meditating in the chair. The closest harmony you can express, two notes sounding as one. Let this tone move through you. There is no difference between the inner and the outer you. There is only you. There is only Divine.

Rest in your peace. Rest in your knowing. Radiate your peace to the earth and to the universe. Find the joy and love present in your peace. Let them reach to the extent of your light field. Claim your power, beauty, and wonder. Give yourself permission to express these in your light, in your love, and in your wisdom.

Rest with the energies. When you are ready to end the meditation, feel, again, the joy, love, and peace present in yourself. Move into your day radiating these energies for yourself and the world.

We bring you our love, light and wisdom. We share these with
you so that we might all grow in our love and understanding.
It is through your commitment to your Divine expression that you
will become all of who you are. We pray that you may become
the fullest expression of your Divine essence manifesting on the
earth plane. And that you see and recognize that expression as yours.

Thank you for joining with us in our work. We are deeply
grateful and bring to you our deepest love.
Spirit

Linda Saurenman is known for helping people re-discover their psychic and spiritual talents, for reading energy, and healing. She works as a channel, reader, healer, and teacher in Southern California. For the past 30 years, her work has been heart centered and focused on opening her students to their own guidance. Her greatest joy comes from her students using their spiritual talents to channel, read, and heal energy while finding their own information. In 1993, she published “Patterns of Oneness,” written in partnership with her guides. This small book is another avenue to bring students to an awareness of their deepest selves.

Besides her own guides, Linda has studied with many teachers. She learned about Astrology and Huna from Isabel Hickey in the early 1970’s. Linda honed her skill at reading energy and healing at the Berkeley Psychic Institute with Lewis Bostwich and Michael Tamura. She studied with Mary Margaret Moore and Bartholomew in the 80’s and 90’s, and is currently working with Natalie Gianelli, Dr. Peebles, and the 9^th Dimensional Pleiadian Collective, as channeled through Wendy Kennedy and Nora Herold.

If you are interested in purchasing Linda’s book, “Patterns of Oneness,” you can contact her at: lsaurenman@verizon.net

Her book is a little gem for those interested in letting their peace and Light flow outward more brightly!

Related Posts:

• Dove of Peace

• Free Association: Peace

• Inner Signature

• Preparations for and A Guided Meditation

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

DOVE OF PEACE

zanemaser — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:17:35 +0000

Peace in our thoughts, peace in our world.
Peace in our words, peace in our world.
Peace in our acts, peace in our world.
Peace in our hearts, peace in our world.
Peace, lasting peace.

On our Christmas Eve quest to buy Marie Callender’s legendary “Chocolate Satin” crème pie, we were out biking early yesterday morning in the chilly air. Yum, yum, this pie is worth the effort! My husband happened to notice a coin on the road telegraphing, “pick me up.” It was a fairly beat up dime minted in 1989. Wow, what a fortunate sign! Our sacred #9 all around! It is 3 “9’s” to start off with: 1 + 8 = 9 and then 2 more 9’s. And 1 + 9 + 8 + 9 = 27 = 2 + 7 = 9. Three is considered a sacred number, combining 3 times to make 9. Our address is 3303!

Being the number of attainment, fulfillment, and completion, signifying the end of a cycle in preparation for a new manifestation, nine is said to embody all Wisdom and Truth (for the Hebrews). If you add any number to the mystically potent 9, it always returns to itself: 5 + 9 = 14 and 1 + 4 = 5. Cats, the animal associated with practical wisdom, are known to have 9 lives, while the Tarot card (a #9) of the Hermit is the man of solitude who shines his lantern and shares his wisdom. The energy of nine is connected with standing back to gain a wider perspective of the Bigger, Higher Picture. Nine has the Galactic Tone of Patience in the Mayan system. After nine months of patient intra-uterine life, the infant comes forth to begin a new cycle of life.

Nine was a central number to Plato; legend says that through the ordered pattern of his life and powerful will he died at the square of 9—eighty one years of age. Even Jesus is reputed to have died in his 9th hour on the cross, having lived 33 years. The Chinese word for “nine” sounds the same as “gift.” In the I Ching Book of Changes, 9 planets circle the Sun (which includes Pluto), so the character Sun over Nine is the Universe. As the number of creativity and beauty, as well as the number in Greek mythology consecrated to the “music of the spheres” (and the 9 Muses), it is symbolic esoterically of the Initiate, the perfected woman or man.¹

On the way home with our two coveted chocolate pies, I looked up and saw two beautiful mourning doves sitting side by side on a wire overhead, their bodies forming a perfect heart, exactly like the two doves that form a heart in the latest “Love” postal stamp collection. First the dime and then the doves as yet another Christmas gift!

Most people think of the White Dove as “the” dove. No wonder, since all through history the white dove is a universal symbol associated with purity, truth, love, and peace. According to Dr. Jungle of the “Animal World,” the White Dove (Streptopelia risoris), Sacred White Dove, or Java Dove is the most historically described dove from Noah through today. It is often used as a symbol in weddings to denote love, and a customarily used emblem in peace negotiations.²

The dove is widely known throughout the world in symbol, myth, scripture, and spiritual literature. In Mesopotamian culture, doves were considered sacred to Queens of Heaven and all Great Mothers, those great fertile, Feminine beings who provide, nourish, and renew the fruits for all life on earth. Ancient Greeks perceived the dove as their fecundity goddess of beauty and love, Aphrodite. And Venus is the planet associated with Aphrodite, beauty, doves, weddings, and love.

For the Israelites, God’s love for his chosen people was symbolized as the dove, and white doves were sacrificed at the Temple in Jerusalem as an offering to receive the blessing of purification. The dove is one of the most important birds in the Bible, appearing in many scriptural accounts. From Christian tradition, it is often the emblem of the Holy Ghost or “heavenly messenger.”³

The spiritual teacher, White Eagle, tells a remarkable story from the Essene community of an angelic visitor who foretold that for the Lord’s purpose one among them would be chosen to be the husband of the young Virgin Mary. The men were called together by the High Priest and each was given a rod. As a rod was handed to Joseph, it being of a smaller size than the others, a white dove flew out of its end, as the sign they were told would be given to the man who was to be Mary’s husband.⁴ Moreover, in artistic portrayals of the Annunciation of the Virgin, the dove appears as the heavenly messenger or Holy Ghost conveying that she would conceive to become the chosen mother of Jesus, the Son of God.

Later, at the baptism of Jesus, the Heavens opened and a dove descended and lighted on him—a symbol of the Holy Breath or Divine Power. “He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove to alight upon Him. . . .” (Matt. 3:16-7) and a voice from heaven uttered, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Saints, like Thomas Aquinas and St. Gregory the Great, among others, are depicted in Christian art with hovering doves over the head as the bringers of divine inspiration.

Often associated with godliness and immortality, birds in general have been “bearers of heavenly messages of guidance and divine revelations.” Norman A. Rubin notes that, “the dove, like other birds with religious associations, came to be  regarded as oracular.” The oracle of the Prophet Mohammed was the dove that whispered in his ear.⁵

Doves are emissaries from Spirit who also come with gifts of gentleness, goodwill, and peace. Found in the  catacombs of Rome, the dove was an early Christian symbol of “Pax” or “Peace.” There is a story from WWI that in the trenches one cold Christmas Eve, the German and Allied troops faced one another in battle. A white dove flew into the center of the battlefield. Both sides were in awe, seeing it as a clear sign of their shared humanity, and declared a truce as a consequence. The fighting ceased for that night and for Christmas day when enemies entered into a peaceful, enjoyable encounter of friendly goodwill. The enemies’ face was yours and mine—no difference.

If all negativity (such as arguing, criticism, intolerance, grudges) ceased for one full day, how would that change the frequency of the Energy Grid of Mother Earth? What if every thought, word, and gesture was based solely on acceptance, happiness, helpfulness, kindness, gentle sharing, gratitude for our differences, and thus avenues for us to learn from one another? What if we all became childlike in heart, spontaneous, trusting, loving? What if we all gave the same measure of compassionate understanding and lack of judgment to another that we ourselves desire? What we give, we cannot fail to receive.

Think of someone you may be in conflict with or somehow on the “outs” with and ask the white dove of purity and love to come into your heart to open and cleanse the hurt, pain, and wound, and to heal any discord between the two of you. This gentle bird is a spiritual emissary that can fly into any situation to transcend it with love. The image of the two doves forming a heart is an apt one for 2012.

Imagine now our whole world based on harmony and peace. Let’s suspend time for a few moments and travel back to pre-Constitutional times in the United States. Here we find a story about the “white roots of peace” that influenced nations for centuries:

The Constitution of the United States is not the first, however, to be based on specific checks and balances of power for the good of the people. There is one whose seeds were planted in the forest centuries earlier through the “Peacemaker” who said, “Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.”

Born on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario, the Peacemaker, a luminous figure, traveled in a white canoe of stone, a sign the Creator had sent him. He journeyed among the Iroquois at a time when endless wars had nearly reduced the Five Nations to anarchy and despair. As he journeyed among the Mohawk, he met an Onondaga exile named Ayawentha, or Hiawatha. (Hiawatha is an Iroquois name mistakenly used by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for the Ojibwa hero in his Song of Hiawatha.) Together, the Peacemaker and Hiawatha persuaded the warring Five Nations to join in a “Great Peace” based on a “great binding law.”

Only one fearsome Onondaga—the original Tadodaho, a wizard with snakes in his hair—stood in the way, but he too was ultimately won over by the Peacemaker and Hiawatha. Then, with all 50 chiefs of the first Grand Council assembled on the shore of Lake Onondaga, the Peacemaker planted the original Tree of Peace, a magnificent white pine, beneath which the Five Nations buried their weapons of war. Four long roots, the “white roots of peace,” stretched from the tree in the four sacred directions, and the Peacemaker proclaimed: “If any man or any nation outside of the Five Nations shall show a desire to obey the laws of the Great Peace. . .they may trace the roots to their source. . .and they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree. . . .” Thus, the Great Law of Peace, based on strength through union that embodies Iroquois notions of free expression and representative government with checks and balances, became “The Fire That Never Dies,” the unquenchable tradition of today’s Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy.

Both James Madison and Benjamin Franklin not only knew about but also were profoundly impressed with the “great binding law” of the Iroquois Confederacy. Could it be that the Constitution of the United States had its beginning in centuries past under the original Tree Of Peace? Could it be that our Constitution is lighted by “The Fire That Never Dies,” an ancient gift of the forest through the Peacemaker and the people of the Iroquois Confederacy to the peoples of the world?⁶

Related Posts:

• Free Association: Peace

• The World is in our Neighborhood

• A Wall Of Love

Endnotes

1. The discussion of numerology is based on: “Symbols and the Self” by Violet Shelley. A.R.E. Press. (1983) and Gail Minogue (link in “Spiritual Resources” in right-hand scroll bar)

2. http://animal-world.com/encyclo/birds/doves_pigeons/whitedove.php

3. http://www.helium.com/items/246501-the-white-dove-and-its-significance

4. Stella Polaris, Volume Sixty-One, No. 1, December 2011-January 2012, page 8.

5. http://www.helium.com/items/246501-the-white-dove-and-its-significance

6. Chris Maser. Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest. 1989. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA. 282 pp. [Bold words in text are my emphasis.]

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

TAZZIE’S PASSING

zanemaser — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:47:35 +0000

I got the dreaded call on the evening of the 20th. It’s never easy when we do. I held my breath, waiting for the words. My sister was on the other end, sobbing her aching heart out. Her beloved Tazzie, a wee Yorkie, had just died. He was ready for his new adventure ahead, slipping easily from the outer world to the inner, awaited by those there to meet him. Though I knew he was about to go as an elderly gent of 13 1/2 years old and thought myself prepared, as the evening hours passed the wave of sadness and grief enveloped me, too. Sleep mostly escaped me, empathizing with great pain my sister was feeling.

My heart was heavy. The effect of any sort of loss during the holidays is always magnified. It hits harder at such a family-oriented time. Plus, ancient losses that remain buried and unresolved are triggered by any new loss. Feeling out of control, the vibrational charge gets re-activated whenever any major, emotional issue remains unhealed. It is cumulative grief, like the buildup of sediment behind a dam, which is suddenly released in an overtaking tidal wave, crushing us to bits in the torrential waters of our emotions.

Our own Zoe, the last of our five cat kids, died on Christmas two years ago. In recent days, I had been missing the physical presence of our furry kids and recalling what brightness they added to our life. After my sister’s call, it resurfaced into my consciousness later that night that some dear friends had also died on December 20^th, now 36 years ago. It was a tragic plane crash that took the lives of four adults and four children. Two days after Christmas that year, I attended a funeral with two adult caskets and two small child-sized coffins.

That was a horrific moment, one of the worst times in my life. Those days and weeks after that funeral were a blur. I was amongst the walking dead after such an enormous loss. On the strictly human level, death and the ensuing grief is the rock-bottom pit. It capsizes our emotional boats. And for a time life goes flat, gray, unidimensional, and bleak. Life feels meaningless. Yet somehow we daily find the inner reserves to go on, some days with better results than others!

The Ageless Wisdom tells us that, on the spiritual level, there is no death but simply a continuity of life. We pass from the physical level into the more subtle Inner Realm of Light. Each incarnation is a gradual, unfolding remembrance of our lack of separation from God, from our Divine Source. We remember our original perfection—and unity—through our fully awakened consciousness gained over the course of much human trial and error.

Zoe’s death twenty-four months ago was my impetus to start writing to honor her and the importance of animals in our lives. It became my personal journey through gnawing grief and gradual healing.

My first entry on SunnyCat Astrology, posted on December 30, 2009, shared with our family and friends the news of Zoe’s death—titled “Grieving for the Loss of an Animal Friend.” At the bottom of it, if you click on “Next Entry,” it takes you to the next piece called “Thankfulness.” Then if my Path back into joyfulness speaks to you, if you click from next entry to next entry, in your own appropriate timing, you can follow my footsteps of recovery.

Every person’s journey through grief is unique but also contains similar, resonant themes and moments, like the ones I’ve experienced. If you are in the aftermath of some recent, momentous loss (of a loved person, animal, or another significant loss, such as a job, divorce, or home), I have been where you now are. I offer my road map that it may help you in some small way to know you are not alone. Your loss is understood and honored. If you would like, I invite you to take my hand. I will walk with you in deepest support.

Here are some of the titles you can choose from (and many more). Type the title into the Search box:

On the Cusp of a New Beginning
Food Not of the Earth
Coming to Life
Getting My Bearings
The “Firsts” since Zoe’s death
Venturing Out
Tiny and Large Remembrances
Return to Animal Healing
Bittersweet
Resilience
The River of Grief
Closure
Shrouded in “A Dark Night”
Mending
Readiness
Sharing Heals the Heart
Approach and Avoidance
The Gift of Release
Silver, my Teacher
Sacred Ashes
Life Circulates
Families in Spirit
In Remembrance of our beautiful Zoe (written on the anniversary of her death)
How Would You Be Remembered?
The Global Heart
Frequency Aligners
Remembrance Day
Commemorating Ylana

In this overly driven, technological world of today, it is not always easy to find a quiet oasis wherein to simply sit and be with yourself to feel and let go, especially in such an unnerving process as the deepest waters of grief that may engulf you. Many people avoid these dark, frightening passages—the classic “dark night of the soul.” They feel the emotional pieces they hold tightly together will shatter if they allow their real feelings and pain to come up naturally. But it is true “we can only heal what we can feel.” We can only resolve what we allow to come up into the light of our consciousness. And we can only know we do not walk these steps of healing alone if we invite the Grace of the Divine to accompany us. If you are in the wake of some noteworthy loss, I warmly encourage you to read the signposts (choosing amongst the entries given above) that helped me to mend after Zoe’s death, as I took one step at a time to yet a higher level of integration and return to the full beauty of living.

One thing that comes out in myths is that
at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation.
The black moment is the moment when the real message
of transformation is going to come.
At the darkest moment comes the light.
Joseph Campbell

Tazzie sleeping peacefully, taken when we visited in mid September.
I always called the little guy “Tazmania.”

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

SEASON OF DIVINE MOTHER

zanemaser — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:28:34 +0000

An ancient symbol of the Great Mother is the Tree of Life.
Feel how the trees enfold us like an attentive mother.

Day by day, as 2011 wanes, it’s the season for many things. For festive gatherings with friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family. For choosing meaningful gifts for loved ones. For sharing our gratitude and abundance with a big plate of home-baked muffins to those in our lives who provide much-needed services, like those cheery ones at our Honda dealership or the faithful workers at our doctor’s office. For putting extra change and dollars in the red Salvation Army bucket at the grocery store. For finishing tasks and review of this momentous year in its accomplishments and blessings. And for balancing the outer, hectic rush with adequate moments of restful tranquility and reflection.

In this self-created quiet and peace, we are able to touch the purity and sweet innocence of this ancient festival of the newly born child—of our own tender inner self—when the Great Mother is worshipped and our feelings so warmly kindled. It is from the Divine Mother, the Mother aspect of God, that the beautiful Christ child (and all form) comes into manifestation. Throughout these sacred days, there is a great stimulation directed onto Earth and all her inhabitants, indeed a mystical blessing of Spiritual Light. Christmas is, after all, the Season of Lights, known in antiquity as the Festival of Lights, when humanity anticipated, with childlike joy in their hearts, the Return of the Sun/Son-Light.

The spiritual emanation or essence behind or within our physical Sun is the Heavenly Light, the great Inner Light of Life, which gives birth (and annual renewal) to the Cosmic Child of Love within our heart. But it is the gentle Mother who receives and conserves the Solar Light, and through her great protection and devotion, she cradles and nurtures the growing child in every heart. In her soft presence, there is complete understanding and compassion for our evolving soul and human fragilities.

She is the Soul of the World, the feminine or intuitive aspect of life, who feels our deepest pain, suffering, trials, grief, longings, hopes, and joys. Divine Mother calms, comforts, steadies, reassures, strengthens, and heals us, enfolding all in Her grace, wisdom, and endless love. She smiles at the beauty and joy we create. She knows the true needs of our soul and all the love we desire to give. And She helps us to open our hearts more fully in order to build the inner bridge between earth and Heaven, between our little, striving self and our Higher Self. When we call on Great Mother, She is the serene, inner mother who faithfully responds to our request, showing us that Love is the Way.

A few portrayals of Divine Mother

In myth and world scriptures, we are taught about the Holy Mother and her Son (the Sun). Each of these embody the Mother archetype in all its kindheartedness, what Einstein called the “ widening circle of compassion.” For example, there is a description of a Madonna—the very first Divine Queen of Heaven—in a Pyramid text of 2500 BCE. Her name was Nut, and she was the “great starry goddess” arching overhead in the night sky as the Milky Way, which put her at the center of the Galaxy. Encompassing the earth and all things within her wide-reaching celestial arms, it was her role as the Great Lady stellar goddess to protect, love, and care for her earthly children, promising them immortality on their death.¹

The Egyptian mysteries represented the Divine Mother as Isis. On the winter solstice, Isis gave birth to the Sun God, Horus, for she was known as both the creator and destroyer of form. Another Sun God, the Grecian Apollo, was celebrated during the solstice, as did the Persians who honored their God of Light, Mithra.² The Greeks worshipped Diana as their Holy Mother, as the Hindus did their Great Goddess. Sophia is one of the graceful faces of the Mother, whose name in Greek means “wisdom.” The Virgin Mary is Christianity’s Great Mother, whose qualities of purity, gentleness, wisdom, and love are those that tend and support humanity. She brings forth the greatest creation of love—the child. Like the Divine Queen of Heaven, Mary is often portrayed with stars on her veil or with a crown of stars.

The Moon as archetypal Mother

The planet associated with the archetypal Mother and our personal image of mother is the Moon. The Moon rules the water sign of Cancer, the sign of Cosmic Mother, who is the source of spiritual sustenance, for which there are no earthly substitutes. As the Great Mother, who births and governs the form side of life, the Moon’s half-circle symbolizes not only the outer, limited personality of daily living but also the soul. Esoterically, the half circle reveals the unfinished form of our Soul Temple, which is gradually completed and perfected as signified by the Moon’s exaltation in Taurus, the earth sign of the master builder.

The Lunar influence suggests how we are recognized and appear to others with our unique gifts and shortcomings (in combination with our Ascendant), and it shows our feelings, receptivity, instinctive behaviors, and reactions. Karmic and subconscious patterns of thought and habits, created in past incarnations, are those that reside in the dark, lunar part of our nature. The Moon also represents the psyche and the inner, hidden soul life of the individual, as well as the invisible side of life behind the ever-changing patterns and cycles of practical, everyday living. The Moon is said to be the significant factor in the chart that relates to what is operating under the surface in the dark, interior, subconscious level of our being.

Everything to do with the mothering influence, with the gentle, vulnerable, sensitive, perceptive, nurturing, and protective side of our nature falls within the Moon and Cancer’s purview. In addition, the Moon is more broadly the “womanhood” of the world, which could be described as the “intuitive heart” of humanity. The archangel Gabriel heads the angels of the Moon—the angels of motherhood, birth, and those who are in attendance when the immortal soul passes from the physical body, born once again into the inner world of Light, where those awaiting the soul cheer and celebrate. This continual creation and destruction of form is symbolized by the waxing and waning phases of the Moon. Known as the mistress of the tides and of magic, the Moon’s realm is the etheric and soul world, where we return Home for rest and refreshment after the work of a lifetime.

Our Great Mother, who supplies the forms of life and who is the “container” for our experiences, nourishes all humanity equally at Her breast, without a hint of favoritism towards kinsfolk. She feeds unconditionally—not for what she may receive but for what she can give. As the archetypal conduit of Love, She provides all our needs when we ingest from the spiritual level of life, because emotional cravings and hunger are only satisfied at this inner level. The tremendous egalitarian outpouring of Her Heavenly blessings, especially at the magical time of the Winter (and Summer) Solstice bestows a Divine Infusion to all life on Mother Earth.

Bathed in the Moon’s Rays

The Moon’s Rays of Maternal Love are often of a shimmering, pearlescent “mother” quality that is deeply gentle yet powerful as her reflected Light blends softly with all the colors. The Moon has always been associated with silver light and with violet, such that the underlying quality of the Ray of the Great Mother is amethyst. No matter what the need may be, within this serene “pearl” vibration, there is an all-encompassing feeling of love and tender understanding of our current need and humanness.

In combination with the Angels of Divine Mother, the Pearl Ray brings sympathy, peace, stillness, and a deeply nurturing love. In a subtle but protective way, the Pearl vibration is one of harmony and release, and when required, this Light assists those who are passing from one level of life to the next at the time of physical death.

In quiet pauses from the holiday’s busy activities, it is restorative to take time for still and silent interludes that help to raise our thoughts to the Higher Mental and Spiritual planes. In this tranquil place, away from the stress and hurry of the outer world, where we breathe a little more slowly and peacefully, we can imagine being enfolded in soft hues of rosy pink, another color much associated with the Divine Feminine.

Rose light is one that opens and awakens our heart to greater love and to the healing ministrations of the Angels who comfort, strengthen, reassure, and work to re-balance us. The warmth of the Rose Ray helps to gently release emotional strain, hurt, resentment, criticism, loneliness, heartbreak, and grief (which often surfaces during the season of Christmas when we sorely miss people and animals now gone from our physical life).

As you enter this deeply peaceful, inner place, you may be aware that your vision is clearer than normal. You, and perhaps the others who are drawn to gather round for some quiet moments, notice an exquisite rose in the center of your circle. The Rose is yet another ancient and sacred symbol of the Great Mother. Its delicate fragrance is like a Spiritual Essence that soothes the heart and supplies the need of each person present. Inhale the fragrance of this beautiful rose, gently breathing in the love of God. The rose expands ever so slowly as it grows to include the whole earth and all its inhabitants. The entire globe and all levels of life are bathed in the Rose of Divine Mother’s Love. For a few restful moments, time ceases to exist.

Stay peacefully in the delicate perfume and balm of this Rose for as long as you feel comfortable. If you wish, you may offer prayers of compassionate support for others or a situation or specific area in the world, because these prayers are well known and rise like incense. Each prayer adds its own special measure of love and healing for the person, animal, or circumstance you are praying for.

In the Rose, the blessings are amplified and far-reaching. Individually and collectively, the cumulative effect of our prayers is huge. Furthermore, we can assimilate the peace and power of the Mother Rose into our everyday life. Whether we are consciously aware or not, in our hearts we can continue to pray ceaselessly for any person, animal, or condition.

For a few further moments, your heart may simply want to commune with Divine Mother. Visualize Her Presence, the form in which She comes to you, as clearly as you are able. She opens her right hand and within it is a softly radiant pearl. You take this pearl and place it in your left hand. Notice that it is now glowing with the color you most need, such as blue for inner peace, which quiets the overly active outer mind. Or perhaps it is a lovely shade of green for steadiness and strength, or a deeply healing amethyst for spiritual upliftment. Take all the time you want, for this pearl of love is giving you the precise healing you most need. Just allow yourself to breath slowly and gently and to relax all the cells of your body. Be aware of the gift Divine Mother is bringing to your heart at this time. Her precious gift will strengthen and sustain you for the opportunities and growth that lie ahead in the year to come.

Then, if you feel guided to do so, you can also ask Gabriel, the Ambassador of the Moon, for additional clarity in what your soul and spirit call you to give birth to in 2012.

As you feel ready to slowly bring yourself back, take a deeper breath and ground yourself firmly in outer consciousness in the room that surrounds you, feeling yourself sitting in your chair wonderfully renewed and re-birthed! Feel a protective light enfolding you like a cape of Mother Love.

May this Season of Divine Mother bring Heavenly beauty, harmony, and peace to all life on earth. And let us radiate the fragrance of the rose while living each moment as if Love is the Way.

Related Posts for the Christmas Season:

• Spiritual Lighting at the Solstice (Winter Solstice is another of the
annual, spiritual Festivals of Light)

• Winter Solstice

• Awakening Your Dreams For 2012

• Saving Precious Energy

• Soften the Heart

• Families in Spirit

• In Remembrance Of Our Beautiful Zoe

Endnotes:

1. Visual Astrology 2010 Dec.: http://www.zyntara.com/VisualAstrologyNewsletters/van_
Dec2010/VAN%20Dec2010.htm

2. Stephanie Austin, from the Mountain Astrologer, Issue #160, Dec/Jan 2012, page 104.

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.

INNER SIGNATURE

zanemaser — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:02:47 +0000

In Heaven, so on Earth. On Earth, so in Heaven.
In Light, so darkness. In darkness, so Light.
In Joy, so sorrow. In sorrow, so Joy.
In giving, so receiving. In receiving, so giving.
In Unity, so duality. In duality, so Unity.
The inner pattern, so the outer. The outer pattern, so the inner.
In the One, so the many. In the many, so the One.

Imagine now, for a few delicious, relaxing moments, that you are standing in front of a full-length mirror. There are beautiful rays of sunlight streaming into the room from a nearby window. The area seems to glow, as you notice it is lit up by something more than simply the light. You sense and almost “see” the special essence, the inner radiance of the light.

In ancient times, when people saw the Sun in the sky, they perceived and worshipped it as a symbol of their Divine Creator and a daily physical fact of His Existence. In some of the early astrological horoscopes from Greece, the Sun—signifying the greater or real self—in the chart was referred to simply as god.¹ The word for God and Sun were an interchangeable pair once upon a time.

These ancients knew the outer, visible light carried within it an invisible quality of spiritual sunlight that gave them not only physical vitality, health, and restorative healing, should they be in need of it, but also the spiritual sustenance that made life possible. The subtle light behind the light was revered as the sacred substance that created and animated all life. Theirs was a way of life in continual relationship with Spirit.

The heaven declare the Glory of God; and the firmament
showeth his handywork.
Psalm 19:1

While we are in the physical realm, we have a subtle, energetic signature, which has been described as a “vibratory or energy matrix imprint.” Every particle, every atom in the Universe carries the imprint of the Creator in the form of a pure spiritual counterpart. We, too, are exquisite creators! This imprint is the frequency of God and is the living Light of God being expressed outward—God glimpsing God in every speck of Creation, whether a stone, plant, animal, person, mountain, or galaxy.

My friend, Linda, who “reads” vibratory signatures, told me that crows have an astoundingly gorgeous energy pattern within their being. So, crows have a characteristic imprint as crows, unlike another species. But each individual is also utterly unique in its contribution to its species and the Bigger Picture. Each piece, each individual is entirely necessary and cannot in any way be replaced. Its function and service completes and enhances the ultimate harmony of God. Its ideal purpose is to create beauty within its soul and in the surrounding environment.

All life is governed by Universal Laws, from the microscopic—the lesser mysteries of our own being—to the macroscopic—the mysteries of the Cosmo. God’s immaculate design and complementary premise is that the Spiritual becomes the physical of the everyday world and the physical becomes Spiritual. Celestial Harmony becomes commonplace harmony, apprehended from within and lived outwardly. Another way to say this is, as explained by Caroline Myss, that “all material things have a symbolic counterpart in the archetypal realm that imbues each physical object or force with meaning.”

Because we are, at ALL times, connected to the Divine, we can access inwardly this broader spectrum of life, the Living Word or the First Great Cause, if you will. After his journey through the Light and back to earth in his near-death experience, Mellon-Thomas Benedict affirms: “Everything is the great Self. That is why God knows even when a leaf falls. That is possible because wherever you are is the center of the universe. Wherever any atom is, that is the center of the universe.”² What Benedict witnessed during his out-of-body journey was the image of the galaxy as “a fantastic city of lights in its total energy configuration.”

In the Teachings of Abraham™, he describes our physical world as extensions of “non-physical Source Energy.”³ In other words, we are replicated versions or extensions of a Divine, perfected signature, albeit one that is continually expanding and evolving even on the level of God. Unity prevails in the Cosmos, rather than separateness, and connectedness is our essential nature. Abraham goes on to suggest explicitly that, “we radiate that which we are, vibrationally.” If, for example, we are feeling love, we vibrate love. We either elevate or lower the magnificent Universe! Others who match our pattern of energy or “like intent” congregate together, much like our own energetic Tribe.

Take a snowflake. In the countless numbers that have ever existed, no two have ever been the same, yet each is clearly a snowflake. Every snowflake contains the inner signature of Divinity but also a unique vibratory signature belonging solely to it. Not any being of greater or lesser importance, each glorious flake of snow makes its sole contribution to the Whole. None other can fill that vibratory slot or create its singular, dazzling beauty. Every sparkling flake reveals the inner holy SunLight where God dwells. It brings Heaven to Earth and shines Earth to Heaven.

The six-pointed Star is composed of two equilateral triangles, one pointing upward, the other downward. The two become one interpenetrating Star of perfect poise and balance. Divine Spirit shines down while our human heart aspires upward. The Higher, inner level merges with the lower, outer level. These two balancing forces—the supposed dualities—form the basis of all life, some of which are: male/female, positive/negative, light/darkness, giving/receiving, absorbing/radiating, aspiring/inspiring, spiritual/physical, invisible/visible, godly/demonic, Higher Self/lower self, and the Golden Temple above/the earthly temple below.

In our journeying through many lifetimes, every soul will one day blend these seemingly opposing positive and negative aspects of their being to become the shining Star. The center of the Star is the Heart Chakra, wherein is located the spiritual jewel—the One True Light. This is the shimmering light from God, from the Sun that radiates in every heart. It illumines the entire earth. Heaven is here.

Return now, for a few delicious, relaxing moments, to standing in front of that full-length mirror. There are beautiful rays of sunlight streaming into the room from a nearby window. The area seems to glow, as you notice it is lit up by something more than simply the outer light. Take a long, deep look into the mirrors. Now you know who you really are.

Related Posts:

• Bittersweet

• Readiness

• Approach and Avoidance

• Fostering What? Part 2

• Waves of Goodness

• Free Association: Peace

• Ad Infinitum Ourselves

• Greatness Within

Endnotes:

1. Olivia Barclay. 1990. Horary Astrology Rediscovered. Whitford Press. Page 72.

2. To go to Mellon-Thomas Benedict’s website, go to the Spiritual Resources category in the right-hand bar and click on the link.

3. Esther and Jerry Hicks (The Teachings of Abraham). 2004. Ask and It is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires. Hay House, Inc.

My editorial guru and technological wizard is Chris Maser, my delightful husband.

If you are interested in an astrological consultation and/or a specific question answered by a horary chart, please visit SunnyCat© Astrology.