The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Yule -- Winter Solstice

 

The Cosmic Story: Winter Solstice 2023

What Are We Birthing?

The Wheel of the Year: Yule – Winter Solstice

The Wheel of the Year keeps on turning, and here in the northern hemisphere, it’s now returning to its beginning – the Rebirth of the Light.

As I write this, we are in the shortest days of light this year here in the northern hemisphere – the Longest Nights are upon us. (And to you in the southern hemisphere, have fun with the longest days– Summer Solstice!)

If you’re able to, go out and be in the dark night. Feel the darkness, with its starry fields and glowing Moon. Listen to the voices of the night. Feel the chill as you breathe in the Winter air. Isn’t a night walk a time when we often experience the mystery and magic of life? The darkness awakens our imaginations. Especially when we’re out in Nature.

The Wheel of the Year is the story of how we humans experience the ebb and flow of light. It tells the story of Earth’s relationship with the Sun, just as a month tells the story of Earth’s relationship to the Moon. In modern times, with our insulated homes, electric lights and supermarkets, we no longer have the experiences our ancestors had, with their intimate relationship to nature and dependence on Her.

Yet we still participate in the story, whether we are conscious of it or not. Our religious holidays often celebrate these times under other names. But our connection to Nature and our cosmos is bound into our DNA.

So celebrate this Solstice – whether Winter or Summer – with a conscious intention of letting the light within you be reborn and to shine out. Let love, kindness and peace, beauty, courtesy and truth, honor, strength and courage become a bright 9-pointed star of light within you, a star that will shine out into the world to help overcome the darkness of fear, hate and ignorance that is swirling in our world. 

 

Winter Solstice 2023

 

 

Once upon a time there was a land shrouded in darkness. This was not always so; at one time, it had been a land of great Light and depth and beauty.

Thus began my Winter Solstice story, about the loss of the light of Summer Solstice. But re-reading it now, I find that it could also describe our own times. Once we lived in a world of light, but now we live in darkness.

It feels that way for many people. After COVID, our world is different but the same. It seems out-of-phase, not quite settled back into the old ways we lived. And it shouldn’t. Even though people are trying to force it back because they are afraid.

           The World that we counted on is shaken. The unexpected endless wars go on. Innocents are murdered, both through physical violence and legal violence. The Earth is going through cataclysmic changes. People are afraid and suspicious. There are extremes on both sides but most people live on the middle ground. What can we do to bring things back into balance? Will we? Will we survive as a species or will we die out as so many other species have done throughout the ages?

           The Christians talk of the End Times, the Native people tell us The Emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made by the humble people of the little nations, tribes, and racial minorities. It will be made by all people of good will. Astrologers tell us to hope for the future once Pluto goes into Aquarius next year. One of the things Aquarius symbolizes is the ‘group mind’ and Pluto is going to evolve it.

        It’s not the end of the world – it’s the end of an old collective system of belief.

        What we are going through now is a collective ‘dark night of the soul’ where we are being given the chance to really look at ourselves – our shadows and our light – and choose to believe that Spirit is guiding us, even in the darkness of unknowing.

          We can’t heal ourselves and our society – and our world – if we don’t reflect on what has been festering for millennia. The harsh inequality between people and humanity and Nature. This might seem too simplistic for the mess we find ourselves in, but it is the cause of so many of society’s ills.

The need to dominate both others and Nature. To take more than our fair share. The fear of the Other and of the magic of the Feminine. This Shadow wound won’t allow that we – humans and all aspects of Nature – are One Being – Mother Earth.

We begin to heal when we love thy neighbor as thyself. But first we must love ourselves in the right way. Can we learn to see ourselves so we can truly see others? Can we forgive ourselves and heal? If we can, we will know we are the same. One people, one world. One Spirit. This is the ultimate lesson of the Piscean Age, which we have to learn if we want a truly equal Aquarian Age.

Love One Another.

It will take is the death of patriarchy to allow it to happen. (Those Greek gods never passed on their power peacefully.) Patriarchy has shaped our world view – the good and the bad. When we break out of the patriarchal mold, we will see the world differently. Success won’t be measured in money, but rather by integrity and self-worth. Religion will become a deep connection between each person and Spirit. Education will focus on different learning styles and gifts. (Not everyone needs to go into finance.) We will consider Nature an equal partner in decisions that affect society as a whole.

Hopefully, we’ll lose our fear of life and of the Other. If we can break out of patriarchy’s rules, we’ll get to shape our future collective mindset (Aquarius) to embrace diversity, spirituality and community. This is the Piscean Love which needs to be the foundation of the Aquarian Age, for only Love can shape our equality and our sense of oneness.

It always begins in a small way. A single light to shine in the darkness. A light that gives people hope.

This is what Winter Solstice is to us. A Light in the Dark, like the prism light that Galadriel gave to Frodo. To lead us back into life and light. This is how we need to meet 2024, which is shaping up to being a year of great change.

Stay intentional – live in Love and Peace.

Winter Solstice, December 21-22, 2023

This year’s Winter Solstice occurs on Thursday, December 21, 2023 at 6:27pm Alaska time, 7:27pm PST, 8:27pm MT, 9:27pm CST, 10:27pm EST and on Friday, December 22 at 3:27am GMT. For three days, the Sun will ‘stand still’ before turning around and heading north again. The day it moves forward is Christmas Eve/morning – the Birth of the Sun/Son of God.

This year’s Solstice chart is very grounded, with 6 planets and an asteroid in Earth signs. The Capricorn Sun is in an easy flow (trine/120*) to the Taurus Moon, which is conjunct the great benefic Jupiter, bringing good luck and grace to us.

The Moon is our operating system if you will – how we experience life. Taurus Moon wants to enjoy the pleasures of life. This is a good reminder in these dark days that we can still enjoy life and give thanks for it, even while feeling deep sorrow for those who are enduring death, hunger and fear. With Jupiter so close to the Moon – don’t forget to go out and look at them – we can expand our enjoyment by including others. How do we want to embody our unconscious need for comfort, peace, beauty and love? We can also over-indulge with our eating, buying and celebrating. It’s all up to us how we engage with these cosmic energies.

Taurus is all about simplicity, enjoying the basic energies of life – love, community, enjoyment, pleasure, beauty. 

 

Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we will not be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Jupiter is the great benefic, the luck-bringer, the energy of expansion and questing. But he is also the energy of spirituality and moral values. With both planets in Taurus – along with Uranus – it’s time to include Mother Earth’s needs and comfort as well as our own. Our physical body is our connect to Mother Earth. If we don’t keep our own bodies healthy, we will lose out on a strong connection to Nature’s biosphere.

This Solstice offers us an opportunity to center ourselves in our physical body (Taurus) and its needs so we consider what that means for our society (Capricorn). Do we really want our resources – those of our work and our money – to go towards war and consumerism, or do we want to share our resources with our communities, our nations and our world to bring about that peace we all hope for at this time of year?

Taurus is the sign that embodies the spiritual fire of Aries. What do we want to build? “If you build it, they will come.” The Field of Dreams wasn’t only for baseball. It’s for all of us. What dreams do we want to manifest this next year? Go out and build it and others will come.

Venus rules this Taurus Moon/Jupiter. She is traveling through Scorpio, opposite Uranus in Taurus. It’s the right time for a breakthrough in consciousness. While Venus is in the underworld of Scorpio, she is shedding her skin and being reborn on an emotional level. Venus is in an easy flow with Neptune in Pisces, opening her heart to the sorrow and sadness in the collective unconscious. Children should not be dying, and the elderly should not be abandoned.

Venus in Scorpio is opposite Uranus in Taurus. With Uranus’ awakening kiss, Venus can see what the Earth needs from us and what we need from Earth’s wisdom. So many of us are sick – from flues, COVID, nerves, depression, sleeplessness, confusion. We can go back to Mother Earth and be healed. We need to ground ourselves – 5-10 minutes of standing/walking barefoot on the Earth can reduce pain and inflammation, lower stress, and improve sleep. Taurus says, Simple is best. We don’t need drugs to make us better. We need to connect to the Earth’s energy and we need to learn to breathe right. (Reading a fabulous book called Breath by James Nestor – it’s absolutely worth reading. You’ll never take your breathing for granted again. And you’ll get healthy by breathing right.)

If the Moon is our operating system, then the Sun is our power source. This Solstice is powered by Capricorn, the need to contribute to our collective welfare – our dharma. On a mundane level, it rules our social structures – governments, finance systems, corporations, education, etc.

Mercury retrograde travels along with the Sun, and is open to considering whatever information comes its way. Let the information be informed by the Moon/Jupiter in Taurus and by Saturn in Pisces. Saturn in Pisces is preparing our emotional ground for new structures of reality. We need spiritual integrity and humility to ground us now. It’s time to believe again in Magic! (The real secret is that patriarchy has insisted that magic isn’t real. But we know it is and that it’s hiding in the rejected and reviled Feminine spirit.)

Pluto in the last degrees of Capricorn is once again squaring the Aries/Libra Nodes and also the Taurus Moon/Jupiter conjunction. It’s urging us all to stop being consumers so we can become citizens. Taurus isn’t only about possessions and money – it’s most basically about Values. What do we value? What is our self-worth, not our monetary worth? Pluto is in it’s last month in Capricorn before entering Aquarius again for 9 months. (Hint: Pluto returns to 29*+ Capricorn for the US elections next fall – our challenge to retain our democracy or collapse into fascism.) What will we value? If we value freedom and truth and the rights of all living beings, we need to stand up for it.

In the darkest days, we band together to ensure that life goes on. This is symbolized by The Emperor in the Tarot. The Emperor sets up the structure and rules of society. We are at a turning point, a time when the old Emperor is dying and a new King will soon arise. The old King doesn’t want to let go, but death is inevitable. It’s up to each of us to make it was painless as possible while making sure it happens! Patriarchy is making a last push for power. We the people have to stop it.

(I plan to give a free talk in January on Pluto in Aquarius, where we will do a past life regression to see if we were around during the American Revolution or any of the revolutions that occurred last time Pluto was in Aquarius (1778-1797). What did we learn then? Are we the revolutionaries we need today?)

Speaking of the New King, Mars in Sagittarius (which is out-of-bounds meaning it’s sort of a wildcard) is in a good flow with the North Node and Eris in Aries, enabling him to speak and stand up for the truth. Venus is inconjunct the North Node, making Venus feel like she has to sacrifice something to do the responsible thing. But since sacrifice means ‘to make sacred’ she won’t feel deprived. Venus is traveling just 30* behind Mars, putting her in the balsamic phase of their cycle. She’s telling him it’s time to grow up and choose the just and morally responsible thing to do.

While Venus is opposed by Uranus, Mars is in an inconjunct with Uranus. We are being challenged to act on our unique insights and on our own way of expressing our truths, regardless of what others think. Just remember that things take time to manifest. Go slow and let things gestate in their own natural time. Then watch things grow throughout the new year.

When Pluto goes into Aquarius for the next 20 years in December 2024, we will be working to transform the collective mindset and belief systems. It will be a time to learn to master our connection to the higher Mind (Uranus/Aquarius). Hopefully, humanity will expand its consciousness and learn to accept the multi-dimensionality of our being. I believe that there is magic in our world, and that the Divine Feminine holds it. As we integrate our feminine imagination with our masculine intellect, we will access those powers which are lying dormant in our DNA. We will become ‘the possible human’ as the transpersonal psychologist Jean Houston calls it. But first we need to consciously evolve.

So let your light shine out (don’t hide it under a bushel!). Make 2024 a turning point of collective awakening.

Wishing you a blessing Solstice,

Cathy 

The Winter of Listening

 

No one but me by the fire, 

my hands burning red in the palms while
the night wind carries everything away outside.

All this petty worry

while the great cloak of the sky grows

dark and intense round every living thing.

What is precious inside us does not

care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

What we strive for in perfection

is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire,

what disturbs and then nourishes has everything we need.

What we hate in ourselves

is what we cannot know in ourselves

but what is true to the pattern

does not need to be explained.

 

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer so far off

I feel it grown in me now

and ready to arrive in the world.

All those years listening

to those who had nothing to say.

All those years forgetting

how everything has its own voice

to make itself heard.

All those years

forgetting how easily

you can belong to everything

simply by listening.

And the slow difficulty of remembering

how everything is born from

an opposite and miraculous otherness.

Silence and winter

has led me to that otherness.

So let this winter of listening
be enough for the new life
I must call my own.

~ David Whyte~

(The House of Belonging)

 

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Samhain -- Time to Let Go!

 

 

 

The Cosmic Story:

The Wheel of the Year: Samhain

Time to Let Go

As I drive around Rhode Island, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the autumn leaves. The colors are vibrant: reds, oranges, golden yellows, greens. The first 4 chakra colors! There’s something warm and nurturing about Nature now, even as the temperatures lower. The cold adds something to the warmth.

I am awed by Mother Nature’s gifts: the bright light of the Sun as it makes its way south, the fresh breezes, the cold, clear night skies, the bounty of the fields. All made more poignant by the fact that this is the season of letting go, of release. Mother Nature isn’t afraid of letting her beauty and bounty die. She is all about release now.

I love the cycle of Nature’s year. The birth, growth, fullness, release and death/rest. When I lived out West, I really missed the seasons. When seasons stay the same, it feels like we have to keep producing like hot-house blossoms. Constantly ‘productive’. Never a time out to rest. (We’ve even made the term ‘time out’ into a punishment for being naughty!)

That’s the problem with our society. We’re expected to produce, push, work without a real ‘time out’. Weekends don’t cut it anymore because we have to catch up with all our personal tasks we didn’t have time to deal with during ‘the work week’. To me, this means we don’t get to contemplate that letting go. We don’t get to contemplate quiet. We don’t get to contemplate Death.

And yet death is all around us. The military/industrial complex is having a hay day making money over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. There’s war in Africa, there’s war in the United States with home-grown terrorists. And most importantly, we continue to destroy our ecosystems.

We fear death instead of seeing it is a natural part of the life cycle. This comes from the patriarchal fear of death. The masculine principle is the energy that needs to continually die so it can be reborn. Why do you think it is the male god who dies? Mother Nature is always alive, even when she’s sleeping, for she is the foundation. It is the separate units – the masculine energy – the need to die out so it can be reborn as something new. Have you noticed that it is mostly men who say they want to live forever? I would find that quite boring.

That’s what we’re experiencing now – the refusal on the part of the powers that run the world to let the old rules die so we can create new ones. We just have to look back at the Greek myths, which form the basis of western society, to see how the father gods – Saturn and Jupiter – refused to allow the next generation to take over. They didn’t want to relinquish their power. They didn’t want to die!

Until we each contemplate death, we will continue to allow our society to create it.

Our society is not rooted in a spirituality that supports life and recognizes death as part of that life. This has given rise to a toxic view of life. And unfortunately, there is a toxic masculinity that has shaped both men and women, and we don’t even realize we’re shaped by. Life is supposed to be a mixture of masculine and feminine energies – the feminine is the baseline, while the masculine creates individual energies. Modern society is based on masculine principles and uses its feminine energy to support things like consumerism and division, rather than inclusiveness.

I saw a video of Meryl Streep speaking to a group of her fellow male actors. She said that when you learn a language, you know you know that language when you can dream in it. She went on to say that women have lived in the house of men and know how to speak men and dream in it. (I call that being Father’s daughters, daughters of patriarchy.) Then she said, but men don’t know how to speak or dream women. All the men laughed nervously and then made a joke. That’s how afraid men are of the Feminine.

I just read a newsletter I get from Robert Reich. He called it The inhumanity of humans towards other humans. “Civilization is the opposite of the state of nature. Nature is a continuous war in which only the fittest survive, and where even survivors’ lives are “nasty, brutish, and short,” in the words of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. He’s wrong! Nature, like women, cooperates. Nature works as a whole, like the trees in a forest supporting each other. Insects work with flowers to produce life. Wolves bring back the lost ecosystems humans have wrecked. Nature is a unified whole, and when it’s time to die, there’s a purpose to that. Nothing new can be born if nothing dies.

He goes on to say: A civil society doesn’t allow the strong to brutalize the weak. It doesn’t incite the weak to terrorize the strong. It doesn’t tolerate violence against innocent people, nor does it tolerate retributive violence. He’s wrong again. Our whole civilization has been based on this masculine brutality. When have the masculine power structures ever been humble enough to work with everyone, distributing their wealth in a fair way?

That fairness is what the myth of King Arthur and Camelot was about. That’s what early Celtic society was about. That’s what our Native, aboriginal tribes did. These ancient people lived in harmony with nature and so they were less brutal that our so-called ‘civilized’ societies. Their connection to Mother Nature made for more equality, more kindness, more creativity than we give them create for.

So we have to become that civilized society Reich speaks about. It is the goal we haven’t reached yet.

Samhain, All Hallow’s Eve/Halloween, Dia de los Muertos

When the Wheel of the Year turns to Samhain, we stand before the veils that separate different realities. The veils thin and the souls of the dead can move on to the next plane of existence. Or come back for a visit to us.

 

 

 

The Celts called this otherworld Annwn or Avalon. It was a blessed place of peace and happiness. Perhaps that’s why they weren’t afraid of death as we are. Our religions have made death a scary, painful place, full of fire and punishment. That’s probably why people today are afraid of death, even if they don’t consciously think of a fiery afterlife. It’s in our collective unconscious. Shame on the Christian church for that! Instead of picking the real miracle that Jesus’ life contained – the Resurrection – they chose to pick a symbol of suffering and death for themselves and for us.

It’s time for us to get over that delusional belief and understand that the Universe and Mother Nature re-cycle souls. They don’t punish us for living our lives. Jesus’ death was supposed to redeem us from our fear of death because he showed us that we will Rise again.

So it’s important for us to learn to let go, release what’s no longer of service to us, and LET IT DIE! It will create so much more room in our psyches to create something new in the coming year. And these little ‘deaths’ will get us used to the grand finale of our lives. Our death into new life.

At this end of the Piscean Age, we need to learn its lessons. Despite how our society has developed into a flat-earth, anti-Christ (against the Spirit) viewpoint, each of us can begin to build a new vision for ourselves and society. That’s what Robert Reich was really talking about. The society that embraces the real values of the Piscean Age – that we are all one. That kindness, generosity and love are the basis of a ‘civilized’ society. (Think Star Trek!) That Spirit lives within Nature and within ourselves. We have created a brutal world because we’ve been made to forget that we really are Spirit having a human experience.

So this Samhain (November 1-7), face your fear of death. Face yourself and decide to let go of these beliefs that keep us separated from ourselves, from each other and from Nature.

Never forget. We’re all in this together.

Entering the Dreaming and Storytelling time of year.

These next six weeks will be the darkest time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Those of you down South are gearing up for the light time.

 

This is a great time to work with your dreams and be enchanted by stories that feed your soul. I was listening to a podcast about psychedelics and Jungian Dreamwork. What we experience in psychedelic journeys comes from the same place as our dreams. How not? The drugs open us to our unconscious – both our personal unconscious and our collective unconscious. How our ‘trips’ go depends on how much work we’ve done on our personal unconscious. Whatever we haven’t dealt with comes to us as the monsters we fear to face.

But once you’ve embraced that darkness inside you, you realize it isn’t so dark at all. Just a mystery to be explored. Like Death! And when you’ve worked out your personal psychological complexes, you can step into the greater mystery of the Collective Unconscious, which can also be scary. But wonderfully magical!

Marie Louise van Franz, Jung’s chief disciple, said that the unconscious can devour you. So you need a grounded ego to face what’s there. Otherwise, you can be taken over and inflated by the archetypes, which reside both within our unconscious and outside it. The archetypes are the cosmic laws of life. They’re the structures that shape our energy and our world. That’s one of the things I never liked about Caroline Myss’s idea that you can pick archetypes. You can’t. Archetypes pick YOU!

That’s what makes Jungian therapy so different from other types of therapy. We enter our psyche through the voice of our dreams. As we work with dreams, we discover that our soul has a point of view that might conflict with our ego’s point of view. When we can listen to what our dreams are saying, we open ourselves to a deeper experience of life. Our dreams shatter the patriarchal box we’ve been brought up in. They point us in the direction our soul’s long to go in.

When I was a single mother of four kids, I started thinking of working full time. But I dreamed that I was buying a calendar and nobody was there to take my money. So I finally decided to just take it and leave. But when I walked out of the store, I walked into a room with a woman artist who told me to put the calendar back. I said no. So she called a group of children into the room and they circled around me and said, please put the calendar back. So I did.

The interesting thing is that I have a Cancer Moon exactly square my lunar nodes. That means that my Cancer mommy Moon needs to be actualized if I want to get to my Aries North Node – my independence. It’s a missed step that my soul needed to learn. Since so many women in my generation looked down at staying home and being a mother (not anymore !), it was another way I had to go against society’s expectations. As we know now, latch-key kids grew up feeling abandoned. My Cancer Moon didn’t want that for my kids, though my modern ego wanted to go out and achieve more.

 

 

From Dear Mystic Mamma

I told my kids that I was going to just continue to work with a few clients and at a shop in town so I could be there for them. We’d just have to make due with what I made. But I told them I was there for them. Now in my ‘old age’ I see that I made the right decision. They are the best adults I know. (The boys even bought me a house!) I went against society’s expectation that money was the important thing, at the expense of having a mother there when my kids needed me. I ended up being the town mother to lots of their friends who still feel that way about me. So Yay for dreams!

Jungian dream work is the way to learn to speak ‘women’. It can teach us how our psyche speaks in symbolic language and connects us to the Creative Imagination, which is how we co-create the world. As you learn to understand your dreams, you learn to know who you really are.

Astrology of the Samhain Season

The astrology of the next few weeks continues to show us what we need to learn about living an authentic life. Ground yourself in the Moon’s cycle, planting your seeds at the New Moon and seeing how they’ve blossomed at the Full Moon.

The last lunar eclipse in the Taurus/Scorpio nodal axis (we’ve already moved into the Aries/Libra axis) occurs on Saturday October 28^th.  Taurus is the sign of new life, while Scorpio is the sign of death and release.  It’s our last check-in for the next 18 years to clean out our emotional traumas and ground ourselves in our values, in our bodies and in beauty. Let beauty surround you. Walk in beauty. See your own beauty. And you’ll move through this death into new life.

 

Taurus Full Moon with Jupiter to the lower left

The Taurus Lunar Eclipse highlighted the need to examine our deep psychic wounds (Sun, Mercury, Mars in Scorpio) and release them and come to rest in our bodies (Taurus Moon). If any of you saw the Full Moon on Saturday night, you saw bright Jupiter and invisible Uranus just below and to the left of the Moon. The sky story showed us that change (Uranus) is possible when we are curious and expect the best (Jupiter) of the situation (Moon). As a Taurus, I can promise you that it’s a relief to know that I can change!

Saturn turns direct at 0* Pisces on November 4^th, bringing us back to the issues facing us last March when Saturn entered Pisces for the first time since 1994. Our collective anguish is right up front now – wars, murders, loss, fear. Pisces is our collective Heart. When Saturn travels through this watery realm, we need to look at our beliefs and shape our lives around them. If we have fear and hatred in our hearts, we create that. When we can let go and open our hearts to love and connection, we’ll see that when we hurt someone, we’re hurting ourselves as well. This is the Piscean mystery of Oneness.

Venus leaves Virgo and enters her own sign of Libra on November 8^th. Now is the time to take those lessons we learned while Venus retrograded in Leo and bring them into our relationships. Be bold and true to yourself at the same time as you act with courtesy and understanding towards those you are with.

The Scorpio New Moon occurs on November13th. It opposes Uranus retrograde in Taurus and conjuncts Mars and Ceres in Scorpio. When Uranus and Mars get together, sparks can fly and accident can happen. Perhaps Mother Ceres can sooth Mars enough that he can let himself be cracked open by Uranus’ power to shake us outside the box. Mars in Scorpio is an inner drive to understand what’s going in within ourselves and in others if we can let go of our ego’s need for control. Trusting Life now seems hard, but that’s what we’re being called on to do with Neptune trining this New Moon. 

 

Neptune stations direct on December 6^th, just in time to square the Sagittarius New Moon on December 12^th. What will we choose to believe? Because we do have free will. Which means we can choose what we stand for. Mars, Uranus and Neptune are once again aspecting this New Moon. Uranus the Cosmic god, Neptune the ruler of the collective unconscious and Mars the action energy of life. Sagittarius is the sign of our beliefs, our ability to see beyond what’s in front of us. Can we imagine a better world? It’s not that hard when we look at the mess our world is in now.

We’ve come to the chaos of the ending of an age. This is a time of choice for humanity. It’s the first time we know of that humans get to choose how we’ll take that next step in evolution. Will we succumb to the brutality of the past and continue to foster hate and fear and embrace war on everyone who isn’t like us? Will we let the far fringes win out or will our core values, the things most people want, win out? The next few years will see what we’ve chosen to do.

Have a blessed Samhain,

Cathy

 

excerpt from John O’Donohue’s poem: For the Dying

May there be some beautiful surprise
Waiting for you inside death,
Something you never knew or felt,
Which with one simple touch
Absolves you of all loneliness and loss,
As you quicken within the embrace
For which your soul was eternally made.

May your heart be speechless
At the sight of the truth
Of all your belief had hoped,
Your heart breathless
In the light and lightness
Where each and every thing
Is at last its true self
Within that serene belonging
That dwells beside us
On the other side
Of what we see.