WINTER ENDS with NEW BEGINNINGS Emerging from the Longest Night into a New Year
It is Solstice—the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. This year—2018—it is also the night of the Full Moon—a cosmic coincidence which will not happen again until 2094.
Hogmanay now a World-Scots Celebration
Traditional Christmas pudding, oozing flaming brandy, courtesy Delia Smith
Meanwhile festivities are revving up for a week of celebrations in all corners of the globe—more glitzy in countries with the Santa Claus connection: the USA welcomes his reindeer to school halls and shopping malls. Yule logs burn in grates from Scandinavia to Scotland.
While New Year’s Eve is still a week away, around the globe Scots are preparing. They have their own name and a long rich heritage associated with the last night of the Old Year—Hogmanay.
Theories abound on the derivation of Hogmanay. While I favor the translation given by the Scots Dictionary—aguillaneuf=gift for a new year, below—there are others. The Scandinavian word for a feast preceding Yule was “Hoggo-nott” while the Flemish words (many have come into Scots) hoog min dag=’great love day’. Hogmanay can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon, Haleg monath, Holy Month, or the Gaelic, oge maidne, new morning.
Remembering that Mary, Queen of Scots grew up as child bride at the French court, the most likely source seems to be the French translated bodily to Scotland with her when she became Queen. ‘Homme est né’ (‘Man is born’) in France is the last day of the year when gifts were exchanged. Aguillaneuf is still celebrated in Normandy, and presents given at that time are hoguignetes.
Tar barrel flaming at Burghead on Auld ‘Eel ends with burning the Clavie at the ‘Doorie’ on the ribs of Pictish promontory beach fort
In Scotland a practice similar to Normandy was recorded, disapprovingly, by the Church:
It is ordinary among some Plebeians in the South of Scotland, to go about from door to door upon New Year`s Eve, crying Hagmane
Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 1693
Christmas was not celebrated as a festival and virtually banned in Scotland for 400 years, from Protestant Reformation c.end of C.17th until around 1950s. The reformed Kirk portrayed Christmas as a Popish or Roman Catholic feast and it was forbidden. Many Scots had to work over Christmas and their winter solstice holiday was taken at New Year, when family and friends gathered for a party and to exchange presents—especially for children.
Earliest known Gaulish Coligny ‘moon’ calendar of 13 months dates to A.D. 150
In the earliest known Celtic calendar, the Coligny Calendar of 13 moons (months), now in the Palais des Arts, Lyon, the year began at Samhain, November 1st Fire-Festival of the Dead. At this time the veil between this world and the Otherworld was believed so thin that the dead could return to warm themselves at the hearths of the living. And some living—especially poets, artists, clairvoyants and shaman/healers—were able to enter the Otherworld through the doorways of the sidhe, fairyfolk, like the stone-lined entrance to passage graves in Scotland and Ireland
When the Julian calendar was in place in Rome, the Coligny caledar was seen as the Gaulish equivalent of a 10-month/13moon year, beginning November.
Traditions before midnight on Samhain perpetuated in rural communities when the calendar changed to Gregorian (at the Reformation) such as cleaning the house on 31st December—including taking outside ashes from the fire, when coal fires were in vogue. There was a superstition to clear all debts before “the bells” at midnight.
On the stroke of midnight it is traditional to sing Auld Lang Syne. Robert Burns claimed his verse was based on an earlier fragment, and the melody was in print eighty years before he published in 1788.
Partying from Hallowe’en through Hogmanay
An integral part of Hogmanay partying which continues today is to welcome friends and strangers alike with warm hospitality; and to wish everyone a Guid New Year. The underlying belief is to clear out any vestiges of the old year—ancient tradition included literally sweeping the house clean—and preparing to welcome in a young, fresh New Year on a happy and positive note.
“First footing”—i.e. the first step over the threshold into the house after midnight—is less common now in cities, but continues in rural Scotland. To ensure good luck for the house, the First Foot should be male, dark-haired (believed to be a throwback from Viking days when blond strangers arriving on your doorstep meant trouble) and should bring symbolic coal, shortbread, salt, black bun and/or whisky. These days, however, whisky and perhaps shortbread are the only items still prevalent—and available.
“Handselling” was a custom of gift-giving on the first Monday of the New Year, but this may also have died out.
Magical fireworks displays and torchlight processions through Edinburgh, Elgin and many cities in Scotland are reminiscent of ancient custom at pagan Hogmanay parties which persevered until the late C.20th.
Traditionally one New Year ceremony more reminiscent of American Hallowe’en involved dressing up in cattle hides and running around the village being hit by sticks. The festivities included lighting bonfires, rolling blazing tar barrels down the hill—as is still practised in Burning the Clavie at Burghead, Morayshire—and tossing torches. Animal hide was wrapped around sticks and set on fire. This dense smoke fended off evil spirits. The smoking stick was also known as a Hogmanay.
Giant fireballs hefted by strongarm celebrants swing through Stonehaven harbor near Aberdeen on ‘auld ‘Eel’, old Yule
Some customs continue, especially in small, rural communities in the Highlands and Islands where tradition—along with language and dialect—are kept alive. On Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, young boys form rival bands, the leader of each wearing a sheepskin, while another member carries a sack. The gangs move through the village from house to house reciting a Gaelic rhyme. On being invited inside, the leader walks clockwise around the fire, while everyone hits the skin with sticks. Formerly, the boys would be given bannocks (fruit buns, similar to focaccia) for their sack before moving on to the next house. This tradition is reflected in American Hallowe’en, two months earlier.
Scotland’s Legacy of Ancient Customs
One of the most spectacular fire ceremonies to take place is in Stonehaven, just south of Aberdeen on the Northeast coast. Giant fireballs, weighing up to 20 pounds are lit and swung around on five foot-long metal poles that need sixty men to carry them, as they march up and down the High Street. The origin of this pre-Christian custom is linked to Winter Solstice December 21st, with giant fireballs signifying the power of the sun’s return. The fireballs were believed to purify the world by consuming evil spirits in the New Year.
Confusing Samhain/Hallowe’en with Hogmanay is understandable. Longtime tradition holds them inter-dependent. Only the numbers have changed.
Eagle Nebula Pillars of Creation, NASA Space telescope
A theory of gravity is also a theory of space and time — Albert Einstein
According to current thinking, we have gone beyond conventional spacetime and are now floating somewhere in a ‘construct’ of our own imagination.
One hundred years ago Albert Einstein had his great insight.
A decade afterwards he revised his general relativity to include quantum theory. And yet a century later physicists are still beating the quantum drum, trying to figure how to work outside theoretical time, when physicists have always formulated their theories within a space-time framework.
October 6th crop circle at East Field, Alton Barnes highlights overwintering wildlife-friendly crop of brassica and barley,
photo Olivier Morel
We are trapped in a world of too much infor-mation. Innocence is gone for us. We cannot expect to cross the Rainbow Bridge through a good act of contrition; that will not be sufficient.
We have to understand.
Terence McKenna (1946-2000)
American philosopher, author, ethnobotanist and visionary
With the onset of October, country communities in the Northern hemisphere are preparing for winter and ‘death’ of the Earth, farmers gathering up strawbales for feed, ploughing and planting overwintering crops. Meanwhile in the cities, activity usually turns to entertainment or to seasonal frivolity—thoughts inwards are not usually the province of mass media. But societal consciousness has changed and now, where it used to be the ‘news’ that people watched, it is the internet, with increasing mass communication of End Times, not entirely uninfluenced by this month’s Calleman version end-date of the Tzolkin Calendar of the Maya on October 28th. On that date, he says, humanity reaches the top of the Ninth Wave, the peak of the nine-step pyramid of Underworlds/Consciousness: the End of Time as we know it.
Autumn this year, however, has brought out the youth of humanity into the streets in droves. The young ones have decided enough is enough; time to speak up about world conditions: Occupy Wall Street *(OWS) has burgeoned into Occupy Chicago, and Los Angeles (second week); with Occupy Maine and Portland,OR., Dallas, Boston (from Oct.6), Dublin and Phoenix (Oct.8, Yom Kippur) Iowa and London (Oct.9, Day for Trees), and including a flurry of Occupy cities scheduled for October 15th, World Revolution Day, collectively marking World Food Day, Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving. Cities—and countries—joining the Occupy movement this week include Montreal, Canada; Brussels, Belgium; Sweden, Holland, Finland and France.
It is no mean feat to camp out in foul weather, with storms predicted—which mid-October often brings—with donated food, little shelter, less money and no end in sight. Yet, this is what the movement is prepared to withstand, in order to get a message across to their audience—the ‘fat cats’—that the underdog has tolerated intolerance and inequality long enough and it’s time to make a stand on human rights.
Truth cannot be told, so as to be understood, and not be believ’d—William Blake
[If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed]
It is no coincidence that mainstream media has ignored the Occupy movement. It appears to be too sensitive an issue to report responsibly. It touches too many sacred cows that have been allowed to roam for so long and eat all the pasture; so that amazing technological extension of human consciousness—the internet—has picked up the slack.
The worldwide web has been alive with the OWS movement, with wild stories as well as heart-warming intimacies, spreading faster than mainstream negative news is capable of reporting. The internet has come into its own.
The internet has always had purpose: to bring together MINDS. FB and Twitter are just the fluff on the exterior blowing into the winds of change… there is a deeper connection we are beginning to see and need to appreciate and use. This extension-of-Mind was foreseen by many visionaries, but we, the Now generation—from teenage OWSers to aging Baby Boomers (now outnumbered by the teens)—are still here and can make it work for us.
Mind, consciousness, creative thought have always been Mankind’s blessing, his headstart on the lesser animals, but the Earth is straining under her human shackles. She, too, wants to be free.
The Earth, like her biological inhabitants, seems to be responding to that End-of-Time ‘attractor’, a point beyond the human now, a future dream coming closer—McKenna’s ‘Dwellpoint ahead in the temporal dimension’, his Eschaton.
Glittering entity attracting us into our future... ALMA's first deepspace image, Catseye nebula
This scintillating object glittering in hyperspace, throws off reflections of itself, which actually ricochet into the past, illuminating this mystic, inspiring that saint or visionary, and out of these fragmentary glimpses of eternity we can build a kind of map, not only of the past of the Universe and the evolutionary progression into Novelty, but a map of the future.
Human history represents such a radical break with the natural systems of biological organization that preceded it, that we are now in shock.
I think people have a very narrow conception of what is possible with reality, that we’re surrounded by the howling abyss of the unknowable and nobody knows what’s out there.
Western religions have persistently integrated into their theologies the notion of a kind of end of the world, Ascension, stepping into heaven-on-earth. It seems that is not going to happen according to any of the orthodox religious scenarios, however, but through basic human will and intuition.
The Universe her/himself—that great Being we dare not see as intelligent—seeks closure in a kind of omega point of transcendence. And s/he will take us, the Earth, the Sun, the solar system and the Galaxy, along with her.
Ritually tuning into the earth...
This is what shaman- ism has always been about. A shaman is someone who has been to the end. He knows how the world really works, and knowing how the world really works means to have risen outside, above, beyond the dimensions of ordinary space, time, and causality. He has actually seen the wiring under the board, stepped outside the confines of learned culture and embedded language, into the presence of what Wittgenstein called “the unspeakable”.
This presence will yield knowledge which can be brought back for the good of the community. For 90% of human culture, the shaman has been the agent of evolution. He learns techniques to go between ordinary reality and the realm of ideas, this higher dimensional continuum that is somehow parallel with us, available to us, and yet ordinarily occluded by cultural convention out of fear of the Mystery. Shamans have been able to de-condition themselves from Society’s instinctual distrust of the Mystery, in order to go into this bewildering higher dimension, and gain knowledge. They recover and bring back the jewel lost at the beginning of time: to save souls, cure, commune with the ancestors.
T McKenna, 1997
Almost invariably, the shaman who finds himself in the transcendental presence of the Other is humbled. But with practice, he becomes wise; and in nearly every indigenous culture on planet Earth, this Universal wisdom is shared.
The Land of Gaia
‘Shamanism is not a religion; it is a set of techniques, and one of the principal techniques is the use of visionary plants. These natural psyche-enhancers dissolve boundaries, and in the presence of dissolved boundaries, one cannot continue to close one’s eyes to the ruination of the earth, the poisoning of the seas, and the consequences of two thousand years of unchallenged dominator culture, based on monotheism, hatred of nature, suppression of the female.’ The Archaic Revival, 1991
McKenna found shamans acted as exemplars, by making a psychic journey to the domain of Gaian ideas, and then bringing them back in the form of art, and meshing them with the human struggle to save the world. The planet has its own intelligence, and under certain circumstances it will actually open a channel of communication with an individual human being.
Kiesha Crowther's new book: Message for the Tribe of Many Colors imparts earth wisdom to see us through End times
McKenna’s reverence for the human body and the planet Earth is echoed—without herbal help—by Kiesha Crowther, ‘Little Grandmother’, also a shaman, chosen keeper of earth wisdom for the Tribe of Many Colors, and from childhood a lifelong outdoors-living person. Having spent countless days and nights in the high farming community of Colorado, she is able to tune into her heightened sense of (other) life around her, speaks to birds; she can intuit an elk on the highway up ahead. She has developed her own natural shamanist gifts, reinforced by a neglectful upbringing, and enhanced by spending a lot of time alone.
Her deep connection to nature brings her into ideal relationship with her surroundings: the Earth, her ‘Mother’. She has learned to communicate with owls, river water, puma, the Earth Mother herself, on an intuitive level—without words—but often in pictures.
She gets a tingly feeling, tastes straw in her mouth, smells violets or rain, and knows that she is sensing a being nearby. She trusts her own inner voice, she listens to messages from the trees, a blade of grass, a bee. She has been bailed out of some tricky situations by listening to this ‘voice’.
Now in her early thirties, she walks forward proclaiming that we should all stop right this minute and tune into what the Earth is—really—saying. Then we would have no hesitation in stopping oil drilling, copper mining, damming salmon rivers and seeding the atmosphere with manmade storms. The Earth has, after all, always supplied our needs, given us everything we have ever demanded. But she is getting restless, tired of giving, without replenishment or simple gratitude.
Mother Earth, too, is sentient. Kiesha agrees with McKenna that it is time to take better care of her, or she may not continue to be quite so tolerant.
Kiesha says:
‘Never take anything without being given permission. We are suffering the consequences now of being planet-robbers.’
Humanity going through sudden change, evolution speeding up at an unprecedented rate
Human beings are going through a pivotal shift that almost all life-forms go through, but there is something quite unique about us. We are evolving and changing at a supersonic pace that has never been seen before in the Cosmos. We human beings are going through an evolution of consciousness, making progressive leaps much faster than any life-form before. For this reason, we have caught the attention of other beings in our galaxy and in other galaxies. It seems that planet Earth is like a child in its spiritual evolution compared to other places, and yet we are growing and making giant leaps in consciousness, because of our special placement in the solar system. Great bursts of energy from our Sun are helping to speed us up and raise our consciousness at a pace never seen before. Kiesha Crowther, Message for the Tribe of Many Colors
She has learned that, however much negative people and outmoded opinions influence and put pressure on us, we can derive strength from this ultimate test to our spiritual will and reach through the hardest adversity to communion with our Higher Self, our Oversoul.
She believes that we can endure almost any hardship for just a little while longer until the love train starts to kick in. But it’s up to us to remember the goal, however hard our present circumstances. The movement is happening. People are beginning to live from the heart, rather than from the head. We are beginning to think as One. We are Ascending…
…But, things are falling apart. What do I do?
Kiesha now travels extensively, sharing her earth wisdom and assisting in placing specially-energized crystals in the earth at strategic points. This, she says, will help stabilize the earth grid which is also sensitive to negative manipulation by those who take what they please. She has often been asked what to do when things go crazy. Her suggestions for the End Times:
...plant a garden, know how to grow your own food, find a place to nurture your family...
Stay in the heart:
Secure loved ones & families;
Collect seeds and plant a garden;
Learn how to live sustainably, find out how to access clean water and make use of clean energy;
Instead of spending money on trinkets, buy things you need for your family; essentials which will support you and that will sustain your life through difficult times ahead.
‘Get a home, buy land if possible, grow food, store seeds, know how to grow a garden, find clean water—these are the things we should be doing to support our lives right now’
Kiesha Crowther
Turn off History
‘The twentyfirst century is the shudder that announces the approaching cataracts of time over which our species and the destiny of this planet is about to be swept.’
Coming from vastly different backgrounds, Kiesha from poverty, McKenna from the intellectual stratosphere, it is profound how much both visionaries share: in fact it’s fairly apocalyptic. Both are convinced that “History is ending”: that our generation is witnessing the revelation and purpose of the cosmos. McKenna said “History is the shock wave of the eschaton”. Crowther says “We are the strongest of the strong”, the “ones we have been waiting for”, and that we have chosen to be here to witness and help birth this time.
What this means for those of us living through this transition into hyperspace/love dimension, is that we are privileged to watch the greatest release of compressed change since the birth of the Universe. But we are also witnessing a coming together of vast groups with a common bond. It is vital we see the big picture and do not get caught up in the “old” news tactic of focusing on the negative.
The light of the Universe is made up of photons; there is no anti-particle. It's all light
The Big Picture is what is happening; differences are being laid aside. It is particularly apt that new initiatives are being led by the young. It is a long time since such freedom was witnessed and encouraged… the Boomer generation of the ‘sixties is now old and grey. But their ethos is still alive and well in the minds of the OWS youngsters. The message is not altogether alien. Flower power and ‘living in the heart’ have a similar ring.
The new physics is a physics of light. Light is composed of photons, which have no antiparticle. This means there is no dualism in the world of light.
The shockwave has huge reverberations, however.
OWS (and other) Occupy movements are taking hold; showing us a little of the wiring underneath the Motherboard. We are getting a glimpse of how the Universe works in demonstrating a coalescing of minds, bodies in the streets, consciousness in computerdom.
EarthDance founded in 1997, held Guinness book of Records 'greatest world drumming event 2004' in NoCAL; now a worldwide equinox event
“House music and rave culture and rhythms are rediscovery of the art of natural magic with sound; and percussive sound can change neurological states. Large groups of people getting together in the presence of this kind of music are bonding in a telepathic community strong enough to carry the vision out into mainstream society. I think the youth culture that is emerging actually sums up Western civilization and points us in an entirely different direction.
We arrive in the third millennium, in the middle of an archaic revival—a revival of these physiologically-empowering rhythm signatures—a new art emerges, a new social vision, a new relationship to nature, to feminism, to ego.”
Terence McKenna Alien Dreamtime
Paradoxically, computer networks display a deeply feminizing influence that society needs to change its mind. (Kiesha suggests we ‘change the channel’). In the hardware, the unconscious is actually being created; and, as we are learning pretty quickly, consciousness equals reality.
Both shamans would agree that the Unconscious, the deep feminine, is that part of us which we have neglected. It is time for its magic to reemerge.
The real secret of magic is a world made of words, and if you know the words the world is made of, you can make of it whatever you wish
Tonight the Moon is full in Aries – usually a great influence for action. If Calleman’s accelerated date is correct, the pinnacle of the pyramid, the beginning of the New is only two weeks away. He is not alone in his calculation. October 28th 2011 is 13 Ahau in the Tzolkin, named ‘Return of the Ancestors’ in Mayan prophecy: a signal, perhaps, that we should all step up to the plate and serve if we are to become friends with the Earth again. Because she feels mistreated, she may have a few more storms to blow before she believes us.
Wildlife-friendly East Field median strip was featured in 3 crop circles this summer; all sited along the line leading the eye to Bronze Age Knap Hill amphitheatre (N)
The Human race is already transforming. Are we prepared for consciousness evolution at a speed never before contemplated? We have to take our future in our own hands: help the needy, share the food, plant trees, and accept our responsibility for being here at this special time on this unique planet.
A simple crop circle sequence appeared in October (top and left) in East Field—out of season—the third occurrence this year along the same line-of-sight. Just like the Java crop circles in January and the Mexican crop circles at spring equinox, they highlighted the farming community’s care for wildlife, reverting to cultivation by traditional natural methods of nurturing the earth—no huge machinery—just a strip of carefully-planted food.
Famous East Field formation, double-bladed axe, vesica piscis dimensional formation of July 2010. Surrounding archaic script has yet to be interpreted
East Field is in croppie language a byword for the **hub**. The first of the nouvelle vague circles appeared here in the 1990s. Here is where light orbs are sighted most frequently, electrical equipment fails, ultrasound shrieks, the water table suddenly goes dry, and people experience spontaneous healing.
East Field, like Etchilhampton, is run by the good guys: farmers who add a little extra for wildlife. In Kiesha’s terminology, the Earth Mother is speaking in dulcet tones, approving where we show care for her; in McKenna-ese, the Other is stepping through the time fabric and leaving us his/her calling card. Either way, crop circles of 2011 have highlighted farms where earth nurture has taken precedence over earth rape. Perhaps we are beginning to please the Mother, after all.
We have to make a start somewhere. The youth in Wall Street, London, other cities of the world, have shown their card. We countrydwellers have to show our hand, too. We can plant our gardens, show respect and gratitude for our food, decline to shop for unnurtured sources of supply. Take care of the soil and the water. Go off the grid. If the OWS youth can show us the way, lend us their strong bodies, we oldies can stand on their shoulders and reach for the sky.
Mount Shasta & lenticular cloud: spiritual center for US Wesak festival; photo courtesy Living Shasta
“Mind is the Matrix of all Matter”
Max Planck
Wesak is the most important date in the Buddhist calendar — regardless of where it is held in Indian, Chinese, Zen, Tibetan, Indonesian, Nepalese, Mahayana or Western practices.
HH Dalai Lama participates in the Newark Peace Education Summit in New Jersey during Wesak week 2011
Celebrated by one-third of the world’s population during the week of the full moon in May, it marks the birth of the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, c. 563BC) and, for some Buddhists, his enlightenment (Nirvana) and his death. In Burma and Thailand, for instance, it is celebrated with special lanterns made of paper and wood; candles are burned continuously and houses are cleaned, decorated and made new with much joyful music and the sound of bells. In Laos it is known as the Feast of the Lanterns. In India, it is Vesak Day, or Buddha Purnima.
Caged birds released on Wesak: spiritual symbolism and vegetarian practice
There is a long tradition of releasing caged birds on Wesak, signifying the freeing of the soul from the body cage on reaching enlightenment — Nirvana. Many (strict) Buddhists are vegetarians, but those who are not, often pay butchers to release animals otherwise scheduled for human consumption. On this auspicious day, others forgo eating meat. Water ceremonies include bathing the Buddha’s shoulders to remind devotees to purify the mind from greed, hatred and ignorance.
Wesak is a festival we might all benefit from sharing — or at least understanding its roots. In contrast with many world religions, Buddhism is unique for its focus on personal spiritual development and striving for deep insight into the true nature of life, through the practice of morality, meditation and awareness of one’s own accessible inner wisdom.
Buddhists believe nothing is permanent: that change is always possible.
22,000ft axis mundi Mt.Kailash, Tibet, simultaneously the world's most venerated holy place (to 4 world religions) and the least visited, acts as the Earth's Crown Chakra
OM
MANI
PADME
HUM
May we dedicate all positive words to the enlightenment of all sentient beings in six realms of cyclic existence.
Buddhist prayer
Buddha literally means ‘one who is awake’ and has become enlightened. It is a term that denotes a person who has attained the supreme wisdom and compassion that Enlightenment brings.
The Wesak festival is unique in world religions in that it is a present-time cosmological event and not just one that commemorates a past spiritual happening–as do most holy days.
In Buddhist tradition, Wesak is a five-day festival: two days of preparation, both mental and physical; the day of the Wesak full moon itself, (this year, Tuesday 17th May) and two days after for meditation, direction of energy for good, for self-healing, and for planetary vision.
Ideally, one should approach Wesak week with discipline, clearing the mind beforehand, eliminating from our consciousness all negativity — including the influence of negative people — so that our mind and spirit are opened and ready to receive the forces of Light (love).
“If someone negative tries to complicate your life, turn and walk away from them” Caroline Myss
In the western version of the tradition, the day of the Wesak full moon is known as the Day of Safeguarding.
On the full moon of May, with the rising of the morning star, Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, the enlightened one
While Siddhartha’s enlightenment happened over 2500 years ago, it is interesting to note that this year (2011) the ‘morning star’, Venus, is not only recapturing brilliance celebrated in that age-old Buddhist proclamation, but also — on May 11th — approached within one-half-degree of fellow morning planet Jupiter, alongside Mercury and Mars in the pre-dawn eastern sky. This Jupiter-Venus-conjunction is the same configuration as that heralded in 6BC as the brilliant ‘Star in the East’ which signaled the birth of Christ.
So Venus and Jupiter, among others, are presently contributing as planetary pointers to this year’s Wesak week. Other celestial phenomena are in store for the rest of 2011 and 2012.
“On the Day of Safeguarding (May 17th) itself, we the human race should try to receive, contain and hold as much of that great spiritual light, (energy, love) as we possibly can within our bodies as a kind of intelligent network of conscious ‘Mind’ for the planet — as her brain, so to speak.” WesakSouled-Out Spiritual Hierarchy.
In the West, this year’s festival has primary focus on raising planetary awareness: a rising tide of human Unity Consciousness, which has been a consistent feature of this blog and is becoming the focus of much attention in the runup to 2012. The western hub of Wesak ceremonies, festivities and deep religious rededication is Mount Shasta, Siskyou County, California.
Earth's energy grid, portals and Chakras on the electromagnetic network
In the language of Earth-Gaia Medicine, the Earth, as a sentient being, has energy chakras, one on each continent, just as the human body has energy centers. Shasta is believed to hold the energetic focus for Mother Earth’s root or base chakra.
Her other chakra points are:
Island of the Sun, Lake Titicaca: Sacral second Chakra
Uluru, Ayer’s Rock, Australia: Solar plexus third Chakra
Glastonbury, Somerset: Heart fourth Chakra
Great Pyramid, Giza: Throat fifth Chakra
No fixed location for sixth, Third Eye Chakra
Mt. Kailash, Tibet: Crown 7th Chakra and axis mundi, peak of the world axis.
’Sixties Revolution
California is known for its leading-edge ethos begun in the 1960s and ’70s of multi-discipline spiritual thought, an EarthFirst lifestyle and as home to many New Age groups. Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha‘ was virtually ‘required reading’ during the spiritual revolution of the ’sixties in a State which became a honeypot for spiritual entrepreneurs, gurus and devout followers of a New Age way of life. While that ‘off-the-grid’ lifestyle continues a presence in the State, it has become — like other spiritual practices — subsumed by the great unwieldy machine of human progress, population growth, and the media/internet/communications revolution.
Among a plethora of New Age spiritual frontrunners from that era, however, one guru stands tall above the rest — Ram Dass. As (former) Dr Richard Alpert, b.1931, he was the renowned Harvard professor whose experimental psych lab –alongside Prof. Timothy Leary and his (then) graduate student Dr. Ralph Metzner, founder of the Green Earth Foundation— used mind-altering techniques in the study of the transformation of human consciousness. They co-authored the volume ‘The Psychedelic Experience‘: a Manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead and dedicated to Aldous Huxley. In his subsequent conversion and becoming a messenger for ‘American Buddhism’, Ram Dass was seen not only as a genuine seeker, practitioner and proponent of the simple spiritual lifestyle, but his consistency and practice of personal liberation have affected many lives.
“My life is my message” Baba Ram Dass, 1992
Author of the seminal spiritual bible of the time, ‘Be Here Now‘, 1971, he practised the art of self-discipline in maintaining one’s own unique balance and wisdom, in allowing self-liberation, and the ‘voice of the Divine’ to come through into daily life.
Ram Dass suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1997 which paralyzed his right side. It has taken him over a decade to recover all function, but he is back on the lecture-appearance circuit, his message stronger than ever. Before the stroke, he finally met and was interviewed by contemporary and fellow research/occult scientist, Terence McKenna (video conversation above). While they had taken divergent life paths — McKenna researching the biological immediacy of shamanic experience and altered states of consciousness; Ram Dass eschewing mind experimentation for spiritual ritual and meditative practice — they discovered shared truth and remarkable similarities in their need to question accepted authority and discover ‘one’s own reality’: McKenna’s ‘felt presence of direct experience’. The video series is unprecedented in its honesty and their familiarity with each other, because while they shared a youthful background of the counter-culture, this was their first encounter as seniors in the consciousness field. In that sense, the video interviews (on YouTube) are unique, unrepeated. McKenna died in 2000 of brain cancer.
Terence McKenna, author of 'Food of the Gods,' before he died in 2000
McKenna believed human evolution and particularly language development were triggered by apes eating hallucinogenic plants after their descent from the trees; that either Man must return to Nature before she explodes, or tout de suite launch some rocket ships to the stars. Ram Dass approaches humanity as a concept seen from the transcendental realm of Godhead, as viewed through the Third Dimension. Both men of ideas have lived long enough to be able to dissolve ego in an unprecedented open exchange. But while the duo (in their video conversation) approach the subject from apparently opposite sides, they both bring light to their shared belief in autonomous, intuitive ‘knowing’, as opposed to acceptance of concepts fostered by fear-mongered dogma of state and government attitudes.
They both believe in ‘Mind’, as the engineer of reality, consciousness.
“The Net,” says McKenna, “is an ‘oracle’ fostering an unprecedented dialogue between human beings and the sum total of human knowledge.” He believes that out of computer graphics will emerge a new form of human communication. “We are heading for a world made out of Mind.”
“Go beyond the ‘isms’ and tell me what you really think we’ll find,” says Ram Dass. While he believes in intuitive links, he concedes the need for virtual/real communication.
Dass believes in the transcendental awareness brought about by communion with one’s higher self, the Divine. It hinges on the presently-growing impetus of global consciousness. McKenna had first-hand knowledge of South American Indians who experienced the Collective Unconscious as an immediate, shamanic, reality; not just as an intellectual construct.
As our society weaves itself ever-more deeply into this colossal thinking machine, McKenna believes it may somehow be able to replicate those shaman Indians’ collective knowing. He answers:
“We’re finding a world made out of Mind instead of ‘stuff’. Mind itself is being pulled taut. We are being given that transcendental object at the End of Time”.
“So what is this transcendental object at the End of Time?” asks Dass.
“A material made from hologramatic disk: part bio, part machine, part think tank, part Mind.”
Over one million Buddhists are meditating right now, pooling consciousness. Critical mass requires only one half of one percent of the population to be ‘vibrating’ at a higher frequency for cohesion/enlightenment/ascension to occur.
December Full Moon rises exactly at sunset on the opposite (NNE) horizon - latitude 57ºN
New Year’s Eve – the last day of 2009 or Hogmanay, as the Scots call it – will be triply auspicious. Not only is it the eve of a new year, a new decade no less, but it will be graced by a full moon, a partial lunar eclipse, and the Moon will be Blue. In celestial spheres you might say we are being given the royal treatment; or at least being sent a signal.
When a month is graced with two full moons, the second one is called a blue moon. You know, the ‘once in a blue moon’ blue moon? Because our modern calendar calculates by the sun (annual orbit of the Earth round the sun takes 365.25 days), its 30- and 31-day months take us out of synch with our nearest neighbour, whose cycle is 29.53 days. Only the female menstrual cycle and the oceans remain in touch with our lunar companion. The rest of humanity seems to have forgotten what cosmic rhythm is.
Blue moon of May 2007 seen at 40ºN latitude USA
Because of the lunar/solar anomaly, only 41 months in every century can be called true blue moon months, hence a fairly rare occasion. The blue moon cycle of 2.72 years, therefore, makes it something special. December 2009 already had a full moon on the night of December 1st/2nd. The last blue moon month was May 2007 and the next will occur in August 2012.
This New Year’s Eve, because the full moon always rises at the moment of sunset on the opposite horizon and because the moon will not be full this December 31st until 7:13pm GMT, those of us in the Old World will be able to witness the full orb of Luna rise at sunset in the Northeastern skies on Hogmanay night. That’s 4pm GMT in London, home counties, Midlands and Birmingham and about half an hour earlier (3:20pm) in Edinburgh where Hogmanayers will only just be starting their all-night revelry. Four hours later, as Jupiter prepares to set in the southwestern sky, the moon’s disc reaches its fullest and the Earth moves between her and the sun to cast a shadow over her in partial eclipse. This moment of maximum partiality occurs at 19:23 UTC, 7:23pmGMT or 11:23am PST. In astronomical terms it is not a full (total) eclipse because earth’s shadow (eclipse magnitude) will only reach 0.0763, but for us earthlings in the eastern hemisphere it will still be a singular sight.
Solar system planets from outer orbits looking in
At midnight when Hogmanay reaches crisis point in Scotland’s capital, when they shoot off fireworks from the battlements of Edinburgh castle to welcome the new year to the screech of bagpipes, very few, I suspect, will note that the ‘New Year star’, Sirius, reaches its zenith in our northern skies. Sirius will stand behind Orion in the south with the Moon, in Cancer, followed in close proximity by our secondmost close neighbour Mars, the ‘red’ planet, retracing its steps through Leo as we enter 2010. The ringed giant does not arrive on the scene until late when the revellers are wending their weary way home: Saturn is a ‘morning’ planet right now, best seen in the east in the hours before dawn, with its spectacular rings just starting to ‘open’ to our view.
That’s the astronomical picture.
The astrological one is a little different. It reflects a vastly complex array of planetary influences to which our ancestors paid heed, but which Technological Man tends to ignore. However, like the menstrual cycle affecting the female population, it is well, occasionally, to pay attention to heavenly bodies and the way they appear to sway our passage through the cosmos.
At winter solstice the Sun enters the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn, having played and filled us with optimism in late November while in fiery Sagittarius, encouraging us to look to the future, fulfill our dreams. Capricorn Sun and Cancer full Moon bring those dreams and our grasp on reality into sharp focus: both make us examine our ‘outer’ career, capabilities, achievement potential and ‘inner’ love of family, home, need for a peaceful centre: their polarity challenges us to fix our relationships. Cancer may be content to be dependent, Capricorn urges us to be grown-up and responsible. Cancer represents the origin, Capricorn looks to the goal. In this mix stands the astrological giant Saturn in Libra, exerting discipline, demanding that we find balance. Mars, because of retrograde motion in Leo, is teasing us, telling us ego fantasies, diverting our attention from the path of loving acceptance. Our usual mental messenger, our Mercurial helper is currently useless; he is doing a backwards dance through Capricorn and being uncommunicative. It is up to us to review how well we’re using our own natural-financial-mental resources. However, on January 5th, Mercury is joined by loving Venus, so all is not lost. There is hope in the days ahead. The loving, healing solution may show us a way through our planetary difficulties.
Fortunately, we may still call on the largest of the planets: Jupiter, which presently consorts with another friendly giant, Neptune, the bringer of change. Together they stand in forward-looking Aquarius and are guaranteed to bring abundance into our lives, fresh ideas, a new focus, perhaps even a totally unexpected way of solving our problems. Both reflect the potential for the spiritual, the mystical, even a miracle, to bring about the change we cannot perceive ourselves.
This brings us to the spiritual view.
At the time of the December solstice each year the sun approaches the heart of the Milky Way, our Home Galaxy, and conjoins with Galactic Center in the constellation Sagittarius. At this time of year the Earth also gets closest to our own star, Sol. Closest point in our orbit, perihelion, happens annually on January 2nd/3rd.
Through the ages, after solstice when the sun moves northward along the horizon again, each month setting farther and farther north, the period from winter solstice to summer solstice was festival season. In several ancient civilizations winter solstice was associated with the return of a Sun-God to save the world, the bringer of light and fruitfulness to the earth, and hope to humanity.
Spiritual communities too, mindful of ritual handed down from ancestral hierarchies, hold winter solstice sacred, meditating and communing with the silence of winter in a kind of mental hibernation which itself opens up communication with Source. It is at midwinter that many begin preparations for the three major festivals of spring and summer: in the Celtic calendar they are known as Imbolc (February 2nd), spring equinox (Ostara, Easter) and Beltainn (May 1st).
Other indigenous cultures celebrate on these dates, the Hopi, Maya, Chinese, Arab, Vedic and Zulu, but one which has gained world-wide recognition is the May full moon celebration of Wesak, the greatest festival in the Buddhist calendar. All surviving cultures which perpetuate these ancient forms begin with a meditation at winter solstice which culminates in the May celebration.
It is fascinating, then, to discover that in using an ancient technique of knowing when the planet is at its closest to Galactic Center, by aligning with cosmic energy emanating from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, at the crossing of Galactic Center with celestial ecliptic, at a time when the Earth is herself at her perihelion, closest to her own star, and when the stella maris, the ‘spiritual sun’ Sirius is at her zenith, ancient civilizations and their modern devotees discovered a means to tuning into the cosmic Source of all energy, knowing, and guidance.
In the sacred Long Count calendar of the Maya, one of the most accessible of ancient calculations to modern man, within a period called a Great World Age, an eon, an unimaginably-huge 26,000-year timespan, there are only a few moments when we Earth people come closest to the center of this cosmic cross, the point where the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way, at precise center of our Galaxy.
Galactic Center where stars are born
This nebulous area of the Universe, where stars are born, is our own cosmic womb, from which we, as stardust emerged. It is from this hole in the Cosmos that many spiritual masters and followers believe emanates a divine energy; that the centre of the galaxy is constantly emitting and transmitting a pure energy source which may be utilized in our conscious co-creative process to amplify and transmit new programmes of operation to us, to amplify our awareness and to broadcast light energy directly to enhance human DNA.
Winged serpent sun god Quetzalcoatl of the Maya from Codex Borgia
In the mythology of the Maya, it is to this great birth canal or womb aperture that Creator-sun-god Quetzalcoatl, mythical feathered serpent, one who crawls on Mother Earth but also flies in the heavens will return on winter solstice 2012. This cosmic re-union symbolizes the joining of spirit with matter, in order to be reborn: the Shift of the Ages.
Our alignment with Galactic Center occurs only once in every 25,800 years. We have come close to it several times in the last three decades. During the so-called ‘Galactic alignment period’, or ‘era-2012’ between 1980 and 2016, the closest the Earth came to Galactic Center was on December 21st, 1998.
Galactic center is exactly where the December solstitial sun will stand at noon Universal Time on December 21st, 2012.
Is it any wonder then that we as a species are being given a few reminders of this cosmic date only a couple of years up the stellar turnpike?
If Galactic Center is transmitting messages, is it not logical for us, a technologically advanced civilization, to pick up the spiritual phone?
View from the Stars: whichever way you look at it, we are present in Sidereal time, Space is our growth medium, and stardust and water our constituent particles. When electromagnetically charged, our solar-powered circuitry is capable of Creating Anything We Choose.
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