Solar Plasma: Our Seismic Sound & Fury

“How could a tone become a picture and light become a noise? Carl Sagan

Solar X-class flare October 2003--Honshu 7.0magnitude quake occurred two days later

No-one watching film footage from last Friday’s horrific 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Honshu–and in other sensitive areas of seismic activity in the Pacific–can fail to feel compassion for those affected by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and resulting tsunamis. Japan’s death toll is currently around 10,000. Now Honshu’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is in critical condition, with comparisons being made with Chernobyl (25 years ago, April 1986) and Windscale (“Sellafield“, October 1957). Other quakes are being felt in Tonga, Fiji and the Gulf of California.

Hawaii’s Kilauea erupted March 7th-11th, with subsequent quakes this week within a substratum of fissures in the Volcanic Park at the SE corner of “Big” island in the Hawaiian chain. As Kilauea has been active since 1983, little attention worldwide has been paid to this most recent activity–except by HVO who monitor constantly. Kilauea’s main eruption happened Wednesday 09-03-11.

While praying that the critical situation in Daiichi nuclear power plant will be averted, this blog wishes to reflect the supreme human effort being made to focus on what is important for Mankind, despite/because of what is happening in the active region known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.

We are beginning to realize that these seismic surprises are not isolated incidents and that they are a response to movement of the Earth’s crust and tectonic plates (lithosphere). If we do not gear ourselves up–and act as one human movement planet-wide–we may not survive the next onslaught. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that planetary emergency measures have already begun. Charities, relief agencies and US Military have pulled together to bring help to the stricken areas.

A similar response occurred after the Haiti 7.0 earthquake one year ago when over 200,000 people lost their lives. Now relief agencies are having to share resources and the Caribbean island’s restructure efforts are being put on hold, while rescue agencies and life-support groups are flown to Pacific Rim areas instead.

Pacific Rim Landfall where tsunami ripples from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake reached, in hours

While quake-derived tsunami off Tokyo and Sendai, Japan resulted in the loss of life and a way of living which is locally deeply mourned, it is crucial to maintain awareness of its significance on a planetary level.

The Honshu tsunami rippled across the Pacific pond in under 12 hours, causing havoc in Hawaii, Chile, Central America and the US Northwest Pacific coastal cities of Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Eureka and Crescent City. Here rare bird colonies were wiped out, whales and shoals of sardines beached.

Meantime, New Zealand communities of Canterbury and Christchurch are still cleaning up after the February 21st 6.3-magnitude quake three miles deep in the Heathcote Valley which claimed the lives of 166 people. It does not bear thinking that one year previously the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti brought a deathtoll of 230,000. Phuket island in Thailand is only now recovering from the 9.1 magnitude quake and tidal wave of December 26, 2004 which killed 168,000 people.

There has been world response.

SOLAR POWER
Somehow, despite media overkill–and possibly because of the nuclear threat– oil stocks plunged on Wall Street and individuals and environmental agencies are asking for a different response: a simpler energy solution; a cleaner way of life–pedal-power, electric/solar vehicles. This time it is possible they may be heard. It has been suggested that, as the Nipponese automobile industry will have to start from scratch, it may surprise the world in manufacturing solar-powered vehicles.

We are now four years into the new Solar Cycle #24 of waxing solar (emission) activity, with powerup to solar maximum next year, 2012. For over 150 years scientists have been able telescopically to view the sun’s surface to witness the rise and fall of sunspot cycles.

Effect of electromagnetically charged solar flare on man-made satellites and the geomagnetic sphere

“Each cycle lasts about 11 years, and in-step with this, many other cycles keep a rough cadence. Northern and Southern Lights (aurora) are more common during sunspot maximum than minimum. Titanic solar flares–brighter than a million hydrogen explosions–come and go with each cycle. But on a darker side, solar flares can kill, electrically-charged plasma can cause blackouts, and satellites can literally be forced out of the sky” Dr Sten Odenwald, Author of ‘Learning to Live with a Stormy Star‘ (Columbia Univ. Press, 2000)

Because the date 2012 has received much publicity–both positive (Mayan Long Count calendar culmination) and negative (Apocalypse End Times)– Many are aware of ‘something’ pending, hanging over us all as a species and, for the first time in a long time–an Age– we are beginnning to think as One.

We are also thinking quicker. Time–along with our learning curve–appears to be speeding up, too.

It is even possible that, with the current seismic catalyst, we are becoming, what Nikolai Kardashev via Michio Kaku calls a Level One Civilization.

Nikolai Semenovich Kardashev (Никола́й Семёнович Кардашёв) (b.1932) is a Russian astrophysicist, and director of the Russian Space Research Institute (Institute for Cosmic Research) at Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is author of the (1964) paper in Soviet Astronomy “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations”. He devised a scale of three categories by which a civilization is classified by the amount of usable energy it has at its disposal–plus a degree of space colonization. Others have added two higher categories.

Kardashev Type I civilization is one able to harness all the power available on its (single) planet. The implication is that in so doing, it is able to function as ‘one’ and therefore to have mastered the supreme mark of a self-realized group: peaceful interaction.

Kardashev Type II civilization is able to harness all power available from its star.

Kardashev Type III civilization can harness all the power in a single galaxy. With the power of an entire galaxy at its disposal, a type III civilization would be able to come up with radical new power sources.

By extrapolation, a Kardashev Type IV civilization would have access to the power of an entire galactic supercluster. Kardashev Type V would be a civilization that occupies the entire universe.

Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist at New York’s City University, instigator of the Big Think discussion thinktank, and author of ‘Physics of the Future‘, released this week, suggests that, even with the Pacific crisis in full flow (and eliciting world humanitarian response), the Earth is as yet not a Category One civilization.

Carl Sagan estimated that Earth qualifies as a Type 0.7 civilization. Before he died in 1996, however–and in spite of his agnostic view–he had hopes that we might overcome our aversion to living in harmony–or rather, to lay down our weapons of war, and interact peacefully with one another. “Decency,” he said (and humility and community spirit) “in this demon-haunted world may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”

“In all of the four-billion-year history of life on our planet, in all of the four-million-year history of the human family, there is only one generation privileged to live through that unique transitional moment. That generation is ours.”
Carl Sagan

This month the pragmatic scientists are having a field day. Geologists continue to profess that a connection between electromagnetic surges in solar plasma and seismic volatility within the earth’s core is “geologically implausible”.

Last month it was the turn of the theoretical and spiritual physicists–those, like Leonard Susskind and Richard Feynmann, who developed M-theory, or TOE, the Theory of Everything–a string-theory derivative that excites astrophysicists and biochemists alike.

In this [TOE] field of quantum physics, consciousness is viewed as a unified field where everything is seen as everything else. There are no boundaries. No ‘you’ and ‘me’; no ‘this’ or ‘that’. Only a field of awareness–consciousness. It has been suggested that we switch our perception from genetics to energetics: and that we recognize our bodies (and the planet) as energy vibrating at a very dense frequency.

This shift in perception creates a different way of viewing ourselves in the 3D/4D space-time continuum.

Correlation between crop circles and sound

ALBERT EINSTEIN: “Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

“Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.”
Richard Feynman

It can only be a matter of time before the geologists will change their tune and realize that–if all is energy and the Sun, our parent star, an increasingly explosive mass of plasma/energy–its hurling great gobs of electromagnetic pulses in our direction is almost bound to affect us, its tiny magnetically-powered offspring, in countless ways. Causing massive rifts in the earth’s crust will be seen as only one of those myriad effects.

As a child at the 1939 New York’s World’s Fair (his revelation, at top), Carl Sagan’s own world was turned upside-down by a vision of graphs and sonic tones replicated in scientific instrumentation. Nowadays we take such intra-dimensional expression for granted. Pie charts are only a flick of the wrist away from spectrographs which reveal the magnetic cores of extra-solar planets, hurtling comets or the mystic music emitted by Neptune.

Our generation has learned that the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum–from radio waves through microwaves, infra-red, visible light, ultra-violet light, to x-rays and gamma rays– are all massless particles (photons) of the universal energy known as electromagnetic radiation, or simply Light. Light waves are fluctuations of electric and magnetic energy through space, usually expressed (by humans) in wavelength or frequency.

Sound is also measured in wavelength and frequency, with two major differences: sound (at the lowest end of the spectrum) travels at 1100ft per second; light (“C”, as expressed in E=MC2) at the high end, at 186,000mps. And while sound can travel through dense matter/objects, light cannot. The denser the material, the slower it travels, e.g. light travels around one-third more slowly through water than through air and space.

SOUND FREQENCIES AND THEIR HEALING QUALITIES

“Angels of Biblical metaphor were equated with song and the Word of God. Acoustical pressure is the only real difference between instantaneous light waves and slower material existence.” Brendan Bombaci

All faiths use sound to reach the Supreme. The early Christian church was no exception in trying to reach God through harmonies expressed within the sacred geometric environs of cathedrals. Their hallowed vaults were from earliest times designed to uplift both the supplicant and the surrounding community. Gregorian chant is the only version of this sacred music left to us. The rest of what was the Solfeggio–Sol-Fa– system of tuning into sacred tones is considered ‘lost’. Musical convention has since 1953 altered ‘concert pitch’ [A=432Hertz] to the more strident and dissonant A=440, agreed by the International Standards Orgaization (ISO) based on a previous recommendation by Joseph Goebbels in 1939. It is now the accepted standard pitch for orchestras, bands and individual instruments.

Sound as Image: the frequency of 432Hz and its trangular form

Basically, there are six Holy frequencies, the ‘original sacred tones’, called the Solfeggio.

Do 396HZ ‘Liberates guilt and fear’-–associated with releasing emotional patterns.
Re 417Hz ‘Undoing situations, facilitating change’-– breaks up crystallized emotional patterns.
Mi 528 Hz DNA Repair, ‘connecting all the strands’-–related to transformation and miracles.
Fa 639 Hz ‘connecting/relationships’-–whole brain quadrant interconnectedness.
Sol 741Hz ‘Awakening intuition’-–associated with intuitive states, non-linear knowing.
La 852Hz ‘Return to the Spiritual Order’-–a pure love frequency: unconditional love and return to spiritual order.
Doctor of Divinity David Hulse, founder of SomaEnergetics is reintroducing original sacred tones to help heal people’s lives. He believes that “ancient Solfeggio contains frequencies that can start everyone’s ascension process”.

“The body is held together by sound—the presence of disease indicates that some sounds have gone out of tune.”
Deepak Chopra

An in-depth (and exciting intellectual) treatise by Brendan Bombaci on the ancient connections between sacred geometry, music, the Sun and our archaic weights and measures system can be pondered here.

Others, from Galileo to Hans Jenny, studied Cymatics: wave patterns converted into a visual display of sound. John Stuart Reid in Britain and Jack Kassewitz in the USA together developed the Cymascope, originally to record patterns made by whales and other cetaceans in song. Their work shows remarkable correlation between patterns created by different tones in grains of sand and those designs of exquisite complexity in crop circles.

John Reid says:
“432 Hertz pops out as a triangle every time we image it.
We thought there was something wrong with the CymaScope™ but after trying for more than an hour we concluded that the number three was somehow universally connected to 432 Hertz.

“We captured it on video and it looks like it’s alive. It writhes and pulsates and refuses to take up any other form. We researched the reason why it takes up this geometry and it turns out to be an interesting case: when A is tuned to 432Hz the frequencies of the other A (octaves) shift (within a decimal point) to 27 Hz, 54, 108, 216, 864, 1728 in other octaves – all divisible by three. And the higher the frequency, the greater the geometric intricacy.

“D tuned to 576 Hz becomes 9 Hz, 18, 36, 72, 144, 288, 1152 in other octaves. E becomes 324 Hz which becomes 81 Hz, 162, 648, 1296 in other octaves. All of these frequencies are divisible by three: the cosmic triangle.”

Translated into mathematics, 432hz vibrates at the frequency of the golden mean PHI. As a Fibonacci sequence, it unifies the properties of light, time, space, matter, gravity and magnetism with biology, the DNA code and consciousness.

SON ET LUMIÈRE IN CROP CIRCLES

“There is no doubt that our present worldview is undergoing tumultuous change, and at such times, the collective unconscious of humanity reaches out for guidance. Because our thoughts are electromagnetic pulses which transcend time and space, it is possible that our request has been received, and information is manifesting in fields around the world.” Freddy Silva

The crop circle phenomenon is a product of both light and sound–both media have been witnessed by reliable sources–as light orbs and sonic high-pitched hum during their formation.

Silva’s is the enlightened ‘croppie’ view. He is among several renowned thinkers (including Kiesha Crowther) who will speak at this summer’s Prophets Conference in Glastonbury July 1-8, 2011. His view reflects that of a growing number who believe that annually recurring patterns in the English countryside and other summer pastures around the globe are created by a vibrational source that we do not yet quite comprehend.

Understanding is on the tip of our tongues, the edge of our minds. We are pushing the boundaries of higher dimensions and those dimensions are letting us in.

Progressively, in recent years, complex mathematical and geometric patterns have evolved which are more than the variable graphic produced by random cymatics. They contain an expression of our own maturing consciousness. They show intelligence at a deep resonating level which responds to an expression of our own deep need for connection to that Universal Intelligent Source.

We are getting answers.

Do we–the human race pushing our way through the cosmic birth canal to Level I–remember the question?

Galactic Center calling Earth: Blue Moon signal; pick up please

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?

Galactic Stillpoint: Longest Night on Earth

‘Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known’
Carl Sagan In Memoriam

Stone circle and midwinter sunset light

It is Solstice. Tonight is the longest night of the year for planet Earth’s northern hemisphere dwellers. It is at midwinter when all animals (except the human creature) go within, curl up and meditate in their own fashion; and wait for the light to return.

Neolithic farming communities in Scotland between the 56th and 57th parallel dragged massive 50-ton blocks of stone over the snow to form windows on the sky.

Recumbent stone circle at winter solstice

They took time out from their hard agricultural working life to create ‘recumbent’ stone circles which would mark forever that point on the horizon where the sun set at winter solstice. Five thousand years ago solstice was celebrated with fire. They’d learned that fire embodied in the Sun seemed to disappear forever; then was miraculously rekindled, reawakened and with it their land, their precious earth on which all depended, would respond; it began anew to nurture seed into growth, to produce fruit and harvest all over again.

Fire festivals reenacted fire of the dying sun in stone circles

Flames from solstitial fires reached for the heavens all through that cold winter night.

It must have seemed like a miracle at solar standstill when, after disappearing for seventeen hours, the sunlight returned and days began to lengthen once more. Seventeen hours of darkness is a long time if you live in a cave, an earth dugout or a stone mound.

The human subconscious appears to retain partial memory of this primordial condition which animals have, because in northern latitudes midwinter is often celebrated to an irrational degree. It is as if at a cellular level we remember that after galactic stillpoint is reached, the Earth starts to awaken once more and we realize that the Universe is going to keep on turning. What a blessing. What a miracle. What better reason to rejoice?

It is said our biological form is quintessentially-adapted for language: that the Word has created in our brain’s motor centers a highly developed auditory discrimination, with rapid muscular response in tongue, lips and palate; but we were not its makers. It was a gift from Creation which we have evolved to a remarkable sophistry. Fire, on the other hand was Man’s ultimate discovery.

At the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, in the cave vaults of Choukoutien near Beijing, a heavy-browed paleoanthropic form of Man with a cranial capacity as low as 860cc gnawed marrow bones and chipped stone implements. His time lies 500,000 years remote from this and yet in those years of the second Ice Age, this Man, with scarcely two-thirds of our modern cranial capacity, used fire.

Is it any wonder, then, that world mythology is filled with tales of sorcerer-priests who conjure light, the hero-giant stealer of fire from the gods? In discovering fire, were we not amazed at our ability to do as the gods themselves, to create Light?

In that dark cave half a million years ago ‘Peking Man’ created a spark which dispelled the darkness. His was the crucible which contained our entire human future. Have we not ever since – at a cellular level – been searching to return to that same realm of Light?

Round Zodiac of Dendera, from 50BC during Roman rule of Upper Egypt

In our reaching for the stars we have for generations been guided by mythology, world religions, the ancient astrological zodiac calendar and by our own deep need for an otherworldly force which is both strong and loving. In myth, the goddess Ishtar/Isis is the celestial mother/lover (Roman Venus); in a crossover with astronomy she is seen as the stella maris, the heavenly guide to mariners, the star of the (celestial) sea, Sirius, Canis Major, the brightest of the fixed stars, whose heliacal rising marked the beginning of the Ancient Egyptian calendar on July 19-20: end of zodiacal Cancer, beginning of astrological Leo.

In Babylonian legend, the redeemer of the world, Celestial Man, is expected to rise from the heart of the (cosmic) Ocean.

Ancient Man looked to the heavens for inspiration. Medieval Man was convinced heaven was right out there among the stars. It is only we, modern homo (so-called) sapiens who forgets to do that kind of communing with the Universe.

On the other hand select niches in our society still seek: within the scientific establishment the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI) continues apace. Carl Sagan, exobiologist, astronomer and visionary, along with his colleagues at Cornell, created a fashion in the early ’70s for that kind of exploration.

He said:

‘We are starfolk, but we live in the galactic boondocks where the action isn’t’

and took steps, aided by NASA, to communicate with any advanced civilizations out there which might deign to reply. In sending the Pioneer 10’s message plaque of gold-plated aluminum to a star region in the vicinity of Taurus/Orion, they hoped to trigger a response from any listening/receiving civilization.

Pioneer 10 gold-plated plaque continues to travel for 80,000 years

His argument was that any evolved star-beings who were less advanced than us (and in his day, we earthlings were only ten years into being categorized as ‘advanced’ ourselves), would be incapable of responding. Only civilizations more advanced than us would understand the message and have the capability to reply. He also rationalized the graphics of the message sent: reasoning that other galactic residents might not understand English, German, Swahili, Urdu; but they would understand mathematics, astronomy, physics.

Shortly after launching interstellar spacecraft Pioneer in March 1972, SETI directed efforts to beaming radio telescope transmissions to the stars. The latest of these was sent from Arecibo, Puerto Rico towards the Vega-Altair-Deneb triangle in 1999. By that time radio frequency was a speedier means of transmission than the fuel-propelled Pioneer space vehicle where a destination of even the nearest star (four light years distant) would not be reached for 80,000 years.

Besides they reasoned that if any civilizations were listening in/eavesdropping on us the Arecibo message was joining a century of transmissions from our planet, starting with Marconi’s first wireless communication in 1897.

It is thirteen years since Carl Sagan’s premature death on winter solstice 1996. He would be intrigued to learn of the massing body of evidence in favour of extra-terrestrial communication. The crop circle archive alone is superb. Not only does it communicate in the languages of science he advocated (mathematics, physics, astronomy), but, based on his premise that a more advanced civilization would find a more sophisticated means of communicating with us than we had with them, their graphics succeed in touching us at a cellular and emotional level, as well as pointing us to the stars.

Ancient World religions like the Judaic, Arabic, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Vedic faiths have frequent admonitions to look to the stars, to ‘observe in the east’, to watch the heavens for signs.

Our society is on the cusp of the year 2010. We have a Space Station partially operational; Hubble and SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) are in orbit; CERN has just collided atoms at an unprecedented rate in the tunnels below Geneva in Switzerland. We are technically advanced.

What about our spirit?

Neale Donald Walsch says:

Individuals — if their thought (prayer, hope, wish, dream, fear) is amazingly strong — can, in and of themselves, produce such results. Jesus did this regularly. He understood how to manipulate energy and matter, how to rearrange it, how to redistribute it, how to utterly control it. Many Masters have known this. Many know it now.
Neale Donald Walsch Conversations with God

If our heads were not so clouded by traffic jams and mind jams and living in a race for security and success, we might pause for this moment of solstice – the last in a single digit year for a century – and look to the heavens with awe. Two of our neighbours in the solar system, the crescent moon and Jupiter, shine brilliantly together shortly after sunset in the night sky. We have just experienced a multi-colour array of Geminid meteors emanating from the constellation which follows Orion through the night, with our brightest star, Sirius, stella maris, hovering below. It is the season for aurora borealis, which has already peaked over the Canadian Arctic. These are ‘commonplace’ wonders. However, we have also been treated to some unusual cosmic ‘signs’.

Spiral of light over Tromsö, Norway on eve of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance

On the day that President Barack Obama was travelling to Oslo, Norway to accept his Nobel Peace Prize, a spiral of light appeared in the skies over Tromsö and reflected light down to earth for twelve minutes ending in a circular hole of light. The spiral is an archetypal symbol representing cosmic force. It was used by all formative cultures in their art: civilizations from the Neolithic North Britons to Celtic Gaul, Egyptians, Japanese, Hopi, Nazca, Arabic, African and Hindu all use this representation of Cosmic Energy. Its appearance added to world spiritual expectation of a sign in the heavens to herald the birth of a New Age.

Great Eye of Sauron in Fomalhaut

Surrounded by these new signs, we may not have noticed that there have been a number of transmissions from Sirius; not beamed, like the crop circles, via light or laser technology, but in a method which travels equally as fast. Using a transference common in the realm of mind messages or ‘channeling’, an entity calling itself SaLuSa speaks from the Galactic Federation through Mike Quinsey, using the most comforting and inspiring words of encouragement to those of us experiencing difficulty adjusting to effects of the long predicted ‘end-times’.

‘We ask you once again to keep your eyes on the skies. These are the days when the signs have become talking points, that will awaken people’s awareness, not just to our presence but our methods of contact with you. For many years we have made crop circles as one means of getting your attention. As you will have noticed in more recent times, they have become more sophisticated. The messages they send have been interpreted, and their symbolism correctly understood. They have carried energy with them, and even although everyone has not understood them, it has connected with them sub-consciously.’

If Carl Sagan were still with us, I think he might consider this form of transmission equally valid from an advanced stellar civilization. After all his criteria suggested that those who had survived a post-nuclear age without exterminating either themselves or their habitat would be in a better frame of consciousness to extend the vibration of ascension and assistance to help another up the ladder of evolution.

If you’re listening, Carl. We miss you. Happy Solstice.