Awaken and Arise! Don't Go Back to Sleep!
Welcome to the Pisces Solar Festival, Virgo Full Moon & Spring Equinox 2012 edition of the Satya Center newsletter and Cosmic Weather Forecast. Warm greetings from your Editor, Curtis Lang and your co-editor, Jane Sherry.
Cosmic Weather Forecast
Nine hundred million Hindus celebrate the Spring Festival of Holi on Wednesday March 7, commemorating the victory of Lord Vishnu, Sustainer of the Universe, over the dark powers of Hiranyakashipu, the King of Demons, and this Festival of Light leads into the Hindu New Year Festival on March 23 of this year.
The Pisces Solar Festival, which corresponds with the Full Moon in Virgo, occurs Thursday March 8 at 04:39:30 am (EST) or 01:39:30 am (PST).
At the time of the Full Moon, the golden light of the Solar Logos streaming from the Star that vivifies our Solar System is captured in part by the Earth’s Moon. The Moon transforms and reflects the radiance of the Sun, which we perceive from our Earthly observation point as a silvery light pervading the ebony veil of terrestrial night.
This is the moment each month when an alchemical transformation occurs in the Solar System which benefits all Earthly life-forms. The masculine, yang energy of the Sun is transmuted by the feminine, yin energy of the Moon, and the energy that streams forth on the night of the Full Moon partakes of the energy signatures of both Solar Wisdom and Lunar Love.
This Full Moon Light, which contains the energy of Loving Wisdom, the energy of balanced sexual affinity, travels to Earth, to vivify and nurture all that lives upon our planet.
This silvery moonlight contains golden solar pranic particles in abundance, and this unique frequency of light enters human beings through their crown chakra and through their eyes, actilvating the subtle energy centers in the heart, the third eye, and crown, and provide Lightworkers and meditators with the energetic raw material needed to build a bridge between the lower mind and the personality self and the Higher Mind and Higher Self.
In addition this unique Full Moon radiance permeates the human body with the Cosmic energy signature of the Divine Lovers, the energy of Cosmic Creativity and Balance that is essential for human beings to experience so that they may ultimately transmute their own energy signature to be in close resonance with the energy of Cosmic Creation. That energy of course, partakes of the energy of balanced sexual affinity, on a Cosmic scale, and requires the human being to perform the difficult task of alchemic transformation within himself or herself which will render that which is base into that which is quick-silver, yet simultaneously the finest gold.
It is the particular task of human beings to participate in the evolution of our species and our planet by achieving a state of balanced sexual affinity which will provide a container for the energy of Loving Wisdom, and then to pour out that energy of Loving Wisdom for the benefit of Mother Earth and all other life-forms on our planet, in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms.
This goal of human evolution is the same goal that spiritual seekers, Lightworkers, and disciples of all spiritual traditions East and West have sought to attain for the many millennia of human existence.
This lofty goal requires that each human being purify their body, emotions, and mind, balance their karma and also balance the masculine and feminine aspects of their being, so that they may access the pure energy of Loving Wisdom obtainable only from the highest Source of all Creation, the Christ Consciousness, or Cosmic Consciousness, the Divine Matrix of Universal Life Force Energy.
Once that has been achieved human beings can and will distribute the energy of Loving Wisdom throughout mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, sanctifying and sacralizing all Earthly activities, and establishing the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.
As above, so below.
This month’s Pisces Solar Festival falls at 19° Pisces, and the Sabian Symbol for 19° Pisces is “A Master Instructing His Disciple”.
The Ancient Wisdom Teachings represent a stream of energy, an elevated state of consciousness, a doorway into a realm of new human possibilities, and at the same time the distillation, the quintessence of the spiritual gifts and accomplishments of a long lineage of ancestors, Master Teachers who attained impeccable Wisdom and who demonstrated unconditional Love in their own lives to such an extent that they transcended normal human consciousness altogether.
The transmission of that energy stream from Master to Disciple is a gift and a responsibility. Each and every one of us has received tremendous gifts from our ancestors, our parents, our Spiritual Guides, and the living Teachers with whom we have had the honor to study in this lifetime.
The responsibility that we take on along with these gifts is not so much a form of debt owed to the ancestors, to the Teacher, to the lineage, or to humanity, but rather a treasure we are privileged to inherit.
Every human being inherits a treasure from those who have gone before. Our families, our cultures, our technologies, our arts and crafts, all have their roots in the love, wisdom, inspiration, work and creativity of a myriad of individuals who lived long before us, and in the collective efforts of all those on the planet today in both the physical and the subtle energy realms.
For me it is preferable to consider all this treasure as a love-offering, and a measure of my own interconnection with humanity. Even sitting here in my office at the computer, I am aware of the myriad of ways that I am connected to a variety of spiritual traditions, technologies, cultural systems of thought, family values, and economic and social ties that combine within me, that contribute mightily to my own range of possible creative expression, my own quality of life, my own spiritual practice, and my own ability to live a life filled with love and light, abundance and virtually unlimited potential for growth and fulfillment, now and in my own future, in this incarnation, and beyond.
I am grateful and I seek opportunities to reciprocate in my own way and in my own time. That is the great responsibility each of us has as human beings and as spiritual disciples, and that great responsibility is itself a gift, because that responsibility is what helps open my heart, strengthen my will forces and elevate my consciousness to Higher Realms. That gift helps me to transcend my own petty ego, my own limited personality, with its flaws, its attractions and aversions, my own emotional baggage, and my own karmic web of soul connectivity, that ties me to so many beings, some elevated, some not so elevated, scattered throughout time and space.
I bless that web of connectivity, and I acknowledge that I am part of that web, yet blessed with individuality, so that it is my choice how I will utilize these treasures to advance my own evolution and the evolutionary task of all human beings.
There is nothing pre-ordained, nothing mechanical, nothing reflexive about the interactions related to my life and this energy flow across aeons of time and vast regions of space.
For part of the gift I have received is freedom.
This Full Moon let us all acknowledge our own freedom, celebrate our individuality, accept our own limitations, acknowledge our own unique capabilities, and manifest joy, love, abundance, and wisdom in all that we do and with all those with whom we are blessed to share our journey in this life.
The Sabian Symbol for this month’s Virgo Full Moon at 19° Virgo is “A Swimming Race: The stimulation that comes from a group effort towards a spiritual goal”.
As we transcend our own egocentric personalities and open ourselves fully to the impulses of Spirit, to the Loving Wisdom of our Spiritual Guides and Teachers, we become more and more aware of the web of interconnected energies that nourish us and help us to build a strong bridge to Higher Mind, so that Higher Self becomes the over-lighting principle in our lives.
We become attuned to the energy streaming from the Spiritual Hierarchy as modulated through the lens of our own personal spiritual practice and the lineage(s) of Spiritual Masters with whom we are connected.
We understand more fully that a myriad of Lightworkers and spiritual seekers from a multitude of spiritual traditions both East and West are working diligently to advance all of humanity along the evolutionary path of spiritual attainment.
Although we may be involved in what appears to the unenlightened mind as an evolutionary “race” to enlightenment, a competition to be open-hearted and compassionate, a contest to see who can demonstrate more dramatically and continuously their dedication to the high ideals of spiritual service, the Higher Mind and the Soul of the Disciple are always conscious that this is an illusion.
There is a stimulation to our entire energetic system when we expand our consciousness to become aware of the Group Soul, the energy stream of our particular lineage, Mystery School tradition, or religion, and there is always an enhanced energy available to us when we perform spiritual practices in groups of like-minded aspirants, but we must never allow this stimulation to degenerate into base ambition, or to compare ourselves to others. For this comparison and competition is in direct opposition to the release of personal desire, personal ambitions, and pride and can also lead to backbiting, scapegoating, invidious gossip and eventually to a kind of spiritual aggression which sees others as lesser beings, because their practice is perceived to be inferior to our own.
Naturally these types of impulses are counter-productive, and the conscious aspirant will seek to eliminate the negative side-effects of the energetic stimulation inherent in group spiritual practices.
This Full Moon let us ask our Guides and Teachers to help us participate more fully in Group spiritual practices while avoiding the negative aspects of such powerful energies upon our personality vehicles.
The Spring Equinox
We are now entering the zone of the first great Solar Festival of 2012, the Vernal or spring equinox, which occurs on March 20 at 1:14 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time or on March 19 at 10:14 pm Pacific Daylight Time.
In Central America, indigenous Mayan peoples celebrate the return of the Sun Serpent on the day of the equinox, when the Mayan pyramid located in El Castillo, Mexico lights up with a startling natural light show. The Western face of the pyramid, aglow with late afternoon sunlight, is slowly filled with shadows, as sunset approaches, and these shadows appear to run from the top of the pyramid to the base, creating a play of light and dark resembling a diamond-back snake.
In Japan, the spring (and autumn) equinox marks the celebration of Higan, a week-long Buddhist holiday celebrating the passage from the world of suffering and darkness to the world of enlightenment. Buddhist prayers, rice balls and sushi are offered to the departed ancestors and spring is welcomed with their blessing.
The Persian New Year festival, called Nowruz, also occurs during the March equinox, in sync with the ancient Persian astronomical calendar, which predates Islam by many centuries.
One of the four pagan cross-quarter festivals and a major Sabbat for witches, the Spring Equinox is the day to celebrate the reunion of the Earth Mother Kore with her long lost daughter Persephone, who has been languishing in the underworld throughout the long winter nights. This is the Greek version of the ancient pagan celebration of the coming ascendancy of the Sun, and the rebirth and renewal of plant life.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, gardeners are planting seeds, flowers and trees are budding out, winter is on the wane, and pollen fills the air.
At the moment of the Spring Equinox, the Sun enters the sign of Aries, the Ram. The Sabian Symbol for 1° Aries is “A woman just risen from the sea. A seal is embracing her.”
This represents the emergence of the Great Mother of humanity from the primordial sea of unconsciousness, the evolutionary ascension of the human race from its animalistic roots, and the development of that unique conscious awareness that we celebrate and honor as members of the species homo sapiens.
The Great Mother of humankind is pictured as being embraced by the seal because she is still in some ways as animalistic as she is fully, newly human.
Every year at the Spring Equinox, we embrace our full potential, and with the quickening of the light, as days become longer and nights shorter, we seek to emerge from the ocean of our own unconscious drives and desires, our own animalistic urges, and to become that totally conscious God/dess that is the goal of human evolution on planet Earth.
That evolutionary process is never complete, and is always fraught with the danger that we may allow the seal, our animal instincts and instinctual passions, to overpower our God/dess Self, and in that event, we would return to the ocean from which we came.
Thus the Spring Equinox is the time of the emerging Divinity within each and every one of us, and the time to call upon the Divine to overcome that which is no longer useful to us in an evolutionary sense -- our negative emotions, our base instincts, our aggressive animalistic nature.
The Raphael Initiation
According to the Initiates of the Wisdom School Traditions of the East and West, the Vernal Equinox is one of the four great seasonal festivals marking moments when the activity of the Sun, the sustainer of all life, is at its peak.
Currents of Cosmic energy are set in motion at the time of these great festivals that stream forth from the Sun and from other sources in the Cosmos to rain down upon the Earth, triggering transformation and growth in mineral, vegetable, animal and human realms of existence.
Initiates tell us that if human beings are conscious of the transmission of these powerful energies, there are techniques they can utilize to harness these energies to accelerate their spiritual evolution, improve their mental acuity, and promote health and healing.
“Over the course of the year, passage from one season to another takes place at four points called equinoxes and solstices, which are like nodes of specific forces,” explains Bulgarian Spiritual Master Omraam Mikhail Aivanhov. “The deployment of these forces is organized and regulated by great spirits who take charge of distributing them over the surface of the planet. You must not assume that everything in nature operates mechanically. No, all changes are produced by the work of certain entities who are in charge either of plants, animals, human beings or other creatures.”
“It is the Archangel Raphael who reigns over spring,” Omraam explains. “This archangel has command of a myriad of spirits who work under his supervision on the regeneration and growth of vegetation. So at the beginning of spring you must establish a bond with the Archangel Raphael. Ask him to make you receptive to the virtues hidden in trees, grasses and flowers, so that this new life penetrates you as well.”
The name Raphael means “God cures” and Raphael is the Archangel of both healing and vegetation, who dwells in the sphere of Mercury. It is no coincidence that the Archangel of healing also presides over the development of the healing herbs that have provided human beings with the core of their medical practices around the world, from prehistoric times to the present.
It is no coincidence that the ancient spring Hindu festival of Holi is a fertility festival, which involves the burning of wheat and oats in a sacrificial fire, and also the use of colored powders composed of medicinal herbs.
The Wisdom Schools of the East are the most ancient on Earth, and their practices are the gold standard by which other, later schools are measured.
At the time of the Vernal Equinox, Raphael’s hosts, including angels, but especially the devas, elementals and nature spirits entrusted with the growth of vegetation, spring into action, surrounding the dormant vegetation covering the surface of the Earth, and eventually, entering into the Earth itself, bearing the Cosmic Forces that have been transmitted from the Sun and from other Stellar sources.
These spirits of vegetation impart this energy into the Earth, and their activity actually draws plants upward into the air, pulling those energies and forces that which have been residing deep within the Earth during the long months of winter into plain sight, in the form of stalks, buds and blossoms. Raphael’s hosts hover unceasingly around the growing vegetation, coaxing it upwards, providing each plant with the precise geometrical form and biological structure required for optimum evolution.
If you wish to connect to the nature spirits, and to Raphael, during this momentous Spring Festival season, there are a number of ways you can perform this sacred activity.
First, you can meditate upon the forms of nature. Take a walk through a nearby garden or woods, and then sit down quietly and close your eyes. Call upon Archangel Raphael, and ask Raphael to disclose to you the secrets of the world of plants, and to inform you of the healing qualities of plants you need to improve your own health, or the health of a loved one or neighbor.
Visualize a seed of corn or some other seed with which you are familiar. Then visualize a tiny sprout springing forth from that seed, so deep within the earth, surrounded by a vibration similar to a swirling fog seen upon the water at dawn. See the stalk of the plant being pulled up through the earth as this vibrating fog surrounds and nourishes the plant’s growth.
Visualize the stalk breaking through the earth’s surface, and see the increased vibratory rate of the spiritual beings surrounding the plant, perhaps akin to the glow seen around growing plants in high sun in summertime. Imagine that the spirits within the earth and surrounding the plant contain the perfected form of the adult corn stalk (or whatever plant you are visualizing).
See that perfected form floating in the ethers surrounding the young corn stalk, entering into that corn stalk and informing it of its evolutionary goal.
See the forces of rain and sun, moon and earth, entering into the plant’s evolution, as the vibrating nature spirits above and below ground facilitate the passage of these vital energies into the plant’s physical form. Now visualize the corn stalk growing into its beautiful, tasseled, glory, and the corn itself, the final fruit of the plant’s evolution, emerging into the air.
See the corn surrounded by other similar plants, and imagine a field of such plants connected by a vibrating field of energy of a similar color and texture, creating a kind of group corn spirit, which presides over the corn field, and see that corn spirit connected to an overarching field of highly charged energy that connects the corn field to the springs nearby, the underground streams that flow unseen below the rising golden ears of corn, the trees and weeds and shrubs in hedgerows and woods nearby, the insects of the air, and the worms of the earth, all being directed by the presiding nature spirit of that place to work in harmony with the rapidly vibrating nature spirits under Raphael’s guidance, to consummate the growth and evolution of that one stalk of corn. Visualize the full cycle of growth from emergent sprout to autumn’s seed gift for the next generation of corn.
Finally, visualize Raphael himself, in the extremely high-frequency sphere of Mercury, or Hermes, Lord of Wisdom and of Healing. Raphael is associated with the Heart Chakra, and his aura and his color is emerald green.
Connect your heart with Raphael, and develop a strong feeling of gratitude to Raphael and his hosts for their work in furthering the evolution of the vegetation, the buds, blossoms and beautiful flowers that cover the Earth during springtime.
Let the energy of your chosen plant or flower fill your heart and know that Raphael and his hosts wish for your heart to be full of the Divine Love that motivates and directs their every action.
The task of springtime is to open the heart. Ask Raphael to help you with healing the wounds within your own heart and to help to heal the wounded heart of the world. Ask Raphael to guide you to golden opportunities to heal yourself and others during this season of resurrection and new life.
If you wish, you can take some seeds you have saved from last year’s plantings, or some seeds you obtain in other ways, and make an offering to Raphael and his hosts. Get up at dawn. Go out and visit with the sun. Breathe in the sun’s energies for at dawn during springtime the sun delivers much more Universal Life Force Energy or “prana” than at any other time of year or day. Do this for several minutes. Simply hold the seeds to your heart, and say a prayer. “May Raphael and his hosts open my heart to the healing power of the Mighty Spiritual Sun. May Christ and Vishnu, Raphael and the Divine Mother help me to become more like the Sun every day. May I learn to be as giving and as warm as the Sun, and may I become as beneficial to all those around me as the Sun is beneficial to the Earth below.” Finally, scatter your seeds with a feeling of gratitude. You may do this every day for a week for best results, but performing this ritual even once will enliven your spirit, strengthen your body, quicken your mind, and open your heart.
We recommend this ritual to prepare Lightworkers to deal with the opportunities and difficulties that lie ahead during the upcoming seasons and years of global crisis and global transformation.
The social structure of this society is a reflection of this moment in evolutionary consciousness, highly structured, hierarchical, and driven by mental considerations of perceived self-interest on the part of small elites who govern on the principles of fear, greed and obfuscation.
However, the next evolutionary step for human beings is to re-establish conscious ancient connections with the web of life, with the extended consciousness of the human over-soul, and with the multitude of spiritual beings in higher worlds, to offer in self-sacrifice their highly developed individuated consciousness to the Higher Self, and to establish the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth.
Above all, there must be a healing of the wounded heart of the world. Right now, the vast majority of the world’s people are locked into issues related to the lower chakras – survival, sexual gratification and conquest, personal and collective will to power and conquest, and perpetuation of ancient patterns of dominance and submission.
The human heart is wounded by the war between the sexes, by the inability of the average human being to open his or her heart to love. This war has all but destroyed the basis for the human family.
The human heart is wounded by the constant human war to subdue Mother Nature – and that war is wrecking the world’s human-friendly ecology.
The human heart is wounded by the war of the priests, which has gone on for millennia, pitting one vision of God against another in bloody battles for the souls and wealth of entire peoples.
The human heart is wounded by the war of the rich against the poor, which has gone on for millennia, as those who have power use that power to exploit those whom they should be protecting and nurturing.
There is only one way to heal the wounded heart of the world, and that way is the way that all true Spiritual Masters of both East and West have long traveled and taught. That way is the way of the open heart, the way of Love.
Only by opening our hearts to the suffering of our fellow human beings in countries and religions currently opposed to our own will we be able to understand them, forgive them, and work together with them to establish peaceful relations.
Only by opening our hearts to the suffering of the billions of people living in poverty around the world will be able to create social justice and economic systems that provide the necessities of life for all human beings.
Only by opening our hearts to the suffering of the billions of people who will be adversely affected by global climate change can we find within ourselves the strength to change our addictive patterns of behavior, engrained in our daily lives by the global hydrocarbon economy.
Only by opening our hearts to our fellowship with all living creatures, on land, sea and air, and only by opening our hearts to the web of life that constitutes the living, breathing heart and mind of our planetary Mother will we become sensitive enough to fashion a new human society that can thrive in co-operation with that web of life rather than seeking to subdue, conquer and exploit every element of life on Earth.
The solution to all our problems on Earth can be found if we have the courage to open our hearts to love. Love is the answer. Love is the way, and love will find a way.
It is not fashionable to speak in this manner. Love died in our mainstream discourse some time ago. Love is something that only hippies believed to be real. Too many of those hippies grew up to become yuppies and now strive unceasingly to defend and uphold the increasingly unlovely, deadly and deadening status quo.
That is an index of how far we have gone toward a society that is based on Thanatos – on Death. For on this blue-green planet, in our human society, based upon the duality of human sexuality, human experience manifests within the polarities of Eros and Thanatos, Love and Death.
It is up to us to choose – Death or Love.