2012 -- Year of Global Transformation!
Welcome to the February 2012 Satya Center Cosmic Weather Forecast. Greetings from your co-Editors, Curtis Lang and Jane Sherry. This month we take a look at the year 2012, the end of the Mayan Calendar, the unfolding of the Grand Cardinal Cross, and the energies that will create the Cosmic Weather patterns affecting all of humanity in the coming years.
In our article on Candlemas your co-Editors Curtis and Jane offer a look at this quintessential Aquarian Feast which occurred on February 2. This Feast, also called Imbolc is celebrated as a High Holy Day of the Celtic Calendar, marking the moment midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, when the first glimmerings of spring energies can be detected on the subtle planes of being.
For gardeners and farmers, Candlemas is when the first stirrings of the earth can be felt, animals leave their burrows and farmers and gardeners alike start planting seeds indoors to be set into the ground as soon as it can be worked.
Candlemas is considered by Christians to be the date of the presentation of the Baby Jesus in the Temple, 40 days following Christmas.
Festivals occurring at the mid-point of a fixed sign, like Aquarius, are traditionally feasts of prognostication. The month of Aquarius is the month of the Rowan, tree of the quickening, and of prophetic visions. So plan on having a meditation moment this Full Moon and you may be surprised by what you envision! May the labyrinth of Earthly life, karmic connections and social relations be illuminated for you this Full Moon and may you find the path of Spirit clear and unobstructed at last!
This Tuesday, February 7 we celebrate the Aquarian Solar Festival and the Leo Full Moon, also known as The Snow Moon at 1:54 pm (PST), or 4:54 pm (EST).
Here in the East San Francisco Bay Area, snow is the furthest thing from our minds, and there is nothing subtle about the emerging energies of the springtime to come. It’s sunny every day, with highs in the mid-60s. Flowering trees are in bloom up and down the suburban boulevards even though each morning we find frost on our windshield. The ground can be worked, but is still quite cold.
This weekend Jane and I harvested snap peas from our back yard garden, collard greens are growing bigger finally and the colorful rocket-shaped tipped flowers surmounting our torch lilies grow taller and more brilliant day by day. The jasmine vines are proliferating wildly. If you cut some and bring it indoors as we did with forsythia on the east coast, it will delight you with the first blooms of the season, bringing fragrance into the house. The first local farmstand in Brentwood, the town next door to us, opened this weekend with broccoli, squash and two varieties of oranges. Everywhere in town driving around, we can see so many varieties of citrus in great abundance on trees in peoples' yards.
Hopefully the rainy season will eventually arrive. We don’t know if this is the beginning of a drought season or if perhaps the onset of the winter rains have been delayed. Some long-range forecasters seem to think so.
At any rate, we’re happy to be back from the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, where we found many new treasures which will soon appear in our Crystal Gallery, including new olivine studded meteorites, Libyan Desert Glass and much much more.
The prices of crystals and gems have risen to new highs, even though the number of buyers at the show reached new lows, except at those places selling inexpensive beads and do-it-yourself jewelry materials.
We keep seeing evidence of both inflation and recession everywhere we look, reminding us of the “stagflation” of the Nineteen Seventies. The only difference is that today’s inflationary depression seems to be much more severe in every way.
Signs are that the New Year of 2012 will be challenging on many levels, but we remain confident that with foresight, discernment, courage and a little help from our friends all will be well in our world.
February Cosmic Weather Forecast
Tuesday, as the Full Moon rises in Leo, reflecting the Sun’s rays in Aquarius, Saturn in Libra turns retrograde, inaugurating a several month journey of revisioning the most basic structures in our lives. All relationships come under Saturn in Libra’s scrutiny, and during this lengthy retrograde phase many long-simmering relationship issues involving loved ones, family, and work colleagues surface for recognition and healing.
With Mars already retrograde in Virgo, and set to remain there for quite a while, we have no doubt already noticed that all the little details of life seem to be more and more problematic. All our most basic activities seem to need to be de-constructed, analyzed, and tweaked before we can move forward in any area of life. Patience is the key note here!
Needless to say, this is not a good time to attempt to initiate major new projects. With Mars in an “unhappy” position, you might find that frustrations seem to pile up around you. There is a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later, but with Mars retrograde, whoever initiates aggressive actions will be the big loser at the end of the day.
On the positive side of the Cosmic Ledger, Neptune entered its own sign of Pisces a few days ago for the first time in over 160 years, and will stay in Pisces for the next thirteen years. The previous Neptune in Pisces cycle was co-incidental with the discovery of the Planet of Mystery and Collective Consciousness, and initiated the Romantic Era, which brought an immense flowering of the arts, along with a Revolutionary impulse that sought to confront the Establishment throughout Europe.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysse Shelley, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johann Wolfgang van Goethe epitomized the Romantic sensibility, which prized intuition above rationality, and sought to undo the excesses of the Enlightenment by reconnecting the human spirit with Nature’s rhythms, and with Cosmic cycles of Being.
This same Romantic impulse re-emerged during the Nineteen Sixties with the popularization of psychedelic drugs, free love, radical politics, and Eastern mysticism. Now we are set to see a global tidal wave of similar energies, which will be extremely supportive of individual spiritual journeying, consciousness expansion, spontaneity, intuitive awareness, and various forms of collective consciousness manifesting in revolutionary action directed against the tyrants who control our economic, political and religious systems worldwide.
The Full Moon occurs at 18° 32’ Leo with the Sun at 18° 32’ Aquarius. The Sabian Symbol for 19° Leo is A Houseboat Party. This symbol indicates that the essential nature of this Full Moon is to join with others in a protected space in which we can allow our imaginations and our emotions to flow freely, unbound by the normal constraints of everyday, grounded realities.
The Sabian Symbol for 19° Aquarius is A Forest Fire Being Subdued by the Use of Water, Chemicals and Sheer Muscular Energy. The symbolic meaning is that of a collective effort to subdue the destructive forces threatening the natural world, upon which human society depends for its survival.
Notice the themes related to Neptune in Pisces. On the houseboat, the party promises us expansive social freedoms in the context of a protected subculture where joyful explorations of alternative lifestyles can be conducted free of oppressive social structures. This is the lunar aspect of the moment.
The creative energies unleashed by the lunar forces manifest in a group effort to contain a dangerous, raging, destructive, elemental energy. This effort finds its focus in the Aquarian Solar energies mentioned above.
This Full Moon we will all feel an energy stream infusing Peace and Love into the consciousness of humanity, and a willingness to employ every tool available to the human imagination to bring the fires of greed, warfare, and environmental destruction under control.
Let the energies of Peace and Love set the keynote for our next thirteen years, as we journey through the difficult years at the heart of the Grand Cardinal Cross, which dominates the Cosmic Weather Forecast for the next decade.
Valentine's Day 2012
This month, and this Full Moon, as we've seen, in spite of challenging aspects, the stars are aligned for love and romance!
So let's take a look at the deeper meaning of Valentine's Day, which although suffering from over-commercialization, still deserves a moment of celebration by lovers all over the world!
St. Valentine's Day has been a celebration of romantic and courtly love in the West for hundreds of years, and a time for soulmates to ponder their great good fortune in sharing an earthly journey that accelerates their spiritual evolution and provides them with countless opportunities to open their hearts and become One with a Love Divine.
This holiday has pagan and heretical Christian origins, and interesting analogies with certain medieval Hindu practices, all of which celebrate the Universal Life Force Energy in its manifestation as sexual union.
In ancient Rome, February 13 was the feast of the fertility god Faunus and February 15 was the Feast of Lupercalia, dedicated to another fertility god, Lupercus. The priests of Pan Lyceus would perform purification ceremonies designed to promote fertility among Roman women. Young priests would circle the city walls with strips of skin cut from sacrificial animals, scourging women they encountered along the way to purify them in preparation for pregnancy. The Latin "februaue" means "to purify" after this "Feast of Purification." Some sources say that the thongs made from the skins of sacrificed animals "which the priests used on the evening of February 14 to whip women" were called "februa".
At Lupercalia, young women wrote their names on slips of papyrus and put them in a box. Then young men would take turns withdrawing the slips of paper, and would pair off for the day with the women whose names they had picked.
In 12th century southern France, "Valentine Clubs" appeared, which constituted a more playful, chivalric, and Christianized version of the ancient Roman fertility festivals.
Every year on February 14th, the Valentines assembled in the local town square, according to John Rutheford's invaluable guide to medieval gallantry, "The Troubadors". Two couples, dressed as Cupid, Mercy, Loyalty and Chastity would lead a parade of couples around the town, accompanied by trumpeters and banner-bearers.
The procession would end at the local Hotel, where the celebrants performed a "mass" dedicated to the worship of Love. At the close of the ceremony, the couples dispersed, and a silver casket containing the names of all gentlemen present was presented to the ladies.
Each lady drew a slip, and Cupid then brought the ladies together with their chosen gentlemen. The newly formed couples were declared Valentines for the year. Gentlemen were required to be faithful to their ladies for the next twelve months, to provide their ladies with abundant flowers throughout the period, to offer regular gifts to their ladies, to escort their ladies wherever they so desired, to make songs and poems or to engage in jousts in her honor, and to guard her honor jealously. Marriage of any pair of Valentines was strictly forbidden.
As we celebrate today's secular version of Valentine's Day, let us all meditate upon the origins of the Feast, and celebrate the mysteries of Love and Life that are the traditional domain of the Goddess and the traditional rewards to those gallant gentle men whose spiritual veneration of the female principle provided entire medieval communities with the blessings of courtly love and chivalric romance, and served as a potent counterweight to the patriarchal, martial values of the feudal society, structured and stratified according to bloodline, personal battle skills and the ability to field a force of loyal soldiers in the quest for ever more lands to govern and control.
If you are interested in finding your soulmate, learning to live compatibly with your soulmate, or in learning to achieve loving Union with the Divine as an individual, you might enjoy learning more about the Spiritual Laws of Love on this St. Valentine's Day.
Jane and I are writing a free online e-book, Back to the Garden: Cultivating Love in Our Lives, and the first several profusely illustrated chapters are online now.
In our book, you will read about the many flavors of soulmates, the different levels of love relationships, and the spiritual road to reunion with the Divine which committed lovers travel in a journey of spiritual discovery unlike any other. Jane and I dissect the root causes of the war between the sexes and how that war is fueled by karma, egotism, and the tragic fallacy of romantic love.
Discover strategies for building love partnerships that last, based upon equality and unconditional love. Uncover the hidden teachings of sexual balance and sexual partnership that can bring about equality and partnership among men and women for the first time on planet Earth.
We are entering the Age of the Divine Lovers, and the entry of Neptune into Pisces promises to open a doorway to romance, to spiritual partnership and to the Divine for lovers everywhere. For unconditional love, true partnership and equality between male and female provide the spiritual foundation for the dawning Age of Aquarius.
In the chapter entitled Back to the Garden Part 8: The New Age of the Divine Lovers, Curtis and Jane explore the history of male and female relationships and unveil the Mystery School teachings and practices that can provide an energetic pathway to new paradigms for human love beyond the war between the sexes.
Predictions for 2012, The Grand Cardinal Cross, Ascension Practices, & Global Transformation
This month we offer our readers a set of very important stories that provide a roadmap for this epoch-making year of 2012 -- and beyond! We’ve gathered together some of the best minds among the most distinguished astrologers in the world, from America, Europe and Australia, representing Mystery School traditions of the East and the West to examine this year’s aspects, the ongoing Grand Cardinal Cross configuration that dominates this decades Cosmic Weather Patterns, the Mayan Prophecies and much, much more!
Esoteric Astrologer Malvin Artley’s new article entitled Chinese New Year 2012: The Year of the Rain Dragon, uses the tools employed by Chinese Astrology to decipher the Cosmic Weather patterns set in place at this New Year. Malvin offers predictions concerning political problems, economic worries, the 2012 Presidential election, and much much more.
Australian Astrologer Lyvea Rose tells you everything you need to know about Mayan astrology, the Galactic Butterfly and the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius in her article entitled 2012, Mayan Prophecy, and Galactic Change.
Respected American Astrologer Bill Herbst has written about 100 articles on the implications of the year 2012 and the unfolding of the Grand Cardinal Cross in the last dozen years, and Bill offers us his unique perspective on this period of global transformation in his article Clarifying the Timeline of Change: 2012 and Beyond!
“June 24, 2012 is the ‘critical mass’ point, the date of the initial partile pass of Uranus in first-quarter square to Pluto (exactly 90° ahead),” Bill explains. “That day, month, and even season does not, however, represent any ‘great awakening’. Rather, it is simply the first of the seven exact passes Uranus will make to Pluto over the three years from summer 2012 through spring 2015. In terms of real events that go with the symbolism, however, we have to stretch out the timeline, extending it for many years before and after 2012.”
“The decade of the 2010s will almost entirely be taken up with short-term responses and dubious quick fixes to a multi-faceted long-term crisis---a set of interconnected challenges that will shape the next 400 years of human social evolution,” Bill predicts. Read Bill’s article to find out more!
In his new article 2012 And All That, European astrologer Adrian Duncan, who provides Satya Center’s daily, weekly and yearly horoscopes, found on our home page, dissects the apocalyptic mindset of many individuals concerning the events in the Mayan calendar and their expectations for the upcoming year.
“Welcome to Aquarius, the middle sign of winter,” says American Astrologer Jonathan Pearl. “We adjust our diets to align with this energy. Since Sun in Aquarius gives us an opportunity to increase our knowledge, we eat to support our minds. This is worth quite a bit of thought (no pun intended). Our minds are our most precious resource. Everything we do depends on our brain.”
Read Jonathan’s article Aquarius Foods in Mid Winter and discover some delicious ideas for foods and herbs to “feed your head”.
Jane and I hope you will find much to uplift you, nurture you, and inform you in this Full Moon Festival Newsletter.
May this year be the beginning of a profound experience of increased connection to your loved ones, to your Guides and Teachers, and to the Collective Consciousness of Humanity.
May you experience clarity, ever-greater discernment and ongoing equilibrium.
Above all, may you be surrounded by and infused with Love and Light, and may you find golden opportunities to share Love and Light with all those with whom you come in contact day and night!
Meditation Moment: Candlemas - In the Belly of Winter
"Candlemas - In The Belly of Winter" by Jane Sherry.
Within frozen depths does warmth stir, and mud rises.
Seeds of air & fire, water & starlight move into the cold and wet places
that awaken from slumber.
Enlivened by bird seed, scattered over my snow cover,
I dream of spring, pulse quickens,
gardens form pictures in my body.
A spark, a heart quickening; fire-seeds
scatter out of my womb into the night,
into the dawn.
The great circle of the year draws around
again, the small flame enters the chamber.
A new year hastens us to wakefulness.