Now is the time to fearlessly overcome all obstacles
Welcome to the Leo Solar Festival and the Aquarius Full Moon Eclipse, August 5, 2009 edition of the SatyaCenter newsletter.
Warm greetings from your Editor, Curtis Lang and your co-editor, Jane Sherry.
This Wednesday, August 5, the sun is at 13 degrees 43 minutes Leo and the moon is full at 13 degrees 43 minutes Aquarius, at 5:55 Pacific Daylight Time, or 8:55 pm Eastern Daylight Time.
The American news media is full of smiling faces and bullish talk about the end of the recession, the end of the housing collapse, and the imminent reform of our failed health care system.
Should we believe the talking heads employed by the corporate news media? After all these are the same folks who told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that housing prices would go up for the rest of our lives, and that the only way for America to thrive in the 21st century is to pursue a multitude of endless wars simultaneously, no matter what the cost in blood or treasure.
Get ready for a global reboot!! This Aquarius Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, is the third in a series of such eclipses this summer. This series of eclipses began in 1360 and has foretold many wars and disasters, but there have also been reforms and new social orders instituted on a
global scale.
Australian Esoteric Astrologer Malvin Artley takes a deep look at the entire historical sequence of these powerful eclipses in his new article “Cancer/Leo Solar Festival Eclipses 2009”.
You won’t want to miss this one! For starters, Malvin predicts that US financial markets and/or the US economy and banking system will be taking a hit this fall in the wake of this summer’s celestial fireworks. Malvin also provides an insightful overview of the spiritual meaning of these eclipses, and the good news is that we are in an astrological climate that is amazingly supportive of accelerated spiritual progress!
Our Celestial Weather Report for August includes an amazing array of astrological interactions among the large, outer planets, signifying changes taking place at the most profound levels of the collective consciousness, with major shifts in social relations sure to follow in many areas of life. Political and economic fault-lines are being triggered and major upheavals are likely during the next year.
On an individual level, there will be increasing tensions during the next month or two, and we will all need to utilize the supportive astrological climate to increase our spiritual practices, open our hearts, and begin to help one another in every way we can, because we will all need as much help as we can get!
This month, Saturn and Uranus are moving toward the third of five exact oppositions they will experience between 2008 and 2010. Their next face-off occurs September 15, and during the period between now and then you can expect the tension between these two archetypal enemies in the sky to soar!
Saturn represents existing structures and Uranus represents radical, explosive and immediate change on a large scale. Saturn in Virgo rules the guts and when opposed to Uranus in Pisces there is a tendency to experience the tension between them in the solar plexus and the stomach, as gut-wrenching fear.
As a society, and as individuals, we know that the existing structures of our lives must change because of the collapse of the global financial system, the slow-motion environmental crisis, and the advent of peak oil. Further we know that the existing political and social structures around the world are completely incapable of dealing with these epochal shifts in human society.
Yet the Saturn-Uranus opposition tends to freeze us in place, and to tempt us to escape into a self-induced cocoon of mental, emotional and physical sedatives. The American news media is promoting the fantasy that the financial crisis is healing itself, and that soon we can simply return to our old ways of life, abusing the planet, borrowing to spend wantonly on unnecessary and destructive toys, and dictating that the rest of the world live according to rules that conform to the convenience of America’s predatory political and financial elites.
The fact that we are only mid-way through this powerful series of oppositions between Uranus and Pisces, which began as America’s financial system imploded, indicates that there is most likely no truth to the mainstream media propaganda, which is designed to encourage Americans to escape from the reality of life in the 21st century, and from facing the American empire‘s slow decline from the pinnacle of power.
A collective tendency toward escapism, and possibly to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, is exacerbated by the Neptune-Jupiter-Chiron triple conjunction in Aquarius. We are dreaming big (Neptune and Jupiter), and we are fashioning new visions of vast changes in our world, which can heal humanity’s deepest wounds (Chiron), but we are also tempted to escape into our dreams and to rush for cover into the nearest community we can find, to submerge our identities in a comfortable group-mind experience that will give us a superficial sense of power, comfort, direction and righteousness, and perhaps enable us to project our fears and anxieties onto the enemies of our chosen community.
So this is a time when religious fundamentalists, manipulative political leaders, amoral advertising and marketing wizards, and aggressive nationalist and communalist political movements could have a field day shaping the collective psyche to fit their own twisted ends.
At the same time, there is a growing recognition among people at the grass roots of society that the Emperor has no clothes, that our leadership is morally and intellectually bankrupt and that radical change will be required at every level of society during the next decades of global crisis.
New visions of post-industrial, post-oil, peaceful, sustainable human society are percolating up from these grass roots, and the mainstream consciousness will be prepared to receive these ideas within the next two or three years, as the bankruptcy of “business as usual” becomes more and more apparent to even the most hardened soul enthralled by consensus reality.
Unfortunately, the short term Cosmic Weather Forecast is quite challenging, because as Uranus and Saturn gear up for their September confrontation, Mars engages with Saturn and other planets in a series of increasingly irritating and even explosive aspects, designed to test the patience of even a Saint.
From August 1, Mars in Gemini begins to square Saturn in Virgo; the square is exact on August 10 and continues until August 20. Mars in Gemini in the Crowley Tarot deck signifies mental cruelty, and is depicted by the nine of swords, one of the most ill-omened cards in the deck. When Mars, the planet of physical energy and aggressive behavior, is located in the sign of Gemini, it triggers an extremely overactive and base mentality, and you can get caught up in a war of words that easily escalates beyond your wildest expectations.
When Mars in Gemini is squared by Saturn, the planet of restriction, the expansive energy of Mars and of Gemini threatens to explode. There is a feeling that everyone around you is boxing you in, and that circumstances beyond your control are conspiring against you to prevent you from doing what is essential for your very survival, for that which nurtures your deepest self. This is, of course, all an illusion, but very convincing to the egoistic mind, which will then tend to lash out in response.
So be prepared for folks around you to have significant problems with emotional melt-downs, intermittent, intense bickering, gut-wrenching fear, and tendencies toward mindless escapism or over-controlling behaviors.
Be alert for symptoms of similar syndromes that may pop up in your own behavior, and be gentle with yourself and with the significant others in your life.
There are times in everyone’s life when the way forward appears to be blocked. We find that we cannot retrace our steps, because that way too is closed to us. Then we find that attempt to turn left or right are likewise thwarted and alternative paths dissipate into thin air. These are often the most important times of our lives, when we are being given a golden opportunity for a true evolutionary leap in our thinking and in our way of life.
For these are times when we must choose between the remaining two directions. We can descend into chaos, escapism, and the comforts of narrow-minded communalism, or we can ascend into spiritual realms, accelerate and intensify our spiritual practices and connect with the creativity, the energy and the wisdom of Higher Mind, which will enable us to find and pursue a new path, the path of Spirit that leads to fulfillment of our Higher Purpose.
Let us all choose that Higher Path for ourselves this difficult month and let us choose to help one another on the difficult Ascension Path we must travel together if we are to create a new equitable and sustainable 21st century human civilization that works for all of us.
Now, while the high summer season gifts us with long days and early dawns, we can all ward off the malefic effects of the current difficult astrological aspects by performing a Sunrise Meditation exercise to link us to the warmth, vitality, and generosity the Sun gives freely to all.
Now is the time to Surrender. Surrender to Love.
Kriya Yoga Dawn Meditation and Breathing Exercises
Here is a variation on meditations taught by Shri Yukteswar and Drunvalo Melchizedek.
Begin your day with a few minutes of silent contemplation as you lie on your back with your eyes closed or better yet seated in a chair, or in half lotus position. I have also done this meditation in a half lotus seated under a tree or walking mindfully in a garden.
Acknowledge your guides and teachers, and give thanks for the new day.
Notice the breath going in and out of your nostrils.
Place your tongue at the top of your palate, behind your teeth. Breathe in through the nostrils, working from the stomach, while you count to seven. (If you can't reach seven, then just keep track of your own personal count and repeat the same number each time you breathe.)
Breathe out through the nostrils, while you count to seven.
Continue to breathe deeply, in and out, to the count of seven.
While you inhale, imagine the Sun is right above your head.
See the golden liquid light of the Sun pour down over your head and into your prana tube.
The prana tube is approximately two inches in diameter and extends from a point about a foot above your head through the center of your body, exiting at the perineum and extending down into the earth about a foot.
The liquid light of the sun pours down that tube into your heart.
As you exhale, see the silvery liquid light of the Earth rise up from far beneath your feet into your prana tube, all the way into your heart.
As you continue to breathe, see the golden and silvery liquid light, which is prana, chi or Universal Life Force Energy continue to pour into your prana tube from above and below.
Do this breath ten times.
Unity Affirmations for Self-Realization
"I unify my physical body, my etheric body, my astral body, my egoistic will and my lower mind with my higher self, my higher purpose, and my higher mind." 
I unify my higher self, higher purpose and higher mind with the grand unfolding plan for the optimization of the Universe and the liberation of all sentient and non-sentient beings in love and light."
"I unify my higher self, higher purpose and higher mind with the Atman within, the Great Father Mother Source within."
" I feel the downpouring flow of love and light from the Atman within."
" I feel the uprising flow of kundalini energy from deep within the Earth, from deep within my root chakra, and as these flows of love and light meet and intermingle in my heart of hearts -- I am the I am, I am that I am, I am that I am."
With each inhalation and each exhalation, more and more liquid silvery and gold light pours into the heart.
Now, every time you inhale, golden liquid light pours down from your crown chakra into your heart while silvery liquid light pours up from your root chakra into your heart, at the same time.
Now, every time you exhale, silvery liquid light pours up from your root chakra into your heart, while, simultaneously, golden liquid light pours down from your crown chakra into your heart.
By the fifth or sixth breath, the silvery and gold light fills your heart.
See the silvery and gold liquid light pouring from your heart into the rest of your body, filling it up entirely, all the way to the tips of your fingernails and toenails and the tips of the hair on your head.
After ten breaths, relax for a moment.
Then do the same breath sequence, inhaling to the count of five and exhaling to the count of five, five more times.
Invoking the Cosmic Christ
As you do the next five breaths:
1. See a rainbow colored beam of light shoot up from the top of your prana tube into the sky, rising up about fifty miles above the surface of the Earth.
2. See this rainbow colored light fill the sky, and expand until it surrounds the entire planet.
3. See a rainbow colored beam of light shoot down from the bottom of your prana tube deep into the Earth, filling the Earth and its waters with brilliant colors.
4. Invoke the secret name of Christ. Chant the following to yourself over and over, "Yod, Heh, Vau, Heh, Yod, Heh, Shin, Vau, Heh", pronounced "Yod, Hey, Vow, Hey, Yod, Hey, Shin, Vow, Hey". These Hebrew letters stand for JHVH or Jehovah, and JHSVH (Jeheshua or Jesus). The four letters comprising the name of Jehovah, YHVH, stand for the four elements, fire, water, air and earth. The fifth element, which is spirit, is called Shin. When you put Shin, or spirit in the middle of the four elements, into YHVH, you get Jeheshua, or Jesus. Jesus indeed infused spirit into the material world through his Divine presence and ability to sacrifice everything, even his own body, for love. So chant these nine letters over and over to yourself as you meditate and breathe deeply and slowly. In this way, you can attract Christ consciousness, the spirit of Jesus, into your aura, your mind, and your heart.
That rainbow colored light represents Divine Love in the form of Living, Intelligent Light (Holy Spirit, prana, Reiki energy), transformed into the beautiful energy signature of the rainbow, which has always been a symbol of the unity between this world and the Divine, between God and humanity.
By giving back to Sky and Earth, we acknowledge our interdependence with all the sentient and non-sentient beings in spiritual and material realms, with the living light and with the mystery underlying creation.
Sun Salutation
At the end of this second round of breathing, take an additional three breaths in the same manner. 
While you breathe, imagine that silver and gold liquid light radiates out from your heart, filling your aura, a sphere that extends about an arm's length in every direction around your body. Imagine your aura glowing like the sun, radiating light out into the world in every direction.
After these breathing exercises, relax your body and your mind.
Keeping your eyes closed, and breathing deeply and slowly, reflect on the rising sun, know the sun to be a living being, and reflect on the qualities of the sun you would like to make your own.
The sun gives generously to all without exception without asking for return. The sun represents, purity, conscious will, cosmic intelligence, limitless light, and so much more.
Connect your sphere of light with the sun's sphere of light in your own mind.
Acknowledge that the sun is a sentient spiritual being. Thank the sun for being such a good model for you, for helping you on your spiritual path each and every day.
Thank your spiritual teachers and your holy guardian angel for the protection, grace and guidance they provide you every day. Thank the devas and nature spirits of the place where you currently reside for helping to maintain the equilibrium of natural forces that sustains all life on Earth. Thank Mother Earth for birthing you and nurturing you in her body.
The ideal time to do this meditation is, of course, dawn, but evening twilight is also a propitious time for this exercise.
Jane and I will be traveling to Antioch, California to visit our spiritual teacher, Shri Anandi Ma, at her new ashram for a 10 day celebration of the MahaSamadhi of our teacher’s teacher, Dhyanyogi Madhusudandasji. We will return laden with the spiritual treasures Ma provides us, renewed and ready to take the next steps on our grand adventure. We look forward to sharing new insights and new energies with you then.
In the meantime, may you each receive the grace and guidance you need to achieve your loftiest spiritual goals, and may you receive the material abundance you require to support yourselves and your families during these difficult times.
Wishing you all Ease & Grace. With much love and light from Curtis and Jane!
Top Satya Center Stories of the Week
Get inspired reading two lovely poems from James Bertolino's "Pocket Animals" & learn how we can co-create with the Divine Mother a world of beauty. Read Impediment & Grammar & learn to smile amidst the chaos of creation!
“Leo must somehow manifest its gift,” says Esoteric Astrologer Malvin Artley in this month’s article “Cancer/Leo Solar Festival Eclipses 2009”.
“This eclipse, being of the North Node, will tend toward opportunities for manifestation.. .In all, the period between now and the end of the year will be an active time in world affairs,” says Malvin.
“The eclipse figure shows Jupiter as lord of the eclipse, marking it as being expansive and beneficial. It is in a wide conjunction with the Moon in Aquarius,” Malvin continues. “The full moon axis is in an easy opposition with Mars, adding to the sense of enthusiasm and energy. Mars is in an applying square to Saturn though, which will tend to frustrate things, so we have a sort of push-pull effect in this figure – enthusiastic on the one hand and frustrating on the other. It is a classic sort of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ sort of scenario. Much good can come from the opportunities presented, but we have to be willing to accept that there will be certain obstacles to overcome in the process.”
But what to do to mitigate the negative astrological influences and material difficulties we encounter during this period of challenging growth?
“Emptying the mind is the greatest activity,” argues the great Guru Swami Amir Jyoti, in his Satsang entitled “Meditation and the Simple Life”.
“It seems as if you are doing nothing,” explains Swami Jyoti. “It seems like escapism and selfishness to those who are egocentric. But try it. If it were mere escapism, anyone should be able to do it, but only one among millions can do it. Try to just quiet your mind—in your dreams, your meditations, your work, your life. How many have achieved even that much? Do not try to control or conquer anything, not only in your mind but outside you as well. In Oneness there is nothing to conquer or lose. Simply let go and allow Consciousness or Light to shine.”
We can find more inspiration in Sita Stuhlmiller’s beautiful article “Fearless Women”, which recounts the stories of powerful spiritual women from a variety of spiritual traditions around the world who conquered seemingly invincible enemies and achieved the highest spiritual attainments. Their stories are ultimately one story, the story of the ascension of woman to the pinnacle of the Divine. All women who follow in the footsteps of these fearless women come to know themselves for the Divine One who sustains our Universe.
“Oh Goddess, all that is knowable are your various distinctions, and all women in the world reflect your capacity entirely,” sing the Hindu sages. “By you, Oh Mother, this world is filled. For you who are beyond praise, how can we sing of your glory?”
As we ponder the transition from the Old Age of oil, exploitation, patriarchy, and hierarchy to a New Age of sustainable energy, sexual balance and Universal Human Family, let us take the time to recall another moment when humanity emerged from the Darkness into the Light, and took the first faltering steps toward creation of a new human civilization, a story retold by Native American-Mongolian Shaman Jade Wah’oo Grigori in this month’s article, “Grandfather Fire and the Circle of Animal Brothers”.
Jade tells the marvelous story of how Eagle Brother undertook a heroic journey to bring human beings “The Ways”, so “each would have the opportunity of seeking and finding fulfillment of their own unique path of reunification with Grandfather Fire. That is, that we, who are here on the Earth - our Grandmother, the primordial feminine principle of Creator - would have available to us the methods and techniques, songs, ceremonies and meditations through whose application we would each be enabled in our Quest for our own Spirit’s Truth, our own autonomous path of Self-Realization; our path of return to Grandfather Fire - the primordial masculine principle of Creator. The gift of Eagle was given so that we, who are here in the flesh, would awaken as Spirit.”
Jade’s story is a heart-opening revelation, and Jane and I know from personal experience that as caretaker of “The Ways”, Jade brings to all who share his medicine a gift of fire, a wisdom from Eagle Brother, and a touch of magic that heals the body, the mind and aching heart.
It’s the time of year when zucchini start popping up all over our garden & in the farmers markets, demanding our attention, and Jane offers us all a lovely recipe for “Yummy, Quick and Easy Zucchini Soup”.
Top News Stories From Around the Web
(These are excerpts from important articles that offer deep insights, a broad view of global financial, political and social trends, and a clear alternative to the mindless mainstream media propaganda machine. Click on the links below to read the full story. Don’t be satisfied with just the excerpts. It’s worth taking the time to be fully informed.)
Daily Kos
The End of the Beginning of the Collapse
By mwmwm
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/27/758493/-The-End-of-the-Beginning-of-the-Collapse
July 27, 2009 at 03:37:20 PM PDT
What I've been learning over the last couple of years, as one of the two ApocaDocs gathering and bequipping stories about five likely collapse scenarios (climate chaos, species collapse, biology breach, infectious disease, peak resources -- oh, and recovery too) is that nothing is happening as expected.
Scientists and specialists within all these topical arenas are saying "more than we thought," "faster than expected," "alarming," "unanticipated," "recently realized," "worse than we thought."
The great migrations themselves are becoming extinct, from salmon to elk to butterflies to tuna. Bats in the Northeast are suffering catastrophically from white-nose syndrome, at die-off rates of 90%. Pollinators are suffering dramatically. Top-of-the-food-chain predators everywhere are collapsing. All marine mammals have high levels of PCBs, and flame retardants, and a broad array of other human-made toxins coursing through their bodies.
. . ."The Economy" is, as we are seeing, far more like an ecosystem than like a predictable, plottable system. The "financial system" is based on a prediction of a stable future -- and I'm pretty sure that stability is not in our future.
So what happens to the financial system when the past is utterly no predictor of future performance, and all bets are off?
Dollars and Sense
The Real Unemployment Rate Hits a 68-Year High
Comparing the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “U-3” and “U-6” rates.
http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709miller.html
By John Miller, July/August 2009 Issue
Although you have to dig into the statistics to know it, unemployment in the United States is now worse than at any time since the end of the Great Depression.
From December 2007, when the recession began, to May of this year, 6.0 million U.S. workers lost their jobs. The big three U.S. automakers are closing plants and letting white-collar workers go too. Chrysler, the worst off of the three, will lay off one-quarter of its workforce even if it survives. Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and giant banking conglomerate Citigroup have both laid off thousands of workers. Alcoa, the aluminum maker, has let workers go. Computer maker Dell and express shipper DHL have both canned many of their workers. CircuitCity, the leading electronics retailer, went out of business, costing its 40,000 workers their jobs. Lawyers in large national firms are getting the ax. Even on Sesame Street, workers are losing their jobs.
The official unemployment rate hit 9.4% in May—already as high as the peak unemployment rates in all but the 1982 recession, the worst since World War II. And topping the 1982 recession’s peak rate of 10.8% is now distinctly possible. The current downturn has pushed up unemployment rates by more than any previous postwar recession. . .
Accounting for the large number of marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons raises the count of unemployed to 24.0 million workers for May 2009. Those numbers push up the U-6 unemployment rate to 15.9% or a seasonally adjusted rate of 16.4%.
Why is the real unemployment rate so much higher than the official, or U-3, rate? First, forced part-time work has reached its highest level ever, going all the way back to 1956 and including the 1982 recession. In May 2009, 8.8 million workers were forced to work part time for economic reasons. Forced part-timers are concentrated in retail, food services, and construction; about a quarter of them are young workers between 16 and 24. The number of discouraged workers is high today as well. In May, the BLS counted 2.2 million “marginally attached” workers. That matches the highest number since 1994, when the agency introduced this measure.With the economy in the throes of a catastrophic downturn, unemployment, no matter how it’s measured, will rise dramatically and impose yet more devastating costs on society and on those without a job or unable to find full-time work.
News From Antiwar.com:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/23/poll-majority-in-us-oppose-both-wars/
Poll: Majority in US Oppose Both Wars
Posted By Jason Ditz On July 23, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
A new AP-GfK poll released today shows a majority of Americans opposed to the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The numbers also reveal growing concern that the president will be able to meet his goals, particularly in Iraq.
The Iraq War was opposed 63-34, while the slightly more popular Afghan War was opposed 53-44. Both numbers split strongly along party lines, with roughly two thirds of Republican supportin