Time for Love
In this time of extreme weather changes, political and personal upheaval, financial and economic uncertainty, each of us is dealing with lots of negative emotions. Dealing with negative collective thought forms and our own individual challenges encourages us to look within.
We don’t have the control over global warming as individuals. We don’t have the personal power to transform the rules of the political and financial games currently being played on this planet.
Together, over time, perhaps we can get inspired, individually and collectively to reshape the way we live so our communities work to support the majority of people in harmony with our environment.
For now, we are all struggling with the emotions of fear, loss, helplessness and perhaps anger that the crisis of global civilization is so threatening.
So we have to perform alchemy on ourselves and transform the lead of our negatively charged emotional bodies into the gold of inspiration, magic and higher mind.
To catalyze this transformation we must open our hearts to love and let the heart lead. We can find our way forward to new ways of being in the world, but not with angry emotions or judgement, only with the fullness of the radiance of wisdom, no matter that our inspiration be a small seed or a giant oak.
The Aquarian Solar Festival holidays in the month of February are a season of Love. They offer us a chance to express both romantic love and agape, brotherly love. Now, more than ever, is the time for the human family to become as one with each other regardless of religion, culture, education or occupation.
Now is the time to practice loving kindness, compassion and understanding, or where there is incomprehension, at least practice tolerance, keeping an open mind and judging not with the values of any particular tradition but with the values of love and respect for all of life.
We each contain within us the ability to love, to be loved, to honor even that which we do not understand. This is our true nature.
We each contain within us the ability to change, to offer kindness to strangers, to see violence around us and choose the path of peace.
The cosmic weather patterns are supporting us this month with an abundance of Love and Light which is characteristic of the sign of Aquarius in spiritual traditions around the world.
Read our article “Aquarian Festivals of Love and Light” to learn about how people celebrate love around the world this month, on Valentine’s Day, the Hindu festival Basant Panchami, The Festival of Our Lady of Lourdes, Candlemas, the Roman Festival of Diana and more.
Last Sunday, February 2nd, was Candlemas and not only is it one of my favorite holidays, but may have been one of my favorite days of the whole last year and a half, because we finally received the blessing of the rains!
The day started with grey cloudy skies. Back east, where I came from, I’d rarely needed to wish for rain or clouds. Instead, we wanted fewer cloudy days, and more sun.
Now, living here, northeast of San Francisco, I find sometimes that one more sunny day just about pushes me over the edge. This winter in the Bay Area we are having Los Angeles style summer smog which reaches way out from the Bay to the eastern grasslands where we live.
You have no idea how soothing gray clouds, rainy skies can be when you are parched and desperate for rain. When the pollution is so visible that the air appears to have a brown tint and dust blows freely and coats everything in its path, the need for rain is literal and visceral and acute!
For those of you who live east of the Rockies, when every other day brings rain, sleet, snow or floods as it has this winter, one may be forgiven for forgetting that rain is a blessing.
California is in such an extreme drought. San Francisco had the same amount of rainfall last year as Death Valley and the seasonal winter rains never arrived.
So on Candlemas, also known as St. Brigid’s Day (also known as Groundhog Day), we feasted upon the rains which blessed the skies, the earth, the waters & the air.
As our new year quickens with the return of the Light, we are grateful yet again for Nature’s Wisdom and Bounty. We’re enjoying the sun rising a bit earlier each morning and the little bit of extra light at the end of the day.
Now is the time of purification and preparation for the spring festivals, in Celtic, NeoPagan and Christian traditions alike. Lent, the next forty days, is the ideal time to begin personal purification in preparation for the accelerated influx of light and life-force initiated at the Spring Equinox and Easter festivals.
Read the whole Candlemas article at satyacenter.com which includes a traditional Candlemas purification ceremony which you can do at your own hearth. In this way you can open your heart to love and transmute those negative emotions.
The Message of Candlemas: Water is the Most Precious Element on Earth
The thing we came to understand most profoundly on Candlemas, was about water. Water, the precious life blood of our planet. Water, which covers most of our planet. Water, which runs through our bodies. Water, our life line to existence.
As farmers here worry they will not have their needed annual allotment of irrigation water, some communities are actually at risk of running out of drinking water in 2-6 months!! I think I’m just getting a tiny taste of what water politics really are about, now that we live on the dry west coast.
A few years back, when we took a tour of Hudson Valley farms with a journalist colleague, who covered Agriculture politics in India, he was amazed that the farmers did not have to pay the town, county or state or Federal Government for the right to use water from streams and rivers adjoining their land. This Indian journalist believed this was a form of government subsidies and would never happen in India where water is precious, indeed.
His area of expertise as a journalist was covering the stories about the farmers who were committing suicide by drinking pesticide because Monsanto won’t allow them to collect their own seed.
So back east, we have free water subsidies not considered subsidies at all, and here out west, we have a system of water allocation that is so confounding and obtuse and bizarre that most folks have no clue where their water even originates.
Last weekend at the farmer’s market, we made sure to ask a few of our favorite farmers from whom we purchase our Cara Cara Oranges, our kale and chard, our potatoes and turnips, our carrots and cilantro, what they were doing about water.
We wondered if they were dependent on the local, county or state water distribution systems to stay in farming or if they had wells. Many told us they had wells which were running dry even last year, long before there was any media coverage about the drought in California.
Curtis and I, having moved here from the east coast, were worrying about water l6 months ago when we realized last winter that the rains weren’t happening enough for us, for the most part.
The consensus last winter, among the media, was that the Sierra mountain ranges were receiving plenty of snowpack so there was nothing to worry about with the reservoirs.
San Francisco and the Bay area receive much of their water from the Hetch Hetchy Water System which originates from waters on Federal land, in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Mountain range in eastern CA. This was created as the Raker Act and put into Congressional law, signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913.
During last summer’s fires in Yosemite, one of the big concerns here in the Bay Area was what would happen to the Bay area’s drinking water if it were contaminated from the fires, smoke, ash and chemical contaminant.
We live only a few miles from the Sacramento River and much of that river’s flow is diverted to Los Angeles and large farmers in the Central Valley. Water wars and water corruption have a long history in both northern California and southern California. Remember the Roman Polanski movie Chinatown.
Gosh, I think it may be time to re-engineer how and where we get all of our water, who’s entitled to it and how we should protect it and honor the lifeblood of this planet. Time to invoke, dream up, create and invent CHANGE!!
Some farmers at the market reported that they were going to put in new wells at the cost of 5-30,000 $ which is a TON of money for a small farm. Some folks said they are simply not doing any winter planting until such time as they see if the rains will come. Some said they will most likely go out of business. Some worry that if they do plant and the rains come at the wrong time, it could destroy little seedlings or acres of plantings. Others who are fruit farmers worry that the rains will come at the wrong time and totally wipe out their fruit crops.
The Los Angeles Times reports: “We are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years,” said B. Lynn Ingram, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
This could be the result of long term weather cycles as well as global warming. Here in California, it’s obvious traditional water management will not work for the future. What will this mean for the multi billion dollar farming industry here in California, which provides food for so much of the country? What will this mean for the price of food? What is the true cost to society of increasing numbers of people going hungry?
I still can’t help but feel that if “Global Warming” had instead been named “Global Climate Change”, that we might have a better chance at educating folks from all religions, cultures and economies about how to behave on our changing planet.
So what changes can we as a society consider making in the face of long term drought, water shortages and even floods caused by soil erosion?
Here’s my wish list, although way incomplete, a good start. And we’d also love to hear your ideas too for your wish list so send us an email to admin@satyacenter.com. We’ll take some of these ideas, crediting you, and put them in our next newsletter.
Jane’s Wish List
Permaculture, organic and biodynamic land and water stewardship required by law so that places which are ‘naturally’ desert lands, are not forced to grow foods.
We need cities to be smaller cities, not mega cities. Check Bejing with its pollution problems for instance. We need those giant cities to be broken up in a myriad of new ways: by using fallow lands, empty lots and former factories and abandoned buildings, we can re-engineer those lands & buildings to include very small scale permaculture farms, small parcel gardens, small dairies and animal husbandry on smaller and smaller scale, more frequently and strategically placed throughout the cities, towns and more populated areas.
If we include huge swaths of green commons accessible to all, provide community garden plots, for all, remediate obviously polluted former factory and industrial sites with methods and plants which can retain topsoil while removing harmful chemical residues, then perhaps we can begin to change the way we live on our beautiful planet.
If we plant millions of trees for wind breaks, the threat of another dust bowl can be minimized and perhaps even prevented. If we intersperse companion planting of a variety of crops used for weed control, we can lesson the impact of chemicals everywhere on our planet. These are just a couple of teeny tiny ideas which carried out over large swaths of our planet could prevent soil erosion and block pollution.
But of course, the first things which must change are the hearts and minds of men and women of every age, every religion, every culture, every place on earth. Let’s take some time for inner reflection in this Aquarian month for Divine help in humanity’s alchemical transformation as well as our own personal transmutation through the power of love and light.
To help us continue on the path of reflection we have a few articles online right now which may inspire you to change the way you view the world.
Our Candlemas article on this celtic cross quarter day offers some history and customs appropriate to the quickening of the year. Our article on the Aquarian Festivals offers a rich history of Valentine’s Day with some fun customs as well as mentioning several other holidays this month of February.
And speaking of rain and the weather, we are excited to announce that Ginny Mackles, one of our Master Reiki Teachers and holistic healer will soon be contributing to a blog on our new website, due to come out late this spring, and for now, she’s allowed us to offer you a few tips on how to ‘weather’ your day.
“Steady, in all Kinds of Weather”, by Ginny Mackles
“Did you ever notice how you feel on a rainy day, a cold day, or a sunny day?
What if your well-being was not dependent on the weather?
Imagine how freeing it would be to feel so centered within yourself that you access being in a great place regardless of the external circumstances.
Give it a try!
Spend one day or even one morning refocusing your attention on the inner world rather than on the outer world.
And when that inner world reflects an emotion that says something like "I really hate cold weather" consider reframing the statement to sound something more like "Regardless of the weather I am going to enjoy this day!"
Let our stability stand on something more enduring the weather.”
Thank you Ginny!! Important words to hear whether (pardon the pun) you have too little or too much rain or cold. It is especially poignant at this time of year to be reminded to do the inner work, which winter offers us in her depths, dark and silence.
Ginny is a Reiki Master Teacher, holisitic counselor, regression therapist and life coach supporting individuals everywhere via phone or Skype. You can find Ginny or ask her for treatments or sessions at her website and if you live in the Minneapolis area, you’re lucky enough to go see her in person!!
We have lots of wonderful seasonal articles up on our homepage right now. Here are a few highlights:
Read Chi Gong practitioner and teacher, Claire Cunneen’s “Traveling with the Big Dipper”, a beautiful story about how we can connect to our cosmos and the healing power of Nature.
And rejoice with James Bertolino’s beautiful prayer to water, so timely for this newsletter with a poem entitled “Mountain Lullaby”.
And we have a fun little piece by Jonathan Pearl you may not have seen before, called “Aquarius Foods in Midwinter”.
And lastly, an offering for your contemplation and savings for your pocket, we are having a 20% off sale on all of our Master Cut Vogels in our store right now through the end of the month of February. Just use this code upon final checkout in the shopping cart, where it says, Coupon Code: VOGEL20
This month, Curtis and I offer our prayers to those who do not have enough to eat, or who have lost loved ones, or who have lost their country or their faith and hope.
We pray at this time of the quickening of the year, that earth and all of her peoples, her animals, her air, light, water, earth can be healed. We pray for patience; we ask for each one of us to learn to surrender to the higher good of all. We ask that constancy and love walk with each of us each and every day that we may make a difference in some small way for both ourselves and for others in our lives.
Happy St. Brigid's Day, Happy Valentine's Day, Happy time to make offerings to the Great Mother that She may be of solace to each and every one!
Meditation Moment by Jane Sherry
We all seek power
We are all of us living
on a power spot.
Earth, the Queenly Heavenly Orb we call home,
air to fire to water to Mountain.
Some places are a greater nexus for a gathering of forces
of Power.
We all contain within us the Force of Life, the Breath of Beginnings
and Endings.
Seek not Power ‘out there’.
Seek not Power ‘over another’.
Find the Power Spot we all search for, know it lives within.
Each of us carries our own potent place of power within ourselves.
Sparked by the Fire of Creation, we are the Life Force
which is Love.
We are sparks of the Fire of Creation!
We are Love!
Beating within us
in our own Celestial Center
the place of the heart.
We are the power to transform the world and one another!
The power of Love.
Copyright Jane Sherry, Curtis Lang & Satya Center LLC, All Rights Reserved 2004-2014 This article may only be reprinted with the approval of Jane or Curtis of Satya Center.
Jane Sherry, one of the Founders of Satya Center is a Reiki practitioner/teacher, spiritual counselor, creator of healing art talismans, healing gardens & loves to cook! She has a background in the visual arts before moving into the healing arts and has been a longtime lover of herbs & spices & cooking. She newly resides in the East Bay Area of Northern Calirnia right next door to farm country an hour east of SF, Oakland & Berkeley. She works the Satya Center healing practice with co-founder and husband, Curtis Lang and co-operates the Satya Center Crystal Gallery and web portal. New gardens are being birthed now, here in the California sunshine, well watered by lots of drought breaking winter rains. You will always find crystals in among the herbs, flowers & vegetable gardens!
Curtis Lang, one of the Founders of Satya Center is a Reiki practitioner/teacher, spiritual counselor with a background in investigative journalism, writing, editing and publishing for over 40 years. Prior to launching Satya Center, Curtis was an executive at Ameritrade.com.
He has been a restaurant reviewer, and has covered local, state and national politics, national security issues, the Federal Reserve and global central banking, the banking industry, personal finance, new media and information technology, and privacy issues in the digital age.
Curtis Lang's work has appeared in "WORTH" magazine, "The Village Voice", "Mother Jones", "The Nation", "Ad Age", "New Media", "NetGuide", "ULTRA", "Houston City" magazine, "Texas Business", and many more.
