This Full Moon is a Lovers' Moon
Welcome to the November 6, 2014 Full Moon in Taurus, Scorpio Solar Festival edition of the Satya Center Cosmic Weather Forecast newsletter.
Warm greetings from your co-Editors, Curtis Lang and Jane Sherry.
Here in the inland East Bay hills of Antioch, California, Jane and I are enjoying another week of uninterrupted sunshine with temperatures climbing into the upper seventies – nearly ten degrees above normal for this time of year.
It’s hard to believe Halloween is over and Thanksgiving just around the corner with weather like that!
We have so much to be grateful for as we look back on this very difficult year. We have been given the grace and guidance we needed in order to grieve and heal during the time following Jane’s Father’s death, when my Dad also passed this February.
We have been given the time, space and an abundance of resources to obtain the medical help Jane and I needed this year as the Grand Cardinal Cross brought the two of us, both Cardinal signs, some unexpected health crises, and now we are returning to our phsycial strength and a new point of inner equilibrium.
We honor our friends, family and all those in cyberspace who connect with us through our website and through this newsletter because we have felt your love, your concern and your help throughout this long year, and you have helped us during the Long Dark Night of the Soul to simply be and to simply allow the alchemical transformations to occur within us and around about us all year long.
Thanks to all of you from both of us! Without your support we can do nothing that we do. We are eternally grateful to you all!
Later this month, as you relax in the afterglow of the Thanksgiving celebration, take a moment to stimulate the feelings of gratitude that this feast is really all about. Read our article entitled A Thanksgiving Prayer from the Mohawk Nation, which expresses the sense of community and gratitude that we all hope to embody this Thanksgiving season.
Also read Thanksgiving: History of Community & Conflict to get a historical perspective on the open-hearted spirit of abundance and generosity that characterized the response of Native Americans to the first European pilgrims during the original Thanksgiving celebrations. Let us take that spirit into our own hearts this month and give thanks to the Native Americans who fed our European ancestors so many moons ago.
Full Moon in Taurus, Scorpio Solar Festival Cosmic Weather Forecast
This week we celebrate the Full Moon occurring at 14°26’ Taurus at 5:23 pm Eastern time, 2:23 pm Pacific time on Thursday, November 6, 2014.
On the East Coast of the US, where we lived for many years, the lactofermentation of sauerkraut takes place soon after Halloween, the twilight of the year, at the time of the Scorpio Solar Festival and the Taurus Full Moon, a moment of alchemical transformation, when mysterious psychic forces begin to percolate through the psyche of every human being.
Read Lactofermentation, Putrefaction and Scorpionic Transformation where we explain the parallel processes of food alchemy you can perform in your own kitchen using simple, non-electrical tools, and the spiritual transformations recounted in Medieval tales of classical alchemical texts.
The Full Moon in Taurus is traditionally a lovers’ moon, perfect for romance, which combines the emotional, sexy watery nature of Scorpio with the earthy sensuality of Taurus.
The Moon, associated with romance, is said to be exalted in the sign of Taurus, which means that at this time positive Lunar qualities manifest in their highest and most beneficial forms, and any deleterious effects from negative Lunar qualities tend to be minimized.
The Full Moon will be opposed by the Sun and Venus, both in Scorpio, with Jupiter in Leo squaring all three heavenly bodies.
Sun in Scorpio brings the world the energy of inner transformation based upon transpersonal relationships that take us out of ourselves and connect us to the larger web of life around us. This can be an emotional/mystical/astral experience of the transpersonal consciousness, the ego-transcendence that arises from the fulfillment of a sexual relationship so intense it dissolves the boundaries between the lovers, or even the ultimate ego transcending experience of physical death itself.
Venus in Scorpio is considered one of the most emotionally intense placements possible, and indicates unwavering attention on the love partner, unlimited passion in the relationship and a strong sensual drive that cannot be denied.
Combine the Sun and Venus in Scorpio and the power of these two planets to propel us out of ourselves and into an intimate, transpersonal connection with lovers, friends, or the entire web of life. All of these connections are immeasurably enhanced.
Because Jupiter in Leo squares Sun and Venus in Scorpio, the energies of the Scorpionic planets are amplified yet further, so this promises to be an extremely erotic, potentially life-changing, possibly even transcendental Full Moon week for many of us.
Let us take some time this week to recharge our inner batteries by connecting with the transcendent, loving, transpersonal, alchemical energies of this Full Moon in celebration in whatever way we can.
You may want to meditate deeply, and connect with the web of life that sustains us all, and with the Universal Mind that informs every manifestation of this creation.
You may want to connect physically, emotionally and spiritually with a deeply loved significant other.
You may want simply to open your heart in a loving relationship as ephemeral as the moonbeams.
We all deserve a break from the stresses, the disappointments, the challenges, the conflicts, and above all, the atmosphere of fear and anxiety that have characterized 2014 at the peak of the Grand Cardinal Cross years, which are unfolding around us and throughout our world.
Today is the day after a national US election that saw the Republican Party take control of the Senate, while also increasing their dominance in the House of Representatives, and winning numerous Governor’s races that will increase the number of Republican Governers from coast to coast.
The results stem primarily from an anti-incumbent, anti-President Obama sentiment that has swept the country.
Exit polls indicate that Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction by a margin of 65% to 31%, around two to one. Even more voters, 70% in all, say the country’s economy is in bad shape.
It is true that Europe has entered into a new stage of dangerous deflation, Japan is engaging in extremely risky expansions of its money supply to combat decades of disinflation and structural economic stagnation, and China’s growth is decelerating to levels that its own government considers quite dangerous.
Here in the US, the stock market has consistently enriched the wealthiest Americans over the last few years, thanks to Federal Reserve poicies that provided banks and Wall Street firms with trillions of dollars of virtually free money for speculation in the stock market, but the middle class is shrinking, good jobs are practically impossible for the vast majority of Americans to find, and wages are stuck in a retrograde motion, trends that have persisted for the entire seven years of the Grand Cardinal Cross aspects since 2007-2008.
Economic angst alone has definitely created a cranky electorate for this year’s elections.
34% of voters said they were voting against President Obama, and although voters richly rewarded the Republicans nationwide, 61% of voters said that either “dissatisfied” with or “angry” at the Republican Congress.
The country is angry, divided and above all fearful. Fearful about the economic future of the country and also about many other issues.
In the many articles and newsletters we’ve posted about the Grand Cardinal Cross years, which extend from 2008-2016, we have often pointed out that these difficult aspects indicate a crisis of our entire civilization, our political, economic and social systems, and that intense fear accompanies the clash of old and new ways of doing, seeing and being in the world.
That which has worked until now, the status quo, is being challenged by a set of seemingly intractable and insurmountable global events, and there is no clear way forward.
Individuals with important planets in the Cardinal signs, and those of the Baby Boomer generation, who often have more than one outer planet in Cardinal signs, are meeting physical, emotional, mental and spiritual challenges to their established ways of living in every area of life. This too is extremely stressful and fear-inducing.
In addition, the collective consciousness of humanity, which is tuned in to the environmental, economic, political, and social problems that are sweeping the world today, is also infused with a level of extreme fear that threatens to derail clarity of thought and the necessary level of discernment that is required to address the challenges we face, individually and collectively.
The world has been filled the news of wars, rumours of greater wars or more intensified wars to come.
Economic sanctions and on-again off-again low-intensity conflicts between the US/NATO alliance and the Russians over political domination of the disintegrating country of the Ukraine continue to escalate.
The war between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs threatens to drag American forces back into the ongoing civil wars in Iraq, Syria and neighboring Middle East states, especially with the rise of the ISIS caliphate, which threatens to establish a Muslim fundamentalist empire across the entire Middle East.
72% of Americans fear a terrorist threat from ISIS, and 58% approve of ongoing military action against ISIS in a number of Middle East countries, despite the fact that the ISIS soldiers number only a few thousand individuals apiece in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, and American security experts admit there is no imminent threat to the US mainland from this group of terrorists.
A poll published in August by Harvard School of Public Health and SSRS, an independent research company, indicates that 39% of U.S. adults are “concerned” that there will be a large Ebola outbreak here. 26% are concerned that they or someone in their immediate family may get sick with Ebola this year.
The poll findings show that people with less education, and people who haven’t been following news of the epidemic closely, are the most likely to worry about an outbreak reaching the United States.
The poll found that the public’s fears are largely misplaced, according to medical experts. Though this is the largest Ebola outbreak in history, Harvard doctors say there is little reason to fear that the epidemic will gain hold here.
In the face of understandable fears of wars, terrorism, economic stagnation and a scary epidemic, America’s leaders have been engaged in an unprecedented effort to scare voters into supporting their candidates.
The Republican Party’s fear-mongering dominated this election, as described in “Ebola and ISIS Are Making American Voters Go Crazy. Here’s How Irrational Fears Shape Elections.“, John B. Judis, The New Republic, 3 November 2014 :
“Between October 21 and 25, House and Senate candidates ran 734 ads citing the threat of Ebola,” Judis explains. “Some candidates charged that by failing to secure the border with Mexico, Democrats were allowing cases of Ebola into the United States. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis, who is running for Senate, warned, ‘We’ve got an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors that can come across the border; we need to seal the border and secure it.’”
“Other candidates have linked border immigration to ISIS, suggesting that Islamist terrorists would be crossing the border to threaten Americans,” Judis continues. “The Republican National Committee ran an ad that concluded, ‘Vote to keep terrorists off U.S. soil.’ Several candidates, including Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, included video from ISIS in their ads.”
. . .For more about the fear epidemic I strongly recommend reading ”The Pressure to Escalate: The Phantasmagoric World of Washington“, Tom Engelhardt at TomDispatch, 4 November 2014.
So put the fear and rancor of the election season behind you as the Full Moon rises and seek to transcend fear, anger and conflict with the help of the powerful aspects aligned on your behalf at this time.
This Full Moon is a great time for a party, a great time to celebrate that which gives us pleasure and joy in life, and a great time to give thanks for the many positive experiences we all have enjoyed here in the material world.
If you are looking for love, want to experience more love in your life, or want to experience a transcendental love that will open your heart and transform your consciousness, this Full Moon is for you!
Go out on the town, seek the quiet of a high spot on a starry night for a Full Moon meditation, or plan a romantic evening for two. The Universe will support you in seeking joy and love in all the many flavors available this weekend.
Full Moon in Taurus – The Qabalistic Connection
In the Western Qabalistic System of Wisdom Teachings recorded in the various forms of Tarot cards published since the Renaissance, the Moon in Taurus is associated with the six of disks, which is called Success.
The Qabalistic Tarot displays Ancient Wisdom Teachings in graphic, symbolic forms that depict the macrocosm and the microcosm simultaneously. Each card has two meanings corresponding to aspects of the microcosm (the human being) and the macrocosm (the Universe).
That which is above is equivalent to that which is below. That which is within is equivalent to that which is without.
There are 78 cards in the Tarot deck.
All the 22 Trump cards of the Tarot correspond to paths from place to place on the cosmological diagram known as the Tree of Life.
These 10 places correspond to the 10 small cards in the Tarot deck, called Sephira. There are four suits, so there are 40 small cards.
There are 16 court cards depicting 16 major human personality types with astrological significance.
This adds up to 78 cards altogether.
The Tarot Deck depicts the Tree of Life, which includes the Trumps, or paths, the Sephira, and the court cards.
The Tree of Life symbolizes important places in the Universe; a map of the human mind, body and aura; states of consciousness within the human mind; stages along the path of life; archetypes of the collective consciousness; steps along the path to spiritual enlightenment; and energy states of varying frequency from lowest to highest.
The sixes are associated with Tiphareth, a very special spot on the Qabalistic map of the Universe called the Tree of Life.
On the material level the six of disks is associated with quantifiable, substantial material gain; a lifestyle of sensuous opulence; romantic love; and sexual prowess.
For alchemists and practitioners of the Western Mystery School Traditions of Ceremonial Magic, the six of disks has a very special secret significance.
The six of disks represents the grounding of the energy of Tiphareth, symbolized by the Star of David -- the Union of Heaven and Earth, the alchemical union or royal marriage of Universal Male and Cosmic Female energies experienced by a man and a woman in sexual union whose hearts are in tune and resonating to the energy of the Divine.
The six of disks represents the highest form of sexual magic. The partners transcend their egoistic personalities through their fusion in love and in offering up their love to the Divine for the benefit of humanity come in contact with the Source of Universal Life Force Energy, then channel that energy through their bodies and out into their environment.
This is a Western Mystery School variant of ancient Tantric practices which channel sexual energy up the spine through the power of the will by blocking orgasmic release through mental concentration.
In this modern variant of sexual magic, a couple dedicates their loving energy to the nourishment of favorite Deities, Angels, Guides and Teachers in Higher Realms up to and including the Divine Source.
The couple links hearts as they reach the plateau stage of sexual arousal, and sets their intention to send the energy up into their crowns and to radiate out through the crown and heart into Higher Spiritual Realms and into the material world.
This is a true love-offering to the entire Web of Life inhabiting all the planes of existence.
Spiritual beings who inhabit high-frequency realms of subtle energy obtain nourishment from human emotions, which exude a subtle energy that is equivalent to perfume in those realms.
This is why Spiritual Teachers tell students they should never become attached to their negative emotions and thought-forms. Students must learn to minimize those negatives as much as possible so as not to attract subtle energy beings who feed on human negativity.
This is why we seek to cultivate positive emotions and thought-forms, which we offer up to the Divine during our spiritual practices, prayers, rituals, meditations and affirmations, and yes, in our love making.
In this case, as the two lovers unite the energies from their opening hearts during sexual union, they experience a fusion that takes consciousness beyond the boundaries of the egoistic personality, and their combined energy resonates with the extremely elevated energy frequency associated with the Divine Lovers, uniting the earthly and heavenly energy streams.
The energy released into both material and subtle energy realms by the act of love and sexual union, which consciously unites male and female, above and below, ascends into subtle realms where it is received as an offering and a banquet by Benevolent Beings of Light.
The act of love, performed as a conscious act of spiritual practice and a conscious offering to the Divine, can be a powerful magical act that activates the tremendous power of sexuality in the service of the spiritual evolution of humanity as well as one’s own personal spiritual evolution.
Imagine the heart of one of these lovers as a rose within a cross, symbolizing the human body and material existence, and imagine arosy glow around the rose.
This is the image of the six of disks in the Crowley Tarot deck, and is a beautiful symbolic rendering of the moment of the opening of the compassionate heart and the awakening of loving wisdom.
This is the manifestation of Tiphareth in the material world, a reflection of the Love Divine that exists undiluted, in its Quintessence, among the Solar Deities inhabiting that exalted sphere of being.
This Full Moon reflect upon this image and you will sense the perfume of romance and the magic of love in the air.
On the spiritual level, Tiphareth corresponds to the heart chakra, the fourth chakra in the human body, and also symbolizes the Sun,which is the source of life-giving light and heat in our Solar System.
On a spiritual level, the six of disks unites the energy of the number six, associated with Tiphareth and the energy of the suit of disks, which refer to slow energy, manifesting as the material world, matter, and material success.
Tiphareth also symbolizes the subtle energies of the Spiritual Sun, the home of Solar Deities who manifest in human form such as Ram and Christ.
Thus the six of disks represents the action of the heart in the material world. We can study what that looks like by studying the lives of Ram and Christ -- and Buddha.
Tiphareth is the Union of the Heavenly and the Earthly realms, the infusion of the Holy Spirit into material reality, and into humanity, and is represented by the six-pointed Star of David.
Tiphareth is the creative impulse of the highest male form of Deity manifest in the material world – Christ consciousness in a human body, actively at work in the world to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Tiphareth is the home of the awakened heart, the place where Buddha-nature manifests itself as compassionate, selfless loving service to the Life principle.
Tiphareth is that harmony of expression which reflects the harmonious impression of thoughts and impulses emanating from the Higher Mind, Higher Self and Higher Purpose. Tiphareth is intuitive action informed by a compassionate heart.
Tiphareth: Goal of the 21st Century Ascension Path for Struggling Humanity
In the life of the individual human being, Tiphareth represents a primary spiritual goal for billions of people incarnating on Earth right now.
The vast majority of individuals currently incarnating on planet Earth focus their energy in the lower three chakras, which govern basic survival goals and needs; sexual and reproductive activities; and the expression of personal power and personal desires.
In general, they have not experienced the spiritual initiation that is represented by the attainment of that level of consciousness symbolized by Tiphareth.
The difficulties humanity encounters today, such as environmental degradation, warfare, political and economic exploitation, and religious and racial sectarianism, are the fruits of a collective life that is structured by the energy signature, the drives, the desires, the fears, the aggressions, and the views of the lower three chakras of the human constitution.
In terms of the Tree of Life, most of humanity lives in the Sphere of Yesod, known as the Lunar sphere of astral glamours. Yesod exists between the realm of the material Universe, called Malkuth, and Tiphareth.
We can easily see the energies of Yesod, manifesting the negative qualities of the lower chakras in the world around us, manifesting as excessive consumption, compulsive narcissism, sociopathic celebrity culture, militaristic and sadistic culture heroes, excessive individualism, separatism, and a general acceptance of the deeply twisted notion that the natural state of humanity is the war of all against all.
Billions of our fellow human beings are experiencing a big wake-up call from the Universe, challenging their belief systems, re-arranging their self-image, and shocking them to the core of their being.
This is preparation for the Ascension Path.
When the contradictions of living in the lower astral realms of egoistic illusion create a reality painful enough to encourage self-generated change and a genuine desire for total personal transformation, the movement from Yesod to Tiphareth can begin, for the individual and for the collective consciousness of humanity.
The Path on the Tree of Life leading from Yesod to Tiphareth is called Temperance or Art.
What will the Tiphareth initiation look like? What will the Ascension Path of Temperance leading from Yesod to Tiphareth look and feel like to aspirants setting out on this important initiation?
Well, something like this.
In this card, an angel is imaged, balancing two cups with water flowing between them, or overshadowing lesser figures of the Divine Lovers in the background. This angel is the Higher Self, and represents new life, a life lived in accordance with the dictates of the Higher Self.
This new life is ordered and structured through the overcoming of the negative personality traits exemplified by the lower chakras, and thus is called Temperance.
Purity of thought, word and deed is of paramount importance for those who tread this Ascension path leading from the astral Lunar Realm of Yesod to the Solar Realm of Tiphareth.
The angel represents the aspirant’s Holy Guardian Angel who takes on a more active role as soon as the aspirant makes a conscious decision to enter onto this path of spiritual evolution. This means that additional guidance, grace and support are made available to the aspirant on this path.
In addition, the Holy Guardian Angel will communicate energetically with the aspirant in a variety of ways, to re-inforce new positive habits and to provide the aspirant with negative feedback whenever old habits, negative emotional states, and outworn thoughtforms and relationship scripts predominate in the aspirant’s life.
It is almost as if the Holy Guardian Angel has a small, powerful cattle prod with which to help the aspirant more clearly perceive the negative effects of bad habits, negative emotions and other negatives associated with the lower astral realms of illusion and egocentric personality traits.
It is not uncommon for aspirants to experience this as allergic reactions to food, pollutants and even emotions and people! These “allergic” reactions can be eliminated by eliminating bad habits and negative people and situations from our lives, as aspirants on this path soon learn for themselves.
Once the aspirant makes the effort to uproot the negative habits ingrained in the egoistic personality, grace and guidance flood in from the cup held by the Holy Guardian Angel.
Suddenly the aspirant discovers a new, vast creativity operating through him or through her, leading and directing the aspirant’s life in new directions. Through a series of miraculous synchronicities and felicitous encounters, this powerful force elicits flashes of loving wisdom, triggers acts of compassionate service, and fosters a continuous consciousness of the Unity that underlies the apparent dualities of material creation in this Universe.
This is the true spiritual marriage of the Higher Self with the egoistic personality, and once this stage of spiritual progress is achieved, the illusory dualities of male and female, love and hate, life and death are overcome. For one who has achieved this spiritual initiation, it is possible to enter into love relations with another human being based solely upon spiritual partnership, and from that spiritual partnership vast energies of love and light radiate forth, illuminating material and spiritual realities simultaneously, extending unto the utmost periphery of the Universal Wheel, and working to harmonize all that exists within that Wheel of Cosmic existence.
For the spiritual aspirant this stage of development represents the flowering of the Higher Purpose which the soul most desires for this incarnation, and the unfolding of a series of interactions that will restore equilibrium to all those unbalanced relations that constitute our bank of karmic debt from time immemorial stretching through the present to the ever-receding horizon line of the future with all its possibilities.
The Tarot Trump known as Art or Temperance represents the infusion of spiritual energies of love and light into the material world, and their expression in acts of creativity, compassion and service that unify matter and spirit and bring to fruition the evolution of human consciousness in Self-directed acknowledgement of our true, angelic nature.
In this initiation, the aspirant transcends rational humanity even as rational humanity transcended the existence of the Ape, and becomes primarily a spiritual creature living simultaneously in the two worlds, harmonizing them both through every thought, word and deed.
This initiation climaxes with a very profound set of experiences that tran