Welcome to the Wesak 2023 Cosmic Weather Forecast by Curtis Lang with Jane Sherry.
Joyous Birthday greetings to Gautama Buddha, liberator of minds!
We unite with meditators, spiritual seekers, healers, and Light workers everywhere in all the three worlds to give thanks for our many blessings, and to honor the spiritual guides and teachers who have enlightened our minds, opened our hearts to unconditional love, and strengthened our will forces so we may share our blessings with all sentient beings!
Now our minds and hearts are one!
Columbine in the meadows at Reynolda Gardens,
Jane and I have been taking advantage of the gorgeous cool spring days in Winston to take long walks in the meadows and forest trails in the Reynolda Gardens, and in other urban parks during the last couple of weeks. Temperatures feel like early early March.
The energy in the meadows is so relaxing, you just feel like lying down for a while and soaking in the sun! So we do!
May 2023 Cosmic Weather Forecast
On Friday At 1:43 PM Eastern time on Friday May 5, we celebrate the Scorpio Full Moon Eclipse and the Taurus Solar Festival, with Pluto and Mercury retrograde, initiating a month long series of unexpected, explosive endings, unforeseen golden opportunities, and electrifying global financial and geo-political dramas.
If you like stomach wrenching roller coaster rides that morph into gateway portals to unexplored new realms rich with creative potential, then this Full Moon is for you!
This Full Moon week, the Sun in Taurus is broadly conjunct transformative Uranus, opposing the Full Moon in deeply emotional Scorpio, signaling a moment of revolutionary transformation in personal relationships.
With Mercury and Pluto retrograde, ghosts from relationships past could surface in our lives and in our dreams, and it may be difficult to maintain our mental equilibrium.
The Moon-Uranus opposition can symbolize a moment like an emotional lightning strike, when we are startled by a sudden betrayal, or it can indicate an inflection point in existing relations that prompts us to make a declaration of personal independence that can be frightening and liberating at the same time.
If you are confronted with unacceptable behavior from friends, family or loved ones, don't hesitate to use this potent eclipse energy to break free from toxic relationships once and for all.
This is an energy signature signaling deep therapeutic confrontation with the shadow side of our unconscious.
Personally, this last week or so I have been repeatedly jolted awake from deep sleep by vivid dreams of childhood traumas and toxic love and bitter family relationships that have erupted into my conscious awareness, followed by insights into the origins and structure of the unconscious behavior patterns that created these unpleasant dramas.
I have been guided to immediately bless these dream sequences, and all those involved in the dramas they symbolize, and to forgive all the participants, creating additional space in my heart and my life for unconditional love to manifest the perfection patterns constituting my Higher Purpose and my loftiest relationship ideals.
On the day of the Full Moon, your drive for new freedoms will be supported by a potent square between Venus in quick thinking Gemini and Neptune in magnetic Pisces, enabling you to visualize your dreams, your ambitions, and your ideal relationships, and to attract those ideal relationships into your life.
Two days later, Venus enters Cancer, represented by the four of cups in the Tarot deck, known as the card of luxury, and of fulfillment in love relationships.
At that time you may find that any break with the past will have opened a door to emotional equilibrium and self-satisfaction, and perhaps even created the space to experience a new, more uplifting and appropriate relationship in alignment with your own best and highest good.
Mid-month, we will experience a confluence of auspicious and pernicious aspects affecting the collective consciousness.
May 15th Mercury goes direct, and the next day, Jupiter enters Taurus, the sign ruling financial matters, wise use of resources, self-worth, sensuous enjoyment of the natural world and loving relations, and material abundance in general.
Immediately following the entry of Jupiter into Taurus, unusual, powerful planetary aspects could signal dramatic upheavals in global financial markets and in the major structures underpinning existing social and political relations around the world.
Astrologers specializing in financial astrology and the movements of the slow moving outer planets that govern sea changes in the collective consciousness have been warning since the beginning of 2023 that combustible aspects appearing later this month have the potential to shock financial markets, and could coincide with unexpected escalation of geo-political conflicts.
On May 16th through the 23rd, Jupiter in Taurus will square Uranus entering Aquarius at approximately zero degrees of both signs, and Mars will enter Leo, opposing Uranus directly and creating a potent, inflammatory T-square in fixed signs.
"This is a confluence of very hard aspects that coincide with hysteria," warns celebrity financial astrologer Robert Merriman. "And Jupiter square Pluto does have a history of correlating with financial panics (maybe 50% of the time within a 4-month orb). This is approaching fast, in line with the time when the U.S. Treasury will run out of tricks to pay its debts."
"Along the way, the Sun will conjoin Uranus (disruption) on May 9, in Taurus, the sign of money. I think we will see very huge movements in financial markets around that time, lasting through May 23 and maybe beyond."
Until Debt Tear Us Apart, Photo by Alice Pasqual on Unsplash
“Our best estimate is that we will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen warned in a letter addressed to to Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and other congressional leaders. "The actual date that Treasury exhausts extraordinary measures could be a number of weeks later than these estimates,” she wrote.
At this time, President Joe Biden and the Congressional Republicans, led by McCarthy, are deadlocked, unable to make any progress toward a required annual agreement to raise the debt limit to accommodate the budget expenditures already agreed to by Congress and the President, despite the fact that Congress was able to easily raise those debt limits when Donald Trump was President.
Congress has raised the debt limit routinely over 100 times since this rather bizarre custom was instituted in 1917, in order to give the government more flexibility when borrowing money. Prior to that, Congress had to approve additional spending authorized by each new bill it passed, in a separate vote for each new bill.
Absent Congressional approval of a new higher debt ceiling, in the near term the Treasury Department would not be able to meet all its obligations, including interest payments on US Treasury bonds, payments to veterans and Social Security recipients, and salaries for government employees.
This would undoubtedly cause financial markets to panic.
Financial Market Crashing, Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
It's normally routine to approve raising the debt limit, but in recent years, as politics polarized and the total amount of debt increased, it has become politically attractive for Republicans to demand spending cuts in social programs loved by Democrats as the price of agreeing to each year's new increase. But the United States has never defaulted on its debt. In the end, the debt ceiling has always been raised as needed.
In 2011 Congressional Republicans demanded that President Obama negotiate a reduction in debt through spending cuts to some favorite Democratic programs. The ensuing game of chicken lasted throughout the summer, as the deadline for raising the debt ceiling approached.
Financial markets reacted with horror. Stocks plunged 16% in a matter of a couple of months. Eventually, Obama caved, cut spending by $900 billion and the debt ceiling was raised by that same amount.
Global markets sensed a potential recession in the making and began buying US Treasury bonds, considered a safe place to park money when markets were collapsing. Bond yields fell dramatically, and would not return to their normal values for years. Meanwhile, banks and mortgage lenders charged customers much higher interest rates, since it became clear that consumers would have less money in their pockets and so borrowers posed higher risks than before.
_in_Washington_DC_April_26-27,_2016.jpg)
Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants gather at the Marriner S. Eccles Building in Washington, D.C.,
for a two-day meeting held on April 26-27, 2016.
Federalreserve, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
If this happened now, with the Fed attempting to fight inflation by raising interest rates, the situation would be much more conflicted. The Fed might have to raise rates in response to the crisis, triggering a market meltdown. If they did not, inflation could increase dramatically, and then the Fed would be forced to raise rates anyway. Once again this would trigger a financial markets crisis and rapidly declining values of stocks and bonds in the US and around the world.
Inflation would rise as interest rates fall in response to the crisis and recession expectations. So the end result is likely to be persistent higher inflation and higher prices and interest rates for consumers during an economic slowdown -- classic stagflation, as in the late 1970s. For those too young to remember, that was a time of excruciating financial pain for all but the top earners in the US and around the world.
Most likely there will be some panic around the end of May and first weeks of June concerning this potential financial crisis, but astrology suggests that the crisis will be short and sharp, and there will be some sort of resolution. We shall see.
Helicopter on the Battlefield, Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash
The highly combustible square between Mars in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius makes is even more anxiety-inducing than the Jupiter-Pluto square, because squares between Mars and Pluto are associated with global power struggles. Violence has often been unleashed during periods associated with this aspect.
Wars break out, terrorists stage attacks on their enemies, leaders of nations are overthrown in violent revolutions or die suddenly, and authoritarian leaders initiate bloody crack downs on dissenters.
With Jupiter, the planet of expansion and largesse, squaring both Mars and Pluto, the potential for sudden, catastrophic outbreaks of violence and disastrous escalations of existing armed conflicts increases dramatically.
Today, Thursday, March 4, the news is full of reports about yesterday's drone attack on the Kremlin. Russia says that the US and Ukraine were behind what it called an assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin. The United States and Ukraine deny involvement.
HAL Warrior Wingman Drone,
Gagan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What is known with certainty, is that two drones were shot down over Moscow by Russian forces Wednesday morning. Western sources are now claiming the drones were part of a false flag operation staged by the Russians, but PBS reports that there have been numerous Ukraine drone attacks resulting in crashes around Moscow in recent days, and that it was unlikely Russians would wait to destroy their own drone until it was actually inside the Kremlin complex.
Russian spokespersons have said that this is a terrorist attack, and that the only effective response would be to eliminate Ukrainian President Zelensky and all his political supporters in the current Ukrainian government.
The fog of war has descended and engulfs us all. Regardless of the truth about this matter, the stage is now set for a substantial escalation of the Ukraine War in the coming weeks, as indicated by the astrology of the month. Fasten your seat belts and exercise discernment as you attempt to make sense of this unfolding crisis.
Deep Breath, Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
So whatever may come during the credit default cliffhanger, in the next stage of the escalating Ukraine war, or in unexpected crises erupting around the world this May and June, take deep breaths and don't panic.
We will definitely benefit from several months of much more harmonious aspects to come later this year, allowing us to deal with any repercussions from the late May and early June impacts of the Fixed Sign T-Square.
Global Wesak Celebration of the Buddha's Birthday
On Friday May 5th, we celebrate the birthday of Gautama Buddha, spiritual teacher of some 400 million practitioners of Buddhist Wisdom School teachings around the world. We join with the vast Buddhist community and with spiritual aspirants, meditators, Light workers, and all those who pursue Ascension Practices in every country of the world to give thanks and to ask for grace and guidance during this Spring Spiritual Festival.
These meditations led Buddha to understand that the perception of the egoistic self as an individuated being, separate from and at war with the rest of the world around us, is simply an illusion.
Human procreation is a microcosmic version of universal creation. The Father is both separate from the Mother, yet united with her. They are interdependent beings, united in the moment of conception.
Then the child lives an intensely interdependent existence for nine months within the Mother, and is born physically connected to her.
The child inherits qualities of both Father and Mother, and remains connected to the parents by blood ties, through spiritual links and via karmic connections that transcend time and space and affect parents and child on the physical, emotional, mental and auric levels.
Eukaryotic cell structure, modeled using data from X-ray, nuclear magnetic resonance and cryo-electron microscopy.
Digital illustration by Evan Ingersoll and Gael McGill
Once born from the Mother's womb, the human body reconstitutes itself continuously. Our cells die and new cells take their place.
We are literally not the same person today we were last month or last year. Buddha meditated upon this fact of life.
The renowned Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh in his brilliant biography of the Buddha, Old Path White Clouds explains that, after many years of arduous spiritual practices, "Beneath the pippala tree, the hermit Gautama focused all of his formidable powers of concentration to look deeply at his body."
"He saw that each cell of his body was like a drop of water in an endlessly flowing river of birth, existence and death, and he could not find anything in the body that remained unchanged or that could be said to contain a separate self."
"Intermingled with the river of his body was the river of his feelings, in which every feeling was a drop of water. These drops also jostled with one another in a process of birth, existence and death."
Water Drops in Ocean, Photo by Samara Doole on Unsplash
"Some feelings were pleasant, some unpleasant, and some neutral, but all of his feelings were impermanent: they appeared and disappeared just like the cells of his body."
Buddha discovered that nowhere in his emotions did anything remain unchanged, and there was nothing that could be said to contain a separate self.
Buddha examined his thoughts and found that although both positive and negative mental states appeared and disappeared like leaves in the wind, none of these mental states persist over time, none are permanent, and nothing within the mind could be discovered that constitutes a separate self.
In his meditations, Buddha also discovered that although mental states such as fear, anger, greed, hatred, jealousy, and ignorance are the sources of our suffering, the mind is incapable of penetrating to the heart of reality and removing these sources of suffering.
"Mindful awareness blazed in him like a bright sun, and he used that sun of awareness to illuminate the nature of all these negative mental states," Thich Nhat Hahn recounts.
Sun on the Water, Cabo de São Vicente, Sagres, Portugal,
Photo by Johannes Mändle on Unsplash
When mindful awareness blazed in the Buddha like a bright sun, Buddha achieved enlightenment.
Buddha had used a certain aspect of his egoistic mind to transcend the ego altogether. At that point, negative mental and emotional states dissolved into an Ocean of bliss.
We can call this aspect of the mind the "watcher". It is the source of mindful awareness. Mindfulness is a keystone of Buddhist practice, and of ancient Hindu wisdom.
The Bhagavad Gita, the most prominent sacred text in the Hindu tradition, discusses the "watcher" in great detail.
The central character in this Hindu epic is a Prince named Arjuna, who is very ambivalent about taking part in a war. Although he is a peerless warrior of great renown, Arjuna does not want to fight his relatives, and he asks his mentor, Krishna, an avatar of the god Vishnu, sustainer of the Universe, for advice.
The entire poem is a metaphor of course. Arjuna is the typical human being. The battle is being waged within his person, which is the precious kingdom. On one hand are the warriors under control of the King of the Mind, who represents the illusory self, the egocentric personality, and opposing them are the warriors allied with Lord Krishna, representing the Higher Self.
Krishna advises Arjuna to take part in the battle, guides him during the bloody mayhem that ensues, and of course, Arjuna, Krishna and the forces of the Higher Self ultimately emerge victorious.
Krishna Advises Arjuna prior to the Apocalyptic Battle of Kurukshetra
The poem is told as a report to the King of the Mind, given by one of the Mind's servants, named Sanjay, who is the watcher. Sanjay is totally objective, and he can always be counted on to give an accurate report of anything that happens.
Sanjay, the watcher, is that aspect of us that is detached, that observes.
He is our undiluted consciousness, uncontaminated by the egoistic personality and its roiling emotional states.
When we can merely observe ourselves without attachment or consideration, as in meditation, Sanjay comes to the forefront.
This is why many meditation practices focus on simply observing the breath and banishing other thoughts. Observing what happens in the body. Observing the play of our emotions.
Because the more we identify with Sanjay, with pure consciousness, with the watcher within, the more we can detach from our own ego, our own karma, our own mental considerations, desires, and negative emotions.
Sanjaya Narrating the Bhagavad Gita to Dhritarashtra,
Ink and Gouache and Gold
Wellcome Collection , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Because the more we identify with Sanjay, with pure consciousness, with the watcher within, the more we can detach from our own ego, our own karma, our own mental attachments, sense attachments, and negative emotions.
We can utilize this tool of the mind to achieve liberation if we have an extremely highly developed watcher within.
This is very difficult for most people, but it is at the heart of yogic and Buddhist practice.
Buddha demonstrated very clearly that this path, the path originally called jnana yoga, is one clear path to total liberation of the mind.
Upon achieving liberation through mindful observance as brilliant as the noonday sun,"[Buddha realized] People were caught in endless suffering because of their erroneous perceptions: they believed that which is impermanent is permanent, that which is without self contains self, that which has no birth and death has birth and death, and they divided that which is inseparable into parts," explains Thich Nhat Hahn. "He saw that they all arose due to ignorance."
Our egoistic illusions that we are separate from the rest of the world, in conflict with our environment and all those living within it, and alienated from the subtle energies of the world of spirit can all be overcome through spiritual practice.
The mindfulness of Buddha, the love of Christ and the will of Arjuna must all be employed to achieve union with the Higher Self, and subordination of the egoistic self to its rightful role as watcher.
Arjuna Victorious
Manipuralive, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
When we have won that spiritual war within ourselves, we will become fonts of love, and we will have so much love to share that we will attract love from all quarters of the world and even from subtle spiritual sources of love beyond our present comprehension.
We will have the power to relieve suffering through the clarity of our consciousness, the diamond bright insights afforded us through penetrating discernment, and the warmth of our compassionate love.
Then we will have completed the preparations required to tread the Ascension Path in this world and in subtle realms of being beyond the reach of our present powers of perception.
Now is the time for each of us to participate in this Scorpio Full Moon's Wesak Festival, a profound moment of global spiritual practice. This is a time for each one of us to relate to others and to our world with all the dignity, careful consideration and diplomatic integrity that we would expect from our world leaders at their very best moments.
Over the last one hundred years, the Celebration of Wesak has become a World Festival of Spirituality, transcending the Buddhist community, and is now a major celebration for Light workers everywhere.
The 20th century Theosophist, clairvoyant, spiritual teacher and esoteric astrologer Alice Bailey discussed the new global tradition of the Wesak Full Moon Festival in her booklet, “The Wesak Festival: A Technique of Spiritual Contact”.
“As one studies the world situation today, it becomes apparent that the secret of synthesis has been lost. Humanity is divided – one section against another section; the East versus the West; one race against another race; one nation against another nation,” Alice Bailey explains.
“Men need to get back to the ancient knowledge that our planet is intended to demonstrate the essential unity of humanity, and that the energy which should manifest is that of integration and coherence. When this is truly realized our present world problems will adjust themselves, and the basic world rhythm will be re-established and stabilized.”
“Unfortunately, as yet, the race as a whole is not group conscious, and therefore average humanity cannot be trusted to work, think and plan for the group,” Bailey continues.
“Men are as yet too selfish. In this fact, there is, however, no cause for discouragement, because to those who have a wide world vision it is also become definitely apparent that group consciousness and group responsibility are already something more than simply a lovely vision," Bailey concludes.
Song of Shambhala, painting by Nicholas Roerich
"Brotherhood and the recognition of its obligations are beginning to permeate the consciousness of men everywhere. This is due to the increasing activity of the Hierarchy of Light, to the services rendered down the ages by the Guides of the race, and today by Christ and his Church," Bailey explains. "They are beginning to demonstrate to man the true meaning of brotherhood, and men are beginning to grasp and realize their responsibilities. There is innate in mankind a responsiveness to that supreme ideal, and men are now reacting to a deep-seated need for synthesis.”
That synthesis is a recognition of the Unity behind the apparent dualities of reality. The Sanskrit word for that mysterious Unity is Satya or Truth.
“The time has now come when the West should understand the true significance of this event (Wesak),” Alice Bailey revealed. “As men understand and avail themselves of the opportunity offered at the Festival, they place themselves in line with a particular spiritual force. They become vitalized by it, and spiritually stimulated, and are consequently rendered available for service.”
Wesak Practices for the Scorpio Full Moon
If you would like more information about the origins of the global Festival of Wesak, please see our article entitled Wesak: Buddha's Birthday and the Global Shamballa Gathering.
Here are some ideas for those who would like to participate in this great Festival of Love and Light.
Full Moon in Clouds, Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash
1. During the day prior to the full Moon, accelerate your spiritual practice as much as possible. Attempt to remain somewhat more quiet than normal. Listen to some uplifting spiritual music, chants or mantras, instead of watching TV if possible. Or simply make some silent time.
Meditate. Pray. Ask for the grace and guidance you need to achieve your loftiest spiritual goals. Ask that you be ever more consciously connected to inner spiritual guidance.
Ask that you be given golden opportunities to be of maximum service in the world. Give thanks. Perform random acts of kindness.
2. In the room where you meditate, place a crystal bowl full of water on the altar or nearby you. Light a candle and some incense if you have these available. Play some appropriate spiritual music the evening of the Wesak Full Moon. Meditate during the evening hours whenever you have the time to do so.
Jane and Curtis' Altar, Pleasantville, New York, 2000, photo by Jane Sherry
3. In 2023, the Wesak Full Moon occurs on Friday May 5 at 1:34 PM Eastern Time.
Fifteen to thirty minutes prior to this time, at the latest, try to be sitting in meditation. Connect with your spiritual guides and teachers, and with inner spiritual guidance. Ask for help with any and all issues you are currently addressing. Ask to be graced with guidance that will help you understand what is to come in the next year, and how you can be of maximum service in the world.
If you are able to at that time, chant or pray as the Full Moon approaches. Five minutes before the Full Moon, enter into a deep meditative state. Try to visualize or hear or feel the presence of a vast energy grid surrounding the Earth, energized by the combined will and intent of the entire Spiritual Hierarchy and the New Group of World Servers around the world. Feel your own energy uniting with that vast collective outpouring of love and light.
However, all of those who wish to participate should feel free to simply tune in to this global meditation at any time during the day or evening of the Full Moon, and during the early morning hours following, and to join in and participate. You may have some very interesting early morning dreams!
4. The evening before the Full Moon, fill any crystal bowls or vases you may have available with water, and place them outside at sunset. Allow these containers to sit outside during the night, and bring them in the following morning after the full moon.
Full Moon in Clouds, Photo by Jake Weirick on Unsplash
Put the water from the crystal containers into sealed glass bottles. You can use this enlivened water, infused with the magnetic energy of the Loving Wisdom embodied by Lord Buddha and the Cosmic Christ, to heal your environment, yourself, and others.
Place the water in a crystal bowl on your altar, or by your bed, or on your mantelpiece, and simply allow the water to evaporate. Then replace the water as needed. This will elevate the energy within your living space.
Occasionally pour some of this enlivened water into your bath to purify your body and soul. Occasionally drink the water for self-healing. Offer the water to others who are in need of healing. Tell them what they are receiving.
Pour this water upon the earth in areas where human beings have damaged the environment, and ask Grandmother Earth for forgiveness.
Jane and I hope you will join us during the Wesak Scorpio Eclipse Full Moon Festival this year. We will see you in the ethers!
Meditation Moment: Aubade (Sunrise) by Ranjit Hoskote
Dawn, South Beach Miami, Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash
Rumours of wind, banners of cloud.
The low earth shakes but the storm
has not arrived. You pack
for the journey, look up, look through
the doors at trees shedding their leaves
too soon, a track on which silk shoes
would be wasted, a moon
still dangling above a boat.
Wearing your salt mask, you face
the mulberry shadows.
The valley into which
you're rappelling
is you.
Ranjit Hoskote, Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons