Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Quantum Mechanics and Despair

Salpiglossis and Marigolds October 2006
Recently I was forwarded a link that has been circulating among various astrology bloggers for a book explaining aspects of quantum theory. The excerpts from Everything Forever by Gevin Giorbran are excellent and lay out progressively many ideas I've encountered before in my own studies. That site also includes a link to Imagining the Tenth Dimension, a book by Rob Bryanton which follows an understanding of dimensional thinking related to quantum mechanics. It got me thinking deeply about spiritual knowledge and a recent conversation on another blog inspired me to write the following:

I often struggle with the elusive qualities of spiritual thought, but recently I've begun to contemplate the notion that spiritual knowledge is part of a larger dimension of empirical knowledge, persistent and constant with the physical dimensions we experience. Like Time, which we only notice by its progressive effect, all knowledge is experienced through the mind but affects our physical world when we learn to apply it. Emotion is another form of knowledge, but requires a more intuitive application. We can posit these two forms of knowledge as different extremes: one structured the other chaotic.

As I have learned by studying the Tao, the only way we can effectively apply both extremes is by centering ourselves between them so that they swirl around and away from us. If we attempt to follow only one or the other, we will move away from our authentic self; but if we follow both structure and chaos at once, say by following a spiritual discipline such as cultivating a balanced understanding of astrology; we can expand our consciousness outward from one of self-consciousness to one of universal consciousness.

Despair is an emotional reaction to confusion. It moves one away from centeredness exposing the underbelly of society and revealing the inauthentic in life. It develops from loosing perspective on the universal by leaving individual responsibility out of the equation; only when self-responsibility is maintained and spiritual knowledge applied can one move away from emotional responses of confusion toward a more authentic and balanced way of being.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Enlightenment through Astrology

Miniture Marigolds in bloom September 2006
Astrology is a language of metaphor and symbolism and can be understood best as a tool for self-reflection and inspiration. Its foundation sits firmly on the universal idea that everything is connected, relative and interdependent with the circumstances that create them. Therefore, the knowledge of Astrology begins with the Macrocosm of the solar system and points directly to the inner world of your own psyche.

Your experience of life begins with a child's openness and ability to merge with the whole of humanity. But soon, as you begin to learn about your environment, you pick up clues that the world isn't always what it seems. You quickly loose that child's openness the moment you experience the lessons of pain, deprivation and suffering. You can easily become fixated upon the notion that certain things, like family, are permanent and that change seems out of your control.

The careful observer will of course understand these are illusions and that all things change and interact interdependently with everything else. A scientist will describe this as the law of cause and effect: every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. Other people call this karma, but whatever you call it, it is really just the idea that nothing is permanent and everything affects everything else.

So, when things change that you think of being permanent, your realization may come as a nasty shock. You may become angry and upset when things don't meet your expectations. You may react negatively, but doing so emphasizes the gap between reality and your expectation. Stepping back from this state, you may come to understand you are attached to a belief that everything is isolated and permanent, and grasping at these illusory beliefs only confirms your experiences of pain and frustration.

Albert Einstein is attributed to have once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." Grasping at beliefs that you know are false, even when they are convenient or form a foundation for unrealistic expectations, will eventually lead to a life of quiet desperation and unhappiness. Astrology, being based on the notion of change, can be a way to reflect and analyze your behavior, learning through self-awareness to open yourself to new unexplored potentials.

Despite popular beliefs about it primarily involving prediction and fortune telling, in fact, astrology only emphasizes the influences of the present and points to how these change in the future. Prediction is developed from looking at the past and judging how human nature in the present may play out in the future. What is contained in your birth chart isn't really important; that only represents the basis that you've built your personality upon. What is important is who you are now and how you project the knowledge that is found in past of your birth chart on the influences of the future. What you do now affects your present more than where you began your life or where it will end.

Memories are important to Astrology in that they contain the life lessons that shaped who you are today. For example, if your parent spanked you as a child, then you know not to trust and to withhold your love from those who hurt you, especially those in authoritarian positions, which can further determine how you socialize in the world. Likewise, if your parent worked outside the home you may feel that you are not worthy unless you contribute to the financial well being of your family, also determining your work ethic and ability to meet your family's needs. While these are somewhat complex assumptions they are supported by psychological profiles, which is a direction Western Astrology has been leaning for several decades now.

Life lessons, though, are not an immediate knowledge; they develop over time with the accumulation of positive and negative experience. These can be developed through therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist, meeting with an astrologer, talking to a spiritual or religious authority or developing a personal philosophy of one's own. Organic wisdom allows you to reflect on events of your life and transform them into a realization of self-compassion and personal enlightenment. Applying self-wisdom in a skillful manner can lead eventually to the beneficial experiences of happiness, liberty, love, empathy and deeper wisdom.

Why get upset when life forces seem against you? Patience is essential, especially with interpersonal experiences; but applying self-knowledge skillfully allows you a chance to change things to your benefit. Developing external wisdom leads to inner insight; inner wisdom generates greater freedom. Self knowledge reflects on past experiences, recognizing the growth process and interdependence of your own identity. Eventually the irrational reactions and responses that are self-detrimental will slow and then stop. And that is when you wake up and realize it is good to be alive.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Ancient Knowledge Initiation

Cucumbers in bloom August 2006
Although I will be including earlier posts from my now DreamWidth account (formerly @ LiveJournal) I wanted to mark when I began this blog with a post. This morning was the Sturgeon Moon eclipse in Pisces which has been discussed at length on many astrological blogs. I woke early, not really intending to, but my sleep schedule has been disrupted this month so it seemed something reasonable to do. I went out to view this beautiful event, catching the beginning of its waxing phase around 4:45am. The morning light of the Sun, just under the eastern horizon, shone off a thin sliver of the Moon, while the shadow of the earth obscured its face with a dusky grey reminding me of the murky depths of a polished obsidian mirror.

Since I've been studying the Maya Tzolk'in I am regularly astonished at how celestial phenomena can correspond with appropriate symbols in the sequence. For example, today is "Ca Lahun Etz' nab" or "Twelve Flint" (which could have specific meanings as a knife or a mirror). I have previously interpreted this as a day for self-reflection or self-understanding. As this eclipse falls in the beginning degrees of Pisces, interpretations of some astrologers I read online have focused on this same quality of self-reflection. I'm not sure what to make of this myself as I come to these realizations out of a pure associative imagination, so I don't always know what is real or even what I believe. Do I believe what I see in the mirror or what I already know is true?

Rather than going to bed again after viewing the eclipse, I stayed up reading a book by John Townley on astrological life cycles which presented a method for constructing biorhythm-type charts for the longer planetary cycles, based on house dynamics. I have read that biorhythms follow cycles for the Sun, Moon and Mercury, corresponding with the physical, emotional and intellectual cycles respectively.

Very interestingly, a chart based on my second house cycle (resources) showed me various transits to Jupiter's cycle that seem to correspond with relationships I have begun in the recent past. In my natal chart, Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck, appears in my seventh house of relationships suggesting my ability to form fortunate connections with the people who engage me intimately. As an example of the transits I was discovering with this "resources biorhythm", when Jupiter's cycle crosses Uranus's cycle (this could have been a near transit, I'll have to look closer at the exact information) I met astrologer Mark Borax, who taught me sound but definitively Uranian aspects of astrology.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Midnight in the Eternal Soul Garden

blooms July 2006
Knowing the Tao,
The being and the non-being,
The water and wind,
The yin, the yong;
This is everything and
Nothing at all.
When I close my eyes to meditate I can go to my calm place,
Only that is being…
Once I am there, I easily slip into non-being
Where I cease to be,
Where time does not pass
And interruption is only the next moment
When I am being again…
Like a bit of bark on the surface of a vast pond
I bob and dip between
Being and non-being,
Spanning consciousness and sub-consciousness
Experiencing each in a similar way
I dip and bob through successively
Higher and lower levels of consciousness.
As I rise, I meet the ego
On the threshold of self;
As I submerge, I seek antithesis
Encountering my deepest attachments…
Too often getting tangled in the strings.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Fourteen degrees Taurus—an old lady selling bunches of violets on a street corner

Verbena June 2006

I've felt old most of my life,
The time spent figuring out
What I've always known:
That the older I get the less I know;
That the more I become comfortable in my own skin,
The stranger and more grotesque the World appears.

How strange to find myself at a crossroads
And barely able to satisfy
To always be comfortable is a skill,
A blessing…

But then who wants to be comfortable in a storm
or a swirling vortex?

Title quoted from "Degree Analyses Part II: Chandra Symbols In the Horoscope" by John Sandbach