Benjamin Franklin

Shortly before a rainstorm the leaves on the trees turn upwards.  That has always been a clear sign for me that it was definitely going to rain. The upward facing leaves do not cause the rain; they signal that rain is approaching.  In ancient times, I might have worshiped the leaves as bringers of rain and given praise when they turned up their leaves to call down the rain.  I might have thought of the as gods, but I would not have confused them with God. The ancient Egyptians worshiped as gods many different symbols, representing different animals or insects that personified fertilization, or life, but only Ra was their God. The Greeks believed that different gods presided over different aspects of life, or elements, but Zeus would have been the God.  The Hebrew God has archangels, that could be called “gods” with a little “g”.

The planets have retained the names of the various gods, along with their own mythological story.  So, in Astrology, the Sun could be viewed as the symbolic representative of the “will” of God, and the planets from Mercury to Jupiter could be viewed as the angels or “gods” that guide us to fulfill that will.  Saturn is really in a class by itself, it holds more of the position of Satan in the Old Testament.  It tests our worthiness.  It forces us to prove our commitment, sincerity, and willingness to give all that we have.  Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are more like the archangels, because, unlike the other planets, they are not visible to the naked eye.  And in a sense, they seem to know the higher agenda, overseeing the plan that they alone are privy to.  Thus, even as Astrologers, we don’t really know what they will do; we only know “how” they will do it. Now, I qualified the Sun as symbolic of the “will” of God because it is believed that the Sun itself revolves around the galactic center.

The former is, in a sense, a religious or mythological way if viewing the planets we use in Astrology. However, in reality, they are round rocks, gases and ice circling a huge ball of fire.  Looking at it this way, we can say that they are like turned up leaves before it is going to rain, or any of the signs that our ancient ancestors used to understand what to do and when to do it in order to survive.

The clock has twelve numbers.  Our ancestors used a sun dial to judge time based upon when the shadow of the dial was in a certain sector of the circle.  The twelve sectors became times.  These twelve times are like the twelve signs of the zodiac.  Like the shadow on the sun dial, we time events based upon the movement of each planet through the different sectors of the zodiac. So in this respect, the planets neither make us do anything, nor cause anything to happen in and of themselves, they signal approaching events, and explain existing ones. They define seasons in our lives, individually and as a whole, but they do not create them.

Whether we consider Astrology a spiritual art, a mystical path, or, a form of prophesy, is simply a matter of personal perception as religion. However it is, in reality, a “Science”, a science is defined as:

1. “the study of the physical and natural world and phenomena, especially by using systematic observation and experiment”.
2.  “a systematically organized body of knowledge about a particular subject”
3. “an activity that is the object of careful study or that is carried out according to a developed method”

Now scientific method is, “The method or process fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence. Science manages new assertions about our world with theories — hypotheses and observations. Predictions from these theories are tested by experiment. If a prediction turns out correct, the theory survives, but if a prediction fails the theory fails. Any theory which is strong enough to make verifiable predictions can then be tested scientifically in this way. These are the underlying methods of scientific practice. With them scientists determine which theories, hypotheses and observations are true. The scientific method is essentially an extremely cautious means of building a supportable, evidenced understanding of our world.”

Understanding this shows Astrology to clearly be a science, perhaps the oldest branch of science with the greatest and oldest body of experimentation and observation in existence today.  Physicist Albert Einstein said : “Astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things and I am greatly indebted to it. Geophysical evidence reveals the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power to some extent. This is why astrology is like a life-giving elixir to mankind.”  Physicist Sir Isaac Newton said in defense of astrology, to skeptic Edmund Halley: “I have studied the matter. You sir, have not”. Sir Francis Bacon, the father of modern science told us, “The natures and dispositions of men are, not without truth, distinguished from the predominance of the planets.”

When we think of science, we think of a physical science, such as the science of medicine, or weather, for example, do fail much of the time, but not all of the time.  Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine said : “A physician without the knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician.”

Yet Astrology, has an extremely high verifiable rate of prediction.  I would even feel comfortable saying that its success rate is higher than many tested medications on the market today, or even weather predictions.  It has been secretly used for centuries by those in power.  President Theodore Roosevelt kept his horoscope mounted on a chess board in the oval office. When asked about it he would reply, “I always keep my weather eye on the opposition of my seventh house Moon to my first house Mars.” Our first billionaire, John Pierpont Morgan said,  “Anyone can be a millionaire, but to become a billionaire you need an astrologer”. 

I was watching Dr. Oz on television and he was discussing a diet that was not approved by the FDA, yet it had a high success rate.  He said that the problem with the scientists is that it is not enough that something works they refuse to accept it unless they understand “why” it works.  That is the problem with Astrology, it works, and because it works, many religions fear that if accepted, it would challenge the power of religious institutions.  Science rejects it because there is not material reason for the fact that it works, but even that is changing with the growth of quantum physics.  Quantum mechanics works.  Yet it is really metaphysical.  It is founded on the theory that matter is not really solid, not even a little bit.  It is 99% space.

Our ancient forefathers studied the signs around them and found that in studying and following the signs, from the movements of animals to the movements of the stars, they were able to survive and prosper.  They had no interest in “why” because they were humbled by the awesome power of the Universe within which, they knew themselves to be a tiny part.  They felt such reverence for that power of All-That-Is that they did not question, they simply learned and followed, and passed on these signs.  Confucius taught his followers that, “Heaven sends down its good and evil symbols and wise men act accordingly.” St. Thomas Aquinas told all who would listen: “The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sub-lunar world.” 

Only when the reverence and awe of the Spirit in all, was transformed into religion, and man with his egoistic need for power and control decided to fashion G-D in his image, and use that image to gain more power and control, did we lose the most important gift given to man – the ability to read the signs. We are entering a time, where science is changing the world in which we live from one of matter which separates forms, to one of formless space, appearing as matter.  Astrologers are returning to the study of Astrology’s ancient roots, seeking the true foundation of the knowledge.  Religions are losing followers to the search for the core truths, to the Spirit of the Universe, finding less and less comfort in illusions of form held by religion.

Our institutions are crumbling, as we are waking up to the understanding that whenever we make a form permanent, by natural law it will become corroded, corrupted, and crumble.  Like the Israelites, we have been wondering in the desert, the desert of the material world.  We are tired of disappointment; we are tired of faith that must be adjusted to justify the world.  Deep inside, we are all awakening to the fact that we must seek a world that justifies our faith.  And we can only find that in connecting through each other, through the Universe around us, through love, to the Source which is unknowable, yet at the same time unfailingly true.  Astrology is written into that truth,  Genesis:

14: And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16: And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17: And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18: And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

The greatest light is the light of knowledge and the greatest darkness is the darkness of ignorance.  All roads are beginning to converge, we are being offered enlightenment, by again being given a chance to align ourselves and our lives, to the music of the spheres, and to the rhythm of our own lives.  Part of that journey, is one of again looking up to Heaven, and the bodies placed there to be as signs.

Astrology became a secret tool of the wealthy, Donald Reagan, formerly Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff said: “It’s common knowledge that a large percentage of Wall Street brokers use astrology.”

To understand the Age of Pisces we must understand two things, first there is the symbol for Pisces, it is two fish tied together swimming in opposite directions. So we must immediately understand that it is a sign of duality, a sign that emphasizes opposites with enormous passion. If there is any word that must be stressed during this age that word is passion. If we do anything, we do it passionately, if we believe anything, we believe it passionately. And we think that passion is a part of our makeup. It is not. We are all portions of the Divine. We are all Divine Seeds. This means that we are all love and that kind of love, that level of love that I am speaking of Divine Love is not passionate. Passion is the cause of suffering. Passion is not even a quality of the material world; survival is the only natural quality of the material world. When a lioness kills her prey it is without passion, it is a requirement of survival. This is why animals do not hate, they are a part of the earth and there is only hate where there is passion.

We have been living for at least two thousand years in a passionate age. How does that affect us? We are here to absorb and work through the existing energies of this planet in order to grow. And so we are like clear sponges. And when we enter the world during an age, we first absorb the energy of that age, this age of Pisces is red with passion and so although we are clear sponges when we enter the environment, we become red because we absorb the energy of the environment. The age colors everything. Why? It does so because everything on earth absorbs its energy from the Sun, and the constellation that the Sun is in during its own 25,000 plus year rotation will color the energy that we absorb from it.

Every religion has its legends of destruction and new birth, whether it is by flood, fire, air or war, periodically in the history of mankind there have been reseedings. Each species evolves through mutation physically and spiritually so as a new age or seeding is about to occur, there are mutations that incarnate to generate the change. This has been happening for about three hundred years culminating in a major seeding of souls during the late forties and fifties. These were the souls who bloomed during the sixties with the energy of Aquarius and as they bloomed, their seeds were carried by the wind of Spirit to be planted and spread throughout the world to begin the slow process of change into the energy of Aquarius. It is certain that the Age of Pisces created the divide between man and his God. Before this age, man saw the universe as one great body of which he was a part. There was no God out there far far away in Heaven. There was only God in everything and everyone who existed upon the earth. The power of these ancient beings is the stuff of legends, but because they are legends does not mean that the powers were not real.

I wondered, if all is perfect and for our growth, there are no mistakes and no accidents, then why was God taken from within man and placed at such a distance that we could feasibly lose our belief? What is the good in that? Yes, I know that on the mundane level it was done by the greedy to maintain power, but I know that even the greedy are only playing their parts in the Plan. Then it came to me, many mystics believe that God created the world in order to experience himself. How can we understand the power of God that exists within us, unless we are apart from it, a drop of water cannot conceive of the power of the ocean unless it is separated from it. So we have, during this Age, reached the greatest distance that we can from the Power within us.

We have taken our manipulation of the external world to its peak during this age. We will soon run out of things to invent – then what? I had a vision the other day while driving in my car. I saw a group of students perhaps five hundred years from now talking about how backwards we were with all of our airplanes, rockets, bombs and gadgets. Laughing at how hard we worked to build things with our hands when all we had to do was build them with our minds. I saw them studying war (a concept lost to them) and having war explained as how barbarians functioned before civilization. To the humans of the future, civilization will be living in at-one-ness with the Power from which we all come and the universe of which we all are a part. There will be no God, no void, only a continuous circle of life. There will be no heaven or hell because theirs will be a holographic universe where they naturally see that the whole is within each part and each part is a mirror of the whole. But in order for us to get to this place of non-duality, we must be the fish swimming in opposite directions with passion and commitment, going nowhere, but going but willing to kill anyone who stops us from getting there.

Unless we passionately exhaust our beliefs, however delusional they are, we cannot choose to change them. This is the purpose of the age of passionate confusion – the age of Pisces. And to really see how this works in our lives personally, we must understand the planet the rules Pisces and that is Neptune. Neptune is somewhere in all of our charts and is moving through some part of each chart at all times. Where ever it is, life will never be the same again. Neptune is a very strange energy. It enfolds us in a blanket of blind faith and passionate commitment to a path that appears to be clearer than any that we have ever known before. However, in the midst of being so certain and so committed we find that everyone else in our lives sees something seriously wrong with the vision of the world we are holding. Usually we find ourselves making the most outrageous sacrifices almost joyfully because we feel that God has ordained them. We fly in the face of overwhelming odds. We take the most irresponsible risks with passionate abandon. We build castles in the air, move into them, and have absolutely no qualms about paying the rent.

The positive face of Neptune is that it can be compassionate and self-sacrificing. It allows us to believe in the loftiest of ideals and aim for the most spiritual of heights. The negative face of Neptune allows us to fight to build a nation based on freedom and delude ourselves into thinking that owning slaves is not a contradiction. It can cause people to believe in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and find no contradiction in waging the most brutal wars in His name. It permits us to break every one of the Ten Commandments and still consider ourselves pious, own multi-million dollar mansions while eighty percent of the world is starving, and consider ourselves righteous human beings. In other words, it is the great deceiver.

On the personal level, we may find that we have endured ten years of torture and abuse in a marriage because we believed our spouses every time we were told that it would never happen again. Or, we could join a cult and spend fourteen years giving all that we have to that cult not ever feeling that we were being taken. Then one day Neptune moves on. When this happens we wake up wondering where or even who we have been for all of those years, lost and humiliated wondering at what point we lost our sanity. It is easy accepting that everyone makes mistakes, but when it is a Neptune mistake—we find that it has cost us something that we would never have given up were we in our right mind. That something could be financial security, emotional security, our position in society, even those whom we love the most. Neptune also rules drugs and alcohol. Neptune strikes us where we feel we are the least vulnerable. And when it is over, we find that the golden chalice we risked everything to own was no more than a tin cup. We look back at the signs that we missed, the warnings that we refused to heed, the writing on the wall that was as clear as the noses on our faces and wonder how on earth we could have ever been that stupid.

Imagine the feeling of the devout Christian monk who, in the fervor of Neptune’s delusion, joined in the slaughter of hundreds of people during the Crusades. Neptune moves on and all that he is left with is the bloodstains on his hands. The reaction to our Neptune actions range from, “This is going to be hard to fix”, to “My God what have I done?” What underlies all Neptune experiences is that somewhere in our lives we have placed too much dependence upon something that is directly in the way of our spiritual connection with the Divine. Neptune lessons are probably the most difficult to learn because we don’t wake up until all of the damage has been done and for us to face ourselves and the world at this point takes an amount of humility that most of us just did not come in with. Neptune teaches us what we can live without, which is usually the one thing in our lives that we have determined we cannot live without.

Neptune shows us that nothing is real except faith because while it is affecting our lives, we truly believe what we are living in is the only reality and our delusions—the only truths. And when we awaken, we find that we cannot ever repeat the justifications that we once lived by, with a straight face. We can never put back together what Neptune has destroyed. It is a spiritual planet – it is the hand of God. It does not work to make us rich in the earthly garden, it works to make us rich in the spiritual garden. It does not work to strengthen our relationship with the opposite sex, it works to strengthen our relationship with Spirit. The Spiritual world and the material world are opposites, what is good for one is not good for the other. “Seek and ye shall find” – not if it is a Mercedes. “What does it merit a man to gain the world if he loses his soul?” This is the lesson of Neptune. This is the lesson the Age of Pisces.

Neptune rules illusion and delusion, it rules everything that sparkles and shines, the bigger the better. It rules glamour. It is the god of temptation. It lies, it helps us justify, it entices us to take more and more until we die to the physical world and are reborn to the spiritual.

When Neptune entered my house of money I had my own business two homes and all that glitters and glows. By the time Neptune left that house in my chart, I had the clothes on my back and was not too sure how long I would have them. I had no choice where the loss was concerned, the tighter I held on the faster it slipped away – the more ideas I came up with to make more, the more crooks entered my life to steal it. My option was not to find out how to be smarter about money, my option was to let go or suffer. Neptune give us an opportunity to learn detachment. I say offers us the opportunity to learn because we do not have to learn Neptune’s lessons. This is where free will comes in. Many people, I am sure, come out of a Neptune cycle such as mine having learned nothing. For those who learn nothing, joy will always be something that belongs to someone else. Because those things that Neptune takes away from us, are the things that stand between our joy, and us, whether they are money, power, status, fame, pride or just plain ego. Our load is somehow lightened in the area that Neptune travels, whether we like it or not.

So, during the age of Pisces we have fought for our personal form of worship of God, while at the same time somehow finding ourselves completely justified in breaking His laws as often and with as much passion as possible. During the Age of Pisces we were willing to give up our lives for all to be free, but we were not willing to give up our slaves. We said the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, repeating the words, “With Liberty and Justice for all” while ensuring that there was liberty and justice only for the privileged few. We spoke with forked tongues and were equally committed to both forks. Two fish swimming in opposite directions. We repeated the words, “Judge not lest ye be judged,” while simultaneously judging everyone whose beliefs differed from our own.

So now, we say that we are in a war to bring freedom to a country at the cost of the lives of most of those to whom we are bringing this freedom. And that works for many of us, or at least those of us who are still heavily under the influence of the Age of Pisces. Yet, those of who have been awakened by the Age of Aquarius, are finding it difficult to understand how we have spent our lives believing that black was white and finding it impossible to explain to our Aquarian children what the truth exactly is. We wonder why our children lie so much without realizing that in the short time that they have spent in our world, they have seen no truth. The Age of Pisces has been a dream and a nightmare, and whether we believed the dream or lived the nightmare, waking up is feeling more and more like hell.

I cannot count the number of beautiful happy families I grew up watching on television and believing in where the actors and actresses who played the happy children went home only to be abused by their real parents. Yes, waking up is hell. But, wake up we must because as Neptune is the great deceiver, Uranus, the planet that rules the Age of Aquarius is the great awakener. Pisces allows us to live in blind faith. It allows us to believe that we are being faithful and remain blind to our own deceit. Now, with the Age of Aquarius upon us we must give up our blind faith for Enlightened believe, and that means awakened belief. The wonder of this new age is realizing that we can have faith, without being blind, and that faith, awakened faith—can never lead to disillusionment. In the lie we have been enslaved because we have had to live in the fear.

Although we have not officially entered the Age of Aquarius, it is here. It is here drawing out the truth and awakening the souls whose true vibration is Aquarian. Losing the illusion does not mean losing Santa Claus, it means finding him where he lives, in the human heart. A faith born of blindness is one, which will be lost if sight is restored, but a faith born of vision, and light is one that can guide us forever. The Age of Pisces demanded that we believe blindly in a God that can never be seen, and never be attained. The Age of Aquarius tells us to open our eyes to the mystical beauty of the God that animates all that is. In the Age of Aquarius we will not need to go the a church, synagogue or mosque in order to find God, we simply have to look at the trees, the sky, the people and life that is all around us to know God as once our ancestors did. We will live in peace because we will know that we do not need to go to heaven, we simply need to live it. This is the Age of Aquarius, it is the freedom that comes from truth, the truth that God is where our love is and also who we are. Pisces rules prisons and asylums, bondage and our deepest fears. What we have come to fear most in this age is the truth.

In Pisces we have placed God so far from our reach that we have become convinced that we would be forgiven for not even trying to reach It. We have invented our own scapegoat and named him Satan. We have turned Christ into a martyr who died so that we can remain imperfectly pure and tell ourselves that we are faultless in the sight of God. In the Age of Aquarius there is no devil out there and there is no God out there, both reside within us, both reside in the light, and it is within that light that both become One and that One becomes Us. We must make our choices in the sight of God and the world and know that we are our choices. In Pisces we have been enslaved by the lies and hypocrisy within which we have lived. In the Age of Aquarius there will be no lies, no hypocrisy and so no fear of exposure. Without the fear of exposure, there is no prison.

I have been fascinated with time for many years.    Time is really one of the great mysteries because it has so much depth of meaning.  There is physical time measured by the movement of the hands of a clock.  That outer expression of time allows us to keep our experiences in linear order, to measure the distance between this time, or experience and the next or past.  It lets us know when to expect our seasons and cycles.  . We are passengers traveling through this timescape in a vehicle that is our own energy field, containing our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physicals bodies.  This vehicle is transported through this timescape by the same unseen Driver that transports all vehicles on their paths here on this planet.

As we move through time distance grows between us and a painful loss, that distance, which gives us perspective, and healing. After all, we do not really observe the passage of time. What we actually observe is that later states of the world differ from earlier states that we still remember. The fact that we remember the past, rather than the future, is an observation not of the passage of time but of the asymmetry of time. Nothing other than a conscious observer registers the flow of time. A clock measures durations between events much as a measuring tape measures distances between places; it does not measure the “speed” with which one moment succeeds another. Therefore, it appears that the flow of time is subjective, not objective. Scientific American Editors (2012-11-30). A Question of Time: The Ultimate Paradox This is the same time that appears to move so slowly when we are children, and to increase in speed as we age.  Yet at any age, it seems to move so slowly when we are waiting for something we want to happen, and to move so quickly when we are facing a deadline, or are running late.

Time seems to exist relative to the context within which we view it. There is another way in which we perceive time.  This perception is much more indicative of place.  There is the experience of time as color.  I don’t mean yellow or green, but how a period of time contains its own color – tone, energy.  The Renaissance Period, the Industrial Age, the Age of Reason, The Age of Enlightenment, the information age, are examples of large periods of time containing a singular energy or color.  Then we have decades, the sixties, the seventies, the eighties, each decade evokes a general energy that covers the economy, the style, and overall emotional sentiment coloring that period of time. If we envision time as the true environment through which our paths lead us, those periods of time would be like countries that all vehicles must pass through.  Yet on a personal level our lives have periods that contain their own color, those would be the stations in which our individual vehicles stop, or linger.

The longer our vehicle lingers at a particular station, the more of that energy we absorb and carry with us to the next. To put this in physical terms, if you were going to a place where the language and customs were different than yours for a week, you would learn a few words, pick up a few customs and probably forget it all when you leave.  However, if you were to find yourself remaining in that place for a number of years, you would adopt the language and customs.  You would begin to think in the new language and take on the new customs as your own.  That experience would be absorbed and integrated into who you are and remain with you even after you left.  However, you would still be who you were before that journey began, only enriched by that additional layer of experience.  So, I am an American, if I went to live in Italy for 10 years I could live like an Italian, speak like an Italian, but I would still be an American.

When we prepare for our journey in this life, we are not blank slates, we are perfect souls with a specific agenda based on the lessons that we want to learn, the growth that we want to achieve and the souls that we want or need in this life to meet these goals.  The soul plans where and when these situations and other souls will be met.  Most importantly, we plan where in the timescape our journey will begin.  That first stop is the most important because we will enter it with amnesia. We are not born when we enter this life, our bodies are born.  We are not created and molded by our parents, our bodies are created and our first experiences are provided by our parents.

The timescape known as ‘childhood’ gives us our first colors, it colors our world as we perceive it, and even more importantly, that time colors how we perceive ourselves.  But because we are whole, fully formed souls with amnesia, and not newly created beings, childhood does not define us. We come to this first stop fully defined.  Yet, we have no memory of our own definition.  So we absorb the color of that time as our own.  We see ourselves and the world through that color. As we continue on our journey, and travel the path of destiny to each new stop, some of that color chips off because it doesn’t stand up to the conditions at other stops along the way.  Each time of our lives that we pass through gives us some new color, or reinforces an earlier color.

For some reason, I have been dealing with writer’s block for a while, but this seems so important to put out there that I had to express my concern.  Sunday, I was watching 60 minutes.  They aired a segment on robots that were doing the work of employees in the manufacturing industry.  The experts said, in that segment, that in the near future, robots would fill the jobs brought back from China and other areas of the world.  When we go to the supermarket, we see more and more that self-service lanes are replacing cashiers.  Even garbage trucks have arms that lift and dump the garbage into the truck.  It is no stretch to imagine that robots will soon be able to stock the shelves in the stores and, as moving computers, be much better at advising consumers the precise location of any item on any shelf in any store.

In Florida, the Sun Pass is taking the place of tollbooth attendants.  We have automated telephone operators, automated customer service, self-service gas stations, automated parking lots, and e readers.  It is no giant leap to envision automated buses and trains.  We already have automated bank tellers.  And in case Hollywood has not noticed, the actor will soon be replaced by automated characters, without in anyway effecting the box office receipts, as seen by the movie Avatar.

The technological advances that we once hailed as devices that would make the jobs of workers easier, are replacing those same workers and then some.  If we continue in the direction that technology is leading us, we will arrive at the destination we fear most.  Every medical, military, industrial, commercial, educational, service oriented advance that we have made with technology, from the Gutenberg printing press, has inevitably eliminated jobs.

Einstein did what he loved, and in his heart, he imagined that his work would ultimately be in service to mankind, never did it occur to him that it would be used to destroy it.  Invention is form of art.  The inventor is inspired to create.  The inventor is carried away by the invention and never, in the end, does he or she consider that it is taking us closer and closer to the elimination of our basic ability to survive.

If we make the effort to move, for a moment, away from our awe in what we are able to create, we will realize that each creation brings us closer and closer to our irreverence.  We seem intent on destroying ourselves and all that we believe in.  It says that art imitates life, but I think that is not the case.  Art gives us a glimpse into our possible futures.

Some will remember the television show, “Touched by an Angel”.  It did not really impact me that the head angel was Black.  However, when they finally brought us face to face with God, and He was Black – it was in that moment that I knew I would live to see a Black President.  This was only later supported by the fact that it seemed from then on, every time I saw a depiction of God in a movie it was Morgan Freeman, and when he was not playing God, he was busy playing the President.

How many movies today depict the takeover of computers, the ultimate enemy of mankind being none other than mankind’s own technological creations.   If we can even remember, those of us who were not educated to memorize, but to think, imagine, and envision, what the possible symbolism might be hidden in our obsession with blood sucking vampires, or the walking dead feeding on each other?  Leonardo Da Vinci, Nostradamus, Jules Vern, just to name a few who peaked into the possible means to our own end.

Perhaps the true prophets of our age, are the writers of these movies and television shows that we perceive as entertainment.  Perhaps we should take heed of the repetitive theme of the need for individuals from the future to return to our present to change the course that lead to our end, and find a way to change that course, NOW.

It is our nature to create, explore and expand, that cannot and should not be curtailed.  It is our unalienable right.  And I do not believe that it in itself is the means of our destroying the quality of life we so deeply cherish and pray to leave for our children and grandchildren.  I do believe, that the use of that gift, for financial profit, power or supremacy, is what will guarantee that our children and grandchildren will have only one dream left by us, and that dream will be to survive just one more day.

I am living

between

If you stay

or

If you leave

I am surviving

between

with

or

without you

I face two paths

and travel

none

For you are still in my life

but not really

And you are out of my life

but not quite

I did not grow up in the energetic environment of my parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents so I can’t say how they felt in their lives. I do know that their lives, at least until my parent’s generation, were ruled by the roles society had carved out for them. They seemed to have their ‘place’ and the ‘place’ that they could aspire to. I really can’t say whether or not they were happy once they arrived in their ‘place’. Were wives generally happy serving their husbands and catering to the needs of their children? Did they have needs of their own? If they did, did they believe that the sacrificing of those needs was a worthwhile price to pay for what they received in return? Did they honestly believe that the Church was an ordained pillar of righteousness and all who served were above reproach? Did they honestly believe that our elected officials were moral and honest leaders above and self-serving desires or ulterior motives? In the age of Pisces, illusion is real. And obviously the set up was all an illusion. With all of the rugs being overturned and all of the closets being opened today, it seemed that on the whole, they either closed their eyes, fooling themselves into believing what they were told, and not looking behind closed doors or asking too many questions, or, they told themselves that their lives would be better off if they just lived as if it were right. I imagine that the whole ‘person fit the mold’ thing, rather than, ‘the mold fit the person’, worked for generations.

What I have noticed in people that I have counseled is a profound unhappiness within seemingly happy lives. In other words, I keep hearing people say that they have everything that others say should make them happy, everything that they believed would make them happy, but they are deeply unhappy. This unhappiness is compounded by the fact that they feel ungrateful because they have what others seem to want. So they feel ashamed of their pain and as a result, too guilty to seek help. If they do seek help, the help that they seek is help in fixing themselves so that they can find the happiness that they are supposed to have with the lives that they are living rather than finding the courage to look within their souls for keys to the true life that would contain their happiness. I am seeing people who either have what they believed would make them happy, or what they were told would make them happy but instead it is the cause of their pain. It is this widespread inner discontent that changes the world. This sense of dissatisfaction – this intense need for some kind of change grows within the collective unconscious until it reaches critical mass and something happens to force a change. We are accustomed to quick fixes, but we need a lasting resolution. Humanity is entering an age that is taking it from the surface to the heart, from the world to the soul, from a world of greater and lesser beings to a world of equality, honesty, freedom and brotherhood. All of the boxes are the same as they always have been, there are still the many ‘things’ out there, the many awards, achievements and ways to find self-gratification – and goodies to buy to advertise our personal greatness, so that we are not overlooked, but God moved the cheese – the happy – to another place.

Everyone wants the brass ring, but we are conditioned to want the brass ring that we can have. Everyone can’t be the queen of England, but some people can, for a time, be the queen of Broadway. So it is to that, which they aspire. Up until about seventy years ago, people were able to be happy because their expectations were very limited. If you were a woman – then you had your list of achievable goals. If your father was a coal miner, you had your list of achievable goals, if you were Black, you had your list of achievable goals and to get to the top of your list, or even close, left most people at least content and usually happy with their lives.

It seems to me that World War II pretty much blew that boat out to sea. Suddenly, people found themselves in strange new roles – roles that were believed and accepted as beyond their reach, or just plain unnatural for them. Women went out to work, formed sports teams, took over supervising positions, supported the country, brought home the bacon and cooked it. Whites had to fight with and often found their lives in the hands of Negro soldiers, all lines, including the color lines were temporarily but still irrevocably crossed. Factory workers became Sergeants, bosses became privates, all in all, everyone found themselves living somehow outside of the box that seemed before to be set in stone. Although the world expected everyone to return to their original roles -and most had to – the taste of the possible never left their palates. Soon, ‘Equality’ was to be the never-ending hum in the background of life from then on. The first key-word for Aquarius was ushered into the age.

Of course, the first harbingers of change are always met with violent opposition, so the shouts for equality were labeled Communist, and the McCarthy era showed that those in power would do anything to combat the massive changes that a movement towards freedom and equality would bring. The generation of children born during and after that war was, as would be required, the “Me” generation. If you think about it, this was the perfect and timely reaction to all of the “everything but me” generations that came before. It made sense because we had to come from ‘what is good for the whole is good for the parts’ to ‘what is good for the parts is good for the whole’ in order to get to our destination of ‘the whole is equal to the parts’ – Aquarius. Change – this kind of change – is not something that happens, like walking out of one room into another. We must transition. For more than two thousand years, power has been held by those who maintained the greatest secrecy. Sometimes it was the manipulation of the ignorant populace by the few who understood the workings and cycles of nature, to pretend to create miracles, such as eclipses, lightening, or droughts. Or, it was by the use of the fear of the gods or God to manipulate the people into submission. Today it is still done, but more through covert actions of institutions, governments, covert deals made with those who manipulate the world’s economies.

The church has always governed in secrecy the Vatican contains vaults of secret writings, hidden documents etc. For so many years the perverted actions of the clergy went on, hidden and protected by the accepted secrecy so pervasive in this age. Government officials hid their true identities and true motives behind vast networks of cover-ups for as long as we can remember. Then suddenly, bit by bit, the truths have been unearthed, perhaps beginning with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the scrolls found at Nag Hammadi. This, followed by expository journalism, tabloid press, cell phones, hidden cameras, whistle blowers and the internet has made for a growing overall transparency. This is a time of revelations. Everything hidden is being revealed. It is this truth – this revelation – that will ultimately set us free of the shackles of deception and illusion. People said one thing and lived another. We idolized our celebrities as perfect and they had to maintain a public persona. When I was a child I heard the fear of one day having “Big Brother” watching our every move. Today, big Brother is watching us, but we are also watch Big Brother. Everything and everyone is being exposed, more and more. It will only continue to grow. We ourselves are being exposed to ourselves and any lives that we have been living that are not true to our hearts, and our souls, will cause more and more of us heightened levels of pain. I once looked at the supermarket counters loaded with tabloid papers as a part of the degeneration of our society. Until I saw a headline in one of those tabloids saying that two actors, renowned for their humanitarian efforts were going on a spending spree, flying doctors over continents, spending upwards of eight figures for a home and I realized that if we admire people if must be not just for what they do but also for how they live.

Today, with the world as small as it is, it seems a bit obscene to live large, while others are struggling just to live. And living large is ok, for those who claim with all honesty and candor to be card carrying members of the greedy few. It’s honest. But if you profess a sense of responsibility to the world and the suffering within it, if you believe that to whom much is given, much is expected, and want your name in that book, then you must not just do charity but live a charitable life. It is time for us to be ourselves, live as ourselves, wear one face, and walk our talk. This is what the Age of Aquarius is all about. When everyone says, “This is who I am and I am proud of it”, tabloids will have nothing to expose. When we no longer put people on pedestals, we will no longer feel the need to knock them off. There are no pedestals in Aquarius. As we draw nearer and nearer to that Age we will learn that death is not the only great equalizer. God has moved the cheese. The power box is now empty, the material wealth box is now empty, the public adoration box is now empty. The sooner we figure out that God has put the cheese in the box of love given, time shared, selfless service and brotherhood, the sooner we will find the transition into the new Age a rewarding journey of gain, and not a painful succession of losses.

Secrets require darkness. A life that cannot stand up under the Sun twenty-four hours a day is a painful life lived in fear and darkness. But sometimes we are more afraid of what will happen to us in the light than we are of the continued fear of the darkness. When we are here, then the Universe must intervene and expose us to the light that we have hidden from and regardless of what we lose from exposure to the light, it pales in comparison to the sense of joy and freedom that comes from not ever having to hide again. When no one has to hide, when no one wants to hide, when no one will hide – we will know that we have officially become a part of the Age of Aquarius.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” Samuel Adams

What is a building without its foundation? The ability of a building to stand the tests of time and nature lies in its foundation and its structure. Well, the foundation of this country is the spirit instilled in it by the founding fathers. The structure of this country is the Constitution. One depends upon the other. One cannot be disconnected from the other for the building to stand; yet, the building is getting closer and closer to falling because we have caused the structure to lose its original integrity. It is being separated from the foundation and when that separation is complete, the building will collapse. The foundation of this country is the 28 principals, which united the founding fathers. The principals that they deemed vital in the success of this, “Experiment” in self-government that was to be the hope of mankind, in the words of Thomas Jefferson:

“We feel that we are acting under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind; that circumstances denied to others but indulged to us have imposed on us the duty of proving what is the degree of freedom and self-government in which a society may venture to leave its individual members.”

Most Americans, and in this group I include lawmakers, do not understand in their hearts and souls the nature of the country that they are serving. Nor do they understand the importance of the form of government for which the flag stands. Many say the pledge of allegiance by rote memory never considering what they are saying for when asked what form of Government we live under they inevitably say, “Democracy”. However, it is clearly stated in the, “Pledge of Allegiance”, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of American AND TO THE REPUBLIC, for which it stands….”, this is not a democracy it is a Republic.

For the past eight years I have been trying to figure out which country I want to live in when I can afford to move. I felt helpless in effecting what was happening in this country and so I felt that living in this country was in essence being a part of the problem that is destroying the world. Then suddenly, I was guided to the writings of the Founders. Then I read a quote by Gandhi which said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” In the same book, he recounted this story:

Gandhi and Reverend Andrews, a Presbyterian missionary, were walking together in South Africa.  “The two suddenly find their way blocked by young thugs.  Reverend Andrews takes one look at the menacing gangsters and decides to run for it.  Gandhi stops him.  ‘Doesn’t the New Testament say if an enemy strikes you on the right cheek you should offer him the left?’  Andrews mumbles that he thought the phrase was used metaphorically.  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Gandhi replies.  ‘I suspect he meant you must show courage – be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you will not strike back nor will you be turned aside.  And when you do that it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred decrease and his respect increase.  I think Christ grasped that and I have seen it work.’

This, and everything that I was hearing about this being, ” un-American”, and that being, “unconstitutional”, made me seek a deeper understanding of what is American, and what is Constitutional. I realized that the problem was not America, just as Gandhi saw that the problem was not Christianity, America is a beautiful ideal, one unlike any other in the world, it was Americans and their ignorance of this country that made them so unlike America. We have underneath all of the muck, corruption, prejudice, greed and hatred, the most precious diamond on earth – and if we are going to survive as the human race, we will need to uncover it once again, and use it as a new foundation upon which to build, once again, a new world.

We need a deeper understanding before we decide what is Constitutional and what is Unconstitutional.  We need a deeper understanding of the framers of that document and what they meant, the constitution is not to be interpreted, it is to be understood.

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people’ (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.” Thomas Jefferson

So I am going to being a series of blogs covering the 28 principals upon which this country was built. Understanding the foundation, will, begin our journey, however, long it may be, to the place where we were born as Americans. And perhaps, we will understand that we must see the Constitution, and interpret it in the way in which the founding fathers had seen it done.

“On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. Thomas Jefferson

I have already covered the first Principle in the blog entitled, “In God We Trust”. The second principle, which I believe is the mortar which holds all of the other principles together I will cover in my next blog, but it is this:

Principal 2: A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.

When we are babies, we make our decisions based upon our natures.  Do I take that?  Do I try this?  Do I stick this thing in my mouth?  Our inner natures are as unique to us as our fingerprints, or a zebra’s stripes.  Then, we make our next tier of decisions based upon the outcomes of the last.  Did it hurt?  Did it incur disapproval?  Did it taste like #$%^?  The outcomes of those natural impulses guide our next level of choices.

Later, as children, we begin to make choices according to our natural instincts, tempered by the outcome of our prior choices and now, further tempered by the norms established in our home environment.  Steps, one step leading to the next, and to the next, and so on, always following a natural order.

Then, we go to school and encounter peers.  They add a new layer to our decision making process.  Any decisions that we make at that time, are based upon the progression of each of the previous steps.  Each of those steps colors our perception of the world of choices and decisions that we face each day.  And each step adds a tint to the world that we perceive. 

I don’t know where it came from, but, as far back as I can remember I felt an overwhelming sense of duty and responsibility.  As a child, I was to ‘good’ one.  This was not the one that I wanted to be.  Clearly, I envied the ‘bad’ ones, they had so much more fun.  But I felt compelled to be good.  And it was a thankless choice.  I was like the brother who stayed home and did his chores while the Prodigal Son had a ball, blew his inheritance and then was thrown a party for coming home broke (that one was my sister).

After escaping my Cinderella childhood, my mother and my grandmother both lost their ability to walk and so, I bought a house and moved them in.  One day I was complaining about how horrible it was reliving my childhood in spades, at 33 years old my friend said to me, “Well, it was your choice!”  Never for one minute, during the entire process of inviting them to live with me, did I consider it to be a choice.  For me, for who I was and my perception of the world, it was not a choice it was what I had to do.

Now, I could say that if I had it to do over again, I would have done it differently.  But that is not true.  There are only two possible ways that I would have made a different choice.  One way would have been if I had known how badly it was going to turn out.  The other, would have been had I been born someone else, and raised by other people.  I made no choice.

You see as much as we believe that we make choices, in retrospect, it has to be clear that we do not.  Whether we know it or not, we are doing what is the only clear thing to do based upon our perception of the issue.  It is just like voting.  We choose to vote for a candidate who best represents what we perceive as the right things.  Humans do not make choices.  We take the next logical step based upon who we are and the life that we have lived.  If we had it to do all over again, with no future insight and no additional input from some new sources, we would do it all over again in exactly the same way that we did it the first time.

This means, that we act in accordance with who we are, and what we believe is the best way to act within the options that we perceive available.  We never make the wrong choice, we never make a mistake, we act, at all times, appropriately.  We make our decisions in a manner that is completely consistent and appropriate.   If a fiction writer is good, he or she will develop a character that is complete enough, that we believe his choices and can foresee the direction that he will take.  A good writer will give a character believability – which means that his or her actions will be consistent with that character.  This means, that in real life, unless we are crazy, our decisions will also follow a consistent path, a path that is true to who we are and how we have incorporated the outcomes of prior actions into ourselves.

Understanding this, understanding that I will always follow a path that is true to who I am, and where I believe that I fit in my perceived world, means, that I do not make choices.  I do not make mistakes, my actions reflect who I am and what I see – through the eyes of who I am.  Today, I would not make all of the choices that I made yesterday – only – because I know how they all turned out, only – because the way that they turned out has given me new experiences from which to draw and grow into who I am today.

So, don’t buy into failure, don’t buy into mistakes.  Believe, that each step appears before us to lead us to the next – no errors – no missteps – only lessons.  The outcome of each step is  not the result of our choices but the next step that Spirit places before us.

It would be very easy to say that based upon the nature of man as he has shown himself throughout history, the only destination is self-destruction.We are in an escalated time of war, hatred, greed, and all of the things that spell disaster.

I see things symbolically.When I was working for the man who would later become my partner, for a business in New York, I remember walking down the halls feeling as though the file cabinets on either side of the hallway were falling in on me.I felt the same urgency as Chicken Little in the story saying “The sky is falling, the sky is falling”.It was this sense of urgency that caused me to push my boss into opening our own business, and we did.Not a month later, the company that we worked for went bankrupt.

During George W’s second term as president my friends would complain that he was going to get away with everything, it seemed that everything was working out for him.Yet, my vision this time, was of a dam with a hole, and like the story of the little Dutch Boy, he had his finger in the hole.However, in my vision the holes kept coming – more and more until the entire dam collapsed.This was, to me, what began with Bush and would continue with whoever became president after him.The impression that I was left with was that there was no system, not corporate, not governmental, not environmental, not social and not religions that would be sustainable for much longer.What we needed was not just change, but transformation from the ground up.The dam could not be salvaged or patched, it had to be demolished and rebuilt.

I used to paint furniture.As an artist, I would use furniture as my canvas.One day I found this perfect desk.What I should have done was sand it down to the bare wood, then prime it and begin painting.But that was too overwhelming a task, so I just primed it.The paint was not holding, so I would pile on another base coat.I kept putting paint on top of paint and although it looked beautiful when I was done, I could not sell it – or even use it because I had added too much good paint to the bad.Some things need additional coats, and others need to be stripped down to the bone and built up from scratch.This is where we are.

Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. “Regardless of a new administration in the White House, the solutions to our economic problems are being sought at the same level of consciousness that created them, which has been – take care of the corporations and they will take care of the people.Make sure that the banks have money and they will spread it down to the people.I guess it is just a continuation of trickledown economics.What would constitute change – real change?It would be working from the bottom up.You see, even if the banks are willing to give people credit cards again – the people are not going to be so willing to take them.We are becoming debt phobic.

Between the years of 1988 and 2006 the average wage in this country rose a total of about one percent.During that same time period the average cost of living rose over ten percent.How was that gap supposed to be filled?I know, credit!Credit that we could not pay because of the gap, if we could not afford, on the average wage to life, how could we afford to pay a credit card with growing interest rates?Why did no one look at these figures and anticipate a problem?The answer is greed.And it is that greed that prevents the kinds of change that we need now to guarantee the future.

The government should not loan money to investors to buy the bad debt from banks, the government would take the bad debt itself, declare a moratorium of up to two years on foreclosures and renegotiate the loans so that the people could catch up.The government would focus all of its attention to creating jobs and keeping people in their homes.Nothing would stimulate the economy more than for people to have disposable income, not more credit.Nothing would improve consumer confidence more than to feel safe within their homes and with their healthcare.We are giving the thieves who stole the cookies from the cookie jar, money to replace the cookies.There is no change here, just a new twist to an old knot.With the number of homeless and unemployed expected to continue to rise, I wonder who the economy is picking up for.But it doesn’t matter.

There is something else happening that is an deeply difficult issue to tackle and therefore an issue that is not addressed.People have paid money into social security and into their pensions in the belief that these were up there with death and taxes in terms of things that we could count on.Today people are reaching retirement age with nothing, social security that is not enough to live on, Medicare that is not enough to keep one healthy, and a pension that has been stolen by the same corporation that promised it.

We have no trust, we have no reason to trust.A terrorist attack is only one of many threats to our lives that we live with, losing our homes, our ability to feed our families, our ability to provide the education that will safeguard our children’s future, and the healthcare to keep them alive should they become ill.Keeping the homeland secure should be much more far reaching.

The only thing that the people are able to count on is that they have the power, the right and even the duty to change the system.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-

We are a skyscraper that is on fire on the first two floors, the occupants of those floors are dying, but the people in the penthouses are feeling safe and secure.But soon the fire will eat its way up to the top, and although some people on the lower floors are close enough to jump to safety – that can’t be said for the high income floors.But we won’t address the basement until those in the penthouse are affected, which of course will be too late.

Add to this we have a growing climate emergency, which the huge coal and oil industries do not see that it can be addressed adequately for at least a few decades.The scientists tell us that we don’t have one decade if we don’t start transforming our way of life today. North Korea is desperate to attack someone and prove itselfas a major military power.Israel is desperate to bomb Iran.And all of the fundamentalists of all religions are excitedly awaiting Armageddon.

If this were a novel, no one would be anticipating an happy ending.But there could still be one, a light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a new generation of Senators and Congressmen.President Obama was not just elected by those who were of voting age.He was elected because of the hard work of many young people who were not yet old enough to vote but will be not only old enough to vote, but interested enough to run for office in the year 2012.Those who will be voting in that election will have a different agenda and enormous power over communications through the internet.

The generation of the sixties had great promise and hope of a world in which there was peace, brotherhood, and an end to war.Sadly, their hopes were dashed and their faith was shattered when their candidate for President lost the election.They became cynical believing that they were up against a system that they could not, with all of their work and enthusiasm – defeat.Some just withdrew, some decided that if you can’t beat them, join them.This is not the case today.The young people of today did win, and they did change the face of the country.They are empowered.

Seeds are being planted now in every area of life.The technology exists to end consumption of fossil fuels.These young people are growing up in a time where greed is not good.They have a voice and they will use it loudly.

Things change, the world changes, and it is very hard, even in our own personal lives to know the exact date that it happens because we are not aware of the change until we are well within it.From there we look back and say, “yes, it was around that time that….”

Monopolies were one banned because they inhibited free competition.We decided free competition was not really necessary.The next generation of law makers will rid the world of monopolies, not because of their impeding competition, although that will always be a part of it, but because by their sheer size they threaten the global economy, as is being proven today.They will create the kinds of far reaching changes that will pave a new path for the world, a path to sustenance.It will be a world where everyone having some, is more acceptable than some having everything.I see the new government supporting education, healthcare for all and self sustaining communities.Where fossil fuels with be the alternative and fuel created by the Sun, the Water and the Wind will be the norm.The new leaders around the world will come to see that if everyone has the same size guns, they become a useless weapon.Then a handshake and a helping hand will be the weapons that end hostility, instead of life.After the darkness of path that we have set before us, I see a new path, and I see the first steps on that path coming in 2012.

2012, Age of Aquarius, Changing Times

If we understood that we are all cells in the same body, whether I am a brain cell, a heart cell or a cell in the rectum.  The body requires the use of each cell in order to survive, therefore each cell shares the same I in every way that matters – each cell shares the same “I” in every way that matters to the ultimate survival of the body.  Every cell in my body is not in a me, you, them relationship with each other cell but in an “I” relationship in the only way that really matters.  If the liver goes down, soon the pancreas will follow, then the kidneys, the lungs, the heart and the brain.  One day, we will realize that the health of our bodies and all of the diseases that seem to plague it are closely tied to our sense of separateness that would logically pervade every cell sharing the same body consciousness.

If I was taught from an early age that I am because you are, which is because they are, which is because we are One.  If we were taught to believe that the illusion is our separateness and not our connectedness – we would have not fear of the “other”.  We do not see the air, but we are taught to believe that it is there even if we cannot see it.  Ants, bees and many other insects function as one body – we may say colony but that is only our vision of their reality.  To the ant and the bee, they are only separate in function and contribution but not in being.  Therefore the one is never alone, and the whole is never unguarded.  There is no fear of each other, and together they act upon that which should be feared.  There are places in the world where it is only a matter of minutes before one bee becomes one thousand bees.  One bee may seem threatened, but with those odds, it soon becomes the threat.

The Golden Rule tells us to do unto others as we would have others do unto ourselves.  In Genesis, we are told that, yes, we are our brothers keepers.  In Leviticus 19:33-34 it is said, ³³ “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.  ³⁴ But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”Jesus and other spiritual teachers tell us that we are to go further – that we are meant to go further.  Jesus, in Luke 10:25-28 ²⁵ “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? ²⁶He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? ²⁷And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. ²⁸And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do and thou shalt live.” 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.  29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? “

30″ And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.   31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.   32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.   33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,  34 And went to him , and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.   36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?   37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” To understand what God means by “neighbor” or “brother”, Jesus uses this example which, at the time, would be the equivalent of telling the story to an Israeli and instead of Samaritan – using a member of Hamas.

I consider myself to be a very spiritual person, yet, it has taken me until now to understand the full import of loving my neighbor as myself.  I have heard so many people, Christians, say to me that they live a certain lifestyle while there is such poverty in the world because, “They worked hard for what they have, they earned it.”  Or, they may say that they, “give to the poor” or to charity.  But that is not what Jesus is saying here, it does not say give what is left after you give to yourself. Or, give what is comfortable, after you give to yourself.  It is saying, think of others in the same way as you think of yourself.  Care for others as you would care for yourself, not after but in the same moment, in the same breath with the same love.  It says give to others what you would give to yourself, because you earned it for yourself and for your brother. If we all did this, then no one would be without enough.  This could be called many names, it could be said that I am talking about socialism or even worse, communism – but I am quoting the Bible, I am speaking about religion.  Yet, I am really speaking about the topic I began this with, fear.  Fear is as responsible as greed and selfishness for the mess that we are in.

We fear that we will not have enough to share, yet in truth, if we do not share we will not have enough.  No one rises up with a full belly.  No one steals when his needs are met.  The storehouse is dwindling and if the owners don’t begin to share, the peasants will take it over.  It is a story that is repeated time and time again throughout history.  We must begin to allow ourselves to open to the belief that we are not separate unless we separate ourselves.  We are all connected by the Spirit that runs through the One Body. We are One in reality, we are One in necessity, and we are One in God.  The only way that we will guarantee our own health and survival is to care for the health and survival of the entire Body of which we are all a part.  Here is another of my favorite stories that exemplifies this point.

There is a story told in Kabbalah:

“With an angel for his guide, the visitor is first ushered through the gates of Hell, which, he is surprised to find, are made of finely wrought gold. The gates, in fact, are incomparably lovely, as is the verdant land­scape that lies beyond them. All this is quite astonish­ing to the visitor, who turns to his angelic guide in disbelief. “It’s all so beautiful,” the man says. “The sight of the meadows and mountains . . . the sounds of the birds singing in the trees … the scent of thousands of flowers. . . .” And then another scent catches his atten­tion: the aroma of food being prepared.

The angel leads the visitor toward an immense ban­quet table laden with every sort of delicacy. However, something is terribly wrong. Hundreds of people are seated around the table, but they all appear to be starv­ing. Their emaciated condition is painful to see in the midst of such bounty, but even worse is the frustration and anger they are obviously experiencing. Each person at the table has a long-handled spoon chained to his wrist. The handles are so long that no one can place food in his mouth. But that does not prevent the con­demned souls from trying. For all eternity, they are struggling to feed themselves a meal that is right before them, but that might as well be a hundred miles away. Taken aback by the tragic spectacle, the visitor is now more than ready to visit Paradise, and the angel immediately complies. At once they pass through an­other set of golden gates, alike in every detail to the gates of hell. In fact, a great deal about the two locales seems to be identical, including the banquet table and the diners chained to their utensils. But the people around this table are well fed and happy, despite the fact that their circumstances are identical to those of the damned. The difference is not in the physical situa­tion, but in how they respond to it. As you might have guessed by now, instead of trying to feed themselves, each of the souls at this table feeds the one across the table.”

In the beginning what we call God today was considered incomprehensible.  All ancient belief systems saw God as being so great that we could never name or even begin to conceive of it as anything but an awesome mystery.  The best that we could do was to acknowledge that God was in all that existed in the world around us and attempt to worship aspects of God through the different natural examples around us.  All of the religions that we considered to be polytheist were not, they were worshipping the unnamable Source of the Universe through its aspects.  There had been, since the ice age and awe and fear of the Unnamable because it could not be defined or named but could be experienced in everything in our Universe.   But with the formalizing of religion we lost the awe and mystery of our Source because contrary to what we knew – we named It and believed It to be contained in whatever name we chose – even god with a capital “G”.  We gave It names, Yahweh or Jehovah, Allah, Jesus, etc.  In essence, with each new name, we created a new god that only a chosen group could access.  Although we say that there is only one true God, that one true God is Allah if you are a Muslim, Yahweh or Yod-He-Vav-He, if you are Jewish, Jesus if you are Christian.  In truth, we have numerous one true Gods.

What was not understood was that anything that has a name has limits and boundaries.  It becomes something to understand, to figure out.  So, through our formal religions we became accustomed to gods that we have limited within names, thereby given a material quality to – thus, offered to science something to disprove.  In order for each religion to distinguish their one true God from all other one true Gods was by giving them different names.  This was something that would not have even been considered before.

We relate to time through clocks and calendars.  Neither is not time, and neither can explain our experience of time – how it seems to move faster when we are running late, and move slower when we are anxiously waiting.  During all of this the hands of the clock seem to move at the same pace.  Although the clock can never express time as we perceive it, therefore time is much greater than the systems that we use to measure it.  And, any name or label that we give to the Source of all that is, describes it as much as a grain of sand contained on the beach describes the earth that contains all beaches.  With each name and character that we ascribe to our Source we distance ourselves further from Its true awesome power and glory which was felt, honored, loved and feared by our ancient ancestors.

Science and Spirituality once were one in the same.  They described the movement of the clock and honored with awe the essence of time as one whole.  There was a completeness that gave peace to our understanding of the world in which we lived.  Science contained an awe and acknowledgment of Spirit.  It contained the understanding that the world is made up of an understandable how – and a mysteriously incomprehensible why.  With the formalizing of the Institution of Religion, science was evicted and Spirituality was left like time without the clock to contain and express it.

With the separation of Science and Spirit we were forced to make a choice that either discounted our spiritual beingness or our material beingness.  We have lived a disjointed life in a disjointed world, fractured, fragmented and unable to reconcile itself.  This is because the spirit of the Life and the form of life were separated by a fork in a road where neither path led anymore to wholeness.  God became a name representing something superhuman that was real only in relation to its connection with a specific religion.  In my mind, God, by each name, became no more than the Spiritual Leader of each religion – each religion contained a God, rather that all religions being contained within the One Source of All that Is – the eternal I AM.  In truth, It is beyond comprehension, beyond description, and therefore – beyond name.  When we say God – with or without a capital “G”, we are not referring to That which is nameless.  We do not fear God because we have not only give God a name, but a gender – something that is only assigned to the things of earth.  We have made our Source into a man, albeit a superman, but a man nonetheless.  Therefore, science has scoffed at God, each religion has turned God into its own mascot – and mankind has ceased to evolve, living like the fish symbolizing Pisces – connected, yet swimming in opposite directions and going nowhere.

Now there is this new science.  It is real, because it is through this science that we have, as I mentioned above, nuclear energy, microwave ovens, television, and the internet and on and on.  However, this new science tells us that everything in the Universe consists of atoms, and atoms are not “things”.  Atoms are comprised of 99% space.  According to science, as much as we consider ourselves solid forms, we consist of formlessness.  It tells us that the world in which we live is the world that we collectively and individually perceive.  Its journey is taking us Home – returning us to the wonder, awe and mystery of God.  Reading about the discoveries of Quantum theory and quantum mechanics is like reading an ancient mystical text.  Science and Spirit are returning to the point of oneness.  Form and Spirit are reuniting and we are returning to the connection with the Unnamable Source of all that is.  The Quantum Sciences are mysterious and meta-physical; however, we can no more live without them today than we could live until this time without Newtonian physics.  Albert Einstein, one of its fathers said,

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of delusion of consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us t our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.  Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievements is in itself a part of the liberation, and foundation for inner security.”

The world of quantum physics is not solid, it is not a world of things but a world of the “no things“.   These “no things” are what the entire universe is made up.   They are energy and that energy is consciousness.  The Source of all things, spreads itself through the universe as consciousness, as atoms…as “no things”.   This is the science that will be the foundation for the future description of our world.  In this context, the origins of the world and of the species are then placed in what can only be viewed as a spiritual context.  There is no avoiding a new paradigm.  It is one that begins where our most ancient ancestors left off. The ancient wisdom that the Mayans claimed would be resurrected is being resurrected through scientific discoveries, the uncovering of ancient texts, and the sudden spiritual inspirations that many are having now.  The science that will take us through the 21^st century and the New Age, is one in reverence for the Source of all that is.  It is one that resonates with the earliest mystical traditions.

Through science, we will come to understand that the world is a Spiritual Universe that appears to be a physical one.  This will open up new ways of understanding every aspect of our lives, the meanings hidden in the scriptures that we study, and our connection with each other and with all life on earth.  From the fourth century CE., until less than two hundred years ago, the world was flat and the Sun, Moon, and stars revolved around it.  We were certain that disease was caused by evil spirits and the use of herbs for healing was witchcraft.  All of this began to change slowly with the Enlightenment.

Although we see the world today in a radically different way, many of the other superstitions and beliefs are still tucked comfortably under the guise of religion.  We have opened a new cycle with the entrance of quantum physics into our everyday lives.  It is not real, so we will be forced to listen to what it has to teach us.  It will become a part of our consciousness and form the foundation for the new age that we are entering.  The Hopi say that we are leaving the cycle of the animal and entering the cycle of the human.  This coincides with the fact that Aquarius, the age that we are poised to enter, is the only sign in the zodiac represented by a human.  It is the water bearer – the bringer of wisdom, and the glyph that is used to represent Aquarius is › a symbol that could be seen as two quantum waves moving together through the Universe.

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