Time Body

August 23, 2009

 “Being in the timeless moment without the coercion of time is to dream, while lacking any sense of the timeless is to be only a machine.” Anthony Blake, “A Seminar on Time”

spiral clock-animated-gif-18

I have been long thinking about the Time Body since I turned 40. My interest in this was not only aroused by my entering the 40’s Chamber but also because I have read in the esoteric / occult tradition that the Path of Initiation cannot truly begin until the aspirant is at least 40 years old. So, all the Sufi practices, all the Gurdjieff exercises, all the attempts at the Jesus Prayer in Rhythm to the Breath, all the quiet desperation in a cube, all the immobility of mind, “Stopping the World” and the sacred wish arousing in the Heart….all of these things and more are only a preparation. Note, however, that when we speak of 40’s we are speaking of 4 to a number of degrees. Four is not 40 but shares attributes of four-ness with 40 as does 400 and 0.04 and 0.4.

Preparation for what? For the next phase of one’s life – the 40’s and the next few decades left in the mortal coil of three score and ten and beyond. Let’s remember that women, generally go through menapause in their 40’s, and men go through a “midlife crisis”. Why then? There’s something happening to us, just as powerful as puberty but this time it is the “puberty of old age”. What I mean by this is if I live to be 84 (a good number to work with because of the 12 X 7 connection), then 42 is the mid point (6 X 7). During the period of the 40’s we are laying the foundation (if we wish to) for a healthy, vibrant old age – my 60’s and the rest.
So, who is it that sees someone in the mirror that isn’t them? It’s me and all of us who are in mid life. In me there is a cry for the youth that I was and a fear of what I may be in old age. I have decided that this decade will and is the decade of consolidation. Actually, this is pompous. I didn’t decide anything, it’s more that there is a period of consolidation in one’s Time Body. The Time Body is the body of your mortal coil, it is the moment of your birth, like an Ourbouros, eating the moment of your death..this whole picture of one’s life/body is spatially perceived as 0 – 84 years long.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras

Taking the Time Body as 84 and working with a hint from Schwaller de Lubicz’s insight into Ancient Egyptian understanding we will enter a realm of geometrical/numerological correspondences. Though one is inclined in this Age of Techno-Scientism to use words like “mathematics” to denote a respectable regard for dead abstractions, I like to think that the magico-mythico-Pythagoro Number is where I’m working from. Status quo respectability, when it comes to such life and death considerations such as,  “Where am I going? Why am I here on this Earth? Who am I? Is there Life after Death?” can go in the dustbin of history. The danger of leaving the table of consensus reality – the current technoscience rationalism, is that you may end up sitting alone at  the table of insanity. An unbending intent, a purity of heart and a constant need to grow will at least provide some assurance that one’s understanding may not be crazy, but just the way things are if we live in an onion layered world.

Let’s get back to de Lubicz’s hint.  His insight is to consider that at every 7 years of one’s life a “life” has been and a new 7 year lot is coming up. Like layers of skin, each layer 7 years thick is a time-onion-skin where each skin is a period of 7 years. Consider that at 7 years old – the Church and Institutionalised understanding has it that a child has reason. Let’s go to 14 – puberty ….21 adulthood…..
A few clues: get Dane Rudyar’s  “Astrology of Personality” and read about The Dial of Life. It is interesting because he considers the language of Astrology as the Algebra of Life. Read P D Ouspensky’s account of the Enneagram in In Search of the Miraculous. Also Ouspensky’s “Tertium Organum”, a classic book which gives some semblence of “rationality” to the mystic vision and his other classic “A New Model of the Universe” where he introduces the idea of Eternal Recurrence (not the same as Nietzsche’s concept). My account of the onion skin layers of time is dependent on all of the above and a generous helping of experience.
Try this as an experiment:  Write out in 7 year lots X 7 a table like this:

time body table

To make it “user friendly” you can include the year of the age eg 1(1962)   2(1963)   3(1964)   4(65)……etc
As you write the number and year beginning from your birth year try to notice any images/memories arising and what year they pertain to. These memories as they arise become “key symbols”, they become in a very personal sense the x,y,z and the a,b,c ‘s of one’s own algebra of life. If focussed enough you create your own memory body. Now, look at your “algebra of life” through the prism of your meaning/memory. Like, what happened to you when you were 7,14, 21, 28, 35, 42 ? Looking across and down the table: what happened at 4,11,18, 25, 32, 39, 46 ? You will find that there is a corresponding change in “motion” for each layer of 7. With each lot of 7 years there is a noticeable change and experience that suggest layers of octave experience. Each year is a note in the scale Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do. What is interesting is that there is a discernible signature for each octave period. Later on you can then put the table of years onto the Enneagram.

Enneagram

Enneagram

The Circle depicts daily life, the life of the diary - sequential time.

The Circle depicts daily life, the life of the diary – sequential time.

The inner movement 1-4-2-8-5-7 depicts the "notebook", the method and know how, the Sadhana. In the events of one's life, this is where synchronicity resides.

The inner movement 1-4-2-8-5-7 depicts the “notebook”, the method and know how, the Sadhana. In the events of one’s life, this is where synchronicity resides.

The Triangle depicts the idea of a creed, one's faith. It is Timelessness.

The Triangle depicts the idea of a creed, one’s faith. It is Timelessness.

The Enneagram with all three aspects of one's experience together as a whole. See A G E Blake's "The Intelligent Enneagram" for a detailed discussion of this symbol.

The Enneagram with all three aspects of one’s experience together as a whole. See A G E Blake’s “The Intelligent Enneagram” for a detailed discussion of this symbol.

I have done all this and more with my own life numbers. If you are astrologically inclined, do the Solar Returns of each year and see what you find. The whole purpose of this is to focus the mind onto one’s own life stream. This focussing is not analytical, indeed, the process abhors analysis. It is the realm of imagining and then self remembering – or at least a preparation for this. The exercise itself is another version of “Recapitulation” which Carlos Castaneda refers to. Indeed, you will, if you delve a little deeper in what I’ve just given above,  find not only clues to the notion of Fate but also clues to one’s Destiny. These clues are not uttered in any way by me, but rather by the very simplicity of the gods – Numbers. The Ancient Egyptian concept of Neter is close in meaning to the Pythagorean concept of Number.

The cover of R A Schwaller de Lubicz's magnum opus "Temple of Man"

The cover of R A Schwaller de Lubicz’s magnum opus “Temple of Man”

What are you looking for in the numbers of the years of your life? Just a few hints that can help name the years. Maybe then, your heart will play around with mystic circles and triangles with the Numbers of Life turning off and on like a  light show.
All this may sound weird, but I can assure you, if you try this experiment, you will be pleasantly surprised by the octave “correspondence” you will see in your life experience. It will be as if there is a pattern, unknown to you, unfolding in a manner totally unexpected. A kind of music of your life, a hidden melody that you were not able to hear notes of until this moment. At times you may experience a déjà vu  , the feeling that you have been here before,and this is interpreted exactly as that through the Great Idea of Eternal Recurrence as expressed through P D Ouspensky in his “A New Model of the Universe”. A good summary of this idea & its connection with Nietzche’s and Steiner’s take on it is here.

I’ve been influenced much by the 4th Way – through Gurdjieff and other teachings. Is it any wonder that I have become a middle aged Gnostic seeker carrying the lantern of wonder?

Try it  and see if it isn’t true. You will find a pattern that will truly spook you. If you follow the clues and hints you will see the synchronicity of events

and

maybe the big question will arise:

WHOSE SHOW IS THIS ANYWAY?

Now clock animated

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Cognitive Imperialism

August 21, 2009

In “Archaic Revival”, Terence McKenna explores consciousness, civilization, and the profound effects of magic mushrooms. He provocatively suggests that the ingestion of psilocybin—a compound found in certain mushrooms—may have played a critical role in the development of human language. McKenna bases this argument on the idea that, once humans domesticated cattle, mushrooms containing psilocybin proliferated in their dung. This theory isn’t isolated to McKenna; for instance, the 5,000-year-old Ötzi the Iceman, discovered in the Alps, was found with mushrooms in his possession, suggesting their medicinal or hallucinogenic use.

It’s important to clarify that I’m not advocating the use of magic mushrooms. However, maintaining an open mind about the more significant questions concerning consciousness is essential. If experimenting with entheogens—a term meaning “god-revealing substances”—can open doors to alternate dimensions of reality, we should not be quick to close our minds and hearts to these possibilities. The term “entheogen” is gaining traction today, possibly as a way to ‘cleanse’ the image of these substances, previously known as psychedelics. A comprehensive resource on this topic can be found at [this link](http://deoxy.org/index.htm).

Reflecting on my own experiences, I recall how my understanding of reality was transformed after reading Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception” and other works from the psychedelic era. A few personal experiments with mushrooms significantly altered my perception, challenging the boundaries of what is considered ‘real.’

Over time, I became convinced that just as geopolitical imperialism exists, there is also a form of cognitive imperialism. This concept refers to the dominance of a particular worldview over others, often marginalizing alternative perspectives. I now believe that many of humanity’s political issues stem from the narrow ‘reality tunnels’ we navigate—tunnels shaped and reinforced by cognitive imperialism.

This cognitive domination, or the enslavement of awareness, permeates our entire culture. Take, for example, the Inuit people, who have over 20 different words to describe various types of snow, while in the West, we only use the word “snow” because that is all we perceive. Similarly, the Aboriginal peoples of Australia have numerous words to describe “sand,” recognizing its many forms, yet we see only “sand.” These examples may seem trivial, but they illustrate the broader point: our language and perception are limited by our cultural and cognitive frameworks.

When we venture beyond the so-called “real” 3-D world, we enter a domain where words become almost useless. In these realms, symbolism takes precedence. Symbols are multivalent entities, not confined to a single linear meaning. For example, a triangle or cross symbol does not possess just one sense. Entheogens have the potential to reveal multiple levels of meaning simultaneously, akin to a window or door opening to the light. Plato’s analogy of the cave, where people are chained to chairs facing a wall on which shadows are cast, represents this closed realm of Darkness. In his story, one person frees himself, turns to see the source of the shadows—a candle—and then notices a glimmer of light from another direction. As his eyes adjust, he steps outside the cave, initially blinded by the Sun’s intense light. However, as his vision acclimates, he discovers a world of colour and life. When he returns to the cave to inform his fellow prisoners, they consider him delusional, unable to free themselves from their cognitive slavery.

The cave in Plato’s analogy is the Consensus Reality, its truth dictated by the Great Bell Curve, often cited by statisticians as the realm of reality. However, physics and mathematics point us toward a new direction, away from this shadow world. While I’m neither a physicist nor a mathematician, the little I do understand reveals a world vastly different from the one Isaac Newton experienced when the proverbial apple struck his head. Today, that apple could be perceived in three distinct ways, each as accurate as the other while appearing identical. Firstly, there is the 3-D apple Newton felt on his head. Secondly, the apple of subatomic physics, which Newton would not recognize as familiar. Thirdly, an apple would attract the earth towards it rather than simply falling. Each perspective is “real,” depending on our operating paradigm.

Whether Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan existed or not, the Yaqui Indian sorcerer’s notion of different descriptions of the world, each real in its own way, holds true.

Science seems to find “evidence” of a Global Mind—a concept that shamans, mystics, magicians, and saints have intuitively understood for millennia. The entheogenic experience opens these Doors of Perception, leaving us to walk through and perceive multiple worlds simultaneously without necessarily being under the influence of these substances. As William Blake expressed in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.” This sentiment, from which Huxley derived the title of his book and which inspired the name of the rock band “The Doors”, closely mirrors Plato’s vision as he emerged from the cave.

Cognitive imperialism is the enemy we must overcome. To become Spirit Warriors, we must shift from the imperialism of the mind to the wisdom of the Heart. From the Heart, we can empathize with the suffering of others, and our actions can be fueled by compassion. The Heart of humanity is deeply connected with the Heart of Gaia, the Sun, and the cosmos. Our struggle against the forces of Darkness—the Masters of War, the Keepers of Concentration Camps, the Greed Kings who keep the poor shackled with hunger—is a struggle of the Global Mind and Gaia’s Heart against those who remain blind and deaf to the Light and the Word. The challenge is that those blind and deaf to the Light and the Word currently hold material power.

Yet, I believe that more of us will emerge from the shadows in these times. As we adjust our vision to the world of Gaia’s Heart/Mind, we may indeed usher in an era of peace.

A Reflective Note on Entheogens

Jonathan Ott offers a compelling critique of the Christian enmity towards entheogens:

“The Christian enmity [towards entheogens] is easy to explain. Since the Christians were promulgating a religion in which the core mystery, the holy sacrament itself, was conspicuous by its absence, later transmogrified by the smoke and mirrors of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation into a specious symbol, an inert substance, a placebo entheogen, the imposture would be all-too-evident to anyone who had known the blessing of ecstasy, who had access to personal religious experiences. Thus a concerted attack on the use of sacred inebriants was mounted, and the supreme heresy was to presume to have any direct experience of the divine, not mediated by an increasingly corrupt and politicized priesthood. The Pharmacratic Inquisition was the answer of the Catholic Church to the embarrassing fact that it had taken all the religion out of religion, leaving an empty and hollow shell with no intrinsic value or attraction to humankind, which could only be maintained by hectoring, guilt-mongering and plain brute force.”
Jonathan Ott

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Effective Knowledge = Direct Knowledge

August 9, 2009

A shaman in a desert may be more effective in the  world than a scientist in a laboratory. By more effective I mean more in connection with real knowledge….direct knowledge….direct perception of the flow and the numbering that crystallizes into the geometry of our perception. This knowledge because it doesn’t fit into the categories of accepted consensus reality is more often than not ridiculed as mere myth…the myth of an invisible world closed to our senses five….so, a Tibetan guide in Nepal who can use telepathy to communicate  may have access to technology of which we in the West are blind to.

buddha

I believe that there is the possibility of psychic technology…technology of the psyche …which cannot only send messages between two living beings but can also carry messages from the dead and the not- yet- born…from the past and the future. (See the post “Is Consciousness a Function of the Brain or Vice Versa” in this blog for further discussion on this.)

You know as I am writing this I can sense my need to stand tall and declare myself a true believer in magic. This is not to say that the products of science are relegated to the bottom drawer. They are
different responses to the universe each with their place and time and usefulness. If I was  sick, I’d go to my local doctor AND pray.

The visit to the GP is the language that my conditioned self wrapped in the body recognises as a potent and powerful healing agent … the doctor in white is the witch doctor of our culture. The rituals and the drama of visiting your local GP and then having to go under the knife while in the twilight regions of anaesthetised sleep..all these are the expressions of the Consensus Reality we share.

The praying is directed to some other unknown dimension. It doesn’t matter what we call this ” otherness” because whatever we call it the word is never ” it”. This other realm has its own laws and practices.

The point is, it is not what I direct my energy to but whether I AM, or just automatizing my mortality. The more I AM is experienced the more opportunities there are for me to participate in the REAL world…the inverse world to the dominant paradigm.

The internet experience will provide an excellent analogue for the dynamics of psychic space, just as the hologram provided the analogue for the WHOLE as the ONE. The hologram gives us a static metaphor for the ONE – internet experience gives us a process metaphor for the movement of psychic energy. For a more detailed look at this possibility please see my post “Internet as Analogue of Akashic Mirror”. Internet experience will alter one’s conception of time and space. Whether this will be translated into the general overall consciousness of an individual I don’t know. My feelings are that only the individual part of us that wishes to trancend the familiar will have the chance to do so. The rest of us will sleep and automatize mortality. Our only hope is that more humans will wish to be online with the ONE.

As Teilhard de Chardin  (1881 – 1955) said,

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.”

M C Escher - "Ambidextrous Peeled Faces"

M C Escher - "Ambidextrous Peeled Faces"

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Where is He? – Jelaluddin Rumi

May 4, 2009

 I tried to find Him on the Christian cross, but He was not there; I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.

I searched on the mountains and in the valleys but neither in the heights nor  in the depths was I able to find Him. I went to the Kaaba in Mecca, but He was  not there either.

I questioned the scholars and philosophers but He was beyond their understanding.

I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him : He was nowhere else to be found.

Jelaluddin Rumi

I took a picture of his tomb in Konya, Turkey. Click here to see it.

Some other quotes by Rumi:

This quote below we used on the homepage of the HopeCaravan website, which is no longer active. However, the yahoo group still is on the net though it is no longer active.

“Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
A hundred times.
Come, yet again, come, come.”

Other quotes which have touched me include:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”

RumiRumi

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Introduction to Flotillas of Hope Sky Map

April 28, 2009

Below is the introduction to the Horoscope of the Flotillas of Hope Project in 2004. I sent this out to a few supporters of the Project around the world who I felt would not laugh at the idea of an astrological – magical approach to a human rights campaign. Now, since the Action is complete and Nauru Detention Centre is shut down I feel that I can reveal my own inner stance to such external actions publicly.

I will also upload the complete reading of the Flotillas horoscope to a storage site. When I do I will give you the link.

Here’s the Intro……

Sky Map

 

Flotillas of Hope 2004

 

“If there is dust on our lense, we see dark spots in the heavens.”

                                                                                       Carlos Suares

Flotillas of Hope Horoscope (Sky Map)

Flotillas of Hope Horoscope (Sky Map)

“..the apparently lifeless data of astronomy can be used to produce a calculated and objective emotional effect.This is astrology. But it is an astrology quite unlike astrology today.”

 

John Anthony West and Jan Gerhard Toonder

 

I feel like experimenting with my beginner’s astrologer mind on the Flotillas of Hope. Part of me is uncertain as to how it will be taken by you and in what spirit. My concerns revolve around the bad press that astrology has received since the Age of Reason. I am not going to justify the working rationale of such an ancient method of making sense of the world. Astrology is one of the oldest science – arts in the world, globally used by the first great civilisations of humanity, in Egypt, India, China, Americas, Africa, and Australasia. Written history shows that the Babylonians or Chaldeans developed it to a fine art. In fact “Chaldean” was synonymous with “astrologer” in those days because the practitioners of that country were considered the best practitioners of the art. Abraham, the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam was a Chaldean. In those days the dichotomy between science and art did not exist. One could argue that our 21 St Century “West” is schizophrenic when we compare ourselves to the unitive vision of the ancient worlds. Check out Jaynes “The Origin of Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind” to see where I’m coming from. Sure we’ve got Eye of Hubble taking and transmitting beautiful images of the heavens from the edge of our Solar System to us on ground zero. However, we cannot see ourselves as an integral part of a living organism we call the Universe. We don’t believe that the Eye of Ra looks over us. Funny that, because the Sun still shines and that is what the Eye of Ra is – the Sun. This reminds me of William Blake’s response to someone who said that the Sun was just a guinea coin shape in the sky, “For you the Sun is a guinea disc, for me it is a chorus of Angels singing Alleluia! Alleluia!”

 

I want to reclaim that sense of wonder. Astrology helps me ponder the interconnection between myself and the universe, between all of us and the universes.

 

I want to experiment to see if Astrology as a symbolic language can demonstrate the noumenal underpinning of reality. This two way communication between mind and symbol may help manifest the Flotillas of Hope.  I’m more comfortable in using the French “symbolique “ in the Schwaller de Lubicz  sense than symbolic. The difference is so small yet it adds another world of meaning. Symbolic in the usual sense means a sign that stands for something. Symbolique means that the sign is the represented ie the symbol is alive in its own essential meaning – it is in itself what it symbolizes. The aliveness is the symbolique.

 

The underpinning I am referring to is not a static slab of concrete but rather a cluster of “energetic” patterns. If David Bohm is right about  implicate and  explicate orders of the universe then  the pattern crystallizing between the implicate and the explicate orders as pin pointed at the moment of sending the Flotilla email is the Sky Map – a particle of the Holographic Universe . That moment carries with it space and we enter the zone of descriptions, associative tracings dancing across nervous systems and neuronal connections making “realities”. The Horoscope/email did not cause the journey of hope to Nauru. We are not talking about Causes here but rather acausal resonances, synchronicities, patterns of what is.

 

It is a fundamental premise in this reading that there are multiple descriptions of reality and that these descriptions have an equal being status.  Consensus reality, in which we are embedded, is not the only one around. Australian Aboriginal people can discern over twenty different words for different kinds of desert sand where through Western eyes only one sand word exists “SAND”. The same applies to the ground. Original Australians see sacred ground where Western consensus reality only sees a potential dollar making resource.

 

The more you look into it, with a beginner’s mind, you find that the macroscale physics of relativity is in contradiction to the micro scale of the quantum universe. The humble electron orbiting around the nucleus of an atom cannot be placed. The electron cannot be pinned down as to where it will be at any moment. Its location is probable only. Picture the journey of a car in the centre of a city. You will see the car stop and turn, make its way in a continuous action. The car moves through space in a certain amount of time. This is the macroscale, however in the microscale, within the heart of matter it is a different picture. The analogous image of the car-electron travelling through the city centre, is the discontinuous location of the car. Instead of moving and turning around a corner for the car to be at a particular place, the quanta car first appears in one place and then another and then another  without the “journey”. It is this discontinuity which is the quanta – a time –space packet of probabilistic matter.  In fact, it seems that the micro universe of probabilistic matter is in closer concert with Astrology than the macro scale of “separate” stuff in an open universe.  That moment, according to astrology encompasses the position of the planets and stars and the time the email was sent – it is all an Event Organism. The astrological hypothesis is based on a resonance between that which is above (the heavens) and that which is below (the everyday world of our existence – Earth). In other words there is a coincidence between the positions of the stars at that moment and the event. I won’t even try to enter synchronicity’s whirlpool to explain the connection. Check out Carl Jung’s Introduction to Richard Wilhelm’s translation of the I Ching. It is the best summation of the synchronicity idea. Rupert Sheldrake’s morphic resonance comes to mind applying its theme to a time body. The Flotillas of Hope may even be tapping into morphological roots in archetypal memory …..Jason and the Argonauts on a quest for the Golden Fleece.  By the way, Jason is pronounced Yiason and when Greeks say “Yiasou” it means “long life and health to you”. Yia and as it means “hygia” as in hygiene…it also means to make Whole and is the Earth – Gaea = Yia both in pronounciation and in meaning. Gaea Mind – Hive Mind.

 

In other words the emerging pattern from the invisible world into the visible 3 D world of what is called  “Flotillas of Hope” may be revealed in a symbolique exploration of a Sky Map. Not necessarily the future but the potential trends and cycles of an emerging future. Kind of like seeing the lineaments of a living time body. Seeing the curve of the Flotillas time sail, tiller and anchor may indicate certain needs. Sure, its not prediction pure and simple but it is better than nothing at all. This kind of astrology is as far removed from fortune telling as Reality is from Reality TV.

 

 

The Flotillas of Hope was conceived as an event organism when the “SEND” button was pressed. The idea entered the web-mind-womb and the flotilla was conceived. We know it was at that moment because we have witnessed its embryonic movements and now, at the time of writing, 4 boats – 3 from Australia, one from Colombia are here in the 3 – D World of our senses. The baby is kicking in the womb waters of both the web and the earth. On World Refugee Day, 20 June, 2004, the Flotilla of Hope will be born at Nauru, Longitude 166 E 55, Latitude 00 S 32. 

 

 Astrology for me is a means of exploring the edges of rational thought as it touches the unknown. The  horoscope is  like a semi permeable membrane, it can suspend the ordinary associative processes of the mind and allow a different kind of attention to manifest. This attention striking off from the symbolique elements of the horoscope gives a different kind of mind environment. Psychologists call it imagination. Sometimes, in flickering moments it can be vision. A vision – feeling into another dimensional world that is holographic in structure, energetic and alive. In these glimpses, a human and the universe are seen as the same organism. As above so below, as Hermes Trismegistus says. A different  relationship exists between things – or at least that is what appears when astrological Sun glasses are worn.

 

Astrology for me is a mantic science with an intuitive technos.

 

In political or judicial astrology the beginnings of any event is deemed to hold its potential futures. Note the plural for it shows that there is no predetermined single end but rather multiple futures resonant to a common end. It was believed in ancient times that a study of the stars could ascertain the rise and fall of  kingdoms and dynasties. It has also been recorded that the birth of Jesus was predicted by astrology when the three magi in a caravan crossing the Middle Eastern desert followed the Star of Hope to Bethlehem.   Astrologers were employed to chart possible battles and voyages trying to predict what may happen and advise accordingly. Someone wrote, “In my beginning is my end and in my end is my beginning”  Judicial or mundane astrology (mundanus from the Latin meaning “material world”) sees events in the same light – in a beginning is its end and in its end is its beginning. Judicial or political astrology deals with events in the social sphere. It is not as well known as the personal natal astrology  but it has been of enormous influence in shaping history up to the Age of Reason. Some say, even until today.

 

Art of Manifestation

 

Another aspect to this reading is that the actual exercise of casting a chart, reading it and writing out the interpretation can be an intentional act of manifestation. Well, according to all the stuff I’ve read and been told, it can be. If the miraculous or the lyric by Leonard Cohen, “God is alive, Magic is afoot “ irritates your sensibility then so be it. I take those words literally. The secret seems to be “not doing” and “resting”; in knowing “how to wait”. It is a contradictory state >>> manifesting an intention by not doing. Something like Tao and the process of “From Little Things Big Things Grow” – Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody.

 

Look, I am new in this kind of work. One of the main things anybody has to do when learning a new skill is to apply it, try it out – practice. So, this effort of mine is a beginner’s effort. It may all be fantasy but at least I got another chart out of the way for my personal target of 1000 completed practice charts. It is an experiment in using a different model of the world to see if it can have an effect. Who knows what powers lie both within and outside ourselves when we remain open to different modes of apprehension.

 

“When positive, equational logic rejects feeling, it makes as great a mistake as when intuitive feeling rejects logical control.”

                                                                                   Schwaller de Lubicz

 

If the interpretation is all mere fantasy with no true moments of seeing, do not blame the stars. Blame my faulty vision. If astrology has no objective reality, it may yet have a reality in the subjective world.

 

In many ways, this reading is an experiment in communicating a social – political event and its intentions  using categories that are Astrological. Whilst every attempt has been made to keep the Astrological technical language to a minimum, no prior knowledge of Astrology is required to understand its intentions.

 

The Flotillas not only sail on physical oceans they also sail in peoples’ hearts as courage and compassion  bringing an end to the heartless and inhumane incarceration of refugees on Australia’s Islands of Shame.

 

This is just my small effort to do something, armed with a computer and a sense of wonder at the oneness of it all. As you read the interpretation you are also helping to manifest by reinventing and recreating the Flotillas of Hope in your own imagination. In effect you are creating your own vision of what may be.

 

Any other astrologers both beginner and advanced please send me your comments. I‘d be interested in hearing your views and interpretations of the Flotillas of Hope Sky Map.

 

Final word to those who know:

 

Somehow you’ve come to the conclusion that at the very heart of matter, at the turning point of decisions, at the core of bone marrow, molecule, atom, neutrino and pepperino there is an intelligence operating. You know that Earth is a stone with a lick of moisture on its surface orbiting about a type G star we call the Sun. You don’t disdain science and you also know that there is a blueprint of the whole of Creation. This blueprint, this plan , this informational map is embedded within every atom, cell, organism and living whole from a sand flea to Andromeda, from a child playing with a ball to the Milky Way.

 

How you came about this knowledge is your business. It could have been through a book. It could have been a friend who told you. It could have been a certain altered state of mind that led you to this knowledge. It doesn’t really matter where you got your knowledge or even how. The important thing is that you know that there is an imperishable spirit in every piece of matter, in every volume and in every measure. This means that there is an imperishable immortal part of human nature. It is here and now, we only have to slice through the onion layers of conditioning to see it. This knowledge we are speaking about is certain knowledge. It is an X ray vision of  the imperishable in matter. It is not a mere belief and neither is it an open conclusion of faith. It is certain knowledge based on direct experience…nothing is in the way. Having this knowledge gives a different spin on the Earth as a stone orbiting a medium sized type G star.

 

In fact having this knowledge makes words like Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto mean something different to hunks of rock gravitationally stuck in orbits about the Sun. They are verbs in one context and gods in another. They are as far removed from the astronomical planets and Sun as green cheese is to the moon. This is where the possession of this knowledge instead of bringing fame and fortune will  bring instead  ridicule and laughter, sometimes scorn and banishment. The possession of this knowledge has marked you as an outsider. Even though it is invisible, your mark of Cain is your knowledge. If you are lucky you may have found a way to manifest secretly and keep a semblance of an ordinary householder life. Being an invisible outsider gives you great opportunities to observe and learn how to be a partner in creation. For this is what it comes down to. In essence humans are not a symbol of the Universe – we are the Universe and in this kind of partnership we all do our bit or we get flushed out of existence. Where’s our immortality then? It’s still there waiting for another to clothe it.

 

The denial of human rights of one is the denial of humanity for all.

 

Method of Approach

 

I’ll try to see if I can delineate the “soul” of the event as if it was a living organism, you know, the “Flotillas of Hope”. It is my way of considering the project in a holistic manner. I will try to place this Organism within the context of the socio – political world. One moves from the particular to the general – a person to a nation. – a local event to a national and global context. Astrology allows you to zoom in and out of the various contexts within contexts like a telescope . It can sometimes be time free and so indicate trends invisible to the naked eye. Trends seen through a time free zone? A contradiction and yet possible.  Pataphysics and the Third Mind juxtaposed by situational poetics, the poetry of the moment shown not only in words but by the signs of the stars and our living motions.

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Freedom from restriction.

April 21, 2009

Why do I always restrict myself? Why do I always lose courage in being myself?

The world eats me but I starve. I observe the world as a complex network of neural connections and intricate cultural, linguistic, and structural norms – the entire ‘catastrophe’.Do I need to adhere to the bars of so-called ‘adulthood’ and label myself a responsible and rational citizen? An answer emerges like a whisper of sacrificial smoke – release these bars and return to your true self.

Where is home? Where do I truly belong?

The restriction lies within the mind. The path to freedom lies in a different direction. Restriction and its opposite – expansion, in and out – the rhythm of life, the breath of life. The Way of the Heart is the gateway into and out of life.

I hear a voice within that seems to echo from the depths of my being, saying, “Become what you are, blossom from your stem. This blossoming is nothing other than the freedom you seek from restriction. The Heart is the Way to the centre of everything; follow it, and all the worlds will be yours because the centre of the Heart is All the Worlds.”

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An Astrological Turning

April 5, 2009

 

We are immersed in star matter and star matter is immersed in us. We are sieves and ladders of energies, we are the meeting point, the centre of a whirl wind with our heads in the stars and our feet firmly on the earth, green, blue earth. We are in our own small and great ways, star gods. Yes, gods and goddesses who have forgotten their starry heritage. We are asleep to our possibilities and awake to our hand made nightmares, locked in an embrace with mortality when in reality, we are immortal. Our graveyards are full, tsunamis and earthquakes, wars and natural causes take their human toll. We all know that we are going to die.

 

Yet, I say we are immortal. Strange words indeed. My body is mortal but who I am –  my and your Spirit is not.

 

 Astrology is a means of seeing the pattern of star matter, both that within the body and outside in the skies. Sprinkle a handful of iron filings on some paper, get a magnet and place it under the paper. Instantly the grains of iron form a distinct pattern on the paper. The same thing happens with music and sand grains.

 

Sand patterns follow musical vibratons.

Sand patterns follow musical vibratons.

Cymatic sound pattern, sand on a steel plate. From "Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena and Vibration" by Hans Jenny.

Cymatic sound pattern, sand on a steel plate. From "Cymatics: A Study of Wave Phenomena and Vibration" by Hans Jenny.

Sounds make distinct patterns with grains of sand. Analogically, vibrations both within and without make the distinct patterns of everyday life and one’s fate.

Flotillas of Hope - Horoscope

Flotillas of Hope - Horoscope

 

The idea is that Astrology if used in the right manner will enable an individual to live a conscious fate and then to be free of it, finding one’s destiny.

 

Astrology is not deterministic if the practitioner is seeking freedom and truth.

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Is Consciousness a function of the brain or vice versa?

February 16, 2009
 

Nautilus pompilius
Nautilus pompilius

Ask yourself this question: Is consciousness a function of the brain or is the brain a function of consciousness?

 

 If you answer that consciousness is dependent on the brain then when the body dies, consciousness disappears too. First scenario: there is no consciousness around so there is no information processing; second scenario: the body and brain rots but consciousness is still around and probably processing information that only angels, demons and gods process as well. The glare of the body life blinds consciousness when riding a living brain. Brain drops dead, consciousness remains, out of the darkness light is present – spirit would be out of our world but touching it and relating to it.

 I belong to the group that believes the brain is a function of consciousness. From this very simple belief flow many effects. Perhaps there is a matrix of consciousness which has a “geometrical – mathematical” edge of subtle manifestation. I think this is what Pythagoras was on about when he said that a stone was a piece of “frozen music” and that everything has a number basis. This matrix of consciousness has a field which includes and extends into our own “individual” consciousness. This is where consciousness is NOT a function of the brain.

 From this side of the cranial fence I believe that an ancient text such as the I Ching – the Book of Changes can assist us in our exploration of the moment, the situation of the now. The Pythagorian emphasis on Number is expressed in an amazing mantic art that is based solely on number.

 

The eight trigrams of the bagua (King Wen "Later Heaven" order). Two of these trigrams makes a hexagram.

The eight trigrams of the bagua (King Wen "Later Heaven" order). Two of these trigrams makes a hexagram.

 The I Ching has as its basic structure 64 hexagrams (see also this blog for picture of the 64 hexagrams)which are generated by 8 trigrams which are in themselves generated by combination of two very simple bits of information a whole or a broken line. This is what excited Liebniz when he saw the exact parallel of his binary code with the ancient Chinese Oracle which at a minimum estimate has existed for over 5000 years and worked with binary bits thousands of years ago before Liebniz was born and dreamt of calculus.  

 This coincidence was surpassed by the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick. The way the amino acids are formed and combined to create the helix spiral of our DNA also parallels the mathematical combinations required to create a six lined hexagram of the I Ching. Dr Martin Schonberger published “The I Ching and the Genetic Code – The Hidden Key to Life” in 1973. He discovered that there was a one – to – one equation of the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching and the 64 DNA codons of the genetic code. This discovery provided Carl Jung his topic of the funeral address in honour of the great German translator of I Ching, Richard Wilhelm. He said, “It can’t remain in the dark forever, that we are touching here on an Archimedean principle, with the help of which our occidental thinking could be unhinged.” Schonberger said, “that is precisely what happened by the manifestation of I Ching code in genetic code.”

 

I Ching as description of Genetic Code (diagram from "Earth Ascending" Jose Arguelles.

I Ching as description of Genetic Code (diagram from "Earth Ascending" Jose Arguelles).

  

schonberger_01

Here we find that an ancient Chinese text written over a course of thousands of years in its mathematical / numerological operation and in the exact binary equivalence with the genetic code shows that “consciousness” exists within the formation of the genetic code which gives every life form its unique characteristics and in the Book of Changes.

 Or is it just one big coincidence? 

Some relevant statements about how archetypes and the number form of the same, the sacred geometry of the archetypal forms are made in Robert Lawlor’s book  “Sacred Geometry”.  He defines the “archetypal”  as “universal processes or dynamic patterns which can be considered independently of any structure or material form.”He states that, ” Modern thought has difficult access to the concept of the archetypal because European languages require that verbs or action words be associated with nouns. We therefore have no linguitic forms with which to image a process or activity that has no material carrier.”Ancient cultures symbolized these pure, eternal processes as gods, that is, powers or lines of actions through which SPIRIT is concretised into energy and matter.Lawlor uses DNA as an example of the above. Genetic coding as the vehicle of replication and continuity does not lie in the particular atoms (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen or Nitrogen) of which the gene substance, DNA, is composed as these are subject to change. Thus, the carrier of continuity is not only the molecular composition of DNA but also its helix form.

 The helix, a special type from the group of regular spirals, results from sets of fixed geometric proportions. These proportions can be understood to exist a priori, without any material counterpart, as abstract, geometric relationships.Thus, one can say that the architecture of bodily existence is determined by an invisible, immaterial world of pure form and geometry.This invisible realm is part of  the consciousness of the universe. The brain is a function of this invisible innate geometry of life, this sacred geometry.

The structure of part of a DNA double helix.

The structure of part of a DNA double helix.

 pythagorean-geometry

 

These refraction photos are the closest visualization that science can give with respect to the nature of atomic substance, which appears to be patterns of geometrized light energy.

These refraction photos are the closest visualization that science can give with respect to the nature of atomic substance, which appears to be patterns of geometrized light energy.

 

fludd-circles

9 Comments | Carl G Jung, consciousness, I Ching, philosophy, Plato, Pythagoras, symbolism, synchronicity | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
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A Wish to Pray – Donald Petacchi

February 15, 2009

Below is a copy of a hand written poem by Donald Petacchi taken from his book,  “Work for Being in the Machine Age”.

 

A Wish to Pray, by Donald Petacchi

A Wish to Pray, by Donald Petacchi

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Hello world!

December 19, 2008

Albrecht Durer

Journeys and Star Gazing

What do I mean by journeys? And what do I mean by Star Gazing?

Recently I started to walk again, with a limp, after having broken my leg and being immobile for a long time. The physiotherapist told me that a walk of about 1 kilometre per day would be good exercise for me, especially to get my foot, ankle and leg muscles flexible again. She said to treat my walk as a physiotherapy exercise. Since I walk very slowly now without a crutch, I’m starting to become aware of a whole new world which appears in the slow pace I take. I become aware of my breath and the sensation of each step on the ground. As I do this I become aware of a silence within me which makes space and allows the sounds of birds singing , the sensation of the breeze touching my skin, the smell of recently mowed grass to enter.

Of course my “monkey mind” is still climbing and jumping around in the space within my skull but somehow because of the slow walk and the effort to “be” in the moment of the walk makes the monkey appear like a distant shadow puppet. Yes, my walk is a  Zen like exercise and the fall I had which broke my leg was Life-as- Zen-Master, wacking me into a state of mind that may prioritise what is essential in my life.

My walk to the newsagent in the morning is a journey both on the road and its side gutters and beneathe my skin between breaths and sighs of wonder at what is around me.

A journey, for me is going from point A to point B via the whole alphabet of being. The Alpha and Omega. the beginning and the end of a journey is where the snake bites its own tail, a gentle ouraboros.

ouroboros-pergamino

 It all depends on one’s awareness. So, one can make a journey from one’s lounge room and go across the borders marked by a door into a kitchen. It is no different to travelling in time by simply dipping a biscuit in a cup of tea as Proust did in his “Remembrence of Things Past”. A journey can also be a trip across the planet on a boat or a plane, a train or a bus, on foot or a bicycle. It can also be a journey to the Moon or to Mars in a space ship, or a trip to Saturn and Jupiter or Andromeda in one’s mind.

Star Gazing is not only looking up at the night sky and seeing how small we genuinely are in the midst of all these galaxies and stars, pinpricks of Light escaping through Heaven’s cape. It is also seeing into the meaning of those star gazing moments, those moments that coincide with a particular configuration of planets, Sun, Moon and stars. Yes, Star Gazing for me exists in that space between Astronomy and Astrology. I look up into the night heavens and I see the stars above and I wonder why am I here looking and living. My wife got me a telescope for Christmas this year and I hope to be able to take some photos of what I gaze at.

cosmic-clock1

I look at a horoscope ( I also call it a Sky Map) and I see the symbolic language of these same stars.  When I say Stars I also mean the planets and the Sun and Moon. It is an easy shorthand. Star gazing becomes communing….communicating in star language. Astrology for me is a language, a way of communicating with the deeper parts of my and your nature for I believe that we all are ultimately made of star matter. While I look up at the Stars and gaze at the light that departed from its source billions of years ago, I recognise that I gaze at old, old light. The youngest light, including sunlight is only 8 minutes old when it touches my skin, Alpha Centauri light, the closest star to us, is only about 4 years old. Star light has journeyed a long time to arrive through my eyes into me and you.

earth-sun-and-moon

However, strange as it may sound, when I speak of astrology, I’m not really talking about the balls of rock and gas that orbit our Sun – Sol as planets or about the physical stars and galaxies that surround us. The stars and planets I speak of astrologically have nothing to do with those we know astronomically and through a telescope. The only connection astrology has with the astronomical stars is the coincident time of happening. Carl Jung coined a term to explain events that happen with no apparent physical causal connection – synchronicity. This word is made of two Greek words syn – same and chronos – time...synchronicity…things that happen at the same time.  The important addition that Jung makes with this is that the connection between events is subjectively meaningful for the person. I think of a person and I hear a song with the person’s name in it and then almost simultaneously, the person rings me on the phone. This is very meaningful for me because I haven’t seen or heard from this person in a long time. The song, the thinking of the person and the telephone call are not connected in any physical scientifc way, but they do connect in a very meaningful way in my mind and heart. This is synchronicity. Astrology for me is synchronicity written in Sky Script. The physical stars are connected to the stars within my inner universe, my deeper intuitions and feelings that struggle to find a way to speak. The star language of astrology gives these promptings a voice.

whirlpoolgalaxystarbirth

In Journeys and Star Gazing you may read posts that include both a journey and an astrological reading of the journey. Sometimes, you will come across a life’s moment navigated by the stars or a journey planned by the use of astrology.

It would be great to hear from you.

You can connect with me at Twitter. Here’s my handle @dodona777

stavros

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