Greetings from the Shire
I am visiting London and Yorkshire these days; it seemed a good time to put down 35 pence at the newsagent for the first time and buy a copy of the Daily Mirror with my column in the paper. Usually, UK-based PlanetWaves editor Tracy Delaney sends them to me. My destination yesterday was York, a walled ancient city in this region, to pay my first-ever visit to Jonathan Cainer, who is supervising the construction of his Psychic Museum while I fill in for him at the Mirror.
I'm also here to represent PlanetWaves and my column to the UK and meet the bright lights of astrology in this country, of which there are many.
It was awesome meeting Jonathan, whose work I first discovered on a trip to the UK in 1998. I would describe him as Jove incarnate, but salty, down to Earth, English city-boy styled. If you guessed he had a touch of mischief to his personality, you guessed right. His life is a whirlwind of creativity, projects, kids, ideas, Macintosh computers and adventures. Oh, and some astrology, which you will rarely hear him mention -- our longest discussion was about 12 seconds. A copy of Raphael's Ephemeris I saw on his desk, however, was a clue that he has some knowledge in the field. I would say his mission in life is to keep laughing, and he's doing well at it. His children are brilliant and beautiful. With one and her girlfriend, I had an exciting, sceptical discussion about whether newspaper astrology is bunk, comparing the Leo and Libra horoscopes from several of the tabloids that day.
The Psychic Museum is less a museum and more a place to have experiences exploring phenomena, from remote viewing to auras; from dowsing to telekinesis. It is properly called the Museum of Psychic Experience. Every exhibit is interactive, with a scientific feeling -- that is, based on a physical demonstration that you can touch, see or feel. And the place is wired up, or rather wireless, for the 21st century. (I have proposed an exhibit of Jonathan reading his own mind and, amazingly telling fascinated visitors exactly what he had for breakfast.) The museum construction project was rife with Sagittarian lunacy but it's driven by a vision that many people share, and will be ready in time for the public arriving on Saturday, May Day.
A rich metaphor for Jonathan's life emerged as I was talking to workmen involved with the renovation and construction of his former book store into the museum. They described the artefacts (cups, brooches and other fragments) from the Roman Empire that they found in the basement. The building was, later, the glassmaking shop for the York Minster cathedral nearby. A 2,000-year-old road runs right outside. A painting of a hunting scene from some time later (the 17th century, i.e., the 1600s, and discovered hidden in the building) hung casually on the wall of a room which will house one of the exhibits. Everyone was quite nonchalant about the painting; it's not that old.
All this evidence of existence is contained within a tangled, walled city that seems to hold the energy, history and puzzle pieces of millennia past like a giant container where live many souls of previous times. It is like fertile compost in which to grow the present and the future.
England is an extremely interesting country, a world of its own. In my first visit a few years back, the cultural infusion was more shocking. I'm now able to pick up the subtleties a bit better and appreciate the pros and cons of living on an island where civilisation has reigned for so long. Islands, as I learned for three years living on Vashon Island near Seattle (for most of the time since my last visit here) are cultures all their own. And they are all small places. I'm looking forward to exploring here for the next few weeks and will keep you posted as to my adventures.
Daily horoscopes will continue into next week.
NOTE TO UK READERS: If you are interested in doing an in-person consultation, we are building a list of prospective clients. Once I settle into my travels here I'll schedule a day or two in London. I estimate this will be late next week. Please send your contact information to chelsea@planetwaves.net or call me on my mobile, 07837 718 756.
Midspring or Beltane is Here
This is a reprint from 2001 or so, editor's choice. - T.D.
No recent song captures the beauty and mysticism of Beltane like "The Mummer's Dance" by Loreena McKennett. I remember hearing the song one afternoon driving through Ulster County in New York State, as the days of Winter waned that year. The cyclical, interwoven melodies and rhythms began, and then:
When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair
Driving up the country highway, the boughs and branches seemed to become animated by Loreena's music and poetry, and I could vividly see and feel for the first time that the trees were distinctly alive, moving and reaching into the world. Each had a distinct personality. They seemed like old, friendly spirits, but powerful and wise. Beltane is a celebration of the life of trees, literally, as they sustain and protect us, and clean and enrich the air we breathe; and symbolically, as they represent life and the interwoven pattern of the human family that is sculpted within their branches.
Beltane, sometimes called Midspring, is one of the four High Sabbats of the traditional witch's calendar, also known as the "cross quarter days." It is traditionally celebrated around when the Sun reaches the middle degrees of Taurus, the first Earth sign of the horoscope, in early May. Trees, of course, grow in and from the Earth, and provide us with fruit, as well as wood to build our homes, and to warm them. Taurus is associated with fertility, abundance and, by extension, the personal value we feel both in our hearts, and financially. It is the sign of wealth. As one multimillionaire, whose home was opulently furnished with natural cherry wood panelling, commented to me, "All wealth comes from the Earth."
Each Spring, the Earth is renewed and we are given a fresh chance to live, and this is the most simple meaning of Beltane. While we may view this metaphorically today, in earlier times there were no guarantees of surviving winter. Harsh climates throughout Europe and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere, and many unchecked diseases, compounded by lack of supplies and medicine, provided long and challenging months. Emerging with one's life intact in the warmth and renewal of Spring was something to celebrate. And celebrate they did. As Loreena tells it, "And so they linked their hands and danced / Round in circles and in rows."
In honour of Spring, trees were dressed in garlands, wreaths and ribbons. The May Pole, the ancient symbol of fertility, was celebrated in a dance involving the interweaving of ribbons, symbolic of the entwined fabric of the human family. And then, as evening would fall, something unusual would happen. For one special night, the normal rules of community were suspended, and people would have sex in the forests and fields, often with people other than their husbands and wives. In some communities and cultures, The May was celebrated all through the month.
"Marriage vows were temporarily forgotten during this honey month," writes Donna Henes in her book Celestially Auspicious Occasions. "People coupled freely in the woods and fields, fertilising the soil and each other, sharing a fervent participation in the regenerative magic of the Earth."
"In pre-Christian Europe, sexual activity was considered sacred, and Beltane was literally a night of love," comments Marion Weinstein in The Ancient Modern Witch. "Women and men met in the dark, and paired off under groves of trees, or lay on the newly-sown fields. This was believed to create healthy babies, and simultaneously provide a blessing for the crops. Any child conceived on Beltane Eve was considered a child of The Goddess and The God."
The more impassioned the Beltane celebration, the more fertile the year would become, according to tradition; fertility translated directly to survival.
Beltane, like the other cross-quarter days (Samhain, which became Halloween or All Soul's Night, Imbolc, which became Candlemas, and Lamas, which became Second Planting) was co-opted by Christian culture. Samhain, at the opposite side of the calendar, is a holiday devoted to recognising the inevitability of death, marked by its ritual display of skeletons, ghouls and cemetery caskets. Beltane is at the other side of the regenerative cycle, where life is renewed and reborn.
Beltane has survived in the modern world as May Day. Yet Henes notes that, remarkably, the tradition of the May Pole has passed straight through the generations intact, with the tree being turned into a cross. As the Christians colonised Europe, Bishop Bonifacius (through the 8th century A.D.), among other infamous missionaries, constructed churches built of the wood of the sacred tree where the nature-god Wodan was worshipped for countless centuries. The people were informed that their God was dead, but not to worry: there was another God, symbolised by a cross. Thus, the local Pagans were converted to Christianity, and the new tradition spread. As a remnant of the tree-to-May-Pole-to-cross connection, Holy Cross Day is observed May 3, at the heart of Beltane season.
Yet thanks to Pagan and Celtic revivals of the past thirty years, there are some communities where Beltane is celebrated with great enthusiasm, where the spirit of life is remembered to spring up from the wellspring known as the Earth, and, as Loreena reminds us, perhaps from far beyond as well.
A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
It is a sprout well budded out
The work of our Lord's hand ++
Additional research: Carol Burkhart, Debbe Faulhaber, Lorin Vincent.
Note: "The Mummer's Dance" is on The Book of Secrets by Loreena McKennett, which is available at this link: http://www.quinlanroad.com/tbos.html
More on Beltane next week.
NOTE TO READERS IN THE HUDSON VALLEY: Don't miss the 14th annual Beltane celebration at the Stone Mountain Farm in New Paltz on Saturday, May 1. I will not be able to be there, but if you make it, please send my love. Here is a link: http://www.mythmind.com/css/beltane.html
Taurus Birthdays from April 30 thru May 6
To the extent that you have not addressed certain elements of the past, you are likely to do so more than every before, with surprising results. There's nothing like a little pressure to get you to set your life right, and you may be feeling it. And there is nothing like taking a sudden devotion to resolving the lingering dregs of history to raise your awareness about what you need today.
If the past has a shocking quality, it's often what we lived without. Over the next 12 months you will get a dose of that awareness, but it would make a lot of sense to hold onto your process of resolution and completion for as long and as well as possible. Don't worry; this will not last long. You're likely to be called time and again to new experiences and the overall experience of birthing yourself into a new life. While this is generally no easier than resolving the past, it's likely to be a lot more interesting -- and with any luck, more fun.
Yet homing in on one's essential nature always brings challenges and it can bring a sense of being trapped by or attached to the process of living. The key thing you are striving for is balance. And what has kept you out of balance the most through your life is likely to be something you make the greatest strides toward resolving. As I have suggested in other writings created for the sign Taurus, an inner split in your values system -- in essence, attempting to serve two masters -- is something you will make much progress toward resolving this year.
It is necessary, first, to get to know both sides of this equation. You actually have an interesting window into this situation in your life right now, based on understanding who you call a friend. I would propose that you could divide those you call friends into two basic categories. You may notice that one set of friends supports your growth; the other holds you to who you were yesterday. I'm not proposing that you get rid of your friends, rather, that you understand their influence on you as an exercise in self-study. This will help you map out your consciousness in some surprising ways, including how you relate to your past and your future, how you relate to your dreams and aspirations, and whether you are able to receive the full rewards of your work.
Next I propose you look at developments in relationships with your siblings, even over the past few days. Brothers and sisters are always useful examples of study in how our childhood environment impacted us, in ways of which we may not be conscious -- and which may be rather important now. I will explain my theory. Brothers and sisters arrive in the world with similar genetic material and are often raised in similar family situations but turn out rather different than us. But the ways they turn out, including their unique properties, their assets and the ways in which they're messed up, reveal influences in the environment that within ourselves are hidden but often critical.
Your brothers and sisters (or, alternately, the lack of them) have shaped who you have become. And they will be significant factors in your life this year.
I have focussed so far on relationships other than romantic or sexual. Of all the areas of your life, this is the one that is changing the most profoundly. Thank God for miracles. A particular struggle with a relationship tendency has become evident, perhaps painfully so. It may involve who you choose as primary partners, but in recent weeks you have seen certain events go by in accelerated motion, as if time were condensed. In any event, I suggest that anyone born under the sign Taurus study the events since November 2001 to see what you are growing beyond.
This was a deeply transformational time. You learned to respond to your feelings, to change, and mostly to let go. This will merge into another process: learning to communicate. Communication is one of the great needs of Taurus and, due to certain aspects of your nature, one of the things you may resist the most. Being an effective communicator -- an open speaker and a careful listener -- will help heal your life like no other balm, tonic or medicine. It will foster your creativity like no art store ever did. It will teach you more about yourself than the study of mysticism or yoga.
Mercury Stationed Direct
At six this morning London time, mighty Mercury stationed direct in Aries, ending the three-week retrograde. Mercury is retrograde three times a year. Three times it appears to stop, then go backwards. Three times it appears to stop and go forward. Today is one of those go-forward days. It may feel like tension breaking, like contact is made, or like something is resolved. Or you may just feel stressed or confused. If so, easy does it.
I usually lose my keys a lot with Mercury retrograde. That didn't happen (yet), but one morning (obviously seeking greater things in life) I lost my whole car -- challenging given that it's a large gold '89 Buick. I did so even remembering the intersection where I parked, but didn't trust my memory. After walking around for 45 minutes, I finally called a cab. I explained my situation. The driver said, "I love you for doing this," and proceeded to share his simple, elegant philosophies of life as he drove me around till we found my car.
Some call Mercury the planet of communication. I think of it as the planet of consciousness. In Aries, we get a picture of self-awareness. In honour of this event, today's edition is focussed on the question of identity. "Who am I?" changes with time, as does the answer. That's the nice thing about growth, or at least about being unstable. In today's column I'll be looking at the question from the standpoint of the 12 signs based on the current sky. Remember, astrology is a kind of fiction. Nobody else can tell you who you are or what you need. These are merely proposals.
Today's horoscope by Eric Francis appears courtesy of http://cainer.com/ and also appears in the Daily Mirror.
Aries (March 20-April 19)
Have you ever wondered what became of the little kid you once were? In the trance of time, that child slipped seamlessly into the adult you. Really, that child has life, needs and ideas. It lives without all the personality armour that most people hang from their face to hide their true feelings. Is there an age you consider to be the real you? Is there anything you're missing from that time in your life? Tune in for the next few days. Think of what you would do differently, who you would treat differently, and what you would say. You can, right here, right now.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
To "become oneself" or "find oneself" is a big commitment, or so it seems before you think you've done it. You may be feeling overwhelmed, thinking that since you don't know what you want, you'll never know who you are. You're now making a commitment. It's not necessarily easy and it may be arriving with a sense of turmoil, a crisis of some kind, or the fear that you're going to be impaled on your own truth. But think of it this way: you cannot be anyone but who you are, so why resist? That won't take away your sense of urgency, but you'll have a lot more fun.
Gemini (May 20-June 21)
What some people will do to fit into the crowd! But not you, of course. You can forget what anyone else thinks unless you find it entertaining. Strive for total consistency in how you present yourself in the presence of the people you say you trust, and even the ones you're not so sure about -- like your parents or your boss. You may risk your membership in the club, but you're never really a member of anything. Individuality for you is neither a statement nor a luxury. It's the bottom line. Let the other guys do all the conforming -- to you. Or not.
Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Go ahead: define your identity with your career. You can't go wrong. Either you'll identify powerfully with your professional aspirations and that will help you set your life straight, or you won't, and you'll find your way as a result of having made a tangible choice. But actually, you could say that your guardian angel is currently living in your house of profession and reputation. And while this entity doesn't come around very often, he or she is most decidedly there and clearly sending you a personal message. Listen, and act accordingly.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Why is it that Leos seem so blessed, and so much larger than life? Astrologically it relates to how you have a union between what psychology calls the "self" and what spirituality calls the "higher self." In your natural and everyday state you walk the world merged with your highest potential. Spiritual is a moot point -- there's nowhere to go but here, no one to become but you. Now, you have the chance to be aware of this rather consciously. You can give the experience words and you can hold it in memory. This only happens on rare occasions. Like right now.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
"No more auction block for me," the old American ballad goes. It is possible to conduct your affairs of business and of pleasure and not sell yourself out. In whatever you do, you must retain right, title and interest in yourself. No action constitutes or insinuates anything greater than you actually commit to. This is to say, you can lend yourself, rent yourself, or loan yourself, but you remain your own self at all times. This an old struggle, and your tendency toward infinite service adds an interesting twist to the discussion. But you are your own, and even in this, you should hold yourself gently.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Of all the signs you may have the greatest tendency to be what other people make you, or what you think they want you to be. At the moment some deeply hidden dimensions of this quality are emerging. You are noticing how invisible the process can be, because suddenly it's so obvious now. Your present crisis is more than a development in one relationship. It's a major threshold of growth for you. You are claiming back part of yourself and are doing so under very bold circumstances. Nothing less will suffice.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You have other things on your mind, but you're busy as ever. There is as usual the tension between doing and being; between being and becoming. While much has been made of these distinctions, there's something inherently good about keeping your hands busy and your feet swift. This grounds you in the times of greatest change, such as you are in right now. At this particular moment, your work is especially valuable in the life of someone who benefits from your love and dedication. This is an opportunity to open a whole new door to yourself.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
Remember that no matter what you are doing, no matter who you are waging revolution against and no matter what your current quest, you are driven by the simple love for living. All your indulgence in ideas, in projects and schemes to serve others stems from this point of motivation. Please believe me when I say that the world is not organised around this principle. The act of living wreaks a bit of havoc in the world of punctual order. You certainly keep people on their toes, but lately, they are keeping you on yours.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
In recent years you have begun to grapple with early life events that made you question whether you had the right to exist. This may seem like a bum deal, but most people, never taking on such a difficult issue, live like they have no right to exist at all. Your devotion to the structures of your life -- be they marriage, corporate affiliation, parenting, or adherence to an ideal -- only gets you so far. And your relationship to these things is not as simple as it would seem from the outside. Yet you know the truth, and it does set you free.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Your exterior, however you think you may appear to the world, carefully conceals what an utter radical you are. I admit there are times you can seem a bit eccentric. But people don't know the half of it, and as time goes on, you're just getting more determined to set the world straight. Some would say it's dangerous to identify with an idea, but in your case I would suggest that it's very healthy. Focus on your ideas; write them down; document your thought process. This will amount to the greatest gift you ever gave yourself: specifically, you.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
How "they" feel about you and how you feel about you usually blend into one. The game of approval so casually played with kids (from gold stars in school to making the team) is deeply personal to unbearably sensitive Pisces. This has given you many opportunities for sorting out one reality from the other. In truth, though, it's not so difficult. Consciousness begins from within. You have the power to see these issues and make decisions. How you think of yourself is who you are. The level of respect you have for yourself is exactly what will come back to you from others. Promise.
