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| For Friday, May 2, 2003 | Version 1.0 Blessed Beltane to Everyone! The songs of birds seem to fill the wood, That when the fiddler plays, All their voices can be heard, Long past their woodland days. And so they linked their hands and danced, Round in circles and in rows, And so the journey of the night descends, When all the shades are gone. "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." from 'The Mummer's Dance' by Loreena McKennitt Nothing I See Means Anything Dear Aspiring Avatar: Any mystical, spiritual or even psychological tradition exists to help people deal with fear. As someone before me by now must have pointed out, we would not need spiritual teachings or therapy if we were all content, balanced and at peace with the world. However, what we may think of as the source of fear, and how to approach the issue, are what remain rather open to investigation, speculation and interpretation. There's also this thing called pain, but I submit that most of the pain we feel is the direct result of fear. We actually do need to be reminded when we are in fear, and informed that what feels like normal consciousness (i.e., worrying about everything all the time) is really an overload of fearful thoughts. This is a big part of what honest mysticism or good therapy is about: learning to listen to fear and be mindful of it, without getting overwhelmed. It is not as easy as it sounds. And there are pitfalls. For example, it often feels like one is 'inviting fear' by being aware of it. But it turns out that awareness works fairly well as a tool to move through fear, even if the first thing we become aware of is more of the stuff. At this point in history it's amazing that anyone has any peace of mind. In the Western world, where we have relatively little to actually fear, we are marauded with reasons to be afraid all the time. Our society's leaders -- everyone from advertising agency execs to politicians to filmmakers and of course many religious leaders who promise seared people they're going to hell -- have figured out that fear is powerful, and they capitalize on this. If you can put people in a certain kind of fear and then offer them the solution, you can charge a lot of money, because fear is painful and people generally don't want to be there. Fear is also a way to take control of a situation. If you send shocks of terror through a society, many people will do just about anything you tell them to if that means the fear might go away. People wonder, "Why does TV have to be so violent and negative?" Um, it doesn't. But the people who own TV have their reasons for making it so. Then you pay to get that pumped into your house, you pay for the entertainment center to watch it, and you pay with your life. Unless of course you're one of those people who keeps the TV set in the closet shrouded with silk. But you are a rare bird if you do. The media environment, including all its advertising, "news," "information" and "fun stuff," is one enormous fear pump. Yes, yes, occasionally it gacks up something wholesome, like Planet Waves or Bowling for Columbine, but usually only when a computer or movie camera gets into the hands of a subversive. Paranoia is what we call it, that constant, subtle, roaring background din of invisible, nameless fear that is the sum total of all the various lunatic mental, psychic and emotional inputs through which we take in our datastream. We live in the information age and most of that information is carefully designed to freak us out. So at least you can reassure yourself with the fact that, under such conditions, fear is perfectly normal. And then, overwhelmed with fear, angry about it, fearful that we're not right, wondering why we're not making progress in our lives, feeling guilty and ashamed, we work our asses off and buy stuff and work to pay for it and buy more stuff, hoping it will make us feel better. Fear and consumerism are very good friends. And thus turns the modern world, and there only seems to be one way off. You could, if you were inclined to such types of deep, dark associations, say that all fear is a derivative of the fear of death. Thus, every experience of fear contains within it the thought of death. Enter A Course in Miracles. One premise of the Course [introduced in 'The Pros and Cons of Miracles' in the last edition, posted at: http://www.ericfrancis.com/continue/miracles.html] is that all fear is an illusion, and that all things fearful are an illusion. By illusion, the Course means as real as the image on your television, and dealt with as easily as you can unplug the thing. As a student of metaphysics and to some extent philosophy, I am aware that a giant leap has been taken by starting on this premise. The Course is the great granddaddy of the "You create the universe" school of New Age philosophy and has put a spin on, or been directly behind a variety of projects including Rebirthing and the work of Marianne Williamson. Books by Tara Singh (an intellectual successor to Krishnamurti), Hugh Prather (author of Notes to Myself) and Conversations with God have all commented on the Course meaningfully. At one point God's voice in Conversations With God takes responsibility for having written the Course. "You create your universe" is a giant leap for the world, one that I can't rightly tell you I believe right now, but at times it seems like a leap about as far as the one between "fear" and "bad vibes." The Course goes through the logic of this a lot of times, from about five different angles ranging from relationships to how the inner display of physical reality is demonstrably a grossly inaccurate representation of reality. It begins with the presumption that fear is an illusion and that love is real; that sickness is an illusion and health is real. We are all familiar with this idea, and the somewhat opposing idea that "it's all one world" and "dark and light are part of one another." That's another kind of critter. Within the Course system, the apparent universe is divided essentially in half (though most things we notice on the Earth plane are fearful, so it's not exactly in half). Once we cut off energy from fear and invest it in love, bad things disappear. That's how miracles work. I am fully aware of the problem with this outlook, which is that it is designed to teach people not to trust the world they see, not to trust their senses, and not to trust what they normally think of as their own thoughts. This is not an endorsement; I've been through a good bit of hell working with A Course in Miracles, though the same seems to be true of any spiritual path. Often it's difficult to get a grip on whether spiritual paths are part of the solution or part of the problem. The first lessons in the Course workbook set out the basic thinking method. Lesson one is "Nothing I see Means Anything." It's a mind exercise. Doing the lesson, you take a moment and look randomly around the world and, when your eyes light on something, you say to yourself, "That fish tank does not mean anything. That glue stick does not mean anything. Those Tarot cards do not mean anything. That homeopathic remedy does not mean anything. This monitor does not mean anything" and so on. Just observe, not brainwash. This lesson is done twice on one day, and the student moves on. What is the point? This is the foundation of the idea that what we see is meaningful only if we give it meaning. Therefore, everything is inherently meaningless until we come along and make it that or that. How do we accomplish this? Of course, we use the past as a basis. When we are not in the present, we are generally a) thinking about the past or the future and b) in fear. A later lesson a few days down the road approaches the phenomenon of projection, which is addressed in many traditions, my favorite being the yoga path. The lesson is "I see only the past." I can look at my telephone, for example, and remember that I bought it when I was living in Miami, mail order from Hello Direct. I am silently reminded (whether consciously or 'unconsciously') of everyone I ever talked to. It reminds me of working. And so on. But I don't see this telephone as the awesome potential to talk to anyone in the world right now. It reminds me of the past. This process goes on continuously. It is called projection. There is a word for it in Sanskrit, samscara, which means the latent past impressions that all things we see carry. What do we do with these latent past impressions? Well, as Joe, my first therapist used to say, be aware of them. It can be pretty shocking the first time you realize the world you see is just a collection of millions of references to the past and that, as a result, means that we are often stuck in the past as mental prisoners. This works with people as well as things. You can meet someone, and they remind you of someone else. You can be in a relationship with someone, and persist for years responding to this person as if they were another person who hurt you -- and when else, of course, but in the past. (Joe had a suggestion that every time I meet a woman, look at her and say silently to myself, "This is not my mother." He is not much of a fan of A Course in Miracles, for reasons I'll get into next week.) Basically, the first fifty lessons of the Course are designed to get across the idea that perception is projection, but to demonstrate the fact. Course lessons are experiential in that we do them rather than just study them. Perception is projection is best learned when witnessed. It's the idea that no matter when we look out at the outer world, we are looking at out inner world. This is a radical switch from the way we think we see; it's an inversion of what the Course calls upside-down thinking. The change, at first, can be very disorienting, and it's equally disorienting when we realize we've flipped back upside down and the world is made of projected fear again. Making the whole universe seems like an awesome responsibility (um, I'm not ready to take responsibility for the bombing of Iraq). But when projection is flipped for a moment then really strange things happen; as we call back in our projections, as we take account of the world we see and recognize that it's comprised of images from our own past, we catch little glimpses of reality. The first 50 lessons are a mix of contrasts like "I see nothing as it is now" and "Above all else I want to see things differently." A couple of others are, "There is another way of looking at the world," My thoughts are images that I have made," and "I am sustained by the love of God." (This last lesson, which happens to be Lesson 50 and something of a Course in Miracles holiday, was written into a fabulous devotional hymn by Michael Stillwater, samscara.) Gradually, doing the lessons, one gets the idea that there are two main parts of the mind in operation: what the Course calls the ego (a complicated, fictional personal identity constructed of fear), and the other, the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is Christian jargon for a concept that exists under every rock. Higher power, guide, guardian angel, inner light, collective consciousness, the one mind, the oversoul, it's all basically the same thing (Course in Miraclism: What has the same purpose is the same.) This is the aspect of consciousness that is joined with all other minds, and which sees and experiences reality. We can choose to merge with it at any time. It is the awareness of love and of the fact that love is safe all the time. But the idea has identity; it is you; it is me. It does not exist in theory; it exists in reality. It is our contact point with reality, and in moments when it's accessed fully is strangely, powerfully familiar. I leave you with this idea. "The symbols of love against the symbols of hate play out a conflict that does not exist. For symbols stand for something else, and the symbol of love is meaningless if love is everything."++ ---- Michael Stillwater can be reached at http://www.innerharmony.com/ Webcasting Comes to Planet Waves, or Vice Versa Every Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. PST or 11:45 a.m. EST, I do a live webcast at http://www.voiceofvashon.org/ hosted by Susan McCabe. Please spread the word. Two Random Editing Notes In Search Of > what does ISO in Gemini mean? These are Virgos reading. > virgo: whole little bit? Planet Waves Horoscope by Eric Francis http://www.PlanetWaves.net/ In the Sky There was a new moon Thursday morning, with Mercury retrograde in an exact conjunction to Ceres. Ceres is minor planet #1, an asteroid so massive she comprises one-quarter of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. She was discovered in 1801, shortly after the discovery of Uranus. Had she been discovered today, she almost surely would have been classified as a planet. Her orbit is between that of Mars and that of Jupiter, and she takes about four years to go around the sun. Her message is nourishment. She is the astrological ready-reference to the Earth Goddess by whom we are supported and sustained. While we're getting this light show in Taurus, Scorpio remains an interesting field of reality and is directly connected. Scorpio is currently home to a collection of minor planets including Pholus, the second Centaur, and another Centaur named Hylonome, plus Sappho, Psyche and Juno. Lots of people born in the Sixties have Neptune right there, and a quite lot of minor planets in Aquarius which are getting 'squared' by events on the Taurus-Scorpio axis. So whatever we're going through, we're not alone. Call your cousins. So -- back to Taurus -- Mercury, slow and powerful in the sky, has been cozying up to Ceres in a nice long conjunction. I've experienced a fun synchronicity in the past couple of days, two old friends getting in touch with me. In one instance I attempted to contact an old friend through an outdated mailback feature on a classified ad. He never got the email, but he just contacted me a week later. We have been out of touch for about seven years. The other was from Pennell Rock, author of an essay called Jealousy and the Abyss (you can Google it). I wrote to him yesterday asking if I could pass the essay onto Sexuality.org. It's the best thing I've ever seen written on jealousy and it's now 20 years old. So I wrote to him asking for reprint permission. He wrote back asking if I was responding to his email about his new writing on jealousy. We had been out of touch for at least five years. Mercury retrograde in Taurus is feeling a lot more like Venus retrograde, which can bring a wave of golden oldies back into your life, friends, lovers and relatives past. It's a nice placement, combining the Mind factor of Mercury and the Value factor in Taurus, together in a mixed-up kind of way, along with the Nourishment factor of Ceres. Think differently, this is saying, and you'll get what you need. Keeping things mixed up is a strange but true grand cross across the mutable signs with Mars as the fast-mover setting it off: Leo Jupiter opposite Aquarius Neptune is really starting to heat up (Mars is about to conjoin Neptune, which all the horoscope columnists are tracking in their sign reports), and it's met by retrograde Juno in Scorpio. This will be reaching its peak in the next few days, and can be blamed for any weirdness as long as it's weird enough; this is not a diluted, unoriginal run-of-the mill astrological aspect. I see something about former wives, a lot about poetry and electrifying music to which untold millions can dance. With Mars Neptune, there's usually something good to drink or smoke around. Beware of histrionics. You will probably do some really hot artwork, if you are inclined, but art is not enough. This is Beltane, the holiday of the international loyalty to fucking. Only tell the truth. Mars Neptune abhors lies, all the more for being small ones. Jupiter in Leo mixed into this crowd tells me that, for the most part and to state it simply, things are just fine. Mid-Taurus Birthdays You have enough of what you need, and will always have enough of what you need. If you can get with that, the changes you've invited and which have taken up residence in your life will not seem nearly as frightening and will, to the contrary, light you up. This is THE year for learning what is yours and what is not. Someone, or several people, in your life are going through extraordinary changes, which may be deep, painful, or beautiful. But they are not your changes -- not quite. They are yours in that you are a witness to them and you are part of the process, but not as much as you may think. What is going on is actually much older than your association with this person, by several generations, actually. What you get to work out is how old family stuff can take over your relationships without your even knowing it. The patterns repeat almost precisely. One little problem with early family stuff is that little kids take it on. It took me a long time to figure out this concept, take it on. Take it on means accept responsibility for, blaming oneself for, feeling guilt over, or experiencing oneself as being the central issue in something that someone else is experiencing that actually has nothing to do with you (i.e., my parents got divorced because I'm ugly). It's not easy to see when we've taken something on, but there is likely to be one giant event in the coming months that makes it so glaring that you can't miss it. Your own growth calls for you to observe yourself from many different directions, and to see how similar the 'different versions' of yourself are even though they seem to conflict so mightily. Desire is an important theme this year. There is a simple message of accepting yourself as good despite the fact that you may feel very complicated. Your complexity is not a threat to anyone, and it's not going to hurt you. But when you see that it's really the result of a very hot fire within yourself that you tend to hold down, I think you'll feel a lot better. It will be important to temper your ambitions. I don't mean don't be ambitious, I mean let it flow, and don't worry so much about how you look to others. For reasons involving the Mars-Neptune conjunction, you don't have much say over that. But you do have the ability to be content. And that will help you professionally more than anything else. Make sure your home is really your home. You know your home is yours when it's someplace where your basic needs are met and where you don't feel under pressure or siege. If you're going to relocate, make it someplace bigger, with more light, just like you like indoor spaces to be. In any event, give yourself plenty of room to grow, because you'll be needing it. Aries (March 20-April 19) Be mindful of what you may say to your friends under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It's probably true -- but just like those hotter-than-hot hot erotic desires that can only be felt or experienced at a very specific angle of relating (or time of day), it's not true all the time. In the outer world, get used to having no control over how others perceive you. But that's fair, since you don't have any control over how you perceive them. You may be inclined to believe everything that's not remotely true; to make people into who you want them to be; or to fear the very best and welcome the very worst of how you may be perceived by them. This is a good time to remember that perception is not reality. Whatever else may be happening, Venus in your sign is knocking on your door with some long-awaited (tangible) gifts. Taurus (April 19-May 20) We're all on that gradual path to reconciliation with ourselves. If you are feeling frustration, it may be akin to that of a child who has a lot of energy but no actual power of decision. The truth is that you are an adult, and you do have the power to choose. Presently that translates to an unusual opportunity to direct your own destiny, though it follows that choosing means selecting between options. And those seem to grow a little more vague every day. It's as if you're being called upon to come up with one clear goal for yourself. But as things seem to be developing, it's less about a goal and more about catching a glint of a wispy vision that feels right once you see it, and which slowly begins to materialize. Once you feel what it means to have one real option, a second will be right there. Gemini (May 20-June 21) No, people can't read your face like a screen and they don't know all that you're considering, contemplating, observing and determining. But your view is not direct, either. To the extent that what you feel appears on a kind of 'inner monitor' for you, you're looking at it in a reflection. When you turn around to look at the original, it disappears. This is bit maddening for those ISO a little concrete direction in life, and who admit it. Reminder: the whole 'direction' business is an activity which must be undertaken with a light attitude and a spirit of play. How much sense does it make to look for new dimensions in all your old haunts? Or are we really just our thoughts, and it doesn't matter where we are? Or must one be eternally grateful merely for having food? Cancer (June 21-July 22) My friend with a Cancer moon cooks one real thing for himself every day, you know, an actual creative kitchen project which transforms into a meal, daily. I am Cancer rising and do no such thing, but I aspire to it. Here we have a good picture of contrast between the rising sign and the moon. As for the Cancer sun, the seasonal outlook is that you're rapidly headed toward your zenith, the solstice of summer in the northern hemisphere. At the same time, you are soon to fully embody the principle of self-responsibility, and of an unusually devoted level of presence in a current or forthcoming relationship. If you take this on like the weight of the world, you're not quite getting the vibe. Everything that happens in the next four weeks is a practice run. Start in the kitchen and work outward from there. Leo (July 22-Aug 23) You may be contemplating your reputation. Don't worry: it's the best. Perfection is not a value, so we all fall somewhere on the scale of less than everything. Thing is that some of us wear it better than others, and you happen to be a fashion plate. People are not determining whether they trust you based on certain ideas you may have about yourself; nobody else can see them. People see you functioning in the larger world, existing as a genuine presence, a negotiable human and the source of a lot of energy. You do a pretty good job of projecting that into your relationships. But shortly you may be asked to explain something about yourself that would be very apropos of the moment. Current aspects show you may be feeling less than fully secure. But you are not being accused of anything. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) With your ruling planet retrograding toward both Chiron and Neptune, there's a whole little bit of pressure you may be feeling to be more aware, more compassionate and more attentive to your numerous inner needs. You can, however, rest assured that the developing energy is more like a current gradually drawing you to another inevitable experience of awakening. And, you might ask, how many more of those do you need? Tune right in, right now. This is your kind of alarm clock, rung with the most magnificent chimes, feeling like it's sounding a call from forever ago. By the way, please stop freaking out over your health. Just take care of yourself, and make small decisions that will add up to a lot over time. Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) Unfolding developments offer you a really excellent opportunity to see your own strategies in action. Though you may not always be aware of what they are, you're incredibly creative at coming up with winning schemes. Winning may occasionally amount to losing, but then the mind can be a frightening device, not always our friend. One quality offering you insight into your own strategies is how vividly you can see those of everyone else. Check for correspondences, not always direct. Beware of embracing one particular method of getting by that involves going from one emotional high to the next in relationships. If there is not an exchange, it's not a relationship. If a win-win were ever possible, the real thing, and a big one, now is that day. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) I realize I've been writing these deep, psychologically complex horoscopes for Scorpio; people actually see me on the street and comment. What I can tell you this week is that your agenda isn't quite going to work out exactly the way you've prepared it. Solving everything that needs attention one thing at a time, for instance, is way too inefficient for the upcoming celestial speedup. In other words, within the next two weeks you'll experience something that addresses many concerns at once, revealing the truth that they were never separate. Meanwhile, please be vigilant about deluding yourself over a deeply influential emotional matter. Make plans for a reality check. Read what you wrote yesterday in your notebook. Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22) If the current final peak of the Jupiter-Neptune opposition is doing it's work, you're picking it up as the desire to say what you've never said, to go where you've never gone, and to get into yourself and heal what you've never been able to make right. Meanwhile, you may get the feeling that people around you are not in their most forthcoming space. Mercury, your opposite sign's ruler, retrograde in Taurus, hardly seems like talkative partnership astrology. But what matters the most will be said. A great deal is developing behind the scenes. What seems to count more than anything is that you get your international travel plans in order. Think big, and think dangerously. Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) It was one of your soul sisters who said, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Or as Capricorn moonchild Laurie Anderson admitted, "I've got everything I ever wanted. Now I can't give it up. It's a trap!" So go ahead and freeze your credit cards in blocks of ice, or declare war on desire. Forget that you ever wanted to jump out of an aeroplane. Pretend you're not a public servant, akin to the real mayor of an old town. Try to convince us you're not planning to get married, now that you seem to finally know yourself. Tell me you don't like your life just the way it is. Tell me you wouldn't change it in a minute. Being alive is extremely risky. That is one level of the cosmic game. But just one. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) This is your big moment to act like a Leo. It won't really be an act, actually. And in fact, you can choose your fire sign. Okay I have a better idea: Firesign Theatre, starring You. Try being Sagittarian for a while, that's the easiest one to fake. You get like all spacy like you've just had lunch with ET and shared a chef salad, but if you tell anyone they'll think you're nuts, even though he left his business card. Or like an Aries. Absolutely confident in yourself, you just forget. Let this be a reminder to remember. Ah, and then there's Leo. How do I describe the relationship between you and your polar opposite sign right now? Aquarius and Leo are exactly the same thing. It's just that one gave birth to a distant, bluegreen planet that sends out occasional jolts of energy, and the other to a hot young star that blazes all the time. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) The sky is set at maximum Pisces right now and believe me -- that's a lot of Pisces. Yes, the Sun is in Taurus and just one major planet is in your sign, but the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune are in the midst (I wrote 'mist'! -- Neptune slipping in there) of a potent and unstoppable setup that may feel more than a little daunting. Daunting, as in stretched over a vast paradox you can't reconcile, or like really trippy dreams, or like how do I handle all this power, or daunting as in why does everything seem so up in the air, but I feel so fine? It's all true. All you have to be attentive to is fear. Visionary Pisces keeps coming up with visions. Visions can be scary too, but the most important thing you can do is to allow any fear that arises to keep passing right through you, and let the movie roll. How do newspaper horoscopes work? Planet Waves Weekly and PlanetWaves.net are edited by Eric Francis, with help from Chelsea Bottinelli and the Vision List. This newsletter is $49.95 per year and published 52 times per year plus the monthly horoscope. We encourage our readers to contribute their artwork and writing to the Planet Waves project and to cultivate themselves as creative forces in the unusual and socially formative times in which we live. |
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