Two days ago we were at the concert of the school big band of our son, where he is playing trombone – an impressive performance entitled “Noche de Salsa”. One of the two conductors mentioned that for the orchestra there are life cycles like waves, with ups and downs, and this was just the crest time, having been built up over months of rehearsals. A wave trough will follow in summer, when over 10 students will leave the college.

This is a very common movement of living systems going through time cycles, be it a product life cycle, a trend, periods of an individual life or on a bigger scale of enterprises, of nations, of cultures. When you are experiencing the top you easily forget that the drift might change and other currents come in.

On the spiritual path it is most important to observe these subtle changes in the quality of time cycles and watch out for favourable or crosscurrents. It is very useful to combine this with an observation of the changing planetary rhythms. You can read more about the way to deal with time cycles in the Lunar Messenger on “Working with the Key of Time“.

Waves at the Gulf of Bengal in India, January 07.

Today is Scorpio Full Moon. The full moon time is very auspicious for connecting with more subtle energies through meditational work. Observing the monthly rhythms of the moon and its annual movements through the zodiac gives you a sensation of the changing qualities of time. Here you can see the moon phase, which are now also to be found in the right sidebar of the blog:

(Oh, it caused problems with showing up in the middle column, so I just left a static picture, it works only in the right sidebar.)

If you would like to know a bit more about the inner work with the qualities of time, please see the Lunar Messenger on “Working with the Key of Time” (PDF).

From October 10 till November 8 Yahoo! is filling a time capsule with extracts from life in 2006. The motto is “One World – Many Voices”, and it can be filled by Yahoo-users with photos, stories, ideas, films on topics around Love, Hope, Beauty, Faith, Fun Anger… The content of the capsule will stay in the ground of the Yahoo be opened in 2020. But before, on October 25-27, it will be sent with a laser beam into space from the sun pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico. Its inventor, the artist Jonathan Harris, hopes that millions of statements from all over the world give a global image of multifold individual contributions.

May the time capsule inspire for treading consciously a path to a better world.

With the astronomical degradation of Pluto to a dwarf planet (see our post), he has also lost his name and is now classified as 134340 Pluto since September 13th. Many researchers are not willing to accept this degradation. In this context it is very typical that the newly discovered dwarf planet who caused the new classification of astronomical objects and thus of Pluto is now called Eris, in Greek the goddess of strife and discord. She is accompanied by a moon now called Dysnomia, meaning lawlessness.
What an upheaval in the heavenly spheres – may it not reflect to much unto us humans Or is it a sign of our times, which are called in the East the dark age of lawlessness, Kali Yuga, where rightfulness is at its lowest point?

If you would like to see a picture of the Transneptunian planets, please click here (and click on the photo for further enlargement).

At the moment Astronomers are holding their 3 year’s international conference in Prague, where experts from 75 countries are discussing about a universal definition of what constitutes a planet and whether Pluto really belongs to this list. In 2005 a rocky object called 2003 UB313 was discovered which is far bigger than Pluto and which would be the 10th planet – or another number according to the definition.
Spiritual Astrology looks at planets as the visible vehicles of spiritual principles and says that there is a higher number of planets which are not all on the dense physical plane, but, like the human soul, might be for times exist on subtler planes of existence, coming down and going back in the cycle of creation. Whether the astronomers define Pluto a planet or not is arbitrary, the spiritual principle expressed through it is known much longer than since 1930, the year when Pluto was discovered. In the East it is called Yama, the Lord of Death or the principle of deepest transformation. This principle will hold true, even if Pluto is discarded from Astronomers’ list of planets.

P.S., 25th August 06: Pluto has just seen his status as a planet rejected, which is very typical of the qualities linked to him in spiritual astrology – hidden not perceivable powerful influences. He is degraded to be a minor planet, together with other candidats to this group. You see how powerful our mental conceptions or definitions are – they decide of the categories into which we classify things.

Today the Swiss celebrate their national holiday (you might read my post on the American national holiday…). But there are also other occasions to be celebrated on this day:
I just got an e-mail from an American friend hinting at the festival of Lammas. It says on this site of the School of the Seasons:

“The Celts celebrate this festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and call it Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice. The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. The first sheaf of wheat is ceremonially reaped, threshed, milled and baked into a loaf. The grain dies so that the people might live. Eating this bread, the bread of the Gods, gives us life.”

And it goes on: “Bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on the mother Earth. … What’s most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions. Shape the dough in the figure of a man or a woman and give your grain-person a name. If he’s a man, you could call him Lugh, the Sun-King, or … She of the Corn, She of the Threshing Floor, She of the Seed, She of the Great Loaf (these come from the Cyclades where they are the names of fertility figures), Freya (the Anglo-Saxon and Norse fertility Goddess who is, also called the Lady and the Giver of the Loaf), the Bride (Celtic) and Ziva or Siva (the Grain Goddess of, the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).”

So enjoy the day and celebrate it with thoughts of the life-giving source.

In last Fridays’s issue of the NZZ (New Zurich Newspaper) there was an article about the computer technology of the ancient Greeks. It was reporting about a mechanism found in 1901 by sponge divers near the Greek island of Antikythera, thus called the Antikythera mechanism. It has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. Already in the 50th of last century a scientist put up the theory that the Antikythera mechanism was a device for calculating the motions of stars and planets, which would make the device the first known analog computer. It dates from around the 1st century B.C. and is the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world. Nothing as complex is known for the next thousand years. It is even possible that the mechanism is based on heliocentric principles, rather than the then-dominant geocentric view espoused by Aristotle and others.
Recent X- and gamma ray researches showed an astonishing precision of the device and subtle inscriptions. Latest discoveries are reported on the website of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. In November 06 there will be a conference in Athens to present the results.
The wisdom teachings tell that for long times there has been a connection between Greece and the East, and there were people having an outstanding knowledge of numbers and cosmology (see the blog-entry about the wisdom of Pythagoras). We always think we are at the pinnacle of knowledge, but we have to bow down to the heights of the gigants of the past.

The sun is shining bright over the fields here, but in the atmosphere one can sense already that the annual solstice climax has passed by and the sun has started its southern journey again. Yesterday was St. John’s Day, the Christian substitution for the old solsticial celebrations of midsummer. However, there is a deep sense in having St. John’s day at this date of the days starting to decrease: On the opposite side, at winter solstice, the news birth of light, of the saviour is celebrated, and St. John is called his forerunner.
The time reminds me of the St. John’s celebrations in which I took part as a member of a Steiner school about twenty years ago. After a big fire we used to walk with the elder pupils through the night to a lake and have a swim there in the early morning hours. This time of energy change in nature is very special, called the time of the crab’s sidewise movement in spiritual astrology, where at the beginning of Cancer the daytime here in the northern hemisphere is at its hight. A good time to be attentive of what is subtly preparing for the nexts months.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a friend in Minnesota, US:
“Good Morning dear friend. I have just read your blog for this morning. For a couple of weeks, I have been noticing the things you’ve touched on in your blog post – maybe in a more particular way even. Wherever I look right now, it seems that people are striving to make profound changes in their lives. It seems to be “the right time” for sweeping transformations. I think there is not one person in my circle of friends who does not undergo changes of some sort in their lives. From breaking up relationships, to new jobs, to relocations, or making decisions of far-reaching consequences… a whole series of processes seems to be taking place. Never in my life – not that I consciously remember – have I witnessed such a tremendous shift. It seems to me that people consciously choose to make changes toward a freer life. The basis for their striving seems to be a desire for integrity and creative expression. I’m seeing people being more confident, having a very positive and joyful outlook on the future. The energy feel very profound to me, filled with hope and trust; a very fundamental energetic change altogether.
My question to you is: is this a result of the planetary constellations? Or does it have to do with the series of significant full moons we are currently having? Or maybe both? Or am I maybe imagining it all? “

When you observe events in your life, you see that on the one hand there are cyclical movements of ebb and flow, and these pulsations of life can be observed in smaller or greater systems. One is the inbreath and outbreath of the annual cycle, marked by the rhythm of the solstices and equinoxes. In the ascending arc from winter to summer solstice the time from spring equinox to summer solstice, through Aries, Taurus and Gemini, is often marked by the springing up of new vistas of ideas, expressing in changing one’s situations, or “getting changed” by the trend of things.
Since the time of my starting regular meditation just now 32 years ago, and especially since the early 80ies I have been observing cyclical rhythms, by observing life experiences and by using instruments of spiritual astrology symbolisms, which have found an expression in the Letters on Spiritual Astrology. When you observe from outside-in and ponder on it from inside out, you are developing an understanding of life phenomena in terms of energy and principle qualities, getting to a more synthetic (not simplified) view of time movements. I do not want to speculate about the complex reasons involved in the changes in your environment. As a meta-trend however, I observe in general a speeding up of individual life situations, in individuals, groups and in greater systems. When you get sensitive to changes, being exposed to them, you tend to see them more in your environment. The general speed of our age is increasing by what the wisdom teachings call the energies of synthesis expressing on our planetary life, and the quality of the time, called the Aquarian age. This is particularly seizing people exposing themselves consciously to these energies through their inner attunement to the soul. Maybe this gives some hints to a deeper understanding.

Today we are entering the full moon phase of Taurus full moon. Since ancient times this day is celebrated in the East, and also today with many groups in the West, as Vaisakh (or Wesak) Full moon. On this full moon day about 2500 years ago Gautama, the Buddha, was born, and also on Vaisakh full moon he gained enlightenment.
However, it is not just since these times that the Vaisakh festival is celebrated. The name of the festival related to one of the 27 constellations of the Eastern lunar zodiac, the Visakha constellation in Scorpio. The moon is in this constellation around Taurus full moon, when the sun is in Taurus, thus giving the name for the festival.
Like many groups we will be celebrating this date tonight with a full moon meditation. The nodal points of the monthly lunar cycle are of great importance to be able to gain more easily access to subtle planes of consciousness, especially the full moon and the new moon, as explained in the lecture by Dr. Ekkirala Krishnamacharya. For this full moon I have chosen as a topic of the “Lunar Messenger” “The Buddhic Plane“, hinting at another deep relation with the full moon of Taurus and the name of the Buddha. Some months a go a friend had send me a beautiful picture of a Buddha statue in Bhutan, which I used as the Picture of the Month and add it to the monthly newsletter.
Since four years I am chosing each month a picture related to the qualities of the zodiacal sign of the month. For this month the commentary says: “Golden-yellow is the color of the Buddhic plane, the supra-mental, the light of wisdom. Buddha is seen as the embodiment of wisdom, and statues that depict him are often golden. Contemplation upon this helps the observer to move beyond the boundaries of the mental and to move into the higher light.”