E pluribus unum – CREDO CXXXVII

 
We are witnessing in the last few weeks a new phenomenon in North Africa and the Middle East. It is the power of the common man to use a massive peaceful crowd to overcome a despotic ruler. Gandhi’s “Salt March” was a forerunner, and, to be sure, the Eastern countries in Europe had the Velvet Revolution against Communism, but these were not as clearly defined as what is happening in North Africa. Here the composite Aquarian rule of the Common Man is placed against its opposite sign Leo, the single ruler. Thus begins the New Age in historical terms. Nation after nation, starting with Tunisia, has provided massive rivers of humanity that moved as one to protest against single entrenched dictators; Ben Ali, Mubarak, Ghadafi and others.

The Latin quote which is the motto of the USA, and on every dollar bill, translates as “Out of many, one,” and was also used symbolically previously by the Roman Empire, which had a bundle of arrows called the fasces tied together, giving rise years later to the term “fascist.”

At another level, the United Nations, and the European Union (EU) function as one out of many.

Those are all political examples, but the same process can be discerned in large business companies, universities, government branches in many countries. The USA, however, is a triad of checks and balances: the judicial, legislative, and the executive branches, headed by a single president, who nevertheless is subject to the people, as Clinton demonstrated . . .

Day by day, at present, history is unfolding this new phenomenon. It deserves our attention. The internet, Facebook, etc. are all abstract communities in which we participate without personal contact. The reality of the “other” is a matter of personal projection. Take a certain journalist: you read his pieces, hear his voice on the radio, and you form an imaginary man to fill in what’s missing. Then one day, you finally see his picture and are amazed at the difference from what you had imagined. Multiply this phenomenon by a billion and the unreality of what one thinks is going on and what really is becomes daunting.

Mother Teresa put it succinctly: I believe in person to person and God is in everyone. Aquarius believes in the latter but forgets the importance of person to person. You pay a toll and a little green light comes on with Thank You! An Aquarian guru I knew signed all his computer mail “with heartfelt love.” An Aquarian author I knew was writing a book about the seven mysteries of the universe, but forgot to water his horse, which sickened. As I myself have Aquarius rising, I have spent a lifetime trying to be practical! A need, something my very practical husband Walter finally conveyed to me. His method was very subtle: he never criticized me. No, but he would become very, very silent and when I noticed this, I had to ask – only then would he give the reason. This was very helpful actually because by asking I opened myself to receive the reprimand! Always followed, to be sure, by an affectionate hug.

We really only had two fights in eighteen years. The first was when we moved our joint belongings and discovered the number of musical records we both had. I said the long shelf was for his, and he said no, it was for mine. Aargh! In the end, there was room for both. The second argument was over the virtue or lack of it, of the Emperor Charlemagne! He was for me, a wise and heroic hero. In fact, when Germany invaded Holland in WW II I dreamt he was in a telephone booth and I was banging on the glass shouting, “What are we going to do?!!” For Walter, who grew up in Germany, Charlemagne was “the bloody Saxon butcher” who invited the Scandinavian nobility to a banquet and proceeded to slaughter them, a tale I refused to believe on the grounds that the order came from someone else, a woman whose name escapes me at the moment.

Back to the topic! What the present media offers us is the opportunity to live a new commandment: Love thy neighbors, they are yourself! Even in a family, our relationships are basically the result of mutual complex projections. We serve as multiple masks to one another! As I have written before, many of our relationships are based upon opinion. I remember an experience in India, looking down at night at a corpse being burned on a ghat. Some dogs, whose eyes reflected the fire, were snatching bits of flesh and devouring them. I thought of the hounds of hell. The next morning, I saw the dogs and puppies again, and they were just pooches wagging friendly tails.

So E pluribus unum has a caveat: A chain is as strong as its weakest link. A river of humanity is subject to mob psychology. We desperately need to remember the importance of the unum’s responsibility.

I am reminded of the Hindu image of Indra’s Net. The net is held together with a jewel at each nexus, and each jewel reflects all the others! It seems a prophetic holistic symbol for the fractals of today.

If the dichotomy of the last Age of Pisces/[Virgo] was faith/reason, the individual vs the collective is indeed the dichotomy of our already-arrived Age of Aquarius/[Leo].

We can celebrate this in a form of “Instant Communion”: by making a circle holding hands and swaying back and forth three times chanting “Yum! Yum! Yum!” followed by “Hugs to the left and hugs to the right!” This always ends any meeting in laughter and delight. Try it, as many have, and enjoy. By the way, we tried this with over a hundred Tibetan orphans in Dharamsala in India, and they knew exactly what to do! So now we can truly say it has Tibetan links!

lovingly,
ao

The Pearl Principle of Toynbee and Jung – CREDO CXXXVI

   
This seems a moment in history to remind ourselves of one of the most significant ideas put forward in the last century! Arnold Toynbee, the famous British historian, put it this way (as I remember it):
It is not what happens to a civilization [country], but how it reacts to it that determines the outcome.

And to paraphrase Jung:
It is not what happens to us as individuals, but how we react to it that determines our spiritual growth.

This concept, collectively and individually, is probably one of the most important ideas that might sustain us as we live in these acutely challenging times! Egypt is a current case, in point.

There are many extreme individual examples of this: Helen Keller, born deaf and blind, or Nelson Mandela, the South African, who suffered decades in prison for trying to liberate his country from European colonization, who triumphed in the end and is now a revered heroic founder of this independent nation. These are just two well-known examples, but there are countless others all over the world.

I call it the Pearl Principle. It is the irritant in the oyster that produces the perfection, luster, and beauty of the pearl.

As so many, many people all over the world are suffering, one way or another, as countries under despotic rulers or victims of natural or manmade disasters, never was it more important to realize the enormous import of this philosophical, psychological, if not spiritual truth.

          * * *

Speaking for myself, last evening I was wallowing in self-pity with a dear friend, bemoaning the physical and financial calamity of this brutal winter that has caused the virtual collapse of a whole room in my house, with leaks that cannot be stopped until April at the earliest! The prospect of moving the contents and files, packing everything in boxes, and this includes the meditation room upstairs that requires a whole new window – at 88 and unable to use my right hand, in constant pain, plus the current absence of my beloved secretary due to illness, etc. etc. – this prospect seems insurmountable, combined with the effort to finish collecting materials for the Archives of Smith College! Well, my friend added a well-deserved scolding, and I went to bed in pain and misery, only to wake up with the comforting insights of Toynbee and Jung! Bless them! Hooray for the Unconscious!

Thus, I hasten to share the wisdom of Arnold Toynbee and Carl Gustav Jung, in the hopes of potentially cheering just a few others of the millions of people who are suffering far greater pains than I am.

I must not forget my magic word Vivex! that forces me, without fail, to get up and go on, or my oft-quoted words of the Bishop of Woolwich, In we are and on we must.

Finally, I offer the consolation of looking up to the stars at night: the universe is running on time and this too shall pass. As the medieval French poet Francois Villon wrote, Ou sont les neiges d’antan? Where are the snows of yesteryear?

hopefully and lovingly,
ao

How to Love Your Enemy: Part I – CREDO CXXXV

 
Now, there’s a tough commandment! Especially when the news of the day is so full of opposite factions striving against each other, to say nothing of killing them. After years of listening to clients and patients griping and growling about their antagonists, it seems a hopeless and unreasonable task.

It starts with blaming, which, of course is a form of projection, and this brings up the lines of wisdom in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others who trespass against us.”

But there is the problem of seemingly real evil and hateful behavior that makes the commandment perhaps seem too idealistic. Here is another way of looking at it:

This is based on the concept of karma, which is simple action and reaction. No “sin” is involved, and it takes reincarnation as a given. If you can allow these two to be a reality, you will know that when your “enemy” does something unspeakably cruel or evil, you should develop compassion for them because they will have to learn the hard way the next time around! That compassion amounts to loving your enemy, but it is not easy.

Yet, here are a few instances that come to mind. One was a young man with an angelic disposition who suffered all kinds of physical ailments and had a history of cruel mental and physical abuse as a child. Let Mark be a poster child for many, many similar cases in our world. It seems so totally unjustified. Consider the possibility that this is a “redemptive” life, and that by maintaining his good nature and kindness, he was erasing the past. In such a redemptive life, one may discover that one’s true nature is essentially to be kind. Here is an extreme example:

One of my uncles graduated with the Edward Sheldon from Harvard. Ned went on to become a famous American playwright and became wealthy in the 1920s. I corresponded with him at the age of 11, when I sent him, at the suggestion of my mother, a play that I had seriously written! I received a telegram critiquing it, and so when we went to New York, my mother decided we should meet. We went to the address on the Upper East Side, and took the elevator up to the penthouse. The small elevator door opened, and I was in for a shock! A narrow bier was in the middle of a beautifully furnished room, complete with a piano. The bier had four tall candles burning at the corners, and on it was the body of Ned. I felt scared until a hearty voice said, “Welcome, Penelope and Alice!” He was alive, handsome, and tan and looked twenty years younger than my Uncle George. He did not encounter the stress of everyday life and he was rolled out onto the rooftop to get some sun whenever possible.

What had happened to him was that when he was about 30, he had been suddenly overcome by a mysterious medical condition which left his body totally paralyzed for life and also blind!! To shorten the story, he continued to maintain his friendships with the literary and theatrical elite, without a trace of self pity, and took the time from that day on to befriend me, to encourage, and to guide me in times of adolescent crises. He became my spiritual confessor. I was to surface as an example of his kindness and wisdom in the biography written about him after his death, The Man who Lived Twice by Eric W. Barnes. Perhaps in the next CREDO I can tell the story, as it is an example of the unreasonable social mores of the 1930s. Ned always communicated by telegram, which in those days, consisted of a tickertape message pasted on a folded yellow Western Union envelope.

There is a saying, “Every saint was once a sinner.” One of the most controversial ideas that Jung came up with was that “Christ” might sometimes wear the mask of the “Devil” in order to teach us.

I suggest to anyone reading this, to look back over your own life and, in the privacy of your conscience, look at your own past and see where you might have made a mistake, a definition of which came to me years ago: A mistake is a loop in consciousness made to expose a greater surface to experience. My youthful error was that when I became conscious of a psychological or behavioral mistake, I thought I was free of it. Not so! I had to apply the new insight. I then had the idea of Christ’s seamless garment, presumably his aura; by contrast, most of us have holes in ours, but when we learn the lesson, we fill that hole and it’s on to the next one. This must be the distinction between being holey and wholly holy! (Forgive me!)

More in my next CREDO!

lovingly,
ao

Zodiacs – CREDO CXXXIV

 
There is a big flap going on about astrology in the news. It is based on ignorance. To clarify matters: there are two zodiacs. The sidereal zodiac which is Sun centered and the tropical zodiac which is Earth centered. Astrologers use the tropical zodiac as we live on the earth! But that is only part of the wonder. At the moment of spring, when the sun appears to cross the Earth's equator, stop the clock, and observe. That moment is called the Point of the Vernal Equinox. Imagine a clock hand at this moment pointing out, past the Sun, to the actual stars of the constellations; you would find that it is moving counterclockwise 1 degree every 72 years. Where it lands determines the Age we live in, and it is moving backwards into the constellation of Aquarius, through the spatial interface, from that of Pisces. (This feature was discovered by Hipparchus of Alexandria in approx. 200 BC!) This motion is called the Precession of the Equinoxes.

The Earth-centered tropical zodiac moves through the signs yearly in the natural clockwise direction of Aries, Taurus, etc., so, you have a wheel within a wheel. It takes approx 26,000+ years for the Point to traverse all the constellations, and this is referred to as a Platonic Year.

The flap is caused by confusing the sidereal zodiac with the tropical one, which astronomers frequently do! The Ages have a collective impact on our history, mythology, and psychological evolution that I have outlined in my book The Heavens Declare: Astrological Ages and the Evolution of Consciousness. What is fascinating is that there is physical proof in history, archaeology, and mythology. For instance, during the Age of Taurus, the Bull was worshipped all over the world, and this coincides with the first evidence of humanity moving from a nomadic to a settling down in one place, thanks to agriculture, providing for “civilization.” People had land, and presumably prayed for good weather and no plagues, etc., thereby projecting a sense of property. Even today, we speak of the market being “bullish”!

However, the individual horoscope is based upon the tropical zodiac and is determined by the time, longitude, and latitude of an individual’s birth and gives a psychological guide to how a person is likely to process experience.

I realize that this is a complex explanation but, hopefully, it sheds some light on the matter!

lovingly,
ao

UFOS – CREDO CXXXIII

 
There was a piece on AOL recently about UFOS (Unidentified Flying Objects), and I feel the need to express my experiences with them. My husband Walter and I not only saw them 7 or 8 times in the late 1980s and ’90s but discovered that a number of other neighbors also saw them but were too shy to mention them because they were afraid to be considered nuts! My husband was convinced they were aliens but, as a Scorpio, I am reluctant to define them, so what follows is an accurate description of what we saw, and I ask that you trust my veracity. I kept notes in a red book, which has since vanished, when I was moved from my upstairs bedroom when I became ill and was presumed to be dying.

The first time coincided with the night we watched The Pink Panther. We had gone to bed and the lights were out. We happened to look out the large picture window adjacent to our bed, and Walter noticed a very bright light, about the size of Jupiter, shoot across the sky and stop in mid-air, change direction and shoot across the treetops and stop again, totally motionless. This defied gravity! I volunteered to go down for our binoculars. In my absence, Walter noted that a plane moved slowly across the sky with blinking lights and the UFO went dark, but the minute the plane vanished, the UFO lit up again and continued to zap to and fro across the sky. I called two neighbors and they also witnessed it. None of us had seen such a spectacle before. Finally, my husband tired and said he would sleep but I watched for another half hour in a total daze of shock, thinking of the implications of what we had seen.

I will mention another time, a few years later that was outstanding. We were driving home from Connecticut, and, as we approached Monterey, we saw two of them over the treetops, so we stopped on the shore of Lake Garfield and turned off our car lights. This time we had a much clearer close-up view. These were pinkish in hue and were shaped like frisbees and rotating. It was as if they had windows around the rim. They continued to dance and dart around joyfully. At no time were we afraid.

My darling husband died in 1998, and I saw the last one after his death. I was still upstairs, and this UFO was very large, and came closer, and frightened me a bit with its brilliance and proximity. Since then I have not seen any because I fell ill and had to be moved downstairs. My teenaged grandson Cameron saw one later but since it moved in a straight line, I think it might have been a satellite orbiting on a mission?

Now years later, there are photographs, reports from airline pilots, and other witnesses in abundance, so there is no longer any doubt of their existence, and the general public no longer scoffs at them, it seems.

Winston Churchill confessed that he saw one years ago, but felt that revealing this would cause needless alarm in the British public.

Hopefully, in the coming years, scientists will come up with a plausible explanation but for now they remain Unidentified Flying Objects!

lovingly and truthfully,
ao

Candles – CREDO CXXXII

          
As I have hinted before, archetypal processes are also hidden in physical objects, which suggests that looking at them symbolically can be positively illuminating (sic!). Nothing could be more apt therefore than a candle.
All the major religions have rituals connected to candles, so what is the reason?
(I suggest reading the following slowly and giving each line a chance for you to listen to your inner Self!)

Candles, like people, come in various, shapes, colors, and sizes. They all, however, have something in common: a central individual wick. (This wick can also be symbolic of Jung’s Self.) It is passive, until lit by a flame.

We have to light a candle! Invite Spirit . . .

The wick is at the center of every candle, regardless of shape.

When lit, the flame on every candle is the same flame. It is symbolic of Spirit.

The flame is fire, which links it to the Sun, the source of all Light, Heat, and Life. This fire is symbolic of the mystery many call God. And especially Love!

Transpersonal Love, or agape, is how we can express that “Vast Certainty” many call God. Every atom of manifestation contains that Light.

Darkness per se holds the Light, but cannot put it out.

A candle, therefore, is a symbol for the secret of what Love really is:
     With a lit candle another can be lit many times.
     Its Light helps us and others to see.

This flame has been handed down through cosmic time and space. It unites us to the bright starry universe. We do not know its origin.

The candle measures the fire safely. When fire is not controlled it is destructive.

The sun shines and does not count its rays. It needs darkness to be seen.

The sun shines. It didn’t have to!

Love is a mystery, shining through us not out of us.

     The fires of hell are the flames of God’s Love rejected.
          – Dorothy L. Sayers. (Oxford theologian and author)

So say a Blessing this holy Solstice Season and light your candle for the eventual true illumination of all humanity, for Peace, and for our understanding the preciousness of nature, and that we may increase our individual consciousness and spiritual awe of Love.

It is so simple to share. Even a kindly smile and wave will do! Kindness is the beginning.

Just remember this:
     Love thy neighbor as thy Self for we both carry the same flame!

lovingly,
ao

P.S.: Don’t forget the animals! Especially these days!

Solstice – CREDO CXXXI

 
The first Sunday in Advent marks the beginning of the Christian year. The four Sundays in Advent always come around the time of the Solstice on December 21, and there is a reason why. The Solstice, an astronomical feature, falls on December 21, and marks the entrance of the Sun into the earth sign of Capricorn, ruled by Saturn and which gave rise to the riotous pagan Roman celebrations called the Saturnalia. So the early Christian fathers, therefore, chose December 25th not only to supplant the Romans’ but also the birth of Mithra, founder of a rival religion. What all of them celebrate really is the event called the Solstice. And the outer materialism manifest at this time really implies something far more significant. If you think about it, it is the culmination of nine months from the first sign of Aries and it takes usually nine months for the gestation and physical appearance of a baby!

But there is an emphasis on materialism as well, and I am certain that few of us have missed the incredible, almost exclusive, emphasis today in the media on the importance of material sales, profits, and competitions for every penny. Not a word about the Solstice let alone the symbolic spiritual implications involved, So it seems important for us to remember what the Solstice really is and to regain the symbolic import given it by all cultures in the Northern Hemisphere through thousands of years.

It marks the shortest darkest day in the year! This year it will be for those on EST at 6:39 pm. This marks the moment when the Sun appears to stop and move northward (Sol-stice is Latin for Sun-still), bringing Light and the promise, through the coldest months, that we are moving towards spring, Aries! Slowly, by increments of 2 to 3 minutes each day this is the message of hope that new life will bring the greening, blooming, and fertility of the earth again. All of this in reality is caused by the motion of our Earth as it orbits yearly the Sun.

The event is recognized consciously by all the religions and is spiritually celebrated by Christians as Christ’s Mass; by the Jews, as Hanukkah; by people of color as Kwanzaa; by the Norse as Yule; by the Hindus as Diwali. Moslems, Zoroastrians, and Orientals all recognize it, as did the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. Hope comes afresh with the return of Light.

It seems therefore, that we should and could lift our eyes from the bargains being touted everywhere, and realize the grandeur of our Solar System that, despite the never-ending wars and conflicts of humanity, continues to remind us that Light, Life, and Love are still there for us, and that there is a far deeper meaning to this recurring event. So maybe we could stop and remember that we have, like every candle, a center for Light in our hearts and like the wick, it carries the same flame of Spirit.

Thus, these four Sundays of Advent give us the time to appreciate the wonder that awaits us. Despite all our rushing around, it is comforting, unconscious or not, to know that this moment links us literally with the manifest depths of our Solar System, So Happy Solstice! It unites us all.

lovingly,
ao