“During the silent hour, a man receives new inspiration which may change his life.”
Welcome to Satya Center’s Leo Solar Festival, Aquarius Full Moon August 2012 Cosmic Weather Forecast, brought to you by your Editors, Curtis Lang and Jane Sherry.
August is unusual this year because there will be two Full Moons. The first Full Moon occurs this Wednesday, August 1, at 8:27 PM PDT, or 11:27 PM EDT at 11° of Aquarius, opposed by the Sun at 11° of Leo and trine Jupiter in Aries, a most auspicious aspect! The second will occur on August 31st.
August 1 and 2 we celebrate the ancient Festival of the Wheat Harvest known as Lammas, or Loaf-Mass Day, the sacred cross quarter day between the Summer Solstice & Autumn Equinox when the Mother returns the first fruits of the year’s harvests to come.
The Celts celebrate this Summer Festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and call it “Lughnasad” after the God Lugh. This is the Festival commemorating the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we have been spared the parching drought and mega-heat waves that have scorched the US from the Rockies to Far Rockaway, and are enjoying a more or less typical Mediterranean style summer season.
Antioch, where we live, is in the far East Bay of San Francisco, where uber-suburbia meets the cattle ranches and cornfields of Brentwood. The hills are golden, the corn harvest is well underway, and we are enjoying a flood of organic stone fruits, strawberries, tomatoes, greens, avocados and every other kind of vegetable imaginable!
There are so many organic farms at our nearby Diablo Valley Farmer’s Market that our worst problem these days is taste-testing! So many delicious, very different, varieties of our favorite fruits and vegetables, so little time!
Jane's been preparing amazingly yummy Peach-Tomato Salsa for us, and we've been enjoying it so much we just had to share Jane's recipe, which was selected by Frog Hollow Farms for their newsletter last week, distributed to all members of the East Bay CSA we joined this year. Frog Hollow is the famous provider of organic fruit to Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Restaurant, and they have been delivering an amazing array of heirloom organic stone fruit every week including super-sweet-yet-disarmingly-tart peaches, nectaries, apricots, pluots, and more!
We give thanks for this tremendous bounty every day! We are so acutely aware that the amazing productivity we are enjoying rests upon an incredibly fragile eco-system fed by massive quantities of water siphoned from the nearby Sacramento River Delta and delivered to farmers from the East Bay to San Diego. So we would like to take time out this Full Moon to say prayers of gratitude to Mother Earth.
Lammas is the day to celebrate the Eternal Maiden, the Virgin Mother, the Corn Mother, the Great Earth Mother of Nourishment, our Mother of Abundance.
Lammas is the day we traditionally express our gratitude that She feeds all our children. Celtic nature-worshipers, Neo-Pagans and Christians alike light fires to celebrate the strength of summer’s incandescence and the promise the fruits of harvest make for the community’s secure winter season.
Yet this year Lammas is a festival of mixed blessings and mixed emotions. Mother, we are grateful for our privileged lives and for the opportunities we often take for granted. Mother, we are sad and we mourn the many ways that human beings undermine your most precious gifts of clean water, clean air, fertile soil, diverse vegetable, animal and bird brothers and sisters and the rest of the Mother’s web of creation -- the environment that has given birth to all of us and nurtures us from generation to generation. Mother, we celebrate our unity with the web of life, with your Holy Body, planet Earth.
Today we are on the brink of monumental climate change, brought about by the excesses of our industrial civilization and our excessive reliance upon a rational materialistic view of the Universe. We no longer act as humble caretakers of the Earthly garden.
We have set ourselves up as Lords of creation. In the past, we have believed we have the right to control, dominate and subdue nature and have measured our success by our ability to transform humanity’s shared environmental resources into a wealth we can consume in our own lifetimes without regard for the wellbeing of future generations.
We know that the sources of energy we use to fuel our global human civilization are destroying the environmental resources our children and grandchildren will depend upon for their survival. We know that we are rapidly depleting the most valuable of those resources in a global consumption binge that can only be compared in its severity and toxicity to the terminal stages of drug addiction.
We are depleting the soil, poisoning the air, polluting the oceans, and exterminating animal, bird and plant species by the thousands.
We are manufacturing new genetically modified plant species and introducing them into the environment without testing them to see if they are compatible with existing bio-systems.
We are creating cloned animals to be bred as sources of food for hungry humans without regard for the well-being of the animals, or the suitability of cloned meat for human consumption.
At the same time that the world is beset with conflicts between religious warriors representing many different spiritual traditions, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, there is also an increasing environmental awareness arising among practitioners of all faiths.
Even those who adhere to fundamentalist interpretations of sacred scriptures are finding common environmental ground with more tolerant and ecumenical spiritual practitioners who honor all the wisdom school traditions of all religions.
And spiritual environmental activists are finding common ground with their secular counterparts.
Today, Mother, we honor the ancient wisdom school teachings of East and West that celebrate the web of life, and of humanity’s responsibility to maintain that web of life intact for future generations.
Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism all provide a treasure trove of spiritual teachings on the interdependence of all living things in a web of life.
All the major religions of the world agree that humanity bears a tremendous responsibility to the Earth, our Mother, and to the future generations of human beings, plants, animals, birds, and creeping, crawling creatures inhabiting this garden planet.
All the major religions of the world agree that humanity must temper its greed, curb its rampant consumption, extend a helping hand to the more than one billion people living in extreme poverty, and radically alter the industrial lifestyle we have come to accept as normal in the last two hundred years.
It is natural to be concerned about the many environmental, political, social and economic troubles afflicting humanity at this time.
Every week Jane and I hear from Lightworkers and others who are feeling overwhelmed, over-tired, overly stressed, and over-stimulated by global events that are creating massive changes that are beyond the ability of any one human being to completely understand, control, or even bend slightly to one’s will.
We are all only human, despite any spiritual heights we may have attained, and it is only natural to be worried in such a tumultuous environment.
If you are beset by worry, with your mind circling again and again around the same seemingly intractable problems, remember the gifts you have been given, the obstacles you’ve overcome in the past with spiritual guidance and blessings, and reflect on the nature of worry, and on the power of gratitude.
Release all worry, for worry is another great energy leak. Worry activates unceasing mental chatter, filling the mind with unhelpful speculations which, like hungry ghosts, feed on our vital life force energy, depleting us and destroying our will. When we worry we cannot feel our love, we cannot concentrate our compassion, and we cannot perform compassionate acts.
If worry arises in you, do not attempt to suppress the emotion, because this will only strengthen the unwanted energy, which will then resurface later. Instead, step back from this worry, and remind yourself that worry is not an element of your true nature. Remind yourself that worry is transitory. Make an effort to just be a witness to the worry. This will enable you to let go of the worry, to allow it to pass like storm clouds passing in front of the sun of your inner awareness.
The antidote to worry is gratitude. When we are involved in deep feelings of gratitude for our many blessings, when we are filled with gratitude for our life, and for the present moment, there is no place in our hearts and minds for worry to reside.
Gratitude is the antidote to worry. So Jane has fashioned a prayer of gratitude that we would like to share with you. You may want to say this prayer and meditate this Lammas Full Moon week on the many blessings you have received in life.
You may want to make an offering of a flower, a piece of fruit, some water or a crystal to the Divine Mother, either placing the offering on your altar, putting it in your garden in a power spot, or perhaps making a gift of the offering to someone in need.
“Mother, today, in celebration of the ancient wisdom teachings that honor you as the Divine One, the Source of all life, we ask your blessing and your help, that we may find our way back to the path of Spirit, and that we may find the courage and strength to walk that path again, all the way to the final goal – help us in our struggle to regain our equilibrium as individuals and as a people, wounded as we are with our religious wars, our greed, our self-centered lifestyles and our short-sightedness. Mother, help us to reconnect with the ancient wisdom teachings known to humanity since prehistoric times, and celebrated at the Seasonal Festivals held in your honor each year, marking the turning points on the great Seasonal Wheel of Time.”
“Mother, today we celebrate the unity of the human family. “
“Mother, we ask your forgiveness, for our destructive ways. Mother, we seek today to learn to forgive one another. Help us, Mother, to learn to love you as the old ones loved you, so that we may heal ourselves and our environment.”
In addition, here is a lovely short guided gratitude meditation for you to try this Lammas Full Moon.
“Increase your feelings of gratitude by visualizing all the many beings that have worked ceaselessly through the years for many centuries to learn and transmit the spiritual practices that empower you.”
“Visualize the many hard-working individuals who have contributed to bringing you to this moment in your life. The efforts of your parents, your ancestors, your friends, those who grow your food, those who build your house and your car, those people who assist you daily, weekly, all year long.”
“Visualize the many blessings the natural world bestows upon you, including sunshine, rain and wind, trees and animal companions. Feel their warmth and how they vitalize your body, your mind and your spirit. Let this warmth and vitality fill your being.”
August Cosmic Weather Forecast
This month the energy of the Uranus-Pluto Square which perfected in June continues to dominate the ethers here on Earth. Mars in Libra will reach a position relative to both Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn that creates a potent T-Square, another permutation of the Grand Cardinal Cross that dominates the sky astrologically from the period 2008-2020 or so.
There is an ongoing struggle between the forces of radical change, represented by Uranus in Aries, and the forces of entrenched power, symbolized by Pluto in Capricorn, especially in the global economy, and hence in the political arenas of life, where issues of wealth creation and distribution among various factions of society are decided.
One need only take a quick look at Europe to see the results of economic missteps combined with political gridlock -- the creation of a continental banking crisis and Great Depression that threatens to blow up world financial markets virtually every other week as clueless central bankers and politicians pursue ineffectual policies at best, policies that create more and more suffering at worst.
In addition, environmental issues, including the all-important issue of global climate change, are creating intense pressure on both economic and political systems, which were not designed to function in a world which is rapidly heating up and simultaneously generating more and more extreme weather events on a global scale.
The fact that this year’s global warming threatens to cut corn yields in America and the Ukraine, the two most productive areas of global corn farming, by up to 75%, will cause mass starvation among the world’s poorest people, and will create tremendous political conflict from South Asia to the Middle East and beyond!
Underneath the surface of our business-as-usual consensus reality as mediated by the mainstream media, unresolvable contradictions are sharpening and threatening to rip apart the fragile global political, economic, agricultural and ecological systems that sustain human civilization.
You can expect the addition of Mars in this extremely conflicted energy field to add fuel to the fire, so to say. There will be a tremendous impulse to find and implement immediate solutions to global environmental, economic and political issues, but in countries rich and poor around the world, there is no consensus on solutions to these global issues.
On the contrary, within and among nations there is rising conflict between the rich, the poor and the middle classes about how to deal with them.
This month that political conflict may very well intensify among nations, political parties, and economic classes worldwide.
On a positive note, around the middle of August Jupiter in Cancer forms a T-square with Pluto and Uranus. Jupiter will be opposite Pluto in Capricorn and square Uranus in Aries so the planet of the Spiritual Teacher will lend its massive strength and expansive energies to the task of reform and revolution, opposing the efforts of the defenders of the status quo, the 1%, and the world’s predatory political leaders to maintain their wealth and power.
Change is coming. That much is clear.
For us as individuals, as Lightworkers attempting to facilitate positive change and to minimize human suffering during this immense global transformation, the energies of the Full Moon are very supportive and provide a window of opportunity for accelerated spiritual progress.
This Lammas Full Moon week is a great time to seek inner spiritual guidance and perform all spiritual practices designed to put us in touch with the Love and Wisdom we will need to be of maximum service to the world.
The Sabian Symbol for 11° of Aquarius is: “During the silent hour, a man receives new inspiration which may change his life.”
This symbol reminds us that we are currently in “the silent hour”, the Void between cycles of human activity -- on an individual and on a collective level of consciousness.
We are living in the “no-man’s land” between the Hydrocarbon-powered Industrial Age and the Solar Age to come, between the Piscean and the Aquarian Ages.
Scientists say that we are no longer in the 12,000 year long Holocene age, the age of the Goldilocks climate, during which human civilization emerged and grew to its present precariously overpopulated state.
We are entering the human-engineered age scientists have dubbed the Anthropocene. Unfortunately we engineered the current global climate changes unconsciously, without knowledge of what we were doing, and those changes threaten the viability of thousands of species of creatures, perhaps even the viability of human civilization itself.
Our task as a species is to become increasingly aware of our part in the web of life on Earth so that we can become conscious co-creators of a new Anthropocene civilization that will reverse human-created global warming, and invent sustainable human societies that live in harmony and balance with the Earth.
Right now, we have no idea how to make that leap into the new. We have no maps to guide us, and no ancient wisdom teachings offer us a recipe for life in the Anthropocene. It is up to the Lightworkers of the 21st Century to seek the spiritual guidance that will provide the wise solutions we need to humanity’s pressing social, economic, political and environmental problems.
This week is a great time to turn within and seek guidance and solutions to our pressing problems on a personal and collective level.
As we meditate and pray this week, let us also remember the wisdom of the current Dalai Lama, who is a big advocate of both spiritual practices and of spiritual activism. Because meditation and prayer are essential but by themselves are insufficient to guide humanity across the “no-man’s land” between the Ages.
“It is important to pray and meditate for peace, for a more compassionate and better world,” explains the Dalai Lama. But if that is all you do, it is a waste of time. You also must take actions to make that happen. Every single day.”
Jane and I offer you love and light, and ask that you be given the spiritual guidance you need to achieve love, wisdom and abundance in your lives, so that you may be of maximum service to the World.
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Meditation Moment: Lammas Poem by Jane Sherry
Lammas Poem
I am a fish.
I walk out of the water on four legs
then two.
I grow wings
and fly to the treetops
in my Paradise.
I am black
white yellow red
brown skinned.
I am a wise woman
child snake man
frog lion insect.
As I sit in the treetops
I remember the time
of Fires of Floods of Beginnings.
I remember the Future Earth
a place of Balance
Breath Harmony Water & Fire.
I am my country
your town
our grandchildren.
I am the cloud
that rains on desert.
the river that runs to sea.
I am the peace
that rules at the Heart
of all things.
Photo/Picture Credits from the top:
Public Domain picture from a 15th century manuscript of Aquarius the Water Bearer, Photo of Peach Tomato Salsa by Jane Sherry, "Mixed Madonna" Digital Collage by Jane Sherry published by Corel Painter Software, page from "Venus Unbound" by Jane Sherry, Photo Collage "Rose in Hand" by Jane Sherry, Photo of Corn patch from Jane Sherry & Curtis Lang's old garden in upstate NY, Photo by Curtis Lang of Jane in their altar room, Public Domain photo of Dalai Lama taken in the White House, Gouache painting of "Lilith in the Tree of Life" by Jane Sherry. Check out more of Jane Sherry's artwork for sale in the art gallery at Satya Center.