Pisces Full Harvest Moon, Virgo Solar Festival, Autumn Equinox & Michaelmas 2022 Cosmic Weather Forecast

 

 

 

Data captured from space by Copernicus Sentinel-1 on 30 August maps flooding in Pakistan. 
European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
 

"Heavy monsoon rainfall – ten times heavier than usual – since mid-June has led to more than a third of the country now being underwater, according to a Pakistani government official," the European Space Agency reports. "This catastrophic flood has claimed the lives of more than 1100 people and more than 33 million, one in seven Pakistanis, have been affected by the flooding. Homes, croplands and infrastructure have been washed away."

"The left side of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 image [above] shows a wide view of the area affected and the image on the right zooms into the area between Dera Murad Jamali and Larkana," ESA explains. "The Indus River has overflowed, effectively creating a long lake, tens of kilometres wide. The blue to black colours show where the land is submerged."

Pakistani climate scientist Fahad Saeed of Climate Analytics believes that the unprecedented monsoon and floods can be attributed to climate change.

Dr. Fahad Saeed, Scientific Model and Data Manager at Climate Analytics

"It’s been long established that a heat low develops over Pakistan and the adjoining region of India before the onset of the monsoon" Saeed told The New York Times. "And because of the temperature gradient between the ocean and the land, we receive monsoon depressions from the Bay of Bengal. And so the heat wave we had this spring, that unprecedented heat wave — that is also one of the factors in the intensity of this particular monsoon."

Global climate instability causes extreme weather events of all kinds. Climate instability is the result of increasing global temperatures caused by the hothouse effect created by fossil fuel combustion. Pumping heat into an unstable nonlinear system creates more and more extreme oscillations in all weather patterns. So we see unprecedented droughts, record heat waves, 1000 year floods, and destabilized seasonal patterns creating global crop failures and threatening the global food supply.

As the festival of the Harvest Moon approaches, Pakistan's ripening rice crop has been destroyed, and there will be no planting season for the wheat crop the country relies upon to feed its people.

A young girl crosses a makeshift bridge over stagnant flood-water in Sindh province, Pakistan.
DFID - UK Department for International Development, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pakistan's main agricultural regions, Punjab, Balochistan, and Sindh are all flooded.

Thirty percent of Pakistan's 30 million acres of farmland is devoted to cultivation of wheat, which is the country's primary staple food.

Traditional planting season begins in October, and meteorologists predict additional rainfall in the worst affected regions over the next month.

The war in the Ukraine has already created a global wheat shortage, and if Pakistan's fall planting fails, the impact on the already stressed global food supply chain could be catastrophic.

Pakistan produces 9% of the world's rice, which is the primary staple food in most of Asia, and with rice producing regions submerged by the monsoons, the fall harvest season, set to begin in a few weeks, could be yet another disaster for Pakistan and for the entire world.
 

Here at home, it's the week of the Virgo Harvest Moon Festival. If you'd like to share our relative abundance and donate to relief funds for the suffering tens of millions in Pakistan, many of whom have been sleeping under the stars without any services for a month already, here are some recommended resources we trust:

 

• Islamic Relief
• The World Food Programme
• The Disaster Emergencies Committee
• UNHCR, The United Nations Refugee Agency

The unprecedented scale and scope of the current global food crisis cannot really be overstated.

"Soaring energy bills are threatening to put six in 10 British manufacturers out of business, according to a survey that lays bare the extent of the crisis facing the next prime minister," Bloomberg News reports.

Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia have been destabilized by civil unrest for over a year, prior to the latest round of global shocks, and they are likely set for a replay of the Arab Spring uprisings.

The Verisk Maplecroft report predicts that popular uprisings triggered by skyrocketing inflation on top of global food and water shortages, extreme weather events and global supply chain disruptions will prompt repressive responses from governments all over the world during 2022 and 2023. 
 

 

Around the world, people are beginning to realize that the age of fossil fuel driven superabundance epitomized by the 1950s American lifestyle has come to a crashing end.

The 21st century will be defined by climate catastrophes, resource wars, civil unrest, unraveling of international institutions, destabilized governance, food and water shortages, and the collapse of the global financial bubble that has sustained global economic growth for the last 30 years.

Welcome to the New Normal.

Cosmic Weather Forecast

The Full Pisces Harvest Moon on Saturday, occurring at 5:59 AM Eastern Time, September 10, 2022, at 17°41′ Pisces coincides with the Virgo Solar Festival. The Pisces Full Moon will be visible in the eastern sky as it rises just after sunset Friday evening, reaching peak luminosity early Saturday morning.
 

View of Full Pisces Harvest Moon, September 10, 2022, SkyGuide Software
 

Keep in mind that six planets are retrograde in September, so if you can slow down for a beat, the stars will bless you.

Take this time for self care. Destress and release any desire to control the flow of events, no matter how challenging your situation in life.

If you can enter into the Great Silence, and tune into the whispering voice within, you will be rewarded with an abundance of insight, a harvest of spiritual guidance that will provide you with a roadmap enabling you to navigate through the turbulent times ahead.

By September 17, the Sun in Virgo will oppose Neptune in Pisces, opening inner doorways to elaborate dreams and visions. During this time, it is important to exercise maximum discernment, so we do not succumb to astral glamours, wishful thinking or self-delusion.

It is also vital that we maintain our bullshit detectors at maximum intensity, because this influence can indicate willful attempts to mislead, miscommunicate and gaslight, so be sure to trust but verify all communications. Don't trust authority figures to have your best interests at heart.

Towards the end of September, Mars in Gemini will create a Mutable T-Square with Sun in Virgo and Neptune in Pisces. This creates a kind of cosmic pressure cooker, an atmosphere in which action for its own sake becomes priority number one, without regard for planning or reflection upon probable results.
 

Life could become a balancing act on an accelerating Tilt-A-Whirl.

We may find ourselves torn between competing priorities and competing versions of reality, ping ponging between various ill-considered courses of action that could destabilize our inner equilibrium and harm our relations with others.

The desire to use our verbal skills to dominate others and our own environment, indicated by Mars in Gemini, combined with a conflicted, foggy Neptune in Pisces could surface mass confusion, propaganda wars and social media attacks emanating from a host of bad actors located all along the political spectrum.

Sun in Virgo wants clarity and wants to establish the truth of its own point of view above all other interpretations of reality, so there is likely to be a superabundance of self-righteousness in this toxic mix of miscommunications.

The most important astrological aspect of late September takes place during the week of the 21st through the 28th, when Saturn in Aquarius returns to a more or less exact square with Uranus in Taurus.

This Saturn-Uranus square was the dominant astrological aspect in 2021 and continues to exert strong influence on the collective hive mind of humanity throughout the remainder of 2022.

Saturn's energies support inner spiritual growth and social equilibrium achieved through restrictions of various kinds.

In mundane astrology, Saturn represents large institutions such as governments and corporations, laws and regulations, social restrictions such as public health mandates, and social norms such as respect for the rights of women, racial minorities and religious minorities.

All these institutions and social structures tend to restrict the absolute Uranian freedom of the individual to provide for the best and highest good of the collective. 
 

 

 

Saturn-Uranus squares represent tension and conflict between innovation and the status quo, between controlling institutions and individualistic nonconformists, between social restrictions and uncontrollable individual impulses challenging the foundational assumptions on which social contracts rest. 

Huge price movements in digital currency markets, stocks, bonds and real estate often are correlated with Saturn-Uranus squares, so expect super-sized drama in financial markets worldwide toward the end of September.

At the midpoint between Saturn and Uranus, Jupiter in Aries will create a semi-square to the two outer planet powerhouses, potentiating the dramatic conflicts already in play throughout the world.

Such conflicts include the War in Ukraine, social unrest protesting the increasing cost of living in countries around the world, rebellion in the US against prevailing social norms, and widespread protests against the controlling technocracy, which is rapidly implementing various flavors of a Panoptic surveillance state in societies East and West.

Saturn in Aquarius represents restrictions on large populations and Uranus in Taurus square Saturn in Aquarius represents innovative technologies of control put in the service of the most authoritarian elements of society.

In the East, China has instituted a government controlled surveillance state over the last couple of decades, with innumerable video cameras and widespread use of digital payments providing increasingly complete portraits of the most pedestrian and intimate details of citizens' lives in real time.

The Covid pandemic has further empowered the surveillance state to monitor the health and vital signs of citizens on a granular scale, imposing lockdowns of tens of millions of people at a time, universal vaccine and mask mandates, and penalties for noncompliance.

In China this tsunami of big data is centralized in government databases and used openly to assign social scores to citizens, which correlate to their access to everything from transportation to banking services, to basic human rights.

In the West, private corporations lead the way in the creation and utilization of The Internet of Things, related to Uranus in Taurus, and a for-profit Techno-Panopticon designed to control the Collective Consciousness of entire populations.

 

Internet of Things
Toma Cristian, Cristian Ciurea and Ion Ivan, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
 

"Likewise for Amazon drivers. Amazon styles the drivers as subcontractors working for a ‘Delivery Service Partner’ (DSP), and the DSP is fully chickenized: They have to buy Amazon vans and subject them to Amazon maintenance, but Amazon reserves the right to fire a DSP without notice, stranding them with vehicle and lot leases and payroll liabilities. The DSP owners are chickenized, but the drivers themselves? They’re more like the chickens. . . From the instant you get behind the wheel of an Amazon van, you are being surveilled by an array of cameras hooked up to high-handed, judgemental AIs that monitor your facial expressions, your eye movements, and your ability to meet an impossible quota."

It's not just "working class" people who are subject to digital shackles. More and more, employers conduct algorithmic micro-managment of professionals like lawyers, doctors and management consultants in their offices and in their homes.

Increasingly it's the Artificial Intelligence of the algorithm that is in charge, that demonstrates agency, and the human being connected to the AI driven system is a mere appendage without the ability to exercise creativity or even free will.

Tech giants enable the apps that monitor people's sleep habits, their exercise routines, their monthly fertility cycles, the number of footsteps they take, their vital signs, visitors to their homes, what they read, what they watch on Smart TVs, who they associate with online, what they spend their money on, who their social media friends are and what they post online, and so much more.

A collective of monopolistic for-profit technology companies utilize algorithms to help us decide what books to buy, what songs to play next, what friends we should connect with, who our next date and sexual mate should be, and even suggest what household goods and groceries we need now to restock our kitchens. These companies monetize that information by selling it to other companies that create highly individualized advertising to utilize their intimate knowledge of people's lives to sell stuff to consumers.

It's clear that such information is also used to target dissidents, track pregnant women and police their wombs, and populate police and Department of Homeland Security databases so large groups of people can be surveilled as suspects for any reason at all. 

The most frightening social consequences will emerge as Big Data collected from the Internet of Things will be used in judicial settings, for the resolution of social problems, to identify socially and politically unacceptable behavior, and to implement logistical solutions to social problems of scarcity that will mushroom during the Long Emergency which is the hallmark of life in the 21st Century.

Soon the West will have arrived at a High Tech Dystopia in which the parameters of the entire social structure are determined by the decisions of Silicon Valley companies, who operate solely to create unprecedented wealth for Silicon Plutocrats while subjugating the rest of society, creating a modern day Feudal State of Techno-Royalty and serfs.

As China and the United States compete to create the standards and protocols that will govern next generation broadband networks, cloud services, and a slew of algorithmically controlled devices connected to the Internet of Things, although their ideology and social structures appear to be in direct conflict, the end result will be more or less the same.

 

In China the Techno Mandarins of the Communist Party who have their fingers on the keyboards commanding the Bureaus of Central Planning and Social Monitoring will run society, controlling the Chinese Tech Titans who create the algorithmic infrastructure that supports the Panoptic Surveillance State. Both Communist Mandarins and Tech Entrepreneurs will enrich themselves wildly in the process. There are 1133 billionaires in China today and they own about 1/3 of the total wealth in that country.

In America, Neo Feudalism according to neoliberal principles will create a libertarian Ayn Rand inspired social nightmare of adolescent billionaires and happy, submissive consumers of products and services that monitor their bodily functions, control their every movement day and night, and keep them in continuous debt to the Masters of Technology. There are 716 billionaires in the United States today and they own about 1/3 of the total wealth in our country.

So in terms of wealth inequality, China and the US are basically about the same. In both cases, a tiny group of billionaires control 1/3 of the nation's wealth. The rest of the top 1%, mere multi-millionaires, control maybe another 20% of their nation's wealth.

These societies exhibit a level of wealth inequality that far surpasses France in the time of Marie Antoinette. In pre-revolutionary France, the lowest 40% of earners held about 14% of the wealth, and the top 20% of earners held a whopping 60%. According to the Census Bureau’s 2018 report on Income and Poverty in the United States, the lowest 40% of earners in the U.S. were worse off than 18th century French peasants. They held just 11.4% of wealth. And our top 20% of earners held 52% of it. Of that 52%, a handful of billionaires control the lion's share of the wealthy's wealth. As we've seen there's a similar inequality in China.
 
The dystopian transformations of both Chinese and American societies reflect the energy signature of the Saturn in Aquarius-Uranus in Taurus square of the early 2020s.

Only time will tell if this is the high water mark of dystopian techno-fascism, or if the worst is yet to come. One thing is for sure and that is that important outer planet aspects like this remain powerful for years after the passage is complete.

 

 

The fall equinox arrives on Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 9:04 P.M. EDT in the Northern Hemisphere as the Sun enters the social sign of Libra, symbolizing the need for constant adjustment of the dynamic equilibrium necessary to maintain right human relations between self and other, between individual and social priorities. Libra is often pictured as Lady Justice for that reason.
 

In the Neolithic age, prior to any written records, ancient scientists and priests, shamans and priestesses searched the night sky to find “fixed” reference points in the dance of the stars and created maps of the sky at various times of year.

These maps provided a structure for the year reflecting the harmony of the universe, and provided an understanding of the orderly procession of seasonal change, rain and sun, that governed the yearly agricultural cycles upon which Neolithic communities depended for survival.

This was the origin of both astrology and astronomy, magical and scientific studies that were simultaneously a source of agricultural guidance, divinatory and ritual powers.

The knowledge of the Equinoxes and Solstices attributed by many scholars to preliterate Neolithic societies, and evidenced by structures such as Stonehenge, rests upon very careful, long-term study of the heavens and a sophisticated understanding of the Earth’s shape and movements throughout the year.

The Earth wobbles in its orbit around the Sun. This is the source of our seasonal cycles.

The Earth at the start of the 4 (astronomical) seasons as seen from the north
Tauʻolunga, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The North Pole of the Earth leans toward the Sun for half its yearly orbit, then leans away from the Sun for the rest of the Earthly year.

The Northern Hemisphere experiences spring and summer as the north tilts toward the sun, and fall and winter as the north tilts away from the sun.

Twice a year, on the Vernal Equinox and the Autumnal Equinox, the Earth offers half its face to the Sun, and day and night are of approximately equal length, giving rise to the symbolism of balance associated with the sign of Libra.

In the Northern Hemisphere on the Harvest Moon and the Autumn Equinox we celebrate the abundance of the year's harvest, and the community traditionally shares its bounty with those in need. 

Archangel Uriel (meaning ‘God is my light’ or ‘light of God’), one of four stained glass windows
in the cloisters of Chester Cathedral depicting the Archangels
William Starkey / Saint Uriel - stained glass window, Chester Cathedral
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

On the Autumn Equinox, Archangel Uriel, Master of Universal Life Force Energy, who has been directing and energizing the growth cycle of plants and animals during the summer months, surrenders his position as Seasonal Archangel to Archangel Michael, who comes armed with subtle fire and a sword of iron, to redirect the Cosmic Forces from the Stars and the Life Force Energy welling up from deep within the Earth toward the support of human will forces in the pursuit of accelerated spiritual growth.

Cosmic and Earthly forces which have been energizing the three lower chakras during the earth's energetic exhalation during summer, now begin to ascend from the solar plexus to stimulate the heart, the throat, third eye and crown.

At the autumnal equinox we enter the season of decreasing light and increasing darkness. The subtle senses must become ever more acute to guide us upward toward our yearly spiritual goal -- giving birth to the Divine within ourselves.

That rebirth is scheduled for the period of the Winter Solstice, and much work must be done to purify and attune the physical, emotional, mental and energetic vehicles of the human body in preparation for that new birth.

Michaelmas and the Archangel Michael Meditation

The mystical Christian community celebrates the Fall Feast of Michaelmas on September 29, approximately one week after the Autumn Equinox. The philosopher, spiritual scientist and Christian mystic Rudolf Steiner perceived that Archangel Michael has a very special role in today’s world.
 

Rudolf Steiner, 1905

Otto Rietmann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Michael’s traditional role is spelled out in the Bible’s Apocalypse of St. John (12:7) “And there was a war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. . .and the dragon was cast out into the Earth. . .having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

For Steiner, who lived at the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Apocalypse is a metaphor for a great spiritual struggle being enacted right now, in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Steiner believed the Apocalypse was not a physical war but rather a spiritual struggle between the forces of materialism, represented by the Lord of Darkness, which Steiner referred to as (the Zoroastrian god) called Ahriman, and the forces of Spirit.

The Forces of Light represent humanity’s free will and the Forces of Darkness represent oppression and suppression of that free will.

In this Titanic struggle for the souls of all humanity, Archangel Michael leads the forces of Light, wielding a fiery sword, the sword of free will.
 

The Fall of the Rebel Angels
Luca Giordano , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As the leader of the Heavenly Hosts, Archangel Michael is the receiver and transmitter of Cosmic Intelligence.

According to the Kabbalah, as interpreted by the Western Mystery School Tradition, Michael and his legions of guardian angels wield the electric blue flame of karmic liberation and reside in the Sephiroth known as Tiphareth, at the midpoint of the Tree of Life, the home of the Sun, symbolic of Christ Consciousness and Self-Realization. You can see an illustration of the Tree of Life below.

The ten Sephira (circles) represent the ten states of consciousness that human beings experience while creating their own personal identity and their own personal map of the world around them. They are the building blocks we use to create our own reality, if you will.

"These ten categories - existence, action, rest, extension, limitation, multiplicity, union, separation, participation, and manifestation - form, from the perspective of the Cabala, the basic structures of human thought, and thus of the universe we are capable of perceiving," explains Cabalist John Michael Greer in his book, Paths of Wisdom - A Guide to the Magical Cabala.

The Tree of life - Using The Queen Scale of Colour of the Golden Dawn tradition
Eric.J.Hebert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As you can see by looking at the connections between the various Sephira, which represent various states of consciousness, Tiphareth resides at the center, with direct connections to every Sephira (the circles), except for Malkuth, which represents the common sense view of physical reality, which appears to be made of solid objects in constant motion, governed by Newtonian physics.

As we know this naive realist view of our world, symbolized by Malkuth, leaves 90% of reality out of the picture. The job of the spiritual aspirant, and of the magician, in the Cabalist tradition, is to explore realms of consciousness far beyond consensus reality.
 

Illustration depicting the Tree of Life derived from the Flower of Life, showing Tiphareth at center of the Universe.
Fred the Oyster, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Now that we've identified Tiphareth's central position in the Tree, it's easy to understand that this key Sephira is identified with the Sun. Solar consciousness is identified with Solar gods, goddesses and heros, and is the realm of Christ consciousness and Self-Realization in general.

As such, Tiphareth represents the aspect of consciousness that maintains a balance point between the undifferentiated Unity of Source, and the multiplicity of manifestations encountered in the world of everyday experience of our Universe.

It's a big Universe out there, and there's always a tendency in human culture to reduce the complexity of the reality we inhabit, which we can only ever partially perceive and comprehend, to a more manageable consensus reality. 

That has traditionally meant demonizing all states of consciousness that do not conform to the consensus consciousness of Malkuth, physical reality as perceived by the five senses alone.

Over the last few hundred years, that trend of rational materialsm and the so-called Enlightenment has created societies where the egoistic personality has broken free from the group mind that existed in previous cultures.

That individuation and that unrelenting focus on physical reality has brought us Romantic love, Newtonian physics and the Industrial Revolution, and also cut us off, especially in Western cultures, from higher states of consciousness, and from communion with Nature.

From the time of the Renaissance, and the philosopher Francis Bacon, a cult of rational materialism has taken root that reduces human consciousness to only those manifestations that can be quantified by scientific experimentation. 

Portrait of Francis Bacon, 1617
Paul van Somer I , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Self-blinded to the reality of higher states of consciousness and enmeshed in astral glamours and karmic dramas as the Age of Enlightenment unfolded, human beings have increasingly embraced egocentric power trips.

The trend has accelerated in the Twentieth and Twenty First centuries as scientists generally have rejected the validity of all forms of consciousness and experience that transcend the limited consensus reality view that nothing exists that cannot be scientifically validated by our admittedly limited tools at hand.

The result has been two World Wars, the destruction of the planetary ecosystem's equilibrium, and the rise of the Technology Overlords of the Digital Panopticon.

Today, there is an Apocalyptic spiritual war between the forces of rational materialism and the Cosmic Intelligence championed by Archangel Michael.

At this time of year, as we celebrate the victory of Archangel Michael, and the transition from summer to fall, it is important to review the ways that human beings can exercise their free will and inhabit their spiritual nature, and continue to work to further humanity's spiritual evolution toward the loving wisdom embodied in Cosmic Intelligence.

For Rudolf Steiner, using clairvoyant vision to perceive spiritual realities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the physically compelling forces of the summer season correspond to the element of sulfur, and this element stimulates a wide range of material and emotional excitements, all of which tend to increase the average person’s attachment to the material world.
 

Our Garden Plot, Bethabara Historical Park, Winston Salem, NC, July 2022, photo by Curtis Lang

During summer, when the flow of life force energy increases in plants, animals and human beings alike, and the air is saturated with desire and warmth, the drive to propagate and procreate increases as well. Attention is rightly focused upon the reproductive activities of plants and animals alike, and on the growth of young animals and plants across the face of the Earth.

Naturally, in human beings, this waxing Universal Life Force energy concentrates in the lower chakras associated with survival instincts, sexual reproduction and personal power.

Of course the super-charged energies driving reproduction and growth during the summer can entice human beings into an ultimately unhealthy obsession with self, sexuality and the drive to personal power.
 

Sculpture of Ahriman's Head by Rudolf Steiner

This presents a danger during these Apocalyptic times, when Ahriman, the Lord of Darkness, seeks to entrap all humanity in a purely materialistic existence, devoid of all spirituality.

Manifestations of Ahrimanic influence include political systems that seek to dominate through military force, economic systems that seek to enrich the few at the expense of the many, philosophical systems such as the very popular rational materialism that seeks to depict all human activity as the product of "the selfish gene", psychological theories that reduce humanity’s free will to a set of biologically determined chemical reactions, and all other reductionist, purely mechanistic scientific models of the universe.

The Autumn Equinox and the passage of the seasonal torch from Uriel to Michael provides humanity a counter-balance to summer's steamy sexual heat. That moment of passage is signaled by a unique energy signature in the sky.
 

Night sky viewed from the hills surrounding O'Leary Peak, near Flagstaff, Arizona, September 17, 2017 

Coconino National Forest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Not long after Michaelmas, from September 26 through November 22, in the northern hemisphere, the Orionid meteor showers will be visible. 

At this time of year, when highly visible meteor showers, largely composed of space rocks rich in iron, traditionally streak across the night sky, Steiner’s clairvoyant vision saw the traditional flashing iron sword of Michael.

The meteoric sword of Michael was thought to cleanse the Earth’s atmosphere of summer's sulfurous influences, allowing the Higher Self to emerge and guide the initiate along the path of Spirit toward the birth of the Inner Christ Light, an event which takes place in December, at the winter solstice just before the festival of Christmas.

This spiritual journey is, of course, the pathway to accessing Cosmic Intelligence, and it is with Archangel Michael's guidance and assistance that we can all experience that exalted consciousness for ourselves.

Humans can access the energy stream represented by Archangel Michael through the exertion of their will forces. By pursuing purification of mind, body and heart, and by seeking to eliminate attachments operating as emotional, mental and karmic bonds that prevent us from accessing Cosmic Intelligence, we can create within ourselves a purified, receptive space within our hearts where Cosmic Intelligence can enter.  

Then in a further act of spiritual willpower, we make it our intent to ascend from the astral realms of the lower Sephiroth called Yesod to the higher consciousness of Tiphareth, calling upon Archangel Michael to guide us and light our way. This journey is symbolized in the Kabbalistic Tarot as the path of alchemy, known as Temperance in traditional decks.

You'll notice that the Angel pictured on that Trump stands on the Earth at the edge of the water, equilibrating the liquid in two cups.

Reflect upon the resonance this image has with the image of the Trump known as Balance or Adjustment, connected with the sign of Libra, pictured above in our discussion of the Autumn Equinox.

The rainbow in the Temperance card refers to the antahkarana, the rainbow bridge, an energetic bridge of consciousness which the spiritual aspirant builds between the astral realms, dominated by emotional intelligence, and the Higher Mind, or Cosmic Intelligence, through persistent efforts at purification, and consistent spiritual practices. This can easily be pictured as a rainbow bridge of energy connecting the solar plexus chakra with the heart chakra. Meditate upon this! This is a true Ascension practice.

Aside from the arduous path of Temperance, which will take us from the emotional bondage and limited consciousness we experience in purely physical or astral realms of experience, there is another path we can take to experience Cosmic Intelligence.
 

Image from Alchemical Text, Splendor Solis, attributed to Salomon Trismosin, public domain.

There is an expanded, elevated consciousness that resides in the stars, and on the Earth, in crystals, plants, and animals -- in ecosystems found throughout Nature. 

By spending time in nature and connecting with the four Earthly elements, with the myriad of sentient beings we encounter, and by making an effort of the will designed to bring the Devas, Elementals and Nature Spirits residing throughout these spaces into conscious, felt awareness, we can connect with this Cosmic Intelligence. 

In earlier times, Western Mystery Schools called this exercise Reading the Book of Nature.

We can also contemplate the seasonal cycles of the yearly wheel, the different energies felt and seen, during the transition from one season to the next, to elevate and expand our consciousness and unite with Cosmic Intelligence.

Reflect upon the movement of the planets in the night sky. Locate your favorite stars and planets and notice how their positions subtly change from day to day and week to week in the various seasons of the year. Lay down on the ground and simply look up at night for a half hour at a time. 
 

 

Make it a practice to notice the changes in the lunar cycles, which govern the tides and synchronize with the female reproductive cycle.

Those who establish a clear, heart felt relationship to the Book of Nature will experience a revelation. They will know the companionship of Archangel Michael, and they will receive an infusion of Cosmic Intelligence.

They will experience a consciousness that is centered in the heart chakra, in Tiphareth, filled with the loving wisdom that emanates from Source and is channeled through Archangel Michael.
 

The Archangel Michael Meditation

Archangel Michael is the patron and protector of Lightworkers or anyone seeking protection, and is always available to help us overcome fear, doubt, and negative emotions and thought-forms from our lives.

Michael’s color is electric blue.

Every emotional interchange and intense interaction we have with another being creates energetic cords that connect us with these others.

These cords hook into our chakras, our energy bodies, even our physical body, and then act as conduits of energy, and energy flows along these cords until the cords are cut or dissolved. This is the energetic basis for the formation of karma between individuals.
 

Tangled Cords, Mixed Media by Jane Sherry

Karma, in this instance, is simply strong, unbalanced energy flowing between two parties, and that strong energy seeks to flow between the two parties until the energy flow is equilibrated or the connection is broken.

When another being with whom we have strong emotional connections seeks to push negative thoughts or emotions out into the world or specifically to transmit such thoughts or emotions to us, whether by intention or unconscious design, that energy can be transmitted instantly through the energetic hooks and cords that bind us to them.

We all have experienced many instances when other people have sought to impose their own will on us, to force us to do what they want, to force us to feel what they want us to feel, to force us to behave in the way they see us behaving, which often has nothing at all to do with our own Higher Purpose or personal preferences.
 

Our Lady of Thorns and Magic, from Goddess, a one of a kind artist book by Jane Sherry

In these cases, these people may have been transmitting their energy through hooks and cords to us, and that strong energy can shift us off center and even cause us to experience thoughts, feelings and actions of others as if they were our own.

In other cases, people may be connected to us who are needy in one way or another, dependent upon us, or looking to us for aid and assistance. In such cases, we may find that any emotional interchange with such individuals can result in an increased flow of our energy to the other individuals, even to the point that such an energy flow becomes a drain upon our inner resources, and results in a depletion of our vitality.

People are inter-connected energetically in so many different ways and often through these hooks and cords, for so many different reasons, that the average person’s aura looks a lot like a pin cushion when we look through our subtle vision, through the third eye.
 

Brow Chakra, Rajasthan, 18th Century
Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In the case of a child, the hooks and cords to the parents appear to some clairvoyants as white in color and are essential for the proper development of the child. In most cases, in adults, hooks and cords are the result of emotional trauma, family dynamics, love and sex relationships, serious conflicts with others and outworn karmic patterns of behavior and relations.

The normal human adult will have some hooks and cords type energetic connections that vibrate on a very high frequency, some that vary in frequency and transmit both positive and negative emotions, and other connections that transmit substantial negative energy.

We want to focus for this meditation on those energetic connections that result from karma that creates patterns of negative behavior, negative emotions and negative thought-forms. For purposes of this meditation, we will call this negative karma to distinguish it from the karma of healthy, ongoing, loving relationships and family that is not meant to be broken during this lifetime.

Now it is time to end the negative karma we have with others whose energies interfere with our own free will and Higher Purpose.
 

The Chakra System of the Human Body, by Jane Sherry

To begin an Archangel Michael meditation, sit quietly in a cross-legged position or in a chair if that is more comfortable, place your hands palms up on your knees, and close your eyes.

Begin to breathe deeply, from the belly. Breathe in slowly, through the nose, to the count of five if possible, then breathe out even more slowly, through the nostrils, to the count of ten if possible. Continue to breathe in this manner. If you inhale to the count of two, then exhale to a four count, and so forth.

Repeat this for a minute or two until you feel yourself shifting into a space of peace, quiet and meditation.

Say this – “I call upon Archangel Michael for protection against all detrimental energies in my environment, and I ask Michael to use his sword of light to cut the cords that bind me to all those individuals and sentient beings, in the material and spiritual worlds, that transmit negative emotions and thought-forms to me or who take my energy without my consent.”

As you do this, visualize Archangel Michael, a giant being of Light armed with an electric-blue sword of cleansing fire. See the blue flame of karmic liberation surround you completely.
 

Visualize Archangel Michael with his great flaming sword, and see a bright shining arc of electric blue energy traveling from Michael to you. See yourself surrounded by this electric blue energy. See Michael’s hand descending toward you. See Michael’s great sword of electric blue light scanning your body from the crown chakra to beneath your feet.

As you see Michael’s sword at your crown chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me to all those with whom I have negative karma that resides in my crown chakra, for whatever reason. I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me to all those who have presented themselves to me as spiritual authority figures in an attempt to substitute their will for my own.”

See Michael’s sword cutting the cords that bind you to others through the crown chakra.

If you like, ask Michael and your Guides to show you the people with whom you have these hooks and cords. They may or may not want to share that information with you, because it may or may not be necessary at all for you to know the specific details.

If you are shown these people, bless them and forgive them for any interference they may have caused, and see Michael releasing you from your connection to them. Then see them standing before you without any hooks or cords connecting you.

Always take some time to savor the feelings that arise in you while this hooks and cords work is done and take the time to allow any negative emotions to bubble up to the surface and to be released for healing.

As you see Michael’s sword at your third eye chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me with negative karma to all those who are connected to me through the third eye chakra, for whatever reason, and to restore my faith and trust in Spirit, releasing me from all energies of depression, despair, mistrust and cynicism.”
 

See Michael’s sword cutting the cords that bind you to others through the third eye chakra. If you like, ask Michael and your Guides to show you the people with whom you have these hooks and cords. They may or may not want to share that information with you, because it may or may not be necessary at all for you to know the specific details.

If you are shown these people, bless them and forgive them for any interference they may have caused, and see Michael releasing you from your connection to them. Then see them standing before you without any hooks or cords connecting you.

As you see Michael’s sword at your throat chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me in negative karma to all those who are connected to me through the throat chakra, for whatever reason, and to restore my self-confidence and my ability to communicate my truth, fully and completely to others in Spirit, releasing me from all energies of self-doubt, self-suppression, shyness and inability to communicate.”

See Michael’s sword cutting the cords that bind you to others through the throat chakra. If you like, ask Michael and your Guides to show you the people with whom you have these hooks and cords. They may or may not want to share that information with you, because it may or may not be necessary at all for you to know the specific details.

If you are shown these people, bless them and forgive them for any interference they may have caused, and see Michael releasing you from your connection to them. Then see them standing before you without any hooks or cords connecting you.

Always take some time to savor the feelings that arise in you while this hooks and cords work is done and take the time to allow any negative emotions to bubble up to the surface and to be released for healing.

The heart chakra and the lower chakras generally tend to be like pincushions over the course of a lifetime, since the majority of love relationships, sexual relationships, family relationships, business relationships and friendships impact the lower chakras more than others.
 

Archangel Michael and Attending Guardian Angels, Magic Lantern Drawing by Jane Sherry
 

As you see Michael’s sword at your heart chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me in negative karma to all those who are connected to me through the heart chakra, for whatever reason, and to restore my space of emotional safety, my feelings of self-love, my joy in sharing and loving another, and my feelings of compassion for my fellow human beings.”

See Michael’s sword cutting the cords that bind you to others through the heart chakra. If you like, ask Michael and your Guides to show you the people with whom you have these hooks and cords. They may or may not want to share that information with you, because it may or may not be necessary at all for you to know the specific details.

If you are shown these people, bless them and forgive them for any interference they may have caused, and see Michael releasing you from your connection to them. Then see them standing before you without any hooks or cords connecting you.

Always take some time to savor the feelings that arise in you while this hooks and cords work is done and take the time to allow any negative emotions to bubble up to the surface and to be released for healing.

As you see Michael’s sword at your solar plexus or stomach chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me by negative karma to all those who are connected to me through the solar plexus chakra, for whatever reason, and to restore my sense of personal power, contentment with life and sense of self-worth.”

See Michael’s sword cutting the cords that bind you to others through the solar plexus chakra. If you like, ask Michael and your Guides to show you the people with whom you have these hooks and cords. They may or may not want to share that information with you, because it may or may not be necessary at all for you to know the specific details.

If you are shown these people, bless them and forgive them for any interference they may have caused, and see Michael releasing you from your connection to them. Then see them standing before you without any hooks or cords connecting you.

Always take some time to savor the feelings that arise in you while this hooks and cords work is done and take the time to allow any negative emotions to bubble up to the surface and to be released for healing.

As you see Michael’s sword at your second or sexual chakra, ask for release: “I ask Archangel Michael to cut the cords that bind me by negative karma to all those who are connected to me through the second chakra, for whatever reason, and to restore my sense of personal, sexual magnetism, my fertility, and my ability to manifest what I most desire according to my True Will.”
 

Parthenos Genesis, Magic Lantern drawing by Jane Sherry