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Eight Clues to Everlasting Happiness

by Robert Thibodeau

Too busy to find yourself? Too busy and worried to investigate your own free spirit? My second spiritual teacher told me long ago, “At the 101 level, there is no god unless you prove there is by the way you live”. Jesus said to the apostles “Do you not know? Ye are Gods in the becoming”.

Christ, Lao Tzu, Chan Tze, Buddha, Nagarjuna, Tsong Ka Pa, Pythagoras, Blavatsky, Steiner, Osho, Ohsawa, so many gave us such clue. Here’s my hermetic macrobiotic clues for happiness and infinite luck, good karma.

The clues-

1. Always attune to the infinite supply of insight, energy, and good heartedness by sharing your best. Always be open to receive what life offers as an opportunity to grow, learn, and awaken to ever renewing energy.
2. Always be hungry–for learning, life, and further experience inward and outward creating space for greater peace, understanding, and good will.
3. Always allow yourself sacred deep sleep–enabling digestion of past experience creating new capacities for further growth, adventure, and experience. When you can’t sleep, read deep spiritual literature and relax, take a breath in of the divine imagination.
4. Always have good memory by listening well to everything. Work to attain the ability to align oneself with the spirit of virtue, the dharma, mindfulness, cosmic memory, akasha, universal mind, universal peace, in stillness and infinite vastness. Imagine it! Cosmic memory is the ability to see the golden thread weaving through each and every moment life offers. Imagine it.
5. Always be happy to give and receive learning, blessings, and helpful hand. Deep appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness for all life’s joys and challenges opens spiritual doors of new opportunity, healing, and good fortune (vs. misfortune).
6. Always be inwardly at-one and attuned to the infinite spirit of the universe; egoless striving for awareness and truth. Rest in the great oneness as well as the great uniqueness of each expression of that oneness. Be immediate and present in both action and response, yet resting in the heart of eternity. We are the rainbow uniting the great divide.
7. Always abide in truth and the happiness for all creation, all others, all of the world within and without. At the least, everything is an opportunity to learn ad grow; that is, purification, learning and growing up! Right judgment brings about a new world or order of the universe (see Ohsawa’s ‘Zen Macrobiotics’).
8. Spiritual Justice is the harmony of the inner and outer, the heavenly and earthly making for beauty, health, virtue, freedom, peace, eternal truth, and happiness.

Theosophy is the wisdom learning, the wise ways of ‘gods in the becoming’ meaning virtues and realizations, truth, in the becoming.

Anthroposophy is the wisdom of little moments mattering to big moments. It is the wisdom of awareness and mindfulness arising from knowledge of the macrocosm and microcosm, heaven and earth, coming into creative balance. Anthroposophy awakens the knowledge of the Christos as a healing force to the etheric/astral worlds of the heavenly garden that earth potentially could be.

Macrobiotics is the wisdom of the macro or centripetal forces of the peripheral heavenly energies learning to balance the earthly centrifugal outgoing energies. Macrobiotics is learning to balance outer and inner, higher and lower, acid and alkaline, yin and yang, to find a creative balance bringing about health, happiness, and freedom.

Plato said “If you are willing to learn, anything can happen”. Happiness, love, joy, and freedom is a learning choice, an unending story, an ever-flowering journey to wholeness.

Learning is to imagine ourselves and the world healthy, holy, wise, and loving. Imagination and learning is the first step. The second step is living it. The third step is learning from our own experience, as well as the experience of others. The fourth step in the heart of awakening and will be the subject of my next article. Blessings.

-Robert Thibodeau is an astrologer and metaphysical consultant, owner and operator of the Mayflower Bookshop, tel. (248) 547-8227, on the web at Mayflowerbookshop.com

Articles by Robert Thibodeau

2645 W. 12 Mile Rd

Berkley, Mi. 48072

(248) 547-8227

“May the rains of lava, blazing stones and weapons

From now on become a rain of flowers,

And may all battling with weapons

From now on be a playful exchange of flowers.”

-Shantideva, A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Life, 10:9.

It was the Promethean wish that all beings find happiness and the mindful causes of happiness. This is and was the goal of all sages in all ages, to awaken the mind, the light of the spirit, to co-create, participate with the world in freedom and loving kindness, wisdom and compassion, truth and love.

“The people who sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up.”

-Gospel of Matthew, 4:16

Metaphysically speaking, darkness comes first, then light. The gardener knows that, without light, nothing blooms or comes to fruit, but without darkness nothing germinates, roots, and holds ground. Selflessness, emptiness, the willingness to learn, contemplative openness and yogic concentration, is the key to unlocking the seven seals or charkras of enlightenment. When we recognize and acknowledge trouble, conflict, and suffering, a space is created for compassionate action to arise. Think of the darkness of the garden compost.

“Hello Darkness My Old Friend, I’ve Come To Talk To You Again…”

-Song ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel

Meditation is like that. In the dark silence, the quiet mind sits still in the heart until the voice of the silence speaks, or new light emerges. The ancient India Upanishad invocation speaks-

Lead me from the unreal to the Real;

Lead me from darkness to Light;

Lead me from death to Immortality.

In the Gnostic Gospel of Pistis Sophia, Jesus reveals to his disciples “the mysteries of the Light of the Father,” and tells them:

“Do ye seek after these mysteries? No mystery is more excellent than they which shall bring your souls unto the Light of Lights, unto the place of Truth and goodness, unto the place where is neither male nor female, nor form, but Light everlasting.” Many sacred scriptures speak of darkness or ignorance turning to light and wisdom.

Or is it an injunction to transcend opposites? Carl Jung’s evocatory title to his great work, ‘The Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy’. Think of it as the mysterious conjunction of the sun and moon, inner and outer, spirit and matter, purusha-prakriti. Jung knew the secret processes of alchemy, yoga, and healing. First you separate the gross, dark matter, prima materia, from the subtle body. Both are then purified, afterwhich a re-uniting or communion takes place at a higher level.

Goethe speaks in Faust:

“Wedded couples seeking bliss

Let this wisdom guide you;

The recipe for love is this,

that first we must divide you.”

The first step in Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms (the first known book on Yoga) states-

“Yoga is the ceasing of the modifications of the mind”.

The first step in yoga, then, is to stop going through changes and sit the mind still, within. If full of light, go dark in stillness listening. If too dark, turn on the light. Look for a new balance.

“In darkness we do all we can, in daylight we’re oblivion; our hearts so pure and clear.” -Dougie MacLean, ‘Turning Away’

Stopping the noise and chatter of the mind and world round, being here now in stillness is the usual first step in both meditation and yoga. It is in deep inner listening, stillness, that a new light, a new insight, may emerge.

One suggested meditation practice is the mind asana of the heart, sitting still in the heart, while observing a spark or starlight at the brow or forehead (See Robert cd talk: ‘Heart Meditation’). There is an intimate relationship and dance of life between the head light and the wisdom of the body, the heart. Many spiritual practices consist of discriminating between the two, purification, and then later, a re-acquainting or uniting.

“With half-closed eyes focused on the tip of the nose, the mind steadily fastened [on its object], and the active prana current of the ida and pingala nadis suspended [by guiding it into the sushumna], thus the yogi reaches the slate of realization of Truth in the form of a radiating light which is the source of all things, and the highest objective to be reached. What higher state is there that he might expect?” -Hatha Yoga Pradipika

It is in the re-creating of heaven (star) and earth (heart) that new worlds are born, or new opportunities and insights emerge.

“Direct your [inner] gaze upon ‘light’ by slightly raising the eyebrows. Then perform shambhavi mudra as you have learned it. This induces samadhi. Some confuse themselves by the alluring promises of the shastras and tantras, others by the Vedic Karmas, and still others by logic. None of them recognize the real value of this mudra, by the aid of which one can cross the ocean of existence.” -Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Crossing, or making the proper passage or ‘passover’ from the head to the heart necessitates that you have a head to start with which to see the promised land, and a heart of wisdom and compassion to incarnate or manifest such ideal or vision.

“He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” -Gospel of St. John, 1:8

God (Father Archetype), the Word (Christos, Logos, Buddhi-Manas), life (Spirit), and light (Mindfulness, Dharma, Duty) are the four-fold initial ordering revealed in the gospel of St. John the Divine, but it is hidden everywhere in all sacred scripture to the wisdom eye of the heart. It is the Tetragrammaton, Pythagorus’ Tetraktis. It is Plato’s cross upon which humankind is hung, strung, and maintained. It is the Native American four directions, the four Vedas, the four elements. Plato said around 500 BC, the World Soul is crucified in time and space within each individual. Thus, the World Spirit/Soul is rose rooted or rosy crossed in every human heart, in every mindstream continuum. We are spiritual beings with a body and soul. May the physical body find its soul in the world of virtuous merit. May the soul find its light in the Spirit of the World. May the World find itself in each and every Heart awakened in love and truth.

“Words are mere sound and smoke, dimming the heavenly light.”

GOETHE, Faust

Yoga and Meditation can quiet the mind into the heart of understanding where the light of the universal logos, the World Word Ether or Askasa, the true voice of the silence, can be heard. There is a worldly materialistic light wherein we see differences and act out of separateness causing unnecessary suffering due to not understanding the true nature of the self, being light and love, wisdom and compassion. There is a light born within that awakens the way of virtue and joy. There is a holy quiet listening spiritual darkness within betrayed by anger, jealousy, hatred, ignorance and delusion. There is a rainbow of possibility open to each of us to explore our own spirituality in freedom, joy for the open road, and compassionate truth.

May each of us discover and find our unique way, and may the world find peace and wholeness. Om Tat Sat.

May the Light of Truth Eternal, whose echo throughout the ages keeps alive in each heart, spiritual imagination, inspiration, and the intuition, energize our hearts. May the highest truth enlighten our minds and quicken our hands and feet in compassion’s loving kindness! May all beings find joy, happiness and dharma mind. May the Light of Truth Eternal, whose echo down the ages has kept alive the spark of Spirit, enkindle our souls with spiritual intuition, energizing our hearts to enlighten our path.

The secret of light is that we make it shine.

Empty Openess, the Spirit Light of Soul and the Journey of MIND

by

Robert Thibodeau of Mayflower

“When you possess light within, you see it externally.” -Anais Nin

What is light? It’s hard to look into the sun or even a bright electric light, let alone see its true source. So what is light? Can we know light without dark to contrast it? I think of the  light of consciousness, the light in another’s eyes as the doorway to the soul. I think of all the people who had a near death experience and claimed they saw the light of peace. There is a light of knowing, a light of imagination, a light of being, a light at the end of the tunnel. I do believe that; I guess I just can’t find the right tunnel. Ha! In the beginning, the first creation was light. Thank God there is light. Who could imagine ‘Dark On Yoga’? It’s ‘Light on Yoga’!

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” -Kahlil Gibran

How many songs are there talking about the ‘light of love’? Even I have a song with the words ‘I want to be the light on your road, I want to be the light on your rose, set free the heart of your soul’. What about the light of awareness? Nobody says the ‘dark of awareness’. Consciousness and growth, upwardness, goodness, even heaven, depend on light. It’s an old wisdom that it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, so let there be light.

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is the light of heaven, the light of the stars, sun, and moon. There is the light of enlightenment, the light of dharma, the light of scripture, the light of wisdom. There is the falling light of sunset, eve. There is an inner and outer light. One warms and enlightens the inner side of life.

There is on the shadow side, the fallen light, electricity; known in western esoteric circles as enslaved discarded disintegrating astral bodies, or artificial light. Desire and fear, anger and jealousy, obsession and compulsive actions seem to more fit this negative bardo state which can bring rainbows if we can learn to transform negative experience and perceptions into spiritual insight and light of knowing and loving kindness, compassion.

In spirituality and the mind of yoga, we are not talking about the outer physical light in which we see differences, separation, and contrasting views. Mostly I am talking about inner light, insight, spiritual light, even the light that lights dreams and imaginative adventure, joy. This light of spiritual possibility exists inside us. It exists outside us when we, from our spirit selves, learn to see and feel the unifying principle, the universal light and love available to all of us. Our Higher Self is united with every other, there is a great spiritual oneness, wholeness in the universe. Yet each of us is a unique expression of that oneness. Each of us out of freedom and capacity can choose to explore and unfold a unifying principle of love and truth. Each of us can choose love over hate. Each of us can choose to act out of wholeness, oneness, rather than out of separateness. As the Dalai Lama says, everyone wants to be happy. There is a vast richness inside each of us that is infinite.

“His high endeavors are an inward light

That makes the path before him always bright.”

-William Wordsworth

Light and dark meeting in balance produce the rainbow. Goethe and Rudolf Steiner indicated this. The sky is blue because we look at dark space through light. Looking at light through dark (dusk) we see the red sunset. This can be demonstrated in any classroom and is self-evident once observed. Without light, we could not see with eyes. Goethe thought light itself, over time, created the eye. Light itself is invisible. We see what catches or reflects the light. In an analogy of spirit and matter, light is a spirit force that matter entangles or romances creating consciousness and form. Light and electricity are opposites like good and evil.

Turning on a light can chase away the darkness, but a simple electrical light usually does not banish the darkness of ignorance, delusion, anger, jealousy, fear, and hatred. Nor does a love that lacks wisdom stop an unnecessary war. Only hard-earned wisdom born of compassion and a love that is infinitely patient and wise can be a spiritual alchemy of lasting change and progress.

“A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.” -Plato

Light and life (substance) are always in affair. In this respect, theosophy tells us that earth gave us our form and stars (suns) gave us intelligence. Between the upper light of intelligence and the dark life of will, is the heart of love or the middle way. Light, love, and life make the great trinity of a human being.

Light can be cold, warmth can be dark. Love is what reconciles opposites, marrying the higher and lower, giving birth to divine presence. The light of intellect alone can be cold, calculating, even ruthless. Love alone can be naive and foolish. Trees are in nature’s harmony and love and they get chopped down oft for nothing. Flowers are love and they get picked and stepped on. It seems that we need the light of wisdom and the higher love of loving kindness, virtue, compassion, and at-one-ment, union, to find lasting peace and happiness.

“Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow’s speed.” -Howard Nemerov

When Jesus the Christ said ‘Ye are the Light of the World’, it indicated the possibility of an intelligence holding a world conception. ‘Ye are the Salt of the Earth’ perhaps indicated the need for practical earthy intelligence. Surely the Beatitudes of the New Testament indicate a higher love, a buddhist-like compassion for all who suffer. When both Jesus Christ and Buddha indicated that you will “know them by their deeds,” this is a strong indication that light and love, intelligence and virtue, need demonstration, to be put into action as the Bhagavad Gita of spiritual India infers. The further injunction “By their fruits you shall know them” is a further indication of virtuous actions leading to even a higher fruition of freedom and love/compassion to come in the future.

“Alas! must it ever be so?

Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,

And fight our own shadows forever?”

-Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton

It is a dangerous thing to live in just ‘good intentions’. The old saying is that ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’. To live in just words and pictures, thoughts, is the beginning of spiritual pornography. One lives in pictures rather than reality. One reads a menu but never eats. To live in feelings, even loving ones, that have no head light is to set oneself up to be a victim or fallen flower. It is in the heart where intelligence and love, wisdom and compassion, may learn to meet and agree, learn to die and be born again (Being born into spirit is a teaching as old as time in ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, India). Hermes is thrice born; spirit, soul, and subtle body! It is in the heart that true light and love is born and reborn. Here the blues turn into the warmth of loving kindness, compassion. The heart, like the sun, can shine all the time.

“The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the heart of the teaching, YOGA is love. It is the union of purified mind (light) with purified body (form). When the magical arts state that each of us is a star, it is both in ‘possibility,’ ‘becoming,’ and in eternal being, spirit. This implies not only coming to light, but also coming into being. It implies a healthy darkness that holds the light, allows you to see the light. These are deep mysteries that modern physics and science touch upon in the discovery that there is a black hole, a dark void, at the center of each star. The light and the dark, the purusha and prakriti of old India, commingle creating the planetary system, the solar logos, the music of the spheres. The void is the dark heart of matter interacting with the universal spark at the heart of our own little planetary system of chakras, colors, tones and notes continually alive and creating. To awaken to spiritual nature and consciousness, the ancient wisdom has given us meditation and yoga. In freedom, each of us can come to ever new insight and compassionate understanding of our self and the universe around us. May all beings find light and love, self-realization, enlightenment, and the virtue of being true to the Higher Self of the world.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” -Jung

If in the dark, be the light. If there’s too much noise, movement, light, be the dark stillness calm abiding peace beyond understanding. Be empty to become full.

“The SELF shines in all, but in all it does not shine forth.” -Upanishads

When the light outweighs the darkness, the teacher is present; quick, listen with your whole heart! Heart of love is the bell, truth is what rings us clear in the journey of light. Bless your heart and mind!

“Love is not consolation. It is light.” -Nietzsche

Perhaps in the end, as well as the beginning, it is we who make the light shine. It is we that learn from the light of others. It is we who carry the sweet and heavy burden of light. And how do we carry such a sweet burden as light? By love. And that too in the begginning and end is something we create and co-create, but that is another story.

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.”

-Leonard Cohen

“Light is force, and the latter is produced by the will. As this will proceeds from an intelligence which cannot err, for it has nothing of the material organs of human thought in it, being the superfine pure emanation of the highest divinity itself–(Plato’s “Father”) it proceeds from the beginning of time, according to immutable laws, to evolve the elementary fabric requisite for subsequent generations of what we term human races.” -H.P.Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled.

Robert Thibodeau is an astrological consultant, singer songwriter, metaphysical researcher, speaker, and proprietor of Mayflower Bookshop and Gifts in Berkley, Michigan. He can be contacted on his website at http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop

or by calling (248) 547-8227.

“If you believe it, you’ll see it; if you live it, you’ll come to know it; if you love it, you’ll become it, awaken it.” -robert thibodeau

“Re-examine all that you have been told … dismiss that which insults your soul.” -Whitman

Belief is a noun. Spiritual Self is a verb. We and the world are the subject. Belief is a trust in some thing. It is Piscean Age belief that someone is going to make it and come back for us, that somehow the world is going to be saved; or at least some of us or some part of me. A belief is a trust or confidence in someone, some fact, perhaps in a god. A belief is some kind of acceptance or trust. It is trust in a state, or future state, of affairs. In the coming Aquarian Age, individual self is the belief, the religion. We are learning to believe in our Self, the inner and outer, the being and becomings. Furthermore, each person wants to know for themselves, not just believe. Buddha said  “doubt everything,” i.e. check everything out for your self as to its virtue, veracity, or truth. The true ideal of the Aquarian Age is to not believe, but to ‘Know thy Self’. The ancient Greek/Egyptian Mysteries had it as a major injunction, ‘Mind know thyself, and thou will come to know the whole world’. ‘Man’ means ‘Manas,’ mind, thinker, mindstream through all time. Rudolf Steiner said, ‘Know thyself to know the world, know the world to know thyself’. We are inseparable from the world around us, as well as from the inner life, the subtle bodies, the inner self. Fate and destiny, karma and dharma, is formed from both what comes from outside us toward us, and from what comes from the inside out of us. We receive karma from past lives coming at us, our future unfolds from the mind soul within us.

“Moons are no more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls. The key to every man is his thought.” -Emerson, Circles

Perhaps there is something called ‘conscious belief’. In the book ‘Biology of Belief,’ science is proving our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, can create our biological states of matter and life. Scientists now prove our ‘belief’ makes water take different subtle geometrical shapes. Thinking and feeling can change our biochemistry. The ‘belief’ now being proved is a ‘mind over matter,’ it’s also a heart ‘feeling over matter’ thing. The old Tibetan saying is ‘Where the mind goes, the body will follow’. My first spiritual teacher said “If you believe it, you’ll see it”. I believe we can change our thinking and feelings to change our self. Macrobiotics teaches that we can change our diet to change our thinking. We can thus change bottom up, or top down. We can also just zero in, center in, on the heart. Love and Truth, heart-centered, is an ultimate transformative power that we have just barely tapped into. It is this cosmic spiritual force, that of the spiritual soul awakening in the heart that may, in the end, bring us both world peace and self-realization.

It is becoming a self evident fact these days that what we believe creates our reality. What we believe creates also our fiction, our illusion, and what we ‘think’ we see. But what is reality? Isn’t reality both an outer and inner experience? How many have it outwardly but not inwardly? Inwardly but not outwardly? The Beatles may have it right, “Within you and without you”. And I add, there is a MIND that awakens in the middle way, often crucified between the two. This is the Higher Self of Blavatsky, the Buddhi-Manas. It is the Consciousness Soul and ‘Reincarnating Ego’ of Rudolf Steiner. It is the ‘Mindfulness’ of Buddha. It is the ‘Thought Adjuster’ and the Karmic Angel of fate and destiny. It is the Silent Witness and Watcher of Osho. It is the one who says ‘It’s all right’. It is the me and you that is part of everything and nothing. It is the pilgrim spark soul journeying from eternity to eternity. It is the artist and poet in you, the lover and romancer, the father and mother of your many lifetimes. Does it have to hit us in the face before we get it?! We are love and truth, this is what I believe; if there is no god, let us become one, full of grace and giving, surrender and learning, virtue, compassion and truth. We are it, there is not other. Unless we prove there is a god by the way we live, there is none. Gosh, do I sound Aquarian Age, or what? Didn’t Jesus and Buddha say as much?

We are love. We are truth. We are silence witnessing, emptiness open and receiving. We all all of it and nothing. We are infinite possibility and potential. We are heaven and hell too. We are whatever we want to make ourselves into. We are what we fear and desire. We can transcend fear and desire. There is a deeper reality to ourselves and the worlds we live in. Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Outline of Esoteric Science’ speaks of it. H. P. Blavatsky’s ‘Secret Doctrine’ speaks of it. So does Gandhi, King, Einstein, Ohsawa, Manly Hall, and all true mystics and saints, speak of it. This infinite potential lives within us. It is only secret to us, all the birds sing of it. The stars and suns shine of it. The colors of the rainbow, the rising and setting sun, the flowers and gemstones, all sing of it. Perhaps we need an apocalypse, a contrast to happiness to realize and appreciate what we already have. John Lennon, that Beatle boy, sang a song called ‘God’, wherein he says,

“God is a concept,

By which we can measure,

Our pain,

I’ll say it again,

God is a concept,

By which we can measure,

Our pain,

I don’t believe in magic,

I don’t believe in I-ching,

I don’t believe in bible,

I don’t believe in tarot,

I don’t believe in Hitler,

I don’t believe in Jesus,

I don’t believe in Kennedy,

I don’t believe in Buddha,

I don’t believe in mantra,

I don’t believe in Gita,

I don’t believe in yoga,

I don’t believe in kings,

I don’t believe in Elvis,

I don’t believe in Zimmerman,

I don’t believe in Beatles,

I just believe in me,

Yoko and me,

And that’s reality.”

It’s best to be yourself, not only are all other selfs taken, but God (destiny and fate) can’t find you if you are not yourself.

It is our historical turn to believe in ourselves. Many of us believe in another person to save us. Rare is it that others don’t let us down or betray us. Who else can carry our burden, our karma, our destiny? It is time that we cease lying to and betraying ourselves. There is no need for further suffering, there’s enough to go around for all of us to arouse compassion and a will to act for freedom out of love and truth. It is time to believe in Higher SELF. Emerson’s ‘Self Reliance’ and Steiner’s ‘Philosophy of Freedom’ speak of this inherent infinite eternal potential and possibility within each of us. Don’t believe in anything outside your own heart and mind, is the Aquarian Call to awaken now! We don’t need another apocalypse to tell us. The end to the Mayan calendar is nothing next to what is dawning in the heart and mind of each of us. It is time for each of us to not just think and talk about it, but be it, become it, live it. It is an old wise saying, “Live the Life to know the teachings”. Before one can be selfless, one has to have a self. It is time to take responsibility for our many lives. It is time to rediscover the unique spiritual opportunity and wealth within each individual. The false Aquarian Age is unconscious herd instinct, survival rather than revival. It is time to invest in our universally responsive and responsible self– good air and water, good education for all, the garden, music, poetry, yoga, meditation, community get-togethers. The spark must now turn into the flame of greater participation, greater love and truth, compassion and wit. Each of us must look within for a new age to mature and dawn and flower from our own hearts and minds. I don’t believe, I know! There is truth and love within each one of us. We all want to be happy and joyfully participant with each other in creating a new heaven and earth. In our Spirit we are already free, in our Soul we are brothers and sisters, love and compassion. In our actions and body we are servants of a new dawn, a new age, a higher virtue angel. There is no religion higher than truth, no science deeper than love and compassion, no art nor wonder greater than being human, open and willing to learn; all the worlds rest on this.

“When we drop desire and fear and cross the river to the tree of life, all of us are angels.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

“Many words are spoken, deeds speak for themselves

with truth unbroken, compassion and happiness to all!”

-Robert of Mayflower

Each Heart is Architecture

When the dark and light do weave

the tapestry of soul, every moment

that we shared reveals its true gold;

then the truth, the love, the secret

beyond everything one could know

will find the co-creator, the deeper

highest part of Soul; World, its Spirit

ever changing form and grace, love

without end, heart truth will find its face

and hands, hold all the world again

sacred in place and time, each heart

a rainbow hue, each path a curvature

leading back to each and all renewed.

Each thought a light, each gesture song,

each heart is architecture of poem

and song.

(Poem by robert thibodeau)

Robert Thibodeau is a spiritual researcher and astrologer available for private consultation; and speaking and talk engagement. Robert’s metaphysical folk rock music and poetic songwriting is available for download and purchase from www.CDBABY.com.

Robert’s Website and Astrological Newsletter is available at

http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop.

Robert can be reached at (248) 547-8227, The Mayflower Bookshop, 2645 W. 12 Mile Road, Berkley, Michigan 48072.

“When we learn to see under the roots of trees, we will predict the weather. When we learn to see and feel what is deep in human hearts, we will predict the fate and destiny of individuals and nations. When we learn to see what is in our own heartmind stream, we will unlock the door to enlightenment; freedom and happiness.” -robert of mayflower

-robert of mayflower, fab feb 2010

“The storms we come, the will will prevail, shed your beliefs and go naked in the garden. Flowers will sprout from your heart. Imagination will gain the wings of Hermes. Inspiration will read the script of the gods. Intuition will lead the way, flowering in full awakeness, truth and love. Let Orpheus’ head roll in the river with Moses, new springs come now.”

-Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

Mayflower Bookshop Astrological and Spiritual Notes–

A STAAR Journal Happening

For recent articles by Robert, please check out our other site - http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop/

“Up to now, human beings have been the taker ‘on the take’ while the soil, plants, and animals have been the giver; now things are changing. At this point in time, the Cardinal Cross Full Moon Eclipse, the Venus Transit of 2004 and then 2012, the Sun aligned with the Galactic Center, the ‘Jagad Yoni’ Great Cosmic Mother, an alchemical black hole compost heap of 2160 plus years of karma times 12, all signify a reversing, a transversing, a turning and a new learning and conversing as to what is sacred, intelligent, and holy. Humans must now give to the earth, not just take. Learning to love not just one another, but loving the whole earth and all god’s creatures. The whole world is the whole self, the whole self is the world. Without love, nothing works. Without truth, nothing awakens. Without being present, no one is home. ” -robert of mayflower

“Looks like the signature event of April 26th-28th Saturn oppose Uranus and Full Moon is the huge ecologically disastrous oil leak in the Gulf.” -Last month’s newsletter

Our personal link to Saturn is the  approximate 30 year cycle and its relationship to the progressed moon cycle. Think what was up 30 years ago, or 7 (or years ago, 7, 14, 21, 28. As for Uranus, think 84 years ago (1936), 42, 21, and 11 years ago, give or take a year. After 40 years of marriage plus 2 dating, Al and Tipper Gore now separating fit into this pattern. Gore’s 40 year marriage also typifies the Jupiter/Saturn cycle of 20 years, 40 being 2 such cycles. Jupiter and Saturn just opposed, as it was opposing 20 and 40 years ago. Jupiter/Saturn Cycles represent the struggle of spiritual thinking integrating with everyday practicality. The Rose of Loving Kindness and Compassion arises from the sufferings and trials of everyday life.

Many long-term marriages, businesses, relationships now ending (last year, this, and next year) due to Saturn/Uranus opposition in sky. Saturn wants tradition, facts, control, it is predictable, wants security, contractive, rooted, and maybe even boring; Uranus wants excitement, adventure, novelty, new freedom, truth and honesty, new boundaries or none, a little bit of wildness, and does not want to be controlled. Finding both sides in one is the trick, otherwise it’s splitsville. The T Cross activated by Pluto in Cap, Saturn in Libra, Uranus and

Jupiter in Aries has many a person re-examining their sense of self, other, home, and higher calling or work.

With Pluto now in Capricorn, think 240 some years ago, right before the Declaration of Independence and the beginnings of the American Revolution, 1770. Pluto now opposing USA Jupiter indicates debt and banking or monetary crisis, as well as need for rethinking social morality and ethics. Jupiter rules marriage in general, and many people over the last 20 years have really reconsidered exactly what is marriage, relationship, friendship, karma, and happiness. Jupiter is kind of the Santa Claus of the zodiac. Pluto opposing could be that Santa is dead and needs a new outfit and job, maybe needs to not hang out with so many elves for awhile to help his love life. The death and rebirth of happiness, santa claus, family and the social identity is upon us. Maybe Osho and Brazil are right, partners need a break every once in awhile to rediscover themselves and each other. This aspect also indicative of ecology problems, the need for clean healthy air, water, food, shelter and good education for all.

Neptune’s cycle is 164 years, staying in a sign for 13 years. When last here the Crimean War ended, the American Party the ‘Know Nothings’ convened, the civil war was brewing, the second opium war with China begins, as well as the Anglo-Persian War taking place in what is now part of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Neptune enters Pisces in 2012. Other times when Neptune was in Pisces include   the Black Death plague in Europe.

Jupiter’s cycle is 12 years, so Jupiter was in Aries in 1998, 1986, 1974, 1962, 1950, 1938, 1926, 1914, and 1902. Looking back may give one some wisdom on the cyclic behavior of planetary influence. The future and its many complications and complexities with other planetary and stellar influences leaves much that is unpredictably complex. Chaos theory as well as selfless observation go far in furthering one’s understanding and intuitive futuristic perceptions. Jupiter goes into Aries on June 6th giving many new jump-starts and new beginnings.

Six Astrological Notes for June 2010:

1. June 4th, Mars opposes Neptune (triggered possibly the day before by Moon oppose Mars and conjunct Neptune). Strange Vibes, weather, mystical haze, craziness, deceit, false ads and promises. Whew! Late Fixed signs especially beware of false guidance, lies and lipstick, ghosts and ghostbusters, and wild escapades not thought out well. Mars/Neptune is associated with disease, infection, misdiagnosis, denial, destruction, and feeling lost or rejected. Mars/Neptune is active imagination whether the pure idealist and spiritually receptive Don Quixote and Parzival, or the darker Batman, the Phantom, or the colorful Red Songa. It can be the liar, cheat, covert activities, unfinished business, or even the escape artist or strange magician or bad clown. It can be the magic of selfless wisdom and loving kindness. It can be crazy wisdom or just crazy. What one attempts to say and do is opposed by both the needs of the past (karma) and the future (dharma). Do art, music, garden, joy and favors that enhance others or awaken their spiritual powers. With this aspect, one needs to not get lost, yet call on the higher powers of Spirit Self. All arts are favored, but practicality is most important. This aspect often makes for strange weather and accidents or explosive situations. Good for the creative imaginative arts and sciences, Psychic Healing and spirit message.

“Many things I sought, I could not find. Many things I found, I could not bind. Many things I bound, I could not free; and many things I freed, return to me.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

“The real secret of magic is selflessness and emptiness. It is the garden bed empty open, the nest hoping to future lay the golden egg of virtue and true hearts strung to the music of the stars. Dark magic always necessitates a will to not learn, to control everything for one’s own amazing idiocy, not grow beyond limited ego, with a desire to win at any cost; even the world. Profiteering without consideration of others. True magic starts with inner treasury, inner gold, wit and wisdom.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi

Mars/Neptune can be highly idealistic and fantasy oriented. Often depicting an over-active imagination, vivid colorful dream life, danger of wrong dose or medication, allergic or highly reactive reactions, inflation, or feeling abandoned or lost at sea. This aspect can be also very romantic and inspirational, though usually to no avail or real achievement. Mars/Neptune can bring about strange weather, precipitation, and mystically weird vibes and emotions; stay practical as well as positive.

“Genius to be proven, all to often takes lifetimes; few have the sobriety and the providence to not gamble with such matters of crazy wisdom and insane sanity as to love everyone, trust no one, and persist in virtue anyway.” -robert of mayflower

2. June 6th, Jupiter enters Aries, with Jupiter conjuncting Uranus June 8th. Sudden good fortune or misfortune can quickly sweep one away. Lucky meetings and unions, though seldom long-winded. Good for sudden release of tension, spontaneous thrill or pleasure. If conflicts arise, avoid quick heating up of tensions. Sudden storms and breakthroughs. This is usually a lucky aspect for a sudden shift of mind and heart toward a more positive view. Look for reality to set in and real solutions starting to be found for many a dire distressed area of life. New rules, new laws, new ideas, achievement, adventure and inventions, breakthroughs and break-a-ways now in full action for the course of the year. New solutions for Gulf oil spill may start to work now and in the next 2 weeks. Let’s hope anyway. Jupiter/Uranus in Aries really works to wake people up with a new frankness and honesty, often with new genius and leadership. This aspect can also produce sudden jolting changes in one’s calling, career, home-life, and personal relationships. Especially jolted by this Zeusian thunder clap are Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn. Look for what house in your own personal chart Aries and the cardinal signs are for what department of life is most influenced. (get a chart at mayflower). Jupiter/Uranus conjuncts every 13 years, the last one being 1997. Fire Signs Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius benefit, as do to lesser degree Gemini and Aquarius (sextiling).

“Fighting is of two kinds. Fighting others to see your way; or fighting one’s self to amend erroneous ways, non virtuous haze, and the daze of numbness unable to feel and hear the heart of the world, the least among us, the greatest good. The greatest dream realized is heaven on earth, most work only for the funeral home to look good. Garden everything including each other, pull weeds, sing songs, enliven immortal joys.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi

3. Lots of crazy little aspects on June 10th into 11th’s Mercury square Mars, which makes for many a little emergency and sense of being too busy. Lots of things getting done and quite a new news day or two. Lots of breakthroughs and breakdowns for mutable signs. Capricorn, Taurus, Libra, and Aquarius can get lots of clues as to what is up with self and others and biz these daze.

“Innocence all too often is the cost of success; wisdom too often the result of failure, repeat offenders run rampant as weeds, and stillness (silence heart listening) is still the best reflection of what is happening, what to do and where to go next.” -robert of mayflower

4. June 12th, New Moon in Gemini sets the stage and initiates innovative new energies and mindset to meet the most difficult challenge of the much talked about and perhaps more tricky and difficult aspect than the now infamous 2012 end of the Mayan Calendar: that being the Lunar Eclipse conjunct Pluto June 25th, followed by the July 11th Solar Eclipse. This two week period (June 26-July 11) may well define the next two years to come! Deficits, debt, banking crisis, mortgage crisis, unemployment, ecological devastation and pollution crisis, dangers of war, ever-increasing military budgets and build ups, the great imbalances of wealth and knowledge, scientific imperialism, lack of transparency, lack of truth and virtue nearly everywhere in politics/business/sports; to say nothing of the incredible fascination and obsession people have with porn, gambling, escapism, drugs, medications, and ego driven unconscious id identifications with image inflated god, corporation, or nation state that somehow justifies one’s behavior and projections. New Moon June 12 to July 11 followed by July 24th Jupiter square Pluto and July 25th New Moon, will surely energize many changes as well as many finalizations with no turning back. Serious social questions concerning the true nature of freedom, spiritual equality, and community arise.  Crisis is world harmony and intelligent commerce. We very well may hit a new bottom in the health of mother nature and the world economy. We want to be the united states of awareness not the un-united states of depression. If there is to be a solution, or turning point, to both the economic and ecological crisis looming in the world today, this time period may be the breakthrough. Many another soothsayer or religious fanatic is advising to have enough food and water on hand to survive a month or three. For many places in the world, this is already a driving need. I myself have great faith in human ingenuity and loving kindness, compassion, wisdom and wit. Yet, there seems to be no end to both ignorance and delusion when it comes to the true nature of being a human being living on Mother Earth. False positiveness, pride, elitism, and after life hopes, as well as sour puss negativity and seemingly endless selfishness and self-destructive habits endlessly abound. We truly have the power to destroy ourselves as well as enjoy and heal ourselves. These are troubling times. It is rare to find a man or woman with a workable solution to any of life’s ills. It befalls each of us to search within ourselves for solutions. It is up to each of us to find , in the least, the beginning of a spiritual solution. The trees and flowers have love for the universe, and they are ripped apart, stolen, cut down, picked. We need TRUTH. As H.P.Blavatsky said, ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’. Both the truth of who and what we are, as well as the truth of the nature of reality. Rare it is for individual or group, to draw a circle that includes us all in its world view or conception. (See HPB’s ‘Secret Doctrine,’ Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Outline of Esoteric Science,’ Osho’s ‘Priests and Politicians - the Mafia of the Soul,’ and the Tibetan ‘Joyful Path of Good Fortune’ or ‘Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand’. Jupiter/Pluto aspects reveal the need to rethink the true meaning of a friend. Not as indulgence or false comfort, but a friend as adjunct to truth and a more fully expressed sense of wonder, joy, and co-creative learning, sharing, growing and knowing.

“There is no death, we all go on living in each other’s hearts. That’s the good and the bad news, nobody dies.” -robert of mayflower

5. Good days astrologically speaking include June 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th 15th, 21st, 26th, 30th (give or take a day sometimes).

“The only bad things that happen, happen when we are not aware. Awareness is hearing the heart and soul of the other, hearing our own inner wish, and knowing the difference between flowering and moving toward coming to fruit, or withering on repeat offense to the Spirit of the Times, the future, and all that went before.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

“All meditation is essentially the experience of sex without sex. But you have to go through it. It must become a part of your experience; it must not just remain on the level of concepts, ideas, thoughts.” -Osho

“Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” -Yeats

6. Difficult days astrologically include June 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th,19th, 21st, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 29th (give or take a day sometimes). Some days are listed as good and difficult indicating it could go either way depending on what else is going on in your own personal chart. These days good for getting work done, pulling weeds, and avoiding stormy weather and friends.

“Tragedy is the loss of ground and sky, the tree bends and breaks. Comedy is the ability to see the love and wisdom, the candor and irony of what the Higher Self imposes on the fool inside us. Enlightenment transcends both. Such Zen-like wisdom is the king and clown, the fool and sage, the completely human holding to the heart of the matter ever-balanced between the head and hand. Virtue is ever-giving, ever-learning, ever-still, yet participant.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

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✤ New Book just in! ‘The Mystery of the Resurrection in the Light of Anthroposophy’ by Sergei O. Prokofieff. Prokofieff tackles the Mystery of Golgotha, Spiritual Communion, Easter/Ascension/Whitson, the relationship of the earth spirit to the interior of the earth, the forces of the phantom body, death and resurrection, the stigmata, the Christ, and spiritual scientific anthroposophy, among other things. $40.

✤ ‘From Sex to Superconsciousness’ by Osho is back in print. Osho is funny and quite insightful in playful ways. Very Zen-like with lightening flashes of genius.

✤ Mention this report and get 50% off astrology calendars for 2010 (good for this June).

✤ Is life getting too serious and heavy? ‘Play’ is the opposite of ‘depression’. Are you playing enough? Check out this talk on the importance of PLAY. Creativity, health, survival, and genius is connected to PLAY! Check it out…you neotony crustaceans!

http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

My friend David Spangler, long ago, gave a series of talks, one at Mayflower, on Play. He mentioned how play comes out of nothing. The ability to play and imagine is key to stretching out boundaries of growth. Rudolf Steiner talks about creating out of nothing. In his many talks on child development and Waldorf School, keeping the young child in innocent play and imagination is key. See ‘Children at Play, Using Waldorf Principles to foster Childhood Development’, or ‘Education, an Introductory Reader’, or Harwood’s great book, ‘The Way of the Child’ or his ‘Study of Man’. The last two here highly recommended by Mayflower Bookshop.

• Don’t forget to breathe deep and to eat Miso Soup with seaweed every day! Mayflower has a good supply of Miso and Seaweed if you need it.

Blessings,

robert of mayflower

Mayflower Bookshop

(248) 547-8227

http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop/

the new

‘S.T.A.A.R. Journal’

Sabian* Temple of Arcane and Astrological Research

Robert Thibodeau

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S.T.A.A.R.—A Hermetic Geocosmic Adventure. ‘As Above, So Below’.

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“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” -Rachel Carson

“Look to the stars for the signature of divine rhythms written in each individual’s blood, pulse, breath, and destiny and fate.”  -Trebore Tau Bodhi

1. Looks like the signature event of April 26th-28th Saturn oppose Uranus and Full Moon is the huge ecologically disastrous oil leak in the Gulf. Nashville hit by floods, the attempted NYC bombing, the debt crisis, Wall Street/Federal Reserve/insurance debates also exemplify the Saturn/Uranus tug of war friction of the planets. Gee, can’t wait for the 5th and last crazy Saturn oppose Uranus at the end of July, when Jupiter squares Pluto too. More ecological troubles? Troubles with pure air and water? Continued Wall Street vs. Main Street troubles? Banking and Federal Reserve re-structuring? Food prices rising ever so high? More Foreclosures? Drums of war? World Depression? Who needs to wait for 2012 Mayan Prophecies? Saturn oppose Uranus is the need to have patience and wisdom (Saturn) in the face of challenging changes (Uranus). It is the need to think clearly out of freedom will (Uranus) and compassionate wisdom (Jupiter/Pluto). Taking the excessive exclusive profit out of war and the survival needs, educational needs, and spiritual needs of the common human being is an ideal out of reach for the average modern man of spectator sports, scapegoating, arm chair generalling, gambling, smoking and drinking, and pimping and porning. These are difficult times. Bigger TVs may not be the answer. More than ever it is up to each of us to grow a garden of friends working and striving for peace and compassionate loving kindness for all living things. Uranus can be breakdown or breakthrough, waking up to each other with a higher spiritual view or breaking apart clinging and fighting for the few things we choose through our desire and fear, our little precious and dear separate self, ego, and unconscious shadow. The times are tough. Genius (Uranus) without wisdom and compassion is just lightening and explosive release. Saturn without patience and wisdom’s understanding is just authoritative dictatorship and dark egotism and ‘security’ tape. Where is truth in such a fearful world where everyone wants to own everything and place, and no-one owns up to our true nature of love and truth, wisdom and compassion, and one family of humankind? Tricky times for the best of us, indeed. I know all pain and suffering is the labor pain of a higher birth, but I also know we could all use a little more joy and pleasure of more happy endings. Fear no evil, court no success; stand your ground of all that is holy in your heart. Be yourself, it’s the only way you can do anything. May love conquer all fear, may truth hold you dear, may beautifying the world with your own hands, heart, and mind be the way.

“Dare the impossible, but do it with love.” -trebore tau bodhi

2. May 4th Sun squares Mars. Taking the law into one’s own hands? Violence and forcefulness? Anger and Hatred? Or is it time to be brave to be oneself, loving kindness and truth? Sun/Mars can be conflict and explosive tension, but it can also be Michaelic courage to brave the storm, bodhisattva resolve to help the poor and downtrodden, and simple human kindness. Sun/Mars brings out the hero of grace in us or the anger and judgmental walls of separation and subtle anger/hatred. Patience and a bigger spiritual view can help temper the warring elements of anger and impatience. Check out Thurman’s book, ‘Anger,’ as well as ‘Odyssey of Freedom’ by Gelek Rimpoche. We are as little as the things that make us angry. We are as big as the things that make us love and dare the beautiful, the creative, the good and true. If you fly into rage, you’ll crash in old age. Anger is a fool’s way of blowing out one’s own candle. Compassion knows no time’s limit, no distance or space, no ego resistance, no block to new learning and growth. Generosity is the gift of opening new space to receive grace. Avoid fighting or resisting the truths now open to view. The Mars aspects triggering now until May 5th or 7th call for courageous actions and a spirit of good will.

“The heads can differ, try, and test, but the heart can remain at peace and at rest with what passes understanding, compassion and loving kindness for all.” -robert of mayflower

3. Mercury goes direct on May 11th. Catch up with all past paperwork, bills, crazy communications, and unfinished business and cleaning by then. Otherwise quickly attack the problems forthwith by the Full Moon on the 27th or even May 30th Saturn direct, when too many new things, people and events begin to overwhelm your own 2012 prophecy for more fun and love in the sunshine of your spirit soul heart. Many a reversal of thinking and action is underway during this Mercury Retrograde. Good time to re-think your own history and biography so as to compost the unworkable fixated past that makes you right about how your life is wrong. It’s time to make everything work for the present future tense. Virtue is the creative harmony between one’s dreams and one’s everyday reality, one’s ideals and one’s everyday little things we do. Happy Buddhaverse Merry Christos. Poetry is the deed of saying more than you say, allowing the reader to participate more by self-realization and inner awakening participation with the world around. At any rate, this is an important month to wake up, and pull the old weeds of wrong habit and thinking. Living within one’s materialistic means while attempting to grasp what is beyond one’s spiritual reach is equal to living the life of the old hermetic axiom, “As Above, So Below”. We are the lightening rod, the rainbow bridge, the angelic ladder, bridging heaven to earth; or not. Each of us has the free will to choose to live a spiritual, virtuous, creative life; or not. Soul Choose!

“Only you know what your heart is really thinking, keep your heart pure.” -robert of mayflower

4. May 16th Moon (blocks or ‘occults’ Venus making for love magic or the serious lack of it. Venus also at perihelion (astronomical term for closer to the sun). Anyone feeling burned by love these daze? Real love wants others to be happy.  Far-fetched experiments in money and love may now crash land or accelerate. Love tending to going out of bounds in the past, tries now to land, manifest, or faces being composted or combusted. On May 17th, Venus squares Jupiter tending toward over-indulgence or just a heck of a good time breaking out of old modes and structures. On May 18th, ga ga love bound Venus squares ‘coming to your senses’ Saturn and trines futuristic and dreamy Neptune, making for feelings of not being loved enough, or the other feels that way. Venus squaring kinky unusual twist and turn Uranus on May 19th makes for many new insights on how love works or not. All mid-May are good days to re-examine love and friendships in the light of it working with your own Higher Self or needs. Time to know who and what you love, and whether it’s killing you or growing you. Try surprising others with good fortune and joy, rather than being too surprised by turn of events. Those too far out, turn back; those in-turned and feeling stuck, may want out. Many a love twist and turn takes place during these days, preparing a better future for those true to their own hearts, and many a bitter twist of fate to those who thwart the truth in their own hearts. These are highly creative times for those in the groove and spirit. Good time for the world to reconsider love for the earth. Humans can’t live here if the earth is not healthy. During this Venus Transit of 2004 to 2012 (the real thing going on, greater than the Mayan Prophecy thing), everything we do out of true love prospers our future, and everything we do that is not true to the deeper love in our hearts, wounds our souls and betrays our Spirit. These Venus aspects of the 16th to 19th can reveal to each of us how our personal love aids or hinders our own relationship to the bigger picture of what is going on with the whole of the earth, the whole of humanity, and the whole of our own many lifetime enlightenment process. The lack of transparency, honesty and truth, compassion and loving kindness is killing the world and the true nature of the self. May all beings find happiness, everlastingness, and the frogs in their pond smiling. Going back to hiding with the creepy dark forbidding dirty lie, or facing the music that some weeds need picking and old habits of self may need composting takes place or begins to take place mid May.

5. On May 21st, Venus reaches most northern latitude and begins descent. Peak love or high out of reach love/interest, now turns to attempt again to incarnate or manifest love’s ideals.

6. May 23rd with Venus oppose Pluto. Jealousy is a sign of loving another for who you want them to be, not who they are. Anger is taking another’s freedom away, forcing upon them some agenda or persuasion. Avoid forcing on another something you yourself would not want for your self. Positive side of Venus/Pluto is knowing how to stick with what you know to be true, and being true to oneself, one’s world, one’s highest self and ideals come hell or high water, come ringing bell and blooming rose. This aspect can reveal a transformative act of love, an alchemy of loving kindness and insight. One finally figures something out which may have bothered you for awhile. A sense of finality or ending, new beginning is in the air.  Check out Mercury as Morning Star, at its best around May 25th.

“Give to Spirit what is Spirit’s, to the matter at hand what matters; but always be mindful of the heart’s listening for higher truth and love.” -trebore tau bodhi

7. Also on May 23rd, Jupiter opposing Saturn will reveal an interesting time to come when we need to discover the dodecahedron of right friendships, dreams and ideals, and practical means of satisfying our need for deeds of right work and manifestation of true self. Jupiter/Saturn reveals the work yet needed to make the right relationship to self and other. There may be challenges to family, friend, community, church, temple, and all group associations. There may be struggles at both the top and bottom of all social collectives and group workings. Serious cracks in reality and the need for fixing troubles/problems in finances, banking, real estate, Wall Street, investments, hospitals, prisons, social vs. political debate and struggle to reform or heal. Jupiter in Pisces endangers itself by gilding the cage and making more comforts sedate and morphine the higher need for spiritual reform and virtuous mind training or healing fast. Saturn in Virgo attempts to constrict and over-control, dictatorially profit and propheteer (dictate moral authority) rather than self-evident truth or virtuous example. Discipline and fastidiousness can now steer one’s higher aims into long term investment and commitment. The derogatory depreciating demented demoralizing times herald value over virtue, appearance over truth, and money over health. Jupiter/Saturn is the loss or gain of social identity. On a positive note it reveals a continuing search for individual meaning within a social cultural context of ever-changing world dilemma and spiritual challenge. The past continues to ‘cling on’, preventing new opportunities to freely emerge. Sex and love continue to confuse each other’s pure wishes for happiness, and dreams continue to be nightmares unless released or happily manifested for the good of all. See Rudolf Steiner’s comments on the need for a future World Pentacost, a meeting of the true universal religions of Buddhism and Christianity, head and heart of wisdom and compassion.

“Everything changes and is impermanent, yet our deep space within is ever unchanging in its flowering mindfulness.” -trebore tau bodhi

8. May 27th Full Moon with Uranus going into Aries makes for some alarming new changes come the end of the month into June and July. More and more it seems disaster (not following one’s true Star) and climacteric (forced changes due to alarming insights and apocalyptic like traumas and emergencies) urge us into lightening changes, many of which are also long overdue. On the other hand, many new opportunities for change and renewal, growth and learning emerge and present themselves. Many new discoveries and inventions now take place. Danger of hasty actions bringing about accident and explosive situations. Daring and adventure is afoot again, Watson. During the time of the Full Moon, there are four loose oppositions in the sky. There may be some crazy weather and world events on May 4th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 17th-19th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 29th, 30th-31st. These are also amazing spiritual days for breakthrough realization and change. Cardinal and Mutable signs most affected for positive or challenging aspects this month. Fixed signs seem to be plowing forward with their fixed positions. Fixed signs need to avoid anger, force, and being too aggressive. Good for exercise and yoga.

“Spiritual practice is just that, practice. Going out and working in the world is the true test of patience, persistence, perseverance, fortitude and courage to be true in one’s heart and mind while finding right work and play. The future of the earth depends on it.” -robert of mayflower

9. Saturn Direct on May 30th with Neptune going retrograde on the 31st of May. Practical needs and laying down the law, new rules of play, practical thinking and casting away the cobwebs of deluded or spacey over-idealistic thinking is in. Practical ways of dealing with one’s fear and paranoia is now a must. Ideals and future dreams need mending and amending, re-thinking. The politics of work is getting the job done. The work of politics is making the job worth it, worth doing, and worthy of the spiritual soul of freedom and truth, joy and co-creative happiness.

*****

Pluto in Capricorn (2008-2023) is a call for true spiritual and virtuous leadership, a call for a new higher love and compassion for all the little one’s of earth, all living things, honoring all in healthy relationship. It is a call to love the earth. Saturn square Pluto (2009-2010) is a test of limits. Limits to growth, limits to greed, limits to war, limits to how much time we can take to come to ourselves, our true heart and mind, our true work and love. Saturn in its waning phase to Pluto (2001-2020) will lead us to new spiritual foundations having futurity, or new struggles in the depths of matter not fecundated with healthy virtuous spiritual etheric forces. Making cognitive peace and harmony in this world is an ever-growing necessity. Mother Nature can only take so much before poor orphan humanity will be thrown off her back. So, hey! Let’s grow a garden of friends. -robert of mayflower

Mayflower Bookshop, (248) 547-8227

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* Sabian means ancient star wisdom script.

Mayflower Bookshop Astrological News and Views for April 2010

Robert Thibodeau (248) 547-8227

“An ounce of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. April 2nd-3rd Taurus Venus square Mars in Leo makes for the heat of love at its best. At the negative level its bugged by pests, love wrangling, and mud wrestling and slinging. This aspect leads into Sunday’s Venus trine Pluto making for Goddess victories of wisdom over chaotic proceedings. Here, soft persuasive sensuality and patient flowering heal the situation. Massaging persistence of heart and soul win over the weird winds of hot head ego force, stubborn convictions, projections, ultimatums, and stonewalling. Venus wins with receptivity and flowering flow, flowing flowery glow. Mars loses out when over physicalizing, dramatizing, obsessing, or using force. Venus/Mars aspects are notorious for lots of sexual energy where sparks easily fly. Venus/Pluto keeps its heart on the long run and the deeper love lasting through time. Earth Signs flow in love and prosperity, Fixed Signs need to avoid conflict. Venus trine Pluto Easter night (April 4th) makes for happy family/social and love harmonies, deep and valuable interactions. April 1st is Susan Boyle’s Birthday, April 2nd is Casanova’s. Mars is traveling these days right by the Beehive constellation in the Crab. You’ve probably already seen how easy it is to stir the beehive of troubles bringing out the crabby side of yourself or another by the misappropriate or wrong word or action.

“Shallowness looks for luck, the deeper one looks for cause and effect. -Trebore Tau Bodhi

2. April 5th-6th (Baba Ram Dass Birthday), 7th Pluto Retrograde - frustrations in completing or concluding things. Much patience is needed to avoid unnecessary arguments and debates. Pluto retrogrades until September 13th, Saturn retrogrades back into Virgo on April 7th until July. Holy Smokes Batman. Extra discipline and concentration may be needed to achieve desired ends. Much of what we experienced for the last two years, and especially since September 2009, is revisited now. Difficulties negotiating, delays, disappointments, setbacks, rebuilding, reviewing, renegotiating, retreating, researching, revamping. The fine print in Bank Bailouts, taxes, the Health Plan, the War Costs, all get another critical look. Pluto in Capricorn brokers power over or power through energetics revealing a need to work bottom up slow and wise, or a need to hit down hard and powerfully in a do or die scenario. Pluto in Capricorn signifies the power struggles at the top, oft revealing many a negative quality and non-virtue of individuals at the top of the pyramid. Saturn in Virgo is the need to control, fix, heal, persevere; especially concerning health and work issues. Together these aspects reveal a need for transparency, morality, and virtue in all our leaders and emulation models. Pluto and Saturn are revealing the cracks in the mirror of reality.

“If one doesn’t have a map up the mountain, just go up; start there!” -Trebore Tau Bodhi

3. April 11th to 17th, (14th New Moon on Wednesday) - portends of a week of many a sweet dream and love touch. April 16-17th look to the west for Venus near the crescent Moon just after sunset. Watch the grail moon cup fill up to full in the coming two weeks. The sacrifice of the Sun (our spiritual self) to come into form. Moon going from Taurus into Gemini makes for good time to kiss and talk sweet. Good time to wake up to what is practical to do. Let action speak away the noise from flapdoodle lips and rattled numbskull cups overflowing. Flower don’t dwaddle dawdle. April 13th is Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday.

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” -Thomas Jefferson

4. April 18th - Mercury retrograde in Taurus until May 11th makes for difficult communications and paperwork problems. Take care not to buy high ticket items that later you may not want. Actions still speak louder or clearer than words during this retrograde period. Take extra care to be clear and get it in writing if need be. Write down dreams right away for deeper insights. Thinking backs up from jumping too quick. On the other hand, right action inspires the gods. Beware of procrastination.

5. April 20th Sun goes into Taurus on Miro’s Birthday, also Napoleon III’s. Sun in Taurus brings in the flowers and sensuality of Spring. Luck is in the going, meeting the heart head on.

6. April 22nd-23rd - Venus square Neptune may bring weird weather, smells, insights, dreams, visions, and highly colorful out of balanced lovers into view. Here Imagination and Inspiration rule; poetry, music, and the arts can be wildly creative and good at this time. The right dream or imagination can inspire the greatest deed. The wrong fantasy can lead one far astray. Dream true. Make your dream a quest to manifest in deed, reality. Emerson said ‘intellect in its relation to what is prior to intellect is a god’. Steiner says, ‘think about thinking’. Osho says, ‘watch the watcher, witness the witness’.

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” -Dalai Lama

7. April 24th Venus trine Saturn with Moon in Virgo makes for a good catch up day. Work and play is steadfast and laid back. Patience and endurance win out over being too critical or narrow in approach or communications. Good day to plow the future field of dreams.

“A division of philosophy and poetry is illness.” - Novalis

8. April 24th-25th - Venus goes from Taurus into Gemini brings hands and lips into service more than earthy heart. Oral vexations or sensuous connections? Mercury square Mars makes for strong verbal back and forth Saturday night into Sunday morning. Clear thinking is at its best and worst with this aspect. Sun trine Pluto just before noon smoothes things out by reconnecting to ‘what matters most’ … love, long-term security, compassionate understanding, and light over dark, mind over matter. This aspect oft thinks of what is right to hold long run of things.

“Luck is really not luck, it is really a call response to the future, a debt to the future; otherwise it is a debt paid back from the past, perhaps even past life. Bad luck is really not bad luck, it is a lack of wisdom from the past; as well as a lack of vision for the future, a clearing way for the future to be.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi

9. April 26th - Saturn retrograde in Virgo opposes Uranus in Pisces! This aspect currently will happen five times, this is the fourth time. Last times were Presidential Election Day Obama win, and last February 5th and September 15th. Next and last time will be July 26th. Saturn/Uranus aspects create a strong tension between long-term security and immediate satisfaction. Security and Freedom struggle. This Saturn/Uranus is critical due to Mercury Retrograde. Lots of confusion and shake outs as to what is real and what is craziness. Uranus in Pisces wants to emotionally gush and rush forward with intuitive or psychic insight and revelation. Saturn in Virgo wants to slow everything down, delineate and isolate, tittle and tinker, think, whittle and wink, vex and over prep, zealously connecting the dots with logic and accountability, endlessly seeking stability and tradition, what is right vs. what is stimulating and enlivening. Uranus screams for freedom and creativity, novelty and bawd newness. Ideals visualized and heartfelt clash with hard cold reality. Uranus wants excitement rather than security. Together can be best of both worlds, but usually one person wants out and another in. Uranus/Saturn can destabilize and re-stabilize. Crazy aspect this last week or so in April for storms, high winds, quakes, sudden eruptions, turnarounds or upsets, reversals, and chaotic times bringing new more strict disciplined order or rules to the situation. Uranus in Pisces can be psychic and intuitive, but also a bit whacky. Saturn in Virgo can be way too critical and negative. With Jupiter quickly coming to join up with Uranus, change and progress, renewal and what is completely new is in. Being stuck in the past is out. All things being equal, try taking the new way. We try to work and prepare, but true luck and destiny is always a surprise bringing new opportunities to change and grow, deepen. Truth tends to not be a democracy, and Love tends to attempt always to be king. May truth and love find each other happy and viably conversing. Emerson and the mystics are right; truth is the soundness and health of everything, its center is everywhere and its existence cannot be dis-imagined. HPB said, ‘There is no religion higher than Truth’. Truth is always a higher way, a greater virtue and angel. Truth must prove itself in time, it cannot be forced on another. Love is fleeting, love is nowhere lasting. We are love, or not. We make it happen out of our free will.

“Nothing happens by chance, its all karma. Our freedom is in making it into the path of Happiness, enlightenment, freedom, and Dharma.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi

10. April 28th Hare Rabbit Full Moon on Jay Leno’s Birthday followed by Uma Thurman’s (April 29th), and Willie Nelson’s (April 30th) winds up April with a breath of relief the last year is over, and spring/summer is on the way. Feelings that the doom and gloom are over for awhile now prevail. With Mercury conjunct Sun on Full Moon Wednesday, look for lots of clear thoughts and summary convictions. May and June ‘pirate and spirit genie’ our way into a coming Jupiter/Uranus conjunction making for big breakthroughs in opening the door to brighter futures. The economy then (May/June) makes many a jump start with many a new face and place making its way into everyday life and mass media. New leaders and emulation models abound. Those who have planets in fire signs (or end of water signs) will experience many a stroke of luck and good fortune now. This also a time of ‘thank-the-lord-my-day-has-come’ sudden relief and joy. It is said that Buddha was born, received his enlightenment, and died on the Taurus Full Moon (others say May Full Moon; Tibetans now even say June). For Steinerites, this is the Grail Moon. Visualize Isis with babe on breast, Mary at the Cross with slain Jesus (Sun translation to earth?), and Raphael’s Madonna. Visualize all three and ponder the deeper meaning of the Grail Moon transforming the wasteland into fertile garden. The Moon filling with Sunlight and pouring such upon earth for the next few weeks until New Moon. For pagans (most Americans) Full Moon in Scorpio and Sun in Taurus is earthy practical grounded sensuousness, and hands-on tactile perceptiveness, immediate grasp.

“When a woman marries again it is because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs.” -Oscar Wilde

“Luck comes and goes; virtue good karma, real love and truth, last forever.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

Robert Thibodeau is an Astrological Consultant specializing in spiritual philosophy east and west, relationships, job and career, spiritual healing, macrobiotics, financial timing, favorable and unfavorable times. Robert is available for consultations and readings by appointment only. Call Mayflower Bookshop (248) 547-8227.

Robert’s Folk Rock Music is available for download on www.CDBABY.com.

Robert of Mayflower website address is http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop

Robert of Mayflower’s Astrological Esoteric Notes for March 2010

“Be what you want to see. Spiritual research is the ultimate investment for one’s Self. Virtue Dharma Mind Training and Meditation is the ultimate exercise for the Spirit Self, the Soul. It will never let you down and it is good karma. Spiritual Practice is a gift that keeps giving. Be the gift unwrapping the present into future tense.” -Robert of Mayflower

1. Venus conjuncts Uranus on Wednesday, March 3rd, and Venus enters Aries on March 7th (EST) when Venus makes a good aspect to Mars. The first week of March has positive aspects for poetic flesh, heart soul connections, and flashes of genius. It is a good time for communications and communions with friends and loved ones. Venus aspects give that first taste of spring sun casting yesterday’s shadows behind. The genius of the simple, is the person who finds a way to be rich in inner feelings, mind, and presence.

Pisces, Scorpio, Cancer, Aquarius, Capricorn, and perhaps to a lesser degree, the fire signs Aries, Leo, Sage benefit now. For lovers and philosophical romantics, there is no remedy for love but another kiss a touch, a melt of heaven; for the head strong, another mind meeting mind, body to body. As Thoreau indicated, ignorance and bungling with love is better than wit and wisdom’s material skill without love. Money can’t buy love. It might buy time and space, but without mind and heart, spirit and soul, it is money misspent. Love is a funny thing, when we most want it, it tends to be the most wanting. Love and Truth is for the inwardly rich. The spiritual trick is to purify and harmonize the inner and outer worlds. Many have one without the other.

The first week of March is great for networking and making new connections reaching beyond the borders of the past. Many yearn for new experience, new depth as well as new freedoms. Beware of the March of time, in like a lamb and out like a roaring lioness. Real freedom starts with ‘truth’ riding the waves of loving compassion for the struggle of the Soul seeking wholeness. Plenty of opportunity for compassion these days. For deeper truths, listen with your heart to the stillness yet to speak in the other. There is not much in earth signs, so Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo root deep and beware–it’s up to you to ground everyone with patience and longevity. Water signs (Cancer, Scorpio, especially Pisces) rule this month if you are creative and free, joyful in spite of all odds, ready to buck the system with truth as your shield and love as your sword. (Words of wisdom: never use love as shield, and truth as a sword. Truth is a good sword only when used on self, love is powerful shielding others). Yes, things sometimes seem backwards, Alice. Look to your heart for the magic mirror.

“Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy” -Walt Whitman

2. The second week of March, Venus opposes Saturn (9th), Mars goes direct (10th), and Venus squares Pluto (11th). Winds of ill fate? Or is it a reality check bucking the bronco rider off outworn goals and spiritually worthless desires? Obsession, control freaking, jealousy, fear and phobia got you? Or is it just time to take off the king or queen’s crown and get back to work? Love gone sour, or you just adding vinegar to the salad? Are you on a one-way low way, or ready for a new train track? The old lover (shadow, demon lover) wants to be lord king and doesn’t really want you happy? Too many controls and straight jackets? Those who don’t discipline themselves oft find others trying? Guilt trips rattling your cage making you feel like drawing swords when you wanted hearts?

Cardinal signs of Libra, Capricorn, Aries, and Cancer tend to really push for new ground, manifesting dreams and ideals or wanting radical change (look to your personal chart for what ‘house’ these ‘signs’ are in for places needing alchemy and holy composting, magic, tantra, and perhaps long term change).  For those at the end of mutable signs or the beginning of cardinal signs, there is a need to have others on board and on the same page with you, or else mutiny is in the air. Many may want to jump ship or change horses in midstream rather than walk plank or get tied up on the whipping post (song metaphor if there ever was one).

Leo, Sagittarius, and Aries get jump-start booster rockets and yet may need to jettison excess cargo to go for the big top circus act and high wire act. Fire signs may need to push themselves forward rather than push others round. High-minded fire signs look to be inspired to take new ways and roads to adventure and success.

Fixed signs (Scorpio, Taurus, Leo, and Aquarius) need more physical exercise and right diet, less talk and irritable bowels in self or others. High-minded fixed signs need to make break-away moves revealing new creative genius and ability to be extraordinarily ordinary and simple. It’s about wanting your life back. It’s about relearning to be simple, relearning to chop wood and carry water, e.g. get simple work done and have time for oneself.

All the signs need to stop blaming others and learn to blame the one person who can bring about positive change in one’s life, oneself. This is the only way to really do something truly creative, change oneself and temporarily let the other go. All personal faults can be quickly amended and transcended with honest frankness, a sense of humour, and a willingness to go to work on oneself. Emerson’s ‘Self Reliance’ is a good place to start. Then try Steiner, Blavatsky, Osho, Tibetan Buddhism, Macrobiotics. Try change for a change. Try something new. Discovering something new in oneself or in any quiet self-reflective moment is key.

“I believe a leaf of grass is not less than the journey-work of the stars.” -Walt Whitman

3. Moon Apogee on March 12th and New Moon March 15th in Pisces/Virgo axis along with Mercury conjunct lightening flash Uranus and Jupiter conjuncting USA Sun Sign around this time, favors major breakthroughs in communications, computers, phones, high tech, new energies, alternative healing, as well as politicians working a bit more together in solving our many economic, ecological, and health-related issues. Sudden shocks or changes in directions, storm, sea changes, winds, and quakes can rattle certain areas of the world this month. Inner awakening and spiritual shifts can counterbalance, harmonize, and integrate outer events. Uranus often portends upsets in sports, harsh winds, shake-ups, terrible storms, and earth changes. Uranus gets triggered on 15th-17th, but the whole month has triggers for reconciliations or forced change in circumstance and mindset.

Other difficult days for stormy weather or weird worldly and psychic events, as well as rain (or snow), colder contractive (or suddenly opposite explosive hot extremes), burdensome or hard-working times, need to focus, harsh circumstance, possibly disastrously, or strange alchemically transformative days for going crazy, parting the dead sea, getting crucified, or laying down the law, challenging days include March 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 29th. Difficult astrological aspect days can be good for solving problems, dealing with troubles, pulling weeds, cleaning, fixing things, catching up, and being holy and disciplined in diet, exercise, yoga, and spiritual focus. Good aspects aren’t always good, oft times leading to exaggerations, over-doings, or going to extremes. Too much of a good thing can make one putrid or go sour, rot at core. Not a fun picture. Avoid extremes by finding a good middle way.

“Getting the facts on a person is not knowing the truth of that person. Truth is our divine possibility, our infinitely divine potential for the Good, True, and Beautiful to flower and unfold. Facts are merely the outer husk and karma of the inherited tendency personality or fleeting temporal self. Think big, think many lifetimes, but begin the journey here and now.” -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

The last quake in Chile minutely shifted the earth’s axis, quickened the spin, and shortened the day; gosh, and we’re just approaching spiritual awakening!?! Let us shift our angle of perception to souls seeking wholeness. Let us quicken our inner life. Let us shorten our leash of distraction and discursive mind, centering on the heart of awareness, the great I AM, the Buddha Nature, Bodhi Mind, the Christos, the Higher Self in each and all. (See ‘The Key to Theosophy,’ ‘The Voice of the Silence,’ ‘The Path of Self Knowledge’ for further wisdom insight). We don’t read books to learn something new. We read books to tune the piano, to tune the mind and heart, to rediscover what has been there all along, our own divine presence and golden light. Mayflower Bookshop isn’t a bookstore, it’s a gold mine, a threshold experience, a garden for the heart minded. Support your local spiritual gardens!

This month favors diplomatic and breakthrough solutions to problems, both foreign and domestic. Water signs are favored, but by the end of the month, Air Signs offer solutions and festively creative alternatives. Fire signs need to prod, spark, inspire, and invigorate the less fortunate and downtrodden, those in despair. If you are down yourself, spark yourself to new adventure. Break away from old habits of self creating new pathways in the neuro psychic highways of the Spirit Soul. Earth Signs need to root in calmness these chaotic times, grounding ideals with self assurance and patience in these ever changing troubling times. Longevity and endurance speaks magic in time honored ways of continual good spirit and positive vibe in the face of every negative. Air signs are reaping the reward of much past good work, as well as laying the foundation for much good future. End of month reveals crucial turning point for Libra (and to lesser degree cardinal and air signs).

Positive Good Aspected Days for all signs include - March 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 17th, 21st, 24th, 26th, 28th, and 31st. (Some good aspect days collide with more difficult aspected days making rainbows possible.)

“Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” -Whitman

4. First Day of Spring, Sun enters Aries on March 20th (1:32 p.m. EST) indicates a few days, weeks, and perhaps months, to figure out ways to find happiness and freedom without making enemies or meeting cold walls of indifference and obstruction. With Sun oppose Saturn, hot meets cold, cool meets hot, and new insights and ways of working or playing need sure ground practicality to have lasting value. A few very sunny hot days meet a few extremely cold daze this spring. Good aspect for reaching to higher ethical standards and ideals when it comes to political and social manifestations and workings. Or is it just more big business running over the little guy? Sun oppose Saturn can also indicate the tendency to duality, duplication, the good guy/bad guy stand off, face off. Spirituality demands of each of us to see the divine possibility, the Buddha or Christ, in each and all at core. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “you may have to fight, but they have the Christ in them too”! The path of the spiritual warrior isn’t just a movie, it’s a continual challenge and call for the spiritually awakened. Lots of re-tuning strings this month.

“Re-examine all that you have been told … dismiss that which insults your soul.” -Whitman

Many an arm chair general will be mulling over and chewing on, wondering, whether politicians are smart enough, free enough, honest and virtuous enough, to really run this country. With more and more national and international calamities, crisis, and tests of intellectual and moral fiber (as well as military and monetary strength and caliber), 2010 is starting to shape up as a more difficult time than the much fabled and rumored ‘End of the Mayan Calendar’ and ‘Birth of the Great Goddess’ Holy Center of the Galaxy talking, 2012. It is ever more important to find the time to be still, time to quietly listen to the heart and mind of the world with our own listening heart eye. It is high time to be the highest ideal we can fathom. Escapism is Neptune, Sizzle is Uranus, Unending pettiness and selfish clinging is Pluto, the garden of the future is stillness, the heart, the listening and awakened spiritual soul, Consciousness Soul, World Soul. It is the still small voice within us whispering the simple things we can do to unravel the knots of the world. This is the ultimate goal, to be oneself. Who is it, if not self, holds the key and turns the lock?! Listen for the deeper heart to speak, serve that. (Many confuse the instincts or feelings of fear/desire for the heart’s wisdom and skillful means to hear, see, and speak in virtue, truth, and love). Major aspects within the natal chart of outer planets angled to inner personal planets; as well as the midheaven, nadir, ascendent, and descendent can reveal one’s deeper karma, vocation, and calling; karma and dharma of such unique Soul situation.

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.” -Whitman

The problem with near all theories of the universe is mistaking the body for the soul and mind, the spirit. Even a tree and stone has a soul. The common error of not working to discover a conscious relationship to one’s own inner ‘genius’ or spark of creative fire invoking the will to freedom and co-creative happiness is now at tragic proportions. Each moment holds immense discovery as well as deepening peace. It is up to each of us to individually search our heart and soul for the deeper answer and quest for solution to the world’s deepening struggles and conflict. We need to rediscover the angel within each other to restart the spiritual dialogue, making conscious the inner task. The unique principle, the World Soul, Spirit Self, is ubiquitous yet unusually absent from the most common everyday experience. Conscious Spirit needs be reawakened at the workplace, in the laboratories of science, in the war rooms and bedrooms (sometimes the same thing), in the gardens and kitchens, cosmologies, governments, and religions. Let us reincarnate into our own heart of understanding and listening, let it be Now.

-robert of mayflower

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” -Thoreau

Robert Thibodeau, Predictive Astrologer and Psychic Spiritual Researcher is available for private consultations or lectures. Call for appointment:

248-547-8227

Mayflower Bookshop

2645 W. 12 Mile Rd.

Berkley, Mi. 48072

Open Weds, Thurs, and Fri. Noon to 6 p.m., Sat. 11-6 p.m.

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Astrological Newsletter for February 2010

with 12 SUN SIGN FORECAST

along with Making Soup, Rice, and Friends

Avatar and more!

“The Light is the real person in the picture.” -Claud Monet

1. January 31st Retrograde Saturn squares Pluto again making for more strange contractions and painful experiences when it comes to relationships (Libra, Cardinal signs), job and future. It also makes for more crazy psychic weather around the world, as well as shake-ups, storms and quakes, eruptions, extremes in the weather, scandals, power plays, and forced moves when it comes to politics, economy, and famous people screw ups and legal matters. Trigger dates include the end of January full moon time as well as February 2nd moon trigger. Saturn/Pluto aspects indicate reacting out of fear or need for security or control. Tough decisions and hardball tactics concerning long-term goals, banking, investments, debt, bankruptcies, foreclosures, geo-political hotspots, oil, the Middle East dilemma, and continued corporate influence decaying a more democratic republic and collective consensus. Other event trigger days for being serious about such realizations, sufferings, and days for more difficult weather or ‘browbeating’ ‘emotionally terroristic communications’ and ‘bottom-line decision making, protectionism, nationalism and egotism, along with need to make tougher regulations to protect ‘economic victimization’ or ‘emotionally’ trammeling days include February 9th, 12th, 17th, 23rd, 24th, and 27th. Much patience, compassion, wisdom insight and long-term view needed on these days.

“Fortune rarely accompanies anyone to the door.”

-GOETHE, Torquato Tasso

2. Venus conjunct Neptune on February 8th and Valentine’s Day Sun conjunct Neptune make for lovey-dovey fantasies and idyllic escapes from the hard realities of bottom-line conservative security issues that Saturn/Pluto brings. Neptune can be false indications, lies, deception, dissipation, and ecology troubles. Neptune can also be good for music, arts, a vaster vision and wider scope, spiritual inspirational inclinations, religious proclivities, psychic messages and insights, spiritual or psychic dreams, and all future planning. Although Neptune can be impractical, it is super sensuous and magical in its operations in and on the etheric and astral worlds. (See Osho’s ‘Book of Secrets,’ Steiner’s ‘The Path of Self Knowledge,’ or H.P.Blavatsky’s book ‘Key to Theosophy’ for more insight to Etheric/Astral Planes.) Other magical etheric/astral days of possible wonder, awe, and insight feelings include February 6th, 8th, 14th, 16th, 22nd, 24th, 27th, and 28th. Wherever Pisces or Neptune is in your chart, house and aspects, will indicate where the love, happiness and good vibe, is emerging. Here one needs to live in the present and have fun without accidently or unconsciously throwing away tomorrow’s needs, responsibilities, and deadline agendas.

“All extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane.”

-GOETHE, The Sorrows of Young Werther

3. New Moon February 13th, on Jerry Springer’s birthday, conjuncts Neptune/Chiron with Moon to Jupiter within a day, giving many a breath of fresh air and breakthroughs when it comes to futuristic projects, creativity, sensuality, soul-mates, music and the arts, travel, and good social times. With Mercury opposing retrograde Mars, look for the news for the next few weeks to be overflowing with debate, critique, controversy, and many a bottom-line ultimatum. Mercury is intelligence and understanding battling retrograde Mars’ almost instinctive ‘hit-you-where-it-hurts’ from where it hurts mentality. This will prove a difficult time to force one’s will or thinking on another who is resistant. Hopefully, the Venus/Neptune vibe will quell some of the angst and forceful lusty aggressive controversy about to emerge. Hey, why is everybody fighting? How can we agree to disagree and continue the conversing and debate? And where are the “beautiful losers”?

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”

- Plato

4. Full Moon February 28th, with Sun near Jupiter, makes for many a celebration for getting through January and February. Perhaps February will bring about many a good turn in both the economic, political, artistic, and social realm. Or is it just a joyous party vibe lifting the flying saucer and heart to new heights? The last weekend in February is a good time for socializing but the Moon on Saturday 27th into Sunday 28th is in Virgo, calling for some restraint along with a more dressed up appeal, while the Sun/Jupiter in Pisces calls for something wilder and crazy fun sloppy. Virgo the Virgin meets Tom, Dick, and Harry the tri-polar Hippie?

“Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one’s nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.”

-Oscar Wilde

Sun Sign Revelations

Aries- Is it a case of imaginary friends and fantasy trip outs, or is the future inching its way to you? Much good luck, money, and health come to you by staying home more and catching up to everything. Make a secret garden and plans for summer into 2010 when your dreams start to come true. Make new friends but take care about the old ones still stuck with last lifetime troubles and problems. Secret friends may have their own secret agenda and needs. None-the-less, this month is your month to hug your way to new dreams and splashes of artistic endeavor.

Taurus- Work is either melting you right where you are, dissipating all your energy and positive vibe, or inspiring you to death. Either way, something new is brewing with recently made or new friends loving you in ways you didn’t think possible. Yes, you can have the money instead if you want. Take extra care and caution when long distance traveling or in communications. Be sure others really understand your needs and wants before putting yourself in their hands. Lots of unique special friends indulge your pleasure this month. Stay practical and enjoy.

Gemini- Breakthroughs in career plans or just more changes at work? Luck is with you if you make strong moves for better job or increase wages. Thinking of even a more total change? Do more of everything you love and ask yourself seriously, if you could live anywhere, where would that be? Make the call or visit. Don’t wait for loved ones to give you permission. Each successful step you take will find them close behind. Attachment to the dead parts of yourself or others may be the sticking point. Don’t get cold, get compassion with teeth. Sacrificing your worst habit for the magic of your higher desire may be the extra push you need for lucky breaks. Be breathtaking in your imagination and bravado and in your courage to listen before you leap. Higher learning is in store for you this month. Be a Gemini but have both sides of your split personality be friends with every soul you meet.

Cancer- A little more self assertion works this month when it comes to advancement, beautification projects, or just more money or purchases of needed items for self worth. Quiet and peace around the homestead is different than cold walls. Give your mate more patience than persistence when it comes to necessary responses. Not letting go of old outworn goals may be the sticking point blocking advancement or ascension here.  Or is it that you need to take a new track, new direction, a complete left turn, or even a need to find a completely new playing field to work out in. It’s weird when strangers are more honest than everyone who knows you. Higher learning may be the trick, or is the old trickster picking the classes or lessons to learn? Much luck and success with the novel, the new scene and faces, the magical dream and spontaneous happening. Otherwise more heart stillness listening to the far horizon for clues. Be a cancer but come out of your shell or gilded prison every once in awhile.

Leo- Take care to listen well to others’ deeper heart needs before running them over or throwing them out of the plans. Good time to act, but not act up. Good time to let action speak louder than words, while letting others speak for you (if they can). Others tend to be overly idealistic and impotent to help you much. Avoid promises for the future. Your own willingness to sacrifice inspires others to follow your lead. When negotiations fail or get stuck; exercise, yoga, running, any sport will do, especially if public invited to join. Take care with health (especially lower, lover, third of the body). Eat simpler healthy foods. Avoid extremes. Otherwise, this is a month for you to “go for it” and shine, no matter what happens. Be a lion, roar once a day and sleep in the jungle.

Virgo- If it seems like everybody is having a better and worse time than you are, you may be right. Part of your problem may be that you are secretly angry at both yourself and others. Try laughing for 10 minutes a day about how serious everybody is for not quite knowing what truly to do. Try for one month to not shop. You can make advance food purchases for such, or get someone to shop for you. Inwardly try to be more aggressive about making more sacred beautiful space in your bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen; the living room will then take care of itself. If others keep changing the game plan on you, don’t talk to them for a month. Try driving different new ways to get where you are going. Try going to all new places for your pleasures and needs. Try not pleasing your lover, just be compassionate and kind. Does it sound like you are stuck everywhere but maybe work, and maybe there too? It’s true. Try letting funny, exciting, free forever, creative, joyous, artistic and musically inclined people be stuck with you. Otherwise, be one yourself, want nothing, accept things the way they are, just for now- and turn up the love for everyone and no one. (If this doesn’t make sense, read ‘The Pregnant Virgin’ by Woodman and the ‘King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover’ by Moore, as well as Robert Johnson’s books ‘He’ and ‘She’ and charge everybody body for visiting you.

Libra- Get ready for someone to crash land. It can be you or the other, but get ready. Not good time to babysit adults. Could be good for settling lots of odd old scores with yourself. Gosh, and you didn’t think you were accounting. Good time to plan or take a much deserved break or retreat to rest up, renew, and resound your own heart depth for the mountain you see before you that you are soon to climb. Good time to announce your SEVEN YEAR PLANs and see who wants to abide. Bad time to carry too many others burdens. Bury the past before it buries you. Make peace with a far different future than originally planned. A sudden death or end of some part of yourself opens new doors. Home needs to be renewed. Regenerate space so it’s not a place where you feel stuck. Yes, patience is a virtue but constructive striving and upward mobility is a higher value at the moment. Love life may be getting quite etherial, platonic, nebulous, complicated, and about to break out into a new cycle of idealism, creativity, freedom, and pleasure. Or is it … as simple as making others happy makes you happy? Some are hard to please. Creativity and new work opportunities should offer more than just escape from boring routines and feeling stuck or pinched. Things shift quick in June to free you up to the next level. Practice and preparedness, discipline and depth, need to find a balance with freedom and spontaneousness to be yourself. When you’re good, others are bad; when you are bad, others are good- how does that happen? To break the spell, don’t do anything you’ve done before. Or, forget all this and finally throw yourself totally into getting it, long-term security that doesn’t depend on others. Think for yourself, but never be afraid to meet greater thinking from whatever quarter.

Scorpio- Much play and new opportunities for love and joy make themselves known. More drive or putting yourself out a bit more may get the ball rolling. Secret fears of the past still inhibit the inner self flowering. Patience is a key, but wisdom is a virtue here. Thoughtful drive to further one’s career balanced with making the homestead more aesthetically beautified prepares for better futures to come. Fears of being somehow imprisoned and attachment to security need to be overcome to discover the novelty and joy of being right where you are. Finishing touches to self and home-life open the door to new love or social life, creativity. When feeling cramped and a bit too sheltered, meditate on love and loving kindness. Try going out of your way for new music or art or social play. When too many social lures come to get you, hide and seek shelter in the quietude of your own heart embracing the whole of your life and the holy space in each soul.

Sagittarius- Money blues or are you blowing too much money? Talking and thinking too much will not replace right action and boldness of endeavor. On the other hand, boldly bawdy throwing yourself out upon the world, may be indeed just throwing yourself out. Inwardly you may feel alone. Be alone, but listen deeper to your own heartbeat and what the spaces between beats whisper to you. Try a new art, perhaps watercolor or musical instrument class once a week. Try learning something new that, as a child, you always wanted to do but didn’t up to now. Change or beautiful in a new way, rearrange, your home or bedroom. Try taking on part-time job that you love even if there is no money in it. Play it. Keeping a journal, caring for garden or even house plants, having a job that’s a no brainer or one that enriches your mind, leaving tv and radio off for a month, and keeping your home free of tyrants, goes far in making you happy this month.

Capricorn- Dig deeper into yourself if you want to truly know others. Reject your own negativities before others try to. Remember, long-term goals are called long-term goals because they are long-term. Also remember, God doesn’t answer questions on your dime, only in his time. Take care to not make anyone evil, no-one needs any help on this. Plus it’s not our job to be karma cop. If compassion doesn’t work, try working more on yourself. Money is elusive at this time; you see it everywhere. It’s a question of magic or attractiveness. Dreams make more money than reality, but your common sense and love is making with smarts and creativity, sharing and creating family or community. Sudden breaks push you hard into the future, sudden breakdowns in self or others may strangely enough work the same magic of pushing you forward into the future you’ve worked for for so long. Stay on the right side of the law and the law and karma will be right for you. Lots of thinking, writing, communications, and creative interchanges may keep you from finding yourself or the right other. Take meditation or yoga breaks, walks, deeper contemplative silences for renewal and attunement.

Aquarius- For heaven sake, either you have landed your dream boat by now or you need to ditch all dream boats and plans on waiting to see what happens. What you see is happening and nothing’s changing unless you change everything. At least drop your attachment to outcome and start facing hard cold reality. Only then can you learn to build a fire to warm up this cold world. Do you feel displaced and cheated out of the present because the past and future are like hungry ghosts vamping all your energy?Many new opportunities quickly arise when you let go of the past and the future dreams and fantasies. Only by ridding yourself of such can the present truly arise to meet and greet you. Other Aquarians are fast adjusting to machine and animal people, intellectually overcoming obstacles. Aquarians these daze are really smart or really dumb to what’s going on. Aquarians are really the angels of the zodiac, whether lost or found. Wildness and creativity should be in the workplace and creative arts, not in the bed. If the bed is too dead, you have the wrong job.

Pisces- Either you are, or just have been, on a roller-coaster ride and fast curve ball of learning, change, and growth. Good luck in love and money is your secret name this year. Don’t gamble, look for heathy positive changes in your day-to-day circumstance. New people and opportunities can come into your life now that have taken the last 12 years to come about. Think 12, 9, 6, 3 years ago for shifts moving you to what is about to take place this coming year ahead. All things being equal, take the new way. Don’t let secret bad habits distract you from coming opportunity. Purify, exercise, exorcise, and make pure the ride. Get rid of all old negative dirty habits (this may include one or two people) and make the way of the lord good karma. Try driving new ways to old places. Rearrange your kitchen and bathroom so when you reach out for something, it’s in a new place. Try to imagine a new you. Who would you be?

H.P.Blavatsky’s interpretation of AVATARA (sanskrit) = Divine incarnation. The descent of a god or some exalted Being, who has progressed beyond the necessity of Rebirths, into the body of a simple mortal. Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu. The Dalai Lama is regarded as an avatar of Avalokiteshvara, and the Teschu Lama as one of Ton-kha-pa (alt. spelling, Tsongkhapa), or Amitabha. There are two kinds of avatars: those born from woman, and the parentless, the anupapadaka. Anupapadaka means ‘self-existing’, progenitors. A term applied to certain self-created gods, the Dhyani Buddhas.

Ava-Bodha means mother of knowledge. A title of Aditi. Steiner goes into how Ava in history metamorphs into Ave or Eva, eva sophia or mari, into such as Ave Maria. From knowledge into compassion and loving kindness. One cannot fail to see the esoteric relationship of the ancient celtic goddess of loving kindness (and the city of) TARA, to the female (wisdom) embodiment of Buddha as TARA. To say nothing of its relationship to TARO, all secretly signifying the incarnation of the Logos in matter, mater, or form.

Again from Blavatsky Tara (Sanskrit) = The wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), carried away by King Soma, the Moon, an act which led to the war of the Gods with the Asuras. Tara personifies mystic knowledge as opposed to ritualistic faith. She is the mother (by Soma) of Buddha, ‘Wisdom’.

“There is no imagination of mine about Avatars in this book. No more than an artist could paint the sun at noon could I imagine so great beings. But as a painter may suggest the light on hill or wood, so in this fantasy I tried to imagine the spiritual excitement created by two people who pass dimly through the narrative, spoken of by others but not speaking themselves.”

-AE, from the preface of his 1933 book, ‘The Avatars, a Futuristic Fantasy,’ dedicated to his good friend W.B Yeats.

Robert of Mayflower’s sure fire home cooking for the last of winter storms and crazy psychic weather.

Grains to ground you, conscious cooking, and chanting OM to raise food to a higher vibration.

Magic Brown Rice to heal and strengthen, and build community.

1. Wash 1 cup of organic short grain brown rice and drain.
2. With wooden spoon dry pan sauté and stir so you don’t burn rice. Use stainless steel pan with lid, not aluminum. When it smells yummy or nutty…
3. Add half teaspoon of raw sesame seeds and one pinch of sea salt. Simmer for 2-3 minutes more.
4. Add 2 cups of good water and a piece of wakame or kombu seaweed. Stir clockwise 3 times, followed by a quick but steady reverse stir going counter clockwise. Be sure to see a bit of vortex on both stirs. This helps bring positive energy of both heaven and earth, stars and elemental forces into the rise and water.
5. Bring pot to a boil. Turn down to lowest simmer and cook covered for 40 minutes.
6. At the end of 40 minutes, check to see if the water is all gone and rice slightly sticking to bottom of pan. Cook more if need be. In the old days we would let the rice almost burn but not quite on the bottom. The sickest or weakest ones would eat the more yang rice at the bottom and the stronger more aggressive ones would eat the rice on top which is more yin, to balance!
7. Serve with your favorite sautéed veggies in tamari sauce and basil.
8. Brown rice when cooked well helps the one eating it to create and build healthy, happy, joyful family and social community. Each grain of rice can produce 10,000 grains when sown and grown, so there is lots of good energy and futurity in rice. One feels grounded and rooted, one feels positive about the future, and one feels both individualized and part of a greater community. Each grain of rice, when cooked well, is singular and yet melting in a bit to the other grains. Rightly cooked rice is the same balance of substance and water as the human body. Rice is fairly balanced when cooked right and seasoned with gomasio or tamari, between acid and alkaline, yin and yang, heaven and earth. Peace and love should be thought about all the while cooking to make for ‘conscious cooking’. A term I coined long ago at OM Cafe. The mantra Om can be at low breath, or silently, chanted throughout the cooking of the rice with the clear thinking and feeling of the meaning of OM. O is sacred space and the holy aura of a virtuous life, intention, or God/Goddess. M is the 3 fold manifestation of divinity in universal mind, universal love/compassion, and universal truth. Chanting OM can spiritually and subtly etherically/astrally enhance and raise the vibration and consciousness of the room and the rice, and whoever eats it.

Yummy and hardy vegetable miso soup for health and clear thinking.

1. After heating (medium to medium high, light boil) very light sesame oil, sauté a pinch of ginger, cumin, curry powder, and tekka. Add garlic clove and onion cut up and diced. If pan gets too dry or spices and then veggies not moist enough in oil, add tamari sauce or even a little bit of water.
2. Now add your hardest veggies: burdock, carrots, daikon, broccoli, which take longer to cook than softer veggies such as zucchini squash, a bit of greens such as collards or kale.
3. When a fork easily goes through the hard vegetables, add water to consistency of soup you want, then add a piece of seaweed (Mayflower sells Eden seaweed) and pinch of sea salt, a pinch or three of of basil, savory, a little parsley, and boil lightly for 10 to 20 minutes.
4. Add a teaspoon or tablespoon of Miso (Mayflower sells South River Miso, one of the best) to each individual serving. Don’t boil the miso, you will kill the digestive enzymes.

* Hey! Mention this email and get 10% off Miso and Seaweed.

* Balanced Essentials and Sea Essentials, the complete food and nutrition drink is on sale when you buy 2, $25 each!

* Lots of the best Quartz Crystals from Arkansas and S.America on Sale Now! Great aids in psychic and spiritual development; dream enhancers.

* New Children’s book section, fairy tales, Waldorf education now open!

* Mayflower has the best selection of books on spirituality, metaphysics, self-help, self-healing or integrative medicine, the goddess, Steiner, theosophy, tarot cards, esoterics east and west, in the country! Come see for yourself.

Robert Thibodeau is available for psychic astrological consultations by appointment, call Mayflower Bookshop (248) 547-8227.

Feel free to make donations to the work of Robert’s Mayflower Bookshop,

educating for a spiritual future now.

Heart to Heart Blessings.

Mayflower Bookshop

2645 W. 12 Mile Rd

Berkley, Mi. 48072

Website-

http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop

or

Mayflowerbookshop.com

Robert’s Music and Song is available online at above website, or available for purchase and/or down download for your mp3 or computer at CDBABY.

“The Philosophy of Freedom is not just to free yourself from troubles and others, it’s to free yourself with others in wisdom and compassion; to grow a garden and circle of friends. co-creative to the world without end - this is the knock on the door to nirvana, this the beat of heart and world.”

-Robert of Mayflower

Mayflower News

• Check out Robert Thibodeau music downloads and free listen at CDBABY http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RobertJamesThibodeau

• 20% off all calendars and astro almanacs (ASTROLOGY Calendars too!) till January 15th, 2010.

• Buy 3 CDs and get 20% off till January 20th, 2010.

• All Astrology Books (not including out of print rare ones) 20% off till January 15th, 2010.

• Our website address is http://web.mac.com/mayflowerbookshop

“No blazoned banner we unfold -

One charge alone we give to youth,

Against the sceptred myth to hold,

The golden heresy of truth.” -AE, George Russell, Poet and friend to Yeats

Mayflower Bookshop January Astrology News:

1. Mercury in Capricorn going retrograde until January 15th Solar Eclipse. Cardinal Signs especially may be in denial, or perhaps rethinking, what matters, what is the value of life, and how to back up or proceed. Capricorn Mercury retrograde (especially affecting Capricorn, Cancer, Libra, Aries) often makes for difficulties in communications, paperwork, major decision-making, fixing things, in job, relationships, home matters, personal problems. Some Capricorns and other cardinal signs, along with Taurus and Virgo, may find themselves plowing ahead anyway come bell or high lightening. Cancer signs may feel inner self stuck, or that others keep rethinking what you previously worked out. Aries and Libra sun signs need to keep working with, and not for, others to achieve greater aims in life.

‘Funny how we attribute to others the worst motives, but to ourselves the best. In the end everyone finds the rainbow; the trouble is, there is no beginning nor end, so we had better improve right where we are.’ –trebore tau bodhi

2. Fixed Signs have lots more energy but need to use a gentle approach to all the things that matter. Mars is retrograde all month (until March 10th) in Leo portends of continued tricky proceedings when it comes travel or any strong thrust to push forward. The fire of inspiration may need to check in with the deeper personal feelings about such situation or doings. Tendency to keep oneself in check. Good for yoga or personal training - physical, spiritual, mental. Egos with guns should be checked at the door. Meaning that no forceful tactics will work in the long run. Do you feel like you’re backing up to go forward? Sagittarius and Aries benefit from taking a step back to go three forward. Leo needs three steps back to go three new forwards. Scorpio and Taurus need to have a more two-way street when it comes to work and play.

God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring–it is his will that we should love. -VICTOR HUGO, Toilers of the Sea

3. Earth and Air Signs finding it easier to LOVE!?! Venus and the Sun easy ride together in the sky this month thru Capricorn into Aquarius making for a tendency to look for smooth rides with no wrinkles. What works with this aspect is softness and easy style flow. Capricorn romantics want long-term security, one or two good things or people not thirty bad ones, conservative deeper rootedness and inner security. By the 18th-19th of the month, Sun/Venus going into Aquarius mood will shift for more exotic excitement, levity, and freestyle fun. The whole month is good for making new friends or renewing old gold ones, and appreciating what you have.

4. January 13th to 15th, Mercury retrograde stationary near conjunction to Pluto and square to Saturn portends of unfinished business of Christmas/New Year time. It is a mental purification and catch-up time (bills, karmic and otherwise), before Mercury goes direct on 15th plunging us for the next 14 days into the future. Summer gets wild and zany good with Jupiter/Uranus going into Aries! This will benefit Fire Signs and the world as a whole. More on that later…

“Love - is anterior to Life - Posterior - to Death - Initial of Creation, and The Exponent of Earth.”- Emily Dickinson

5. New Moon in Capricorn at 25 degrees on the 15th of January conjuncts Venus. Good middle and end of month time to connect with those you love, with what you love, and who you are as love. The whole time period of 2004 to 2012 of the Venus Transit of the Sun (every 100+ years) creates a karmic circumstance that favors those who do what they love and love what they do. When one doesn’t act out of their deeper love for themselves and the world, negative results ensue. This month particularly sets up circumstances that will continue to play out into 2012. It’s critical that one acts out of higher love, higher self, compassion and loving kindness. All this is dependent on truthful self inquiry. Who am I? What is the Word? (For further research read anything by Steiner, Osho, Gelek Rimpoche, H.P.Blavatsky, or my own CD ‘Heart Meditation’).

“You have inherited (the) most from yourself, not from your family! The family is only a river through which Soul flows.”- Edgar Cayce

“We meet no Stranger, but Ourself.”- Emily Dickinson

6. Jupiter into Pisces on the 19th!! Rudolf Steiner and Edgar Cayce were Piscean, as were most, if not all, of the early astronauts. Get ready for a renewed interest in everything to do with metaphysics, occultism, spiritualism, psychic healing, gardening (Findhorn/organic/macro/biodynamic style). Strong rekindling of spiritual ideals and ideas. The downside will be more fantasy, mediumistic, hallucinogenic sidetracks, escapism, and getting lost in space. Good aspect for spiritual investigation and dedication to higher ideals and visions, feelings. New music and shift in politics making for kinder more compassionate approach. Jupiter in Pisces will either shift eco politics from Wall Street to Main Street to our own front and back yard for real, or will create another Neptunian (ruler of Pisces, as well as Jupiter) false sense of security illusion/delusion.

“It is not enough to know about reincarnation; we must live it.”- Guenther Wachsmuth

“Evolution isn’t a progression to ever greater and greater differentiation, but … is first an ascent to a higher point, and after having reached this point is then a descent to more and more simple forms.” — Rudolf Steiner

7. Venus oppose Mars on 27th into Sun oppose Mars on 29th can bring dog and cat fights. Often brings head-on protest, contest, opposition, argument, fight and debate triggering into Full Moon on the 30th conjunct Mars and opposing Sun. Avoid travel, machines, arguments, and argumentative people at this time as this is a difficult aspect. And yes, if you know what you are doing, you can drive over or through it all. Know thyself and your astrology chart young grasshopper. Saturn squares Pluto on January 31st making for, what in ‘musical chairs’ is called, and what Jim Morrison called, ‘When the music’s over’. It may be time to sit down, quit, take a break, or be broken. This critical aspect vibes to the 9/11 time when Saturn/Pluto were opposing. Last square of the three was November 14-15, 2009; the next on is August 21st 2010. If you can pull it off, Venus/Mars aspects are great for love-making and creative industry and arts, but can fall into a ‘cain and able’ mystery.

Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of all serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative. -E. Gibbons

8. Saturn squaring Pluto for the second of three times on January 31st, but you can feel it now (November 2009 thru 2010). Endings and new beginnings are tough to pull off. Many feel stuck or unable to lift off the ground or further oneself into future growth. Not only does everything become stale or old or repeat/repeat and/or boring, one feels like they are getting old and boring themselves. Changes that do take place make one feel stuck with things, situations, and people. Burdens once taken on with joy now seem heavy and burdensome to no end. The positive side is doing inner work on oneself, yoga, meditation, a simpler purer diet, perhaps cutting out meat, oil, processed junk food, or such people. Ha! The positive side is deep acceptance and forgiving into the future, compassionate patience, and an enduring trust and work in and on oneself flowering in one’s own time. Allowing oneself the experience of more eternal values is helpful at this time. Reading Emerson’s OverSoul, or Self Reliance, his last lectures just out; all can be helpful. This aspect deeper into the year portends of deep structural changes taking place in the world that are not so easily perceived by the average person. See HPB’s ‘Isis Unveiled,’ or Trungpa’s ‘Spiritual Materialism,’ or Steiner’s ‘Fall of the Spirits of Darkness,’ or even his ‘Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts’ for more insight. Saturn/Pluto aspects are notorious from war drumming, troubles in the Middle East, and extremes in the weather, including quite COLD WEATHER. It’s also noted for feeling screwed in too tightly and under pressure. Days in January where you may feel the cold press or negative squeeze are January 6th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 20th, 29th, 30th, and 31st. These days are of course good for good old hard work, discipline, patience, long-term investment, and yoga of theosophy. Saturn/Pluto aspects tend one toward a conservative traditional authoritarian approach to life and often instill fear rather than love and compassion into the aesthetic. Such an aspect can be good for spiritual discipline, cleaning, catching up with paperwork, cooking, gardening/plants, and massage.

“I am the golden eternity in mortal and animate form….You are the golden eternity because there is no me and no you, only one golden eternity.” -Jack Kerouac

• Good fortunate days tend to be Jan. 5, 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, and if really lucky lickety split, the 27th.
• Difficult days or poorly aspected (bad weather psychic and otherwise) tend to be Jan. 3, 6, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 31.

I was never less alone than when by myself. -E. Gibbons

Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism. -E. Gibbons

Without love, sex doesn’t work good. -Trebore Tau Bodhi of Mayflower

Celebrity News Astrology

• Rush Limbaugh (Born January 12, 1951, a different year than Howard Stern) was recently rushed to hospital with chest pains, and has Uranus transiting conjunct his natal Moon in second house, indicating that there is a good chance of less cigars and over-eating of rich foods in the near future. The pressure is on for change of format, home, or relationship with ever-changing or ‘get-put-through-changes’ ‘Uranus’. With Saturn/Pluto aspects recently to Rush’s chart, someone’s feeling a lack of love and respect. Jupiter trine his natal Venus at the end of January may perk his wit and fire wick up for a wee bit. Long-term aspects of Pluto to his Uranus portend of hard work and difficult pressures in the coming two years.
• Howard Stern (January 12 1954) just went through transiting Neptune opposing natal Pluto last year throwing many a question out as to the future of Sirius Radio and Howard’s job. This aspect could be good for many a future plan but befuddles the present. Can it be another movie? Watch out for Howard’s good aspects come February-March 2010 when Jupiter transit trines his natal Saturn and Mars, making for new contracts or positive re-structuring, possible new team-mates and golden money making opportunities for expression and radio or even TV entertainment.
• Born August 31, 1945, Van Morrison claims someone hacked into his internet website to falsely announce, at 64 years old, a new baby. Van the Man has transiting Neptune/Chiron/Jupiter just off his natal midheaven indicating the false news and illusionary trick; or is there more to the story hidden behind the curtain? Transiting Pluto/Saturn just past poor aspect to his Moon could indicate trouble in the crib (bedroom) but, on the other hand, the soon coming transit of Jupiter trine his natal Moon will reconcile the story, the woman, and in all probability, amaze us with new music making!

“Hell is the suffering of those unable to love.” -Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky’s final novel before death, Father Zosima to monks.

• Karl Rove born December 25th, 1950, just divorced his second wife. Karl, Republican wonder dog and think-tanker, has transiting Pluto exactly conjuncting his natal Sun, and has just gone through his second Saturn Return. This strong aspect may portend of one or two further trials and tribulations of conscience and legal politics and/or health; or he just going on a spiritual retreat to renew and be born again again?

“The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of ‘the rat race’ is not yet final.” —Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt, 1979

• Tiger Woods, remember him? Another Capricorn Sun, has major transit of Neptune/Jupiter squaring his natal Venus. Is he in rehab with Rachel? With Pluto transit coming to conjunct his natal Sun, Tiger will either remake and rebirth himself in the next two years, or seriously be heading for retirement and the back nine holes. Will he make one more comeback next summer?! It is being reported through gossip that Tiger is watching the movie Hunchback of Notre Dame, especially the ‘feast of fools’ and reading more Shakespeare of late…

“I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting. O! had I but followed the arts!”

Twelfth Night, 1. 3

“I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.”

Twelfth Night, 1. 3

“If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”

Twelfth Night, 3. 4

• Kevin Jonas…Will he have a baby coming with his Jupiter square Venus aspect, or is there one more cd from the Jonas brothers before a Beatle-like break up? With Pluto transit coming to conjunct natal Neptune by April, then exact by January 2010 on, Kev boy may want to make hay (love, music, and money) while the sun shines.

“But be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

Twelfth Night, 2. 5

• Watch for Uma Thurman to make a strong wild return this coming year in many a diverse way. Transiting Neptune/Chiron/Jupiter conjunct her natal Moon makes for many a role, many a face, and more than one romance now that she is once again free and has put wings back on her feet.

“We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.” -Gibbons, author of The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire

• Can Conan O’Brien make a comeback from plummeting viewers? Pluto transiting square to his natal Jupiter could soon bankrupt or break his late night show. WATCH FOR May 2010 transiting Jupiter conjunct his natal Venus, and then his 2011 transit of Jupiter conjunct natal Sun to bankroll Conan back into popularity.

“Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously.”

-The Brothers Karamazov

Fetyukovich, the defense lawyer for Dmitri, Book XII - A Judicial Error, Chapter 10 - The Speech for the Defense An Argument that Cuts Both Ways.

• Jen Aniston, a February 11, 1969 Aquarius, continues to be a femme plagued by male fatale with transiting Saturn about to conjunct her natal Jupiter as Pluto slowly, in next couple years, moves up to square her natal Venus indicating brutal feelings of rejection. Will Jen turn it all around and root some poor boy down? Will Jen take on more mature roles, or perhaps even more  ‘bad girl’ persona? With impending aspects, if I was Jen, I’d avoid any serious relationship and avoid psychologists, favoring yoga and meditation, gardening and a more private life for a few years. Pluto can give behind the scenes power and depth, but often outer desires are left wanting.

“Magna est veritas et praevalebit” Truth is mighty and will prevail (latin)

• President Barack Obama has transiting Jupiter coming to trine his natal Moon in February possibly indicating a time where the economy and world peace endeavor takes a positive good turn, as will his ratings.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

—Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1962

“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”

—The Psychology of the Unconscious, 1943

From Charles Dickens—

“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”

“Don’t be cross, uncle,” said the nephew.

“What else can I be,” returned the uncle, “when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

“Uncle!” pleaded the nephew.

“Nephew!” returned the uncle, sternly, “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

“Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone, then,” said Scrooge. “Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!”

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew: “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round — apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

“Let me hear another sound from you,” said Scrooge, “ and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir,” he added, turning to his nephew. “I wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”

“Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.”

Scrooge said that he would see him — yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

“But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why?”

“Why did you get married?” said Scrooge.

“Because I fell in love.”

“Because you fell in love!” growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!”

-A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Chapter 1, Marley’s Ghost