Pleas join us or let any of your friends in the region know that this important dialog will be happening.

April 29 (Monday)

Mankato State University

Room 201 in the Centennial Student Union

Address: 111 Wiecking Ctr Mankato, MN 56001

Time: 5:00 PM

Sponsor: MSU Students for Sustainability

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

April 30 (Tuesday)

Screening location – None currently scheduled

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 01 (Wednesday)

Screening location – Macalester College

Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center (SW Corner of Snelling Avenue and Grand Avenue)

John B. Davis Lecture Hall (Lower Level)

1600 Grand Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105-1899

Time: 7:00 PM

Sponsor: Mac CARES and MPIRG

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 02 (Thursday)

Screening location: None currently scheduled

Current plans to travel towards Ely for Friday screening/interviews

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 03 (Friday)

Screening location – Vermilion College (Ely)

Vermilion Community College (VCC)

Fine Arts Theater
1900 East Camp street
Ely, MN 55731

Time: 7:00 PM

Sponsor: VCC Friends of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) Club

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 04 (Saturday)

Screening location –

Minnehaha Free Space

Sponsored by MARS

3747 Minnehaha Ave

Minneapolis, MN 55406

Time: 7:00 PM

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 05, (Sunday)

Screening location: None currently scheduled

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 06, (Monday)

Screening Location: Carleton College

Address: 1 N College St Northfield, MN 55057

Time: 3:30 PM

Sponsor: Students Organized for the Protection of the Environment (SOPE)

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 07 (Tuesday)

Screening location –

University of Minnesota (West Bank)

Sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Blegen Hall, Room 215

269 19th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Time: 7:00 PM

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

May 08, (Wednesday)

Screening Location: Northland College – Sentry Room

Address: 1411 Ellis Ave Ashland, WI 54806

Sponsor: Sigurd Olson Environmental Environmental Institute (SOEI)

Time: 7:00 PM

Interviews are being scheduled throughout the area

At 4:35 AM Eastern Time on April 10^th, the Moon is New in the 21^stdegree of Aries. This New Moon is the opening passage of a six-month astrological crescendo, during which the outer planets will station retrograde and form a series of stressful aspects.

It’s important to understand that every New Moon is an opening, an opportunity to re-enter the lunar cycle with a fresh outlook. I think of them as a chance to commit to a certain point of view that I think will help during the weeks to come.

This particular Moon highlights the soul’s struggle for expression in a soulless society. A basic truth is that we are individuals and as such, may express ourselves in ways that displease others. And another truth is that we are societally conditioned to please others. So we have these adaptive selves, which veer us away from true self-expression, in order to keep the audience smiling.

This adaptive self operates as an incredibly sensitive antenna, and what it receives is how others are receiving us. You could say that it lives vicariously, through the impressions others have of us. Or even more, it is concerned with the energy field of those around us, in such a way that it is molded by and guided by the organizational structures of our lives. In some way, we can be anything to anyone.

There’s the workplace-adaptive self; there’s the family-of-origin-adaptive self; there’s the relationship-adaptive self, and so on. And each of these adaptive selves is rewarded – there’s an immediate benefit to those sorts of adaptations.

But there’s also this one inside of us who cringes at the adaptations, the one who we would be if we weren’t constantly modifying ourselves to fit in. It’s like this steady sensibility of life that actually speaks truth in all situations, but which, especially when we’re younger, tends to be kept inside.

In a way it’s funny that I am saying that the tendency when we’re young is to be adaptive, because when we picture the youthful what we tend to see is rebellious, impetuous, and so on. But you have to understand that life itself is this trial-and-error process and that, because of our prenatal arrangements, we have to set the stage for our true self-expression to emerge. So if young Jimmy goes hard into the punk rock expression and no one can understand why he’s so pierced up, or becomes an acerbic vegan who can’t eat with the family, or you know, that kind of thing, it’s not like his true self is rearing up at that time. That’s more about creating the karma of future growth opportunity. It’s necessary to create a story of the self which becomes the one from which our true self emerges. So that’s really what we’re doing in our 20’s and 30’s.

Because in reality, the true self is not likely to be really jazzy or fancy or stylized. Which is one reason that the adaptive self seems so much more rewarding for so long. There’s a lot of buzz to wear out. And the truth is that a lot of people never do quite get over the pleasure of living vicariously through the response others have to them.

And I’ll just say that I’m walking a tenuous path, trying to write this one. Because it’s not for me, or anyone, to say how this looks or feels to you. Or when in your life it will come to pass that you no longer modify yourself to fit in to situations in ways that you really don’t care for. Or even how far it’s possible to go with letting your true sense of who you are guide you in your relationships to others.

I truly believe that there are millions of young people alive now who, because of conscious parenting, have never had to be adaptive in the sense that I’m talking about. But they’re still youthful, and so have to go through all the hairstyles and so on while they settle into being the one they really are. They’re just going to have an easier time of it than those of us who have swallowed a lot to make others happy.

And really the thing is that when you are comfortable with yourself you allow others to be comfortable with themselves. The Earth is covered with human beings wanting to squeeze through any crack in the veneer of commercial society that they can find.

Maybe you’ve had the experience, in a relationship, where one of you finally fesses up to some hidden thing – and suddenly there’s this rush of sharing that happens. And suddenly you’ve got this incredible friend in the world, who knows who you really are.

Well, guess what? You can do that – and I believe that millions of people are doing it – anywhere and anytime. All it takes is a desire to sense when you are more concerned with how you are being received than how truthful you are being.

So this Moon is a chance to set, as a goal, true self-expression. It’s a chance to say out loud that life is not actually a costume party. It’s an opportunity to say to yourself that until the next New Moon (on May 9^th), that you will give yourself the benefit of the doubt, rather than appeasing someone else’s expectations of you.

It may not necessarily be fun – and that’s the part of this that is so hard to explain. You really have to get clear about what’s yours and what’s not. You have to be willing to see who you are now, to recognize yourself as a product of your history, and to step forward from there, on your own. And that’s what New Moons are for.

It’s not about how carefully you shave, or how much energy you put into your costume, or if you have the right useless objects in your home.

At a certain point, your survival instincts are replaced by a desire for freedom. It’s not always possible to distinguish truth from rebellion-for-appearances, but this is the month to work on that.

If you think about it, there has always been this one person who is looking out of your eyes. From your eyeballs back, who are you?

The gods/guides/archetypal emanations we call planets are trying to find you.

May the Moon set you free!

With Love,

Jon

It has been the case that artists presage scientific discovery. Joyce entered his characters’ minds before Freud got there. The cutting edge of artistic expression leads science. This is because artists are responding to the energy of the society they live in, and are inspired by bits of contact with something beyond that they express without a need for quantification. The ability to channel the collective feeling into something that millions can identify with is what makes an artist become famous.

When we see dead artists become famous, it is because their expression had more Uranus then Neptune – they were pulled forward, to express something out in front of their moment. They were tuned into something that people wouldn’t understand or embrace for years to come.

The ones who “made it” during their lifetimes, on the other hand, found a way to express something that everyone could feel at that time. This has to do with being open to Neptune’s flow, without experiencing pressure to “explain” what is felt. Direct expression without explanation, you might say. Picasso’s Guernica is an example. And yet so many innocents have died since.

We tend to want to intellectualize our immersion in the collective – we want to make sense of the overarching mood or feeling. Especially when it becomes super-intense. Uranus helps us do that, it helps us find a way to express feelings that we can’t really understand.

And I don’t mean to overly intellectualize this – I’m not an art historian or literary critic. But, I think these opening paragraphs do help me weave my way into a sense of this year, this time in the evolution of human consciousness.
What does it say, then, that Munch’s The Scream was recently purchased for $120 million dollars? Or, consider the scene in the movie Jack Reacher, where Jack looks at the despondent office workers in the building across the way. I think both of these artistic successes – one from a dead artist and one from a live one – have something to say about the experience of these times.

In both cases, what is being pointed out is the feeling of depersonalization disorder. In The Scream, we see an expression of the feeling. In Jack Reacher, we see a response to the feeling.

And that feeling is being experienced and responded to in about 7 billion ways right now.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Depersonalization disorder: Common descriptions of symptoms are: feeling disconnected from one’s physicality; feeling as though one is not completely occupying the body; not feeling in control of one’s speech or physical movements; feeling detached from one’s own thoughts or emotions; a sense of automation, going through the motions of life but not experiencing it or participating in it; loss of conviction with one’s identity; feeling a disconnection from one’s body; inability to accept one’s reflection as one’s own; difficulty relating oneself to reality and the environment; feeling as though one is in a dream; and out-of-body experiences. Depersonalization is described as suffering from episodes of surreal experiences. Some of these experiences have been also reminiscent of panic attacks and paroxysmal anxiety. While many people experience brief moments of depersonalization, in others it may last much longer and can become a persistent problem.

Diagnostic criteria for Depersonalization disorder include, among others, persistent or recurrent experiences of feeling detached from one’s mental processes or body. A diagnosis is made when the dissociation is persistent and interferes with the social and occupational functions necessary for everyday living.

Depersonalization disorder is thought to be largely caused by severe traumatic lifetime events including childhood abuse, accidents, war, torture, panic attacks and bad drug experiences.

So first, let me say it is my belief that all of us are energetically aware of the tremendous level of violence committed every day on this planet. No matter how patriotic you profess to be, when innocent people suffer or are killed, it affects you.

And what if I say this: “in a world full of physical, emotional and energetic violence, the social and occupational functions necessary for everyday life require an energetically violent suppression of personal humanity?”

In other words, at an energetic level, there is a part of us that wants to scream. Whether you admit it or not, industrial pollution is energetically violating you. Taxpayer funded murder is violating you. Zero Dark Thirty is violating you.
And what is an appropriate response? Social and occupational functionality? Or Jack Reacher?

Depersonalization disorder is not caused by trauma, it is caused by the de-humanized way in which we are expected to respond. Just who benefits from your “social and occupational” functionality? Who defines that?

Okay, so I’m an astrologer. I obviously believe that the moving relationship of the planets has something to say about the experience of life. And I see the astrology of this year as having much to say about the experience of depersonalization and the response to it.

Is it worth noting that Adam Lanza had a natal Capricorn Moon/Aries Mercury square, making him extremely vulnerable to feelings of depersonalization? At the time of the Newtown shootings, Pluto was transiting his Moon and Uranus was transiting his Mercury. I could write a thousand pages on that pressure – and more on the benefit of having a cosmic/spiritual awareness of that pressure.

Of course other people have that same natal square, and not everyone with it is going to pop like he did. All I’ll say on that is that souls of many stripes choose the same birth charts so that they can experience certain kinds of pressures. Some have enough wisdom to grow through those pressures, and some don’t.

But wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if we as a society valued the spiritual/cosmic awareness of that kind of thing, instead of “social and occupational” functionality?

And the thing is, we’re getting there. But ask yourself this question: “What will it take, what kind of events and experiences will it take, to shift our culture away from a depersonalizing response to the continual exposure to physical, emotional and energetic violence that we’re all going through now?” How many Hurricane Sandies? How many Adam Lanzas? How many graphic depictions of torture?

When you look at the popular heroes in any society, you get a sense of what that society values. When you look at who we Americans call heroes at this time, almost every one of them is a killer. What does that say?

I am a father, and I have to believe that all this is taking us somewhere really good. But I also know that the balance is extremely delicate, that we’re on a bitterly sharp knife-edge – between a continued descent into inhumanity and a re-embracing of the beauty of life on this planet.

There is something about Uranus in Aries, where it is through 2018, that intensifies the experience of depersonalization. The last time it was in Aries was from 1927 – 1934. The rise of Hitler and Stalin, of nationalistic propaganda that justified dehumanizing entire races, setting the stage for the deaths of 10s of millions of people. Can we see that sort of propaganda in our government today? Can we see how making heroes of killers creates killers?

There is something about Pluto in Capricorn, where it is through 2023, that inspires great acts of resistance. The last time it was in Capricorn, from 1762 – 1778, the Declaration of Independence was written. Can we feel that kind of movement growing again today?

It’s interesting to note that at the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, these two planets were in the same signs they’re in today.

At the same time, I’m hopeful that, as a species, we’ve evolved enough to find ways to accomplish similarly progressive change without relying on violence – that those who are metaphorically the monarchists are willing to allow us our freedom, and that we who are metaphysically founding whatever comes next are going to accomplish it through our consciousness of energy.

The astrology of 2013 says to me that we have this choice: we can continue to idolize killers and torturers, or we can make heroes of healers. I think that there are several things I can predict about this year: the experience of depersonalization and the pressure to do something about it will continue; humans will commit historically heinous acts on each other; and our species will continue to be distinguished by our capacity for harming each other. There are any number of tensional aspects I could point to as evidence for these predictions, but I think I’ll single out Saturn in Scorpio quincunxing Uranus in Aries, from April through October, as being most likely to inspire particularly wicked violence.

But honestly, I’m more inclined to think about the effect than the cause – so what will this violence do? I believe it is part of the story of how we find unity. The energy of compassion will be recognized as something to offer not only as condolence, but as a force for the good in its own right.

In other words, I think we’re learning to recognize that our emanation affects our future. So let it be that heroes come forth who emanate love instead of fists or bullets.

There are those who will read this and say that there are bad guys, who have to be taken out. And I say to you that what you see is what you get. It is one thing to talk about the power of manifestation and another to take full responsibility for it. I mean, it becomes an awesome power when you truly accept it. And whether you accept it or not, each of us is living it. Science is starting to say this now.

What if Jack Reacher were a healer? What if the American hero was someone who responded to our depersonalized culture by going around energetically healing people instead of killing them? Imagine if Jack Reacher had learned Jedi mind tricks to heal bad guys instead of violently immobilize them. Would you buy those books?

In the sense that we HAVE evolved since the American Revolution, it is time to turn our attention to examples of people living in the world we want to live in. Everything you pay attention to becomes real. In Avatar, when the Na’vi prayed the Tree of Souls back to life, did you like that?

I loved it. I just couldn’t understand why there had to be so much violence. I mean, I do understand it – the way our collective mind works right now, there’s no such thing as a blockbuster movie that isn’t violent. But can we change that?
I like it that Jack Reacher has found a way to live outside of the matrix. I like that he rights wrongs. I just wish he did it with Love.

And I say to you, it’s up to you to choose depictions of love instead of violence. What goes into your mind stays there – there’s no drain. What would happen if this revolution started with a boycott of images of violence? What if we said “no more heroes who kill?” What you see is what you get.

When our heroes become healers, then we’ll be on our way.

My offering to this change, besides my readings and these ongoing writings, is the Moon Temple Oracle. The experience of emotions can be so overwhelming. Oftentimes, people resort to ways to get out of the experience in ways that separate them from themselves and others. MTO is meant to connect you to your physical and emotional reality through gratitude for all that you experience. I believe it is helping people become active participants in their growth-journeys, and can awaken soul-memories that are creating a cultural renaissance of re-connection to the Tree of Souls.

I thank you for the time you took to read this and I hope no one who does so takes my words to mean I don’t recognize how much good is happening in this world. In the craziest, most socially and occupationally dysfunctional – and yet joyous – way, I believe we are coming out of the darkness of – what should I list? – of taxpayer-funded torture and automated death. But it’s going to take every one of us who can think of themselves as a creator to get it done.

May you smile at all the souls you meet today!

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

I conceive of myself as being part of the community of living beings on this planet. I am not a separate or distinct entity. My experience of life is a contribution to the expression of life on Earth.

Standing on my porch this morning, I hear the sounds of the birds, the wind in the trees, the creek out back and I know that in some way the thoughts flowing through my mind are a reflection of what all life forms are experiencing.

What I want to do is to contribute to the well-being of all those life forms. It seems to me that if I find a certain openness in my heart/mind/physical body, that what flows through me can improve the lot of life on Earth.

I do not conceive that this openness is some kind of continual expression of love, or that it requires a sacrificial path of asceticism, or that I have all the responsibility for it, or that I can do it “wrong.” I do think that if I allow my ardor, my passion, my anguish, my instincts, my follies to flow through me that I can be witnessed by God and by all life forms as a living being. And all these beings – whether spiritual or physical – accept me as I am. It is the experience of being recognized that we are all wanting.

I am getting better at recognizing when I separate myself from all-that-is, quicker at sensing when my actions are motivated by one of the 7 deadly sins or one of the 8 pashas (ropes of ignorance). Deception is feeling alone in my experience. Deception being the opposite of Conception.

Shiva dreams and dances and all matter changes. The point between coming into being and dissolving out of being is the one thing, though every form experiences it in its own way.

In my experience, there are many paths leading out of deception. I find myself drawn to some very ancient teachings which help me witness the experience of life as well as to live it. Among these, astrology has had an astonishing way of revealing the energy of (or you could say “the flavor of”) the experience of life. It has given me many gifts, among which perhaps the greatest is this sense that all of us living beings here on Earth are somehow witnessed by even more than just each other.

Attunement to the Moon’s cycle is without a doubt the most tangible way I know of to participate in the shared Earth experience. The journey each month from New Moon to New Moon is metaphorically a complete life-cycle, from birth to death and re-birth. Whenever I need to, I can check in to the Moon’s phase and get a sense of place-in-time which un-deceives me – through which I can re-conceive my experience of life and re-connect to the sense of what all life-forms are sharing at a given moment.

I feel that consciously working with the Moon’s cycle gives me the best chance I know of to experience wholeness. I somehow know that all life forms other than humanity have maintained an awareness of the Moon’s cycle. It is my sense that whatever it is that is known as “The Patriarchy” has striven to eliminate the human connection to the Moon, most critically among people of European descent. But it has not been long – maybe only a hundred years – since even the white-skinned two-legged ones among us were still connected to the Moon’s ebbing and flowing. Farmers and Mariners still are – it is only those of us who have been industrialized that have lost our feel for it. But we remember it, and ache for it.

I am saying all of this as some kind of counterpoint to the classical rendition of the sign of Aries, where the Sun is now. It is sort of like the “why” of what is considered Self is to learn through karmic contrast just what Other means.

When the Moon is Full is when we are most stretched between our “drive” (Sun) and “need” (Moon). It is the threshold between the waxing (experience) and the waning (perception) during each cycle.

When the Sun is in Aries it is Full in Libra. The drive towards self is stretched by the need for relationship.

That statement is simplistic at best and yet simple is good. I try to keep my interpretations fresh and try not to rely on keywords but as they say at The Onion, “stereotyping saves time.” So I will say the Aries Sun/Libra Full Moon is the time of year when our desire for autonomy is most challenged by our need for recognition.

And perhaps it is possible to sense that contrast, and in sensing it learn to give something meaningful to the experience that all life forms are having at this time.

It being a Full Moon, I suggest you gather within your circle to share what you’ve been doing since the New Moon.

From John Sandbach’s Chandra series of zodiac degree symbols, I give you Libra 7, where the Moon is Full on March 27th at 5:27 AM EDT. The symbol is: A group of old ladies gossiping excitedly.

Whether you are a gossiper or are being gossiped about, whether you feel seen or hidden, may you look around you and see all the different life-forms expressing this energy. In a noisy flock of birds, in an orchard of blossoming trees, in the burble of a rushing stream.

Perhaps you feel hidden within your species, yet you can give the gift of recognition to any life-form you choose. And in so doing, you open a connection to the field, within which you are a conglomeration of matter created by the death of stars.

And so I say to you,

Thank you for choosing to be born.

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

Last summer solstice, as I stood in front of the gathering to speak, I had a strong memory (or “knowing”) that I had been in that place, as the speaker for that moment, many times – on the Isle of Britain, the Great Plains…. That throughout history, I have been working to save the indigenous, “Pagan” ways of worshiping creation.

In writing this I pray that I honor that knowing, that I make known my love for that which has created this Earth in which we dwell.

So it is that I say that each New Moon sets the tone for all that happens during its waxing and waning.

In the old ways, in each New Moon we would seek to discern the nature of the cycle that is about to be born. And to influence that cycle with our prayers – the New Moon before an event is really the time to do that, you know. Whenever some important event is coming your way, it is on the New Moon before that event that you want to set your intentions, say your prayers, ask for assistance.

This New Moon gives birth to the Spring of 2013 (on March 20th at 7:02 AM EDT). What can we discern about the coming Spring from this Moon? And what do we wish to pray into this Spring?

Looking at the chart of this New Moon, it is striking how much energy is concentrated in the sign of Pisces. Neptune, Mercury, Chiron, Venus, the Sun, the Moon, and Mars, all in Pisces.

It’s obviously some sort of cosmic statement on how important it is to embrace the Piscean, to come to the essence of this sign. What is the essence of Pisces? It is to be flooded by sensation. So, let us pray that we serve the design of this moment by becoming: connected to each other through our sensations (Neptune); interested in our sensations (Mercury); in compassionate awareness of our woundings and our subsequent healing capacities (Chiron); in Love with the depth of our feelings (Venus); growing towards our capacity to heal others (Sun); unflinchingly IN our depth (the Moon); and learning the Warrior Way of being true to our feelings (Mars).

That’s what a stereotypical “astrological” interpretation for a New Moon with 7 planets in Pisces might look like. But that doesn’t begin to touch what I “know” to be true of this Moon. So let us go another way here. Drop in with me.

Our souls are in our bodies to experience the sensations of Life. The whole purpose of the body – which includes the heart and mind – is to sense what it means to be born and to live and to die. This is the real secret. And I say it well knowing the tendency each of us has to wish for the complexities of our divine nature or… yada yada. I mean, just ask yourself this: “What do I need a body for?” and then this: “If I didn’t need a body, why am I in one?” Because unless your soul is on a completely random journey, then it is in your body for a reason, and the only reason to be in a body is to experience what it gives you, and really all it gives you is the sensation of life.

If you are resistant to that statement, I’m sure you can find a complaint form to fill out somewhere. You know, “check this box if you think you came into your body so you could try to figure out how to get out of it,” or “check this box if your Divine Essence is not actually interested in the body experience,” or “check this box if you believe your soul is here to experience emotional monotony,” etc.

I’m not really sure who is the best one to give that form to. I know there are a lot of websites where you can post about your divinity and ascension and all that. Try www.nostalgicfor2012.com

On the other hand, if you are like me and you embrace and rejoice in all the sensations of life that your body is allowing you to experience, then what an incredible Moon this is!

In my knowingness, I feel this Moon is asking me to make a ceremonial commitment to dwell unflinchingly in celebration and gratitude for all the sensations of my life throughout the cycles that follow. In many cultures, the Spring Equinox is the New Year, you know, so in many ways this is the Moon on which to pray for your year to come. The roots of the Easter rites are very deep.

And what a year it is going to be! It is without hesitation that I tell you that we are entering into about 7 months of historically intense energy. The amplitude of the energy swings is going to be excruciating. And about the only thing any of us will really have to hold on to is the awareness that we chose to be here for it. That we dwell in the sacred Earth because we have the chance to, that we are incredibly lucky to be here. This is the only place in the Universe where the great stories are born. Do you realize that? Romeo and Juliet are children of the Earth, and Antigone, and Harry Potter.

And we have such a tendency to create great stories here. Survival level crises that lead to great transformation. Perhaps, this time, we can learn another way. That is MY great hope – that we will not have to look into the abyss, that we have enough experience and wisdom to change course without going through a population bottleneck.

And so I say to you, on this New Moon, do you want to wait until the tree is dead to pray for it? Just because that’s the way we’ve always done it? In the deepest sense of Pisces, here is the opportunity to keep it alive.

The koan for this Moon is, “Do you remember how to pray?”

May the Moon show us the way.

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

This Full Moon is one of the pivotal points in the astrology of this year. What we are needing to do, what is being asked, the theme of our times you might say… is that we cease to sense ourselves as separate from each other or the Earth. We need to learn what it means for us as individuals to be human and we need to learn to see that same basic humanity in all the people of the world. Because what we will see then is that every one of us came here to experience and express “exile from the divine.” Only then will we embrace ourselves and each other with a recognition that the Earth herself is the expression of the Divine we have been seeking all along.

Many people are walking around claiming to know the Divine. I hear it all the time. And it’s always about these guides or entities or something outside of the person talking. And I just say, “Cool” you know? And look for Vesta on the midheaven or something like that.

No one wants to admit, especially at this stage of the game, that they’re anything but right there next to it. And yet, historically, we point to how many enlightened ones? 3 or 5 or something? Out of maybe 20 billion of us who have taken the trip? So, maybe take a look in the mirror now and then, you know?

On the Black Keys’ first album, there’s a line in one of their songs: “you don’t know what the Sun’s all about till the lights go out.” As Abraham says, we learn from contrast. We all, at the soul level, desire contrast – otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Here, and nowhere else, and at no other time, than Earth at the end of the Age of Pisces.

Here on Earth at the end of the age of Pisces, when you look in the mirror, what do YOU see? Last week, Saturn went retrograde and in that week North Korea blew up an atomic bomb, an asteroid blew up over Russia, and as usual, a bunch of innocent people all over the world got murdered. The Pope actually resigned! These are our mirrors at this time.

At the moment of this Full Moon, 3:26 PM Eastern on February 25^th, there are five planets in Pisces. Six hours later, Venus enters the sign, too. This intense concentration of Piscean energy lasts until March 12^th, when Mars enters Aries. In fact, for about 48 hours between March 10^th and March 12^th (during the next New Moon, actually), the Moon comes into Pisces making 7 planets, including all the personal planets, in Pisces. So, you know, let’s talk about Pisces for a minute.

Here are a couple of stories that I think really show what it means to “do” Pisces. One is the way Harry Potter learns to overcome the Dementors. The Dementors are a great representation of what really intense Exile from the Divine feels like – they suck your soul out of you until you become hollow, living in submission, a walking shell. Kind of like the way a lot of humans experience life a lot of the time these days. The defense against Dementors is the Patronus charm, which is “an incarnation of the caster’s innermost positive feelings.” It might be adolescent fiction, but the metaphor of how to survive in a life-sucking society is pretty strong. If you haven’t read “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” maybe now would be a good time.

Another story that I think describes the transformation Pisces is asking of us comes from a YouTube video taken inside a 7-11 during the 2011 Joplin tornado. When it starts out you hear some (what I would call) typically male, asteroidal control expressions as people try to stay above the sense of impending doom (or “Exile from the Divine”). And then it just gets really crazy until at a certain point, you hear a man start shouting “I love you, I love all of you….” Like you know, he figured it was over and what was the best thing he could do while he still had breath? And he figured it out; he solved the problem of “exile from the Divine,” which is to express the Love within you simply because you have it, for everyone, for life itself.

Imagine what kind of emotions those people felt when they walked out of that 7-11 (which metaphorically can represent a certain Dementor-like soullessness) and found that the air was sweet, that the grass was green, that kind of thing. Imagine the closeness between those “survivors.”

Full Moon times are all about the mirror, and whether or not you’re willing to look into it, and whether or not you’re willing to be honest about what you see. I think for most of us, most of the time, what we see is an expression of karma, of images of what is desirable we received as children. We see what we want to see, or it’s opposite.

For the non-astrologers reading this, Full Moons happen when the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth, i.e. in opposite signs. So when the Sun is in Pisces, the Full Moon is in Virgo.

So, if Pisces is trying to teach us to connect to each other in our “fallen” states, it is mirrored by Virgo – who wants to teach us to love ourselves in our fallen condition. In both cases, the lesson comes through contrast. Pisces’ job is to create a level of collective experience through which only compassion can survive. Virgo’s job is to teach recognition and acceptance of the fall from grace at the personal level – self-compassion – as a pre-rec for collective compassion.

Hence the Full Moon of February, 2013. On the Pisces side of the mirror, and consistent with all the major astrological action this year, we’re being subjected to Dementors. On the Virgo side of the mirror, we’re finding out what it means to us personally that we are still here in this messy place. I mean, you can try as hard as you want to pretend that all your contrast is white, that the shadow you cast smells like roses, and that all your efforts are rewarded.

But you’d just be pulling more karma out of the reel.

There’s not going to be much slack for a while here. Maybe in the summer of 2015, things will sort of slow down and lighten up but maybe not. It’s nothing personal against you, but it is asking you to quit trying to be so perfect and above it all.

You see, until we’re ALL grateful for them, we still need Dementors.

On this monumental Full Moon, may you find yourself in a crowd of beautifully imperfect people, all embracing their Exile. Contrast my loves. It’s all about loving the contrasts.

EXPECTO PATRONUM!

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

On January 11th, 2013, at 2:44 PM US Eastern Time, the Moon is New in the 22nd degree of the sign of Capricorn. This is the first New Moon since the Solstice, and at that time, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Pluto, Juno and Venus are all in Capricorn – quite the interesting energy package, especially when looked at in the post 12.21.12 context.

There was a way we were going to be, after the big event – each of us had a vision of what it would be like and I’m sure you put a lot of intentional force into that moment. And it has turned out that the holidays happened just about the way they used to, that the New Year came and that a lot of what you thought would or could change pretty much stayed the same.

To me, that is excellent! Because the way I see it, what we’re doing is finding ourselves here in the Earth plane, and in the Earth plane, things like a species-wide evolution of consciousness don’t usually happen all-at-once.

In my life, there is an interactive relationship that I have with something I call the Creator – could be Shiva, could be Wakantanka, could be God, could be the Field (I’m not caught up in figuring out the “right” way to know it) – and in that relationship is a sense that what I want, I get to work for. I can ask for whatever I want, but I have to offer my willingness to work for it.

So for instance, personally, I am wanting to achieve an emanation of a frequency of abundance that not only takes care of my simple needs, but also draws to me enough that I can share it with all these people that I want to provide for. I have asked for it, and I am getting it. But along the way, I have to keep working on perfecting the art of staying in that frequency. And I learn to do that by experiencing the contrast between the frequency of “I have more than enough” that I want to emanate and the frequency of “I don’t need, I don’t want” that I used to emanate. My part in the relationship is to be grateful for the opportunity to work with my learning process, recognizing that that is what I came here to do. In other words, I am grateful for the ways in which I fall short.

At the collective level, each of us is contributing to a collective frequency – this is what the 100th monkey effect is all about. And it’s happening in the Earth plane, in the density of time and karma that creates such a delicious environment for us to learn about the nature of the Life Force in.

So I see it as very interesting that, coming out of the biggest magic moment of our lives, we are working with so much Capricorn energy. The Solstice was like an orgy of expectation for so many people – we were going to be handed the life-experience we wanted. And then some weeks go by, and the bills keep coming, the wars keep happening, the people who have to leave keep leaving.

A lot of people I know seem to need to be letting go of the idea that they CAN live the life they thought the Solstice would hand them. They’ve gone back to the surface-level, escape-based way of living that protects them from the contrasts they thought they’d never have to face again. And this goes right to the heart of the basic Capricorn dilemma. Which is, in Ellias Lonsdale’s words, to be “…tyrannized by the image of needing to arrive at the finish line, or else be considered a failure.”

The collective is bathing in the energy of “finish line or failure” right now.

As I write this, I am praying that each one who has a vision of a more beautiful world let go of the experience of thinking that there is a finish line. We are human beings, and we have this amazing opportunity to inhabit mortal, fallible lifetimes. We do this because we LOVE the experience of subtle awakenings, of recognizing the presence of the divine in the air we breathe, of the peace that follows heartbreak – to sense the Field within us. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want to, and we can each develop our own fortitude for this work. The contrast between expectation and outcome helps you fine-tune your emanation.

The ebb and flow of the Life Force energy, as expressed by the Moon’s journey around the Earth, is asking for your participation. That the Moon renews herself every month is an example for each of us to follow. That she waxes and wanes, pulling the tides and our hearts, is a gift. It’s one of the ways that we know we are accepted and supported in our own karmic outworkings.

There is an interactive relationship with the Field that we’re here to learn. It IS what this shift is about – it’s our relationship with energy. We ebb and flow, and the Moon teaches us how.

So I ask you to consider this symbol for the degree in which this New Moon occurs. It is “The giving up of a famous magical sword,” from John Sandbach’s Pleiadian series.

Most of us have a series of unconscious maneuvers we sink into when we find ourselves in an energetic bind. Busy-ness, drinking, shopping, trying to find someone else who has the answer, etc. Each of us has ways to escape from the density of how we feel. These are the sword we’re wanting to let go – because eventually, again, we’ll become aware of the patterns. Finding ourselves in old territory can seem like failure.

Empirically, through historical evidence, we know what we know. Intuitively, we know there is something far greater that is possible now. This New Moon is an opportunity to drop our guard so that we can be open to what can be. It is an opportunity to move beyond the accumulated historical perspective of having fallen short. What is life like when you put down your sword, your method, your mind? All that you’ve accumulated in your history?

Thank God for New Moons! How many more do you get to enjoy? May you make the most of each one that comes. And may you use this one to let go of any ways you have ever thought you’ve failed.

May this Moon give you peace with who you are and where you are. May you recover your joy to, as Abraham says, “…remain blissfully incomplete!” How can you fail at that?

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

The gift of hearing the song of life, of contemplating it and learning from it, is uniquely human. We can hear the song of the Raven, the song of the Cottonwood, the song of the Moon. Our bodies (of which our minds
are a part) are designed to receive the feelings of all these songs. As we do, we can harmonize with any other living being. That is our purpose.

It is up to us to hear each song, to know each person as learning to sing. No one sings their song perfectly. Yet we have the capacity to give each other the gift of our heart, to choose to accept each imperfect song. And as we do, we create harmony. That is our purpose.

Our songs are not always easy to hear, and for some of us there are these crescendos of chaos that turn
others away. Can you hear your own chaos and discord? Can you think of times that your song was all brass
and drums without harmony?

When you are willing to think of yourself as a song-sung-imperfectly, then you are able to start hearing others.

The function of community is to pay attention to those who are trying the hardest to be heard. May this year
be the year that you choose to listen to those who are crying the loudest.

The Theme of the Song of 2012 was to crack open our hearts, to let our songs come through. The Theme of
the Song of 2013 is to learn to love something in every song. The act of living is worth seeing – may this year be the year you choose to see each person who is alive as learning their song.

The more willing you are to see this learning process, the more you can help it along. It is no longer necessary to fight against those we disagree with – we simply choose to love them for trying in their own imperfect way,and immediately through that choice, we have increased the harmony in the song of life.

A lot of the Song of 2012 had to do with building a mountain of chords which peaked on 12.21.12. For most of
the year, many people gave all their creative power to a date.

That date has come and gone, and there will never be another like it in your lifetime. It had glamour, it was fabulous. And yet it was an aria in the middle of the opera.

The music now is more gentle – we are in a minor key now. If this were a Truman Capote play, we’d be laying back having a smoke, a little sweaty. But it’s not – the 20th century, thank God, is over.

In the 21st century, we are picking up the grand themes again. Pluto is in Capricorn again. The last time Pluto was in Capricorn, Beethoven was born. From here, we are building not towards something trite or contrived.

We are building again towards expressing the true grandeur of creation. And it takes mastery to let such a
theme develop. May this year be the year that you choose to play your part in the quietude that precedes the
true climax. If you have cracked open and have become aware of how bare all these other hearts are, perhaps
you can spend your energy in service of harmony.

For those who can do this, I am grateful. For those who can sense this work being done, I am grateful. You
were born to help the song of our lives become more beautiful again.

Let this year be the year of the gentle song.

Amen.

Jon

To get details on the astrology of 2013, or to sign up for a reading to help you understand your own song,
please visit my website, www.senseofvisionastrology.com.

Without laboring too much on the causes, I want to look at the effect of this “shift” we have been experiencing. In the simplest terms I have come up with, what is happening is that the boundaries separating our hearts are dissolving. Each of us has different experiences of this – for some people it is terrifying and their reaction is to fight back against it. For some of us, as we learn to express ourselves, it isolates us from our family of origin because they don’t understand. It is changing our lives and the world around us, for sure.

We’re at this point between epochs, between ages. We’re undergoing a huge evolutionary leap. And change never seems to happen from a place of comfort. Hence, for most of us, these have been very tensional times. We can’t take any baggage to where we’re going.

It is the case that our karmic patterns, those looping lessons, each have their own life-force energy. And like all living beings, they have a survival instinct. Coyote-style, they know when we become aware of them. And they know when we’re vulnerable, paying attention to too many other things, so they can loop back around and bite us.

Welcome to the holidays! And welcome to the Full Moon of December, 2012.

Pretend for a moment that I’m the great Phillip Marlowe, delivering one of his breathtakingly dry understatements. After I’ve watched you take your fifth shot with all the old pals, or run your credit card dry at the mall, or hide in the bathroom while the rest of the family talks about how worried about you they are, I’d offer you a smoke and say, “… the holidays bring up a lot of old stuff, don’t they.”

And it’s funny because here we are at the end of 2012, post-ascension. We’re all 5d and stuff. But a lot of those patterns survived. The pressure to buy a flurry of gifts that you haven’t really thought about and can’t really afford; the black loneliness of actually not being able to afford ANY gifts, or of not having any family; the “Christmas spirit” of overeating and over drinking, etc. et. al… they all seem to have survived the end of the Mayan calendar too.

And it’s good to admit it. Another, even wilier pattern would be to pretend that the holidays don’t open any doorways for your past to come through. Whatever your vision of the “perfect holiday” is, I’d be willing to bet pretty high on any one of three things – you either ran yourself ragged trying to make sure it happened, or, you have feelings of inadequacy around having not quite achieved it, or, your pretense of attaining the vision is so stretched out and brittle that other people are tiptoeing around you, wondering when you’ll crash.

Please understand, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to have a really beautiful holiday experience – especially now. And I really hope you have. But there are a lot of astrological factors that tell me It’s likely that “… a lot of old stuff” has come up. The ongoing Pluto/Uranus square has a lot to do with it, trying to push us through the bottom of whatever molds we’re encased in. Jupiter, Ceres and Vesta are all retrograde in Gemini, causing a chaotic blend of desires to escape the pressure and continue to fit into those old molds. Saturn and Pluto, Karma and Fate, are squeezing us all towards the random escape routes that retrograde Jupiter can find. Let them. They’re asking you to stop pretending to be perfect.

In my way of looking at things, the greatest gift anyone can give is to reveal their heart, to crack open wide and be brave enough to say “here I am. I am me, and glad to be me. I am ready to see you.” This is the gift of compassion and forgiveness that transcends all blood line and societal karmas. And I think that that’s what all the astrological pressures I listed above are asking of each of us. To give the gift of our hearts – to each other and to the Earth.

It is no longer possible to look for 12.21.12 to release you from being human. In fact, it was human of you to think that it was going to set you free from your looping, from Saturn or Pluto – so I thank you for all the heart you gave to that.

And I ask you now to use the rest of your life to open your heart to being here. The Earth is an extremely interesting place to inhabit.

Have you ever looked into the tides? They’re essentially bulges in the Earth’s oceans that follow the meeting point between the Sun and the Moon. Just trying to grasp what causes them and to then work into your vision of them the spinning of the Earth is, for me at least, way better than a Rubik’s cube. And it gets even cooler when you realize that these same forces actually change the shape of the Earth, at certain times bulging the crust nearly two feet. Physicists at the big particle accelerators have to take into account the way the Sun and Moon change the shape of the Earth every day in order to accurately measure the results of their experiments.

Maybe 3d isn’t as static and confining as we used to think, huh?

Beyond the physical effects, I find a great deal of meaning in the Sun/Moon relationship. And I am hopeful now that 12.21.12 has passed that more people will take an interest in the metaphysical growth opportunities their dance offers.

On 12.28.12, at 5:21 AM Eastern Time, the Moon is Full in the 8th degree of the sign of Cancer, Opposite the Sun in the 8th degree of Capricorn. When you think about the physical effects of the Sun and Moon being on opposite sides of the Earth, you get a sense of how the Full Moon feels – for me, there is always a sense of being pulled apart.

But what is being taught is openness. I think of New Moons as very personal, intention-setting opportunities, while the Full Moon is the opportunity to check in with the tribe to see how each has done with their New Moon intentions. As this Moon coincides with a major holiday weekend and a lot of outer-planet pressure, I feel like it’s going to be a strong opportunity to “check in with the tribe.” And given all the retrograde energy in Gemini, I’ll just go ahead and predict that a lot of people will go to great lengths to keep their emotions safe from all that pressure. In other words – for many people it’s going to be a hell of a party.

Not that I have anything particularly against that, it’s just that I think there is something much richer and more rewarding about joining the sacred circle instead of heading for the mosh pit. Whatever you do, I hope you feel good about it afterwards.

I invite you to think of this Full Moon as an opportunity to practice the open-hearted oneness that we are evolving towards. During the night of the 27th especially, I encourage you to share your feelings with those closest to you. Make time for a heart-to-heart about what you experienced during the Solstice and the Holidays – whether it was beautiful or difficult, whether you were loved or feared. This will be a great opportunity to “clear the air,” that is, dissolve some of the barriers around your heart.

May you see the Love at the center of each being you meet!

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