What Kate Shared with Me 35 Years Ago:

Karmic Astrology: The Moon’s Nodes and Reincarnation (1975)

Cover of the 12th printing (1985)

Aries North Node: Libra South Node

Here the soul is learning the lessons of self-consciousness on the most elemental levels. Experiences in prior incarnations did not permit the Self to form as a singular identity. Now the individual is paying the price for the indecisiveness of his former lives as well as learning how to rise out of his confusion by developing “one-mindedness.”

Highly susceptible to flattery, he goes far out of his way to do the things be believes will please others, but because he has not yet himself gone through ego identification, he becomes confused as to what course of action to take. Always trying to balance those around him, he finds himself to be the eternal referee between two or more opposing ideas, people, or conditions. Standing in the middle, he assumes the role of the buffer trying desperately to bring harmony to both sides at the same time. From moment to moment and day to day, he seesaws from one side to the other, hoping that he will never be required to take a definite stand!

In prior lives he judged his happiness by the successes or failures of those close to him. Now he continues to identify his life through others. His confidence can easily be shattered for he hardly yet knows who he is. By confusing the collective needs of others with his own unrealized desires, he makes himself susceptible to long states of depression. Still, no matter how drained he feels, he continues this past-life pattern of seeking people with whom he can identify.

At times he develops resentment at his inability to pull the opposite parts of himself together. Yet he is so used to entertaining solutions to contrary ideas that he keeps creating more.

He is attracted to music and the arts, feeling comfortable in an environment that is gracefully delicate. When circumstances around him become coarse or brittle he loses control.

He doesn’t like to live alone but desires to be left alone. For his own peace and tranquility he must learn to overcome his enormous sensitivity to all the disharmonious needs of those around him. He does this best by dropping the attitude that he must fight for his very survival and refocusing his attention on what positive thoughts help him to develop his own identity.

In past incarnations, there was great sacrifice to others which was not fully appreciated. Now the soul reincarnates with traces of resentment at not reaping the rewards of its efforts. This brings out the contrariness of the Libra South Node and actually prevents the individual from finding his real Self! The North Node can come out only when the South Node is brought to the highest possible karmic level. Thus, this individual will achieve his greatest potential after he learns to serve willingly, without desiring any rewards beyond his own self-growth.

He was impressionable in other lifetimes. Now he spends at least the first half of this life coping with the leftover residue of his own gullibility. As the years pass he becomes an avid reader, which helps him to crystallize his thoughts. Still, there are so many past-life habits of indecisiveness that he finds it extremely difficult to make concrete decisions.

Always liking to see both sides of everything, he divides himself in half at every crossroad. When these divisions become so painful that he can no longer bear his own indecision, he starts to reach for his Aries North Node.

Ultimately he learns not to be afraid of taking a stand for what his higher Self senses is Truth. He reaches this by teaching himself to be an individual, rather than the extension of somebody else. Still, he must build on his prior incarnations which taught him how to love rather than hate. Thus, as he starts to find himself, he must still be mindful of how his newly-discovered assertiveness influences those close to him.

For short periods of time he will have to isolate himself in order to gather his strength.

His biggest lessons center around learning how to make his head rule his heart for he still melts too easily at the slightest attention.

Of all the zodiac, this individual has the least amount of past-life experience in examining himself. Now he must find out who he really is!

In the current life he is destined to make the transition from the reaper to the sower, whereupon every thought becomes a creative seed for his new beginning.

Third House North Node — Ninth House South Node

These Nodes represent a karma in relationships. The individual is here to learn how to fit the inter-twinings of people and ideas into the scope of his understanding.

The ninth house South Node shows an accent on growth in former lives. Literally millions of hours of thought were spent on developing an abundance of wisdom. Much was sacrificed to do this, particularly the enjoyment of meaningful relationships with others. So that a large amount of soul growth could be accomplished, a freedom to explore without restriction or limitation had to be developed first.

Now in the current life the individual is habitually linked to his past incarnation sense of freedom, which although he feels he must retain, he can no longer consciously remember why.

From time to time he feels a wanderlust to visit different horizons for somewhere off in the distance is the rainbow he is used to seeking. He is a mental nomad, constantly travelling through the great expanse of his consciousness, stopping only for rest at each oasis which offers temporary shelter from his restless urge.

Always he is seeking yet it is difficult for him to define exactly what he is looking for. He finds others puzzling as he curiously tries to understand what makes them tick. Herein are some of his major karmic lessons. He must learn how to interact with people. Though he may be happily married or involved in close relationships, he still retains a sense of bachelorhood in his thoughts. He must learn how to make his life fit into the exact puzzle slot allowed by all the other lives around him.

The ways in which he relates and communicates will constantly be put through one test after another. Ultimately he will find himself enmeshed in a network of people, so that all the knowledge he has acquired in previous lifetimes can be put to practical use.

In his current-life relationships, he feels frustrated with not enough room to move. This enclosure of people around him eventually comes to extinguish his past-life tendencies to be vague and evasive and in its place teaches him the art of pinpoint communication.

He is very much concerned with the values of sexuality, feeling obliged to conquer any grip this force has on him. Now he sees clearly the presence of a higher and a lower self, and it is the pull from both which he must karmically wrestle out.

The individual is less concerned with gain than with protection against loss. He is terribly fearful of losing the freedom he was accustomed to in past incarnations; yet he must risk such loss if he is to interact with humanity. As soon as he is willing to take this risk, he is ready to receive his greatest rewards.

Ultimately he elevates himself through reading and purposeful study, and although he is more used to informal ways of learning, it will be a formal education that now puts it all together for him.

This Nodal position often causes a friction marriage, since the individual is prone to seeking out-of-wedlock relationships in which to work out the understanding of personality interactions that he must develop.

One of his biggest lessons is to learn how to consolidate his energies for each time he feels the urgency to move on with things, he tends to leave loose ends scattered behind him.

His life is wide in scope, not only in areas of knowledge, but also in the myriad of people he meets, and the multitude of places he travels.

He will ultimately be known as a Messenger, bringing to all those who need it the specific bits of information that like manna from heaven are placed in their lap at the moment of hunger.

In essence, he is a teacher’s teacher for although he has little patience with a classroom situation, he is well capable of feeding information wherever and whenever it’s needed. He likes doing this because it fulfills his past-life need for movement. As such he never gets a chance to see how important the information he is disseminating actually is. Nevertheless he has an enormous effect on the awareness of all those whose lives he touches.

His own life is as interesting and full as an encyclopedia, for he tries to live much of what he reads about.

For all of his movement one would think him desirous of having a rest, but underneath he is highly nervous and needs this amount of movement in his life. The nervousness is not to be considered a negative trait, but rather as part of his mission. It reminds him that he has a task to do. Every moment a piece of information comes into his mind the nervousness gets triggered, reminding him that he must deliver it somewhere.

In past incarnations he avoided conclusions. Now he refuses to make a final judgment on anything. This is part of his understanding that if he were to make a final decision it would be premature for he knows that new information will constantly be coming.

He is superficially conversant in almost all areas. Still, on the personal plane he is highly misunderstood, for the messages he delivers are so uniquely disguised that they have a tendency to go over the heads of others who only see him as eternally gossiping about nothing.

The truth is that all of his words are important, but they must be seen to have deeper than surface value before they can be interpreted properly. He is truly the fast-winged messenger of the gods.

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Irony: “Are You Ghosting Your Boyfriend?”

The In Between (2022)

This film is “Ghost” for teenagers. On a whim, we watched it on Netflix last night. I’m glad we did.

The survival of consciousness after death is a fact, but is only really provable to someone who has been deeply in love with the departed individual, because LOVE NEVER DIES.

Tessa and Skylar only knew each other for 182 days before they are parted by an accident. The film opens with that tragedy, and then flashbacks to what happened from the beginning of that 6 month period. There are plenty of cultural references at the cinema that they attend during that times, including the “Ghost” poster in the concession area, but the marque titles I found significant, always.

And there is one song which was ‘theirs’ that would indicate when Skylar is around. It plays out on everyone’s cell phone during the SAT test in the gym, after Tessa’s pen draws what looks like a map on her test paper. I believe it is this one by INXS (originally heard on an 80’s mixtape in Skylar’s Jeep).

The story is bittersweet, the acting seems almost real life, and the actor who played Skylar even looks like Patrick Swayze. What more could you ask for?

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This Post is a Little Different…

For the First Time in 15 Years, I have a New PC

So, if I seem a little distracted for a few days, I hope you will understand.

Here’s the front of the tower in situ.
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In Our House, We Believe:

Faith Can Move Mountains

Image courtesy of ABEBooks

There is so much we cannot know, mainly because of our disconnect from the Truth, that we have to take on faith. Now, if you’re like me, your faith can be tested from time-to-time. But it stands the test of time, everytime.

Ironically, Gnosis is knowing we don’t know. As we progressively free ourselves from the conceptual matrix we have mistaken for reality, we become certain about less and less until we find ourselves living in the Mystery. It is an extraordinary twist that the great Gnostic injunction ‘Know your Self’ most famously finds its fulfilment in Socrates, whom the Oracle of Delphi declares the wisest man alive, because ‘He knows that he knows nothing.’

Gnosis is knowing nothing and loving everything.

Jesus and the Lost Goddess (page 182c)

Life doesn’t make sense. It’s an absolute Mystery.

Yet as we progress on our journey something changes. We begin our search because we are terrified by the fact that we don’t know what is going on. Through the process of awakening we discover something wonderful — the source from which life originates and towards which it is evolving is more perfect, more beautiful, more loving, than words can possibly communicate. Life is essentially Good.

This can sound like glib positivity, but it is not. Gnosticism is not about avoiding the fact of suffering and retreating into wishful thinking. It is expressing our natural compassion for doing all we can to ameliorate the terrible suffering we encounter, yet at the same time knowing that, despite appearances, all is well. It is understanding that ultimately, therefore, good will come from bad, and choosing to play an active part in that process.

We can’t understand the Mystery of Life, but we can come to trust it, and this transforms everything. Ironically, Gnosis turns out to be synonymous with faith. But by ‘faith’ Gnostics don’t mean blind belief in historical events, as Literalists do, they mean complete confidence in the life process. For Philo faith is ‘the queen of the virtues’. Basilides eulogizes: ‘Faith is the best quality.’ Simon Maguis teaches: ‘Gnosis and faith give the soul which chooses them permanent peace.’ The mystical marriage is living with Gnosis of the eternal Mystery and unshakeable faith in the fundamental goodness of the unfolding drama of the temporal world.

Ibid (page 183)

Amen.

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The Mystical Marriage

The Nature of the Mystery is Love

This is one post that would be better served if I just get out of the way and quote from Jesus and the Lost Goddess:

It is easy with a book such as this one, full of old myths and philosophical concepts, to get a picture of Gnosis as a heady, abstract theory about life. But the spiritually awake are heady with intoxication, not conceptualization. They are drunk with love, not sober with intellectual understanding. The purpose of philosophy is to open us to the possibility of ecstasy. The followers of the Christian sage Montanus were said to possess an ‘infinite number of books’, but called ecstasy the only true Christianity.

Previously we saw that the Gnostics imagined the motivation behind the Mystery coming into manifestation to be the desire for self-knowledge. This can sound somewhat dry, but it is only one way of picturing something which is completely beyond understanding. Valentinus imagines the motivation behind manifestation to be love:

‘Since the Father was creative, it seemed good to him to create and produce what was most beautiful and most perfect in himself. For he was all love and love is not love if there is nothing to be loved.’

(Page 181)

The nature of the Mystery is love, but this remains only a latent potential unless there is something to love. So the Mystery objectifies itself to give itself something beautiful to love and in so doing becomes love.

We are the Mystery wanting to love and be loved. Everyone is searching for love, whether they know it or not. There is nothing better than love. It feels good because it is the Good. Love is what happens when we connect deeply with another sentient being because love is the way we experience the mysterious paradox of being the One appearing to be many. Love is the Mystery aware of the Mystery, so when we plumb the depths of our being we fall in love with ourselves. Plotinus enthuses:

Beauty evokes wonderment, delicious longing and trembling with delight, so when you see that you yourself are beautiful within, what do you feel? What is the Dionysiac exultation that thrills your being? The surging upwards of your psyche? These are the emotions of someone enchanted by the spell of love.’

(Page 182a)

Gnosis is not a theory, it is ‘that love passion of vision known only to a lover come to rest in what he loves’ as Plotinus puts it. It is being content in the state of simple happiness that is naturally ours when we are free from ignorant fear and selfish craving. It is discovering we are more than we ever imagined or could ever imagine. It is a reality shift. It is the world turned inside-out.

(Page 182b)

Say the word and you’ll be free
Say the word and be like me
Say the word I’m thinking of
Have you heard the word is love?

(The Beatles – 1965)

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Is There a Direct Link Between Four World Religions?

From Buddha, through Jesus and Muhammad, to Baha’u’llah

Ever since I started charting historical personages, astrologically, I’ve had a nagging thought about the connections of the most familiar leaders/originators of four of the world’s religions. But before I show you that, I need you to see Muhammad’s death chart.

I have set the clock for noon on June 8, 632 CE. (And I can only do his death chart, since Muhammad‘s birth date is unknown.) What seems to me to be significant is the Cosmic Cross featured so prominently in this chart. I can only surmise that this was his Crucifixion. (And I can only wonder what his birth chart would have been like.) And Neptune in the 1st House of his ‘fatal’ chart speaks volumes about his legendary status among the followers of Islam, and the decided lack of images of his body and face.

The Four Charts Together

Before I share them, let me remind you that Gautama Buddha’s birth chart is based on a best guess estimate. However, the lineup of the other leaders’ death charts is sobering, to say the least.

As I noted previously, Jesus appeared to be the second coming of Buddha. But in that post, I compared their birth charts only. Here the link is more dramatic, and conclusive: Buddha’s natal North Node is conjunct Jesus’ ‘fatal’ Jupiter and Muhammad’s ‘fatal’ Mars/Part of Fortune conjunction, while being in opposition to Baha’u’llah’s ‘fatal’ Saturn. Isn’t that something? Well, isn’t it?

I know it’s not enough of a hook to hang your hat on, but I still feel that astrology shows us what nothing else can. These men are connected. If I had any other details, I’d look further, but this is enough.

Just remember the Golden Rule.

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May I Respectfully Disagree with Perceived Wisdom?

Baha’u’llah (November 12, 1817 – May 29, 1892)

1868

To start with, I am not a Baha’i, so the inclusion of this photograph is not meant disrespectfully. There are plenty of people who might take exception to that, but it is the nature of these posts to present my point-of-view about historical people and events.

The “Glory of God” is the individual who started a religious movement in Iran, but he didn’t choose to be the leader: the Bab announced his coming (like John the Baptist did for Jesus), and a go-between handed the tablet to Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí, who accepted the role as Prophet-Founder of the Baha’i Faith when he was 27. He then changed his name to Baha’u’llah.

The birth of Mirza Husayn `Aliy-i-Nuri (Baha’u’llah), happened at dawn,  in Tihran. His mother was Khadijih Khanum and His father was Mirza `Abbas, (also known as Mirza Buzurg).

The Birth of Baha’u’llah

This is the chart for dawn of that day in 1817. But what if the timing was passed down as symbolic, and not factual? The dawning of a new age…

When I first looked at his birth chart, I rectified his birth to reflect his marrying at age 18 (Venus), and being told of his spiritual role at age 27 (Mercury) (while subtly noting that these two numbers are multiples of 9, the sacred number of the Baha’i Faith). Hmm.

Here’s the chart I erected:

I think this one is better suited to his personality, if I may be so bold as to say that. His destiny (North Node @ 17° Taurus 45′) is better placed in the 1st House.

The only inconjunct is fixed between Venus and Pluto in both charts, so it is factual.

Venus Inconjunct Pluto

With this aspect you must learn a great deal about the kinds of friends you want and the kinds of experiences you will have through other people. Even while you are still young, you may meet persons who are quite difficult to get along with, but who seem to be impossible to get away from, even when you want to. You may be fascinated by such persons, or circumstances may force you to stay with them. These people do have a definite role to play in your life, but it may not always be a pleasant one. They will teach you something about life or about yourself.

However, you don’t have to put up with difficult or unpleasant relationships, because if you think about it, you will realize that you are drawn to these people in order to fulfill your own hidden emotional needs. Think about what you really want from others so that you can find it in a better relationship. And if you encounter people who won’t allow you any freedom, which can happen with this aspect, then avoid them.

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The Spiritual Meaning and Significance of…

The Number 9

Aerial view of a Baha’i Temple in Cambodia

I am very familiar with the number 9, especially with its effect in combination with other numbers in Numerology. Take, for example, the digits in my birth year, 1950. Adding the digits up, the result is 15 (which then reduces to the number 6). It is as if the 9 is invisible, which is a hint at its nature: angelic.

According to the Bible, there are nine “fruits of the spirit,” which are specific attributes — love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — that are said to be the result of the influence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian’s life. In addition, Jesus died at the ninth hour. Matthew 27:46 recounts: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The Spiritual Meaning and Significance of the Number Nine

The Baha’i writings say that the number nine is “the number of perfection” and “the highest digit, hence symbolizes comprehensiveness, culminations.” It is also significant that the Baha’i faith is the 9th world religion, completing our understanding of the other eight.

That’s why one of our symbols for the Baha’i Faith is the nine-pointed star because it represents the unity, truth, and oneness of all religions. In fact, every Baha’i temple in the world has nine sides to it.

Ibid

Even John Lennon would agree: Number nine, number nine, number nine…

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Yesterday in History XII

Rita Moreno Wins an Oscar (April 9, 1962)

On this day in 1962: Actress Rita Moreno becomes the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar, for her role as Anita in West Side Story (1961).

It’s hard to believe this was 60 years ago. Rita Moreno was 30, when she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Now, she’s 90 and still going strong, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s updated version this past year. Do you want to see a birth chart of a hard worker?

No one knows what time Ms. Moreno was born, so I have rectified her birth chart to show the age (30) when she won her Oscar (Moon/Saturn conjunct @ 21° Capricorn). There are three inconjuncts, but I’m not going to delineate those aspects in this post. I now want to look at the event chart, instead.

There are four inconjuncts in this one: two of them form a Yod pointing at Saturn @ 10° Aquarius; how appropriate (as Saturn represents the Industry…). To see the effect on Ms. Moreno, let’s combine the charts.

The Oscar Part of Fortune is within 3° of Rita’s Sun (@ 19° Sagittarius). The Oscar Midheaven is conjunct Rita’s Ascendant (@ 6° Cancer); and Rita’s South Node (@ 1° Libra) is widely conjunct the Oscar Ascendant. Rita’s Uranus is midpoint between the Oscar Sun/Mercury conjunction in Aries. Finally, Rita’s Neptune is almost exactly conjunct the Oscar Pluto (@ 8° Virgo). Wow!

Only in America, eh?

The Yesterday in History post.

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Is this Egyptian Symbol also a Gnostic Christian One?

The Ankh

I’ve looked at this symbol before, but in relation to Sharon Tate’s friend, Jay Sebring’s use of it in his advertising. But I haven’t explained its significance to me, personally. Perhaps this chapter from Jesus and the Lost Goddess will help:

The Christian myth cycle suggests that the original source of the Christian image of the cross is the ubiquitous Egyptian cross the ankh. This ancient symbol was so important to Christians that they tooled it into the leather cover of one of the collections of gospels found at Nag Hammadi. The basic ankh is a circle above a ‘T’ cross. The crosses that were used for crucifixions were ‘T’-shaped and in Jewish mythology Moses lifts up a serpent on a ‘T’ cross in the desert, which was understood as a pre-echo of the image of Jesus on the cross. For these reasons, the early Christians thought of the Christian cross as ‘T’-shaped. The ankh, therefore, would have been seen as the cross of Jesus below a circle. The circle is a symbol of wholeness and nothingness. It represents the archetypal potentiality of the pleroma. The ankh shows the pleroma as delineated by the horizontal axis of the cross, just as it is in Christian mythology. Below the circle, the kenoma is cut in two by the descending vertical axis of the cross, representing the Mystery made manifest through duality. The ankh is expressing the idea of syzergy — the One as two.

Mirrors were constructed in the shape of an ankh, with the cross as the handle and the circle as the mirror. The circle and the cross represent that which is whole and that which is divided — the essence and the appearances, the Mystery and the manifest, the pleroma and the kenoma. Understanding the relationship between the poles of this fundamental duality is the key to the realization of Gnosis. And what is that relationship? It is one of reflection. The image is a reflection of the archetype. The appearances are how the essence looks to itself. Wanting self-knowledge, the One becomes two. The Mystery becomes the viewer and the mirror. It creates a concept of what it is. It reflects on itself. From these two — thinker and thought — comes the cosmos.

Jesus and the Lost Goddess (pages 158-9)

And finally…

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