We went to a high school production of a 90’s concert last Friday. I’ve been trying to work out, since then, what is the best way to share the experience with you, the readers. I decided that posting the videos of the original hits would be best. They are shown in the order that appears on the above-noted album.
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
Black or White
Step By Step
…Baby One More Time
I Want It That Way
Livin’ La Vida Loca
Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)
Jump
No Scrubs
Tubthumping
This last one wasn’t on the album, but should have been. Did you enjoy that?
Caroline Myss is a renowned author, intuitive healer, “motivational teacher and popular theologian [who] has created a transcendent work of unique insight and revelation in Entering the Castle. A highly original inner path to self-knowledge, the Castle is also the road to spiritual knowledge of God and your own soul. In fact the soul is your spiritual castle and doing interior soul work helps you find your path in the world.” (from the back cover)
The Interior Castle
Dr. Myss has taken St Teresa of Ávila’s meditation text, The Interior Castle, and made it a modern self-help process. In doing so, she has passed along to the world a way to find one’s inner self. It seems to have a precedence in the Inner Guide Meditation, but the difference is in the way the castle has three lower floors and four higher ones. It’s the equivalent of working through one’s chakra issues.
(From) A Far Too Personal Preface
I believe that the divine is everywhere and exists within even the most intimate details of our lives. All that we experience today has its purpose in tomorrow’s events; sometimes, the purpose is not evident for years of tomorrows. Yet, God prepares you for your spiritual journey, no matter how complicated, painful, or demanding it might become. For this reason, patience, trust, and faith must become constants for you; you cannot, and indeed you must not, even attempt to believe you know what is best for you. The divine will reveal its plan for you; you have to be open to receive it. (Page 3)
In My Experience
I heard Dr. Myss speak at Buckfastleigh in Devon, UK, in the early 1990’s. She’s a no-nonsense individual who responds to really good questions with really good answers.
She is also open to other people’s experiences and knowledge. I found her to be an inspiring person, who genuinely cares about others. But she is also private, which makes this book quite an eye-opener, at least for me.
I found the book in a local used book shop. It was probably the best $9 I’ve spent in a very long time.
Do you want to know what the Universe has in store for you? Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened: let the drawbridge down and cross into your inner life. You will not regret it.
My daughter, Rosanna, and her husband watched this film on Netflix the other day. When they told me, I checked it out on YouTube. The whole film cannot be seen here, but a trailer can:
So this film, by inference, raises the question that I have used in the title of this piece. And the simple answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. How’s that for a non-binary response?
Yes
There is a conspiracy that is going on behind our backs: in the film, Donald Rumsfeld is quoted as saying that ‘2.3 trillion dollars are missing’ from the Pentagon’s accounting records. That’s a lot of money. He said it the day before 9-11. By the next day, other matters took precedence in the news cycle.
David Wilcock has spoken about the Secret Space Program. It could be for the colonization of other planets, but it seems more likely to be setting up a ‘false flag’ event that will perpetrate an ‘alien’ invasion in order for the world to unite against a fake enemy. Another Pearl Harbor/9-11 type event. And we the people will fall into line to create a New World Order.
But this may backfire. Instead, real aliens may come to rescue us all from nuclear destruction. A bit like Armageddon. This is what the fundamental Christians want.
No
We love to talk about an ostrich burying his head in the sand. In truth, the huge bird is just laying his head on the ground to listen for vibrations (of food sources and enemies). Humans have a tendency to ignore warning signs: it helps them sleep better in their warm beds at night.
Most people I know are not even watching the news. They have figured out that the mainstream media (MSM) are lying to them anyway, with all the ‘fake news’ stories.
Now that these same (and other) stories are being shared on social networks, there is no getting away from them, so the only thing to do is stop visiting these purveyors of lies.
Although there have been lone protesters (like in Tiananmen Square), most people feel helpless when faced with the seeming insurmountable.
Just so you can stop reading here, if you’re not interested in what happens after death, I had a dream last night that reminded me of The Good Place.
In a huge sprawling building, not unlike the Eagle’s Hotel California, I was wandering through the passages and corridors. It seemed like a holiday camp with a Christian theme. There were people moving furniture around trying to accommodate newcomers and the ‘residents’ seemed to have fairly regular routines.
One of these routines involved compiling examples of the most viewed videos on Facebook. The twist was that once compiled, no one viewed them.
Another routine had the residents sit in a chapel-style room, perhaps awaiting a preacher’s sermon. But the thing was some of them could smoke, and one of the hotel staff shared a cigarette with a woman who had stage four lung cancer. (That was when I thought to myself, “What is this place?”)
Because it was now morning, I woke up to this reality.
Conclusion
Purgatory is a Christian concept which is like a place the Dead in Christ go to expunge their bad habits before they go to Heaven. It’s a benign place, not a place of torture that has been the reputation of Hell. Once their bad habits are removed, they get to move on.
Both Edgar Cayce and Rudolf Steiner talk about what initially happens after death: if the deceased died from an illness, he (or she) would wake up from a long sleep in hospital where they were recuperating. But the modern take on what happens next is where things have changed. Instead of immediately ascending to Heaven, we return to Earth for another turn of the Cosmic Wheel.
Is there any hope for us?
Hotel California as understood by the Eagles and their fans is actually a microcosm of life on planet Earth. The staff are programmed to receive. But there is no exit. So: you can check out (die) any time you want, but you can never leave (escape).
The image shown above is the closest approximation of what I dreamt about last night.
The lead up to the solar event was probably inconsequential to what happened, but I will share a bit of it so that it has some context.
As an undercover agent, I was keeping my eye on an unknown establishment that had popped up on the edge of the main street in the town where I lived. But spying on them from a distance wasn’t yielding very much information, so it was suggested by my supervisor that I infiltrate the building by applying to work there. This I did.
The establishment seemed to be a little shady in its operation, until I worked there. Then I understood that it was catering to peoples’ needs to help heal them. Refreshments (food and drink), entertainment (movies and music), and healing rooms (for different therapies) were offered. I wasn’t exactly clear what my duties were, but that I needed to work the evening shift, followed by the early morning shift. “When would I sleep?” I wondered. Then partway through that first shift, three earthquakes occurred.
At home, later, I told my wife that I was thinking about not going in to work the next day. When we got up, in the morning, the sun was in its usual place in the sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this jagged zigzag aurora around the sun, coloured a glorious golden hue. As I didn’t have my mobile phone with me, I ran to my room to get my camera.
I hadn’t taken more than a minute to retrieve the camera, and by the time I got outside to snap a picture, the sun had moved across the sky to a different position and had returned to ‘normal’. From its original place to the new position was a 90º arc. That seemed impossible. Had the time suddenly changed, or something? The time difference would have been about six hours later.
Nevertheless, I decided to show up for work anyway, even though I would have been very late. As I walked into the office, I saw it was full of the usual staff and some copier technicians. They were all upset because the copy machines wouldn’t work. Why? Because they’d been updated the night before and three new ‘keys’ had been given to me for safekeeping. Sheepishly, I fetched them out of my pocket and handed them over.
Then I explained to the owner that I wouldn’t be continuing on in their employment. He commented on the fact that I seemed a loner, as I hadn’t sung along with the music the previous night. With that, I woke up.
Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights)
In this part of the world, the Northern Lights are a fairly common sight. But they only come out at night. The image of an golden aurora around the sun is highly unusual, especially in the daytime.
With the coincidence of those three earthquakes the night before, in my dream, I should have been alerted to something coming. The indication, now, in my waking moments, is that I may have witnessed the end of the world as we know it…
Well, this is a bit awkward: the film came out in the UK in February, but there doesn’t seem to be a release date for the U.S. or Canada. Even the UK DVD release will be later in the year (June). So, I can’t really review it.
But I can share the preview:
Now, this looks like a match made in heaven.
But I am only doing this to write about William Shakespeare’s birth chart.
William Shakespeare
Most published birth charts for Shakespeare are timed for 8:30 am. But that is because no one knows for sure which day he was born, so the time would be a mystery. Since he was baptized on April 26th, the perceived wisdom is that he was born three days before that. When the date is changed to the Gregorian calendar, it equates to May 3rd.
I rectified his chart by highlighting his ‘early’ marriage to Anne Hathaway. This would be seen as the position of Venus falling in his chart at 18 years and 7 months. The birth time is therefore 11:00 pm.
Like Kenneth Branagh, he ends up with three Inconjuncts, two of which form a Finger of God (YOD).
Sun Inconjunct Moon
This aspect suggests that there is a subtle conflict going on inside you that may sometimes create emotional problems. The Sun signifies your conscious personality, the way in which you act and the kinds of activities that you like to get involved in. The Moon signifies the emotional and less conscious side of you. It indicates the habits that take over when you are not acting consciously and feelings that come up from deep inside you. The inconjunct aspect between the Sun and Moon means that the Sun part of your personality is quite different from the Moon part, and it may be hard for you to relate them to each other. It is as if you are divided in two, so that whenever you have to make an important decision, especially one that involves your feelings, the different sides of your personality want to go in opposite directions. You sometimes find it difficult to decide if you like something or if you want to take part in some activity.
Moon Inconjunct Pluto
This aspect means that your emotions are very intense and not always easy to deal with. Often your feelings make you want to do or say something without knowing why. Also you may have very intense moods in which you withdraw from those around you into a world of your own. This should not be a very serious problem unless you have been brought up to have all sorts of fears and worries. In that case your actions will be driven by your fears, and you may behave quite strangely. If you do not feel accepted and emotionally supported at home, you may constantly feel guilty for what you think you have done to others, or jealous that people aren’t paying enough attention to you, or generally possessive of those around you.
[Ben Elton demonstrated this insecurity in his TV show Upstart Crow. Elton wrote the screenplay for All Is True, too.]
Sun Sextile Pluto
You are very curious, wanting to know the answer to every question that occurs to you. To get answers, you are willing to work and to study very hard, which can be useful in school if you are interested in your subjects. As you get older, this may lead to an interest in studying human nature through psychology, psychiatry or healing, or you might study a more occult subject, such as yoga.
[He was definitely ahead of his time.]
Mars Inconjunct Uranus
This energy may be expressed as a hot temper, especially when you have to endure restriction or limitation, such as sitting still in a classroom for a long time. You have a rebellious streak that needs to be disciplined, because everyone has to endure some restrictions, and it takes so little to trigger your temper.
Sometimes you may make sudden moves that startle people. You may make a decision very quickly and start to act on it immediately, but that is not such a good idea. Make up your mind more slowly, or at least wait for a while until you start to act. If your idea still looks good a couple of days later, it is probably all right to go ahead with it.
Conclusion
I’ve visited Shakespeare’s birthplace (see above). We all like to think we know what he was about. But can we know a bit more about his personality by analyzing his birth chart? That is precisely why I became an Astrologer.
It helps me view history from a different perspective.
Just let me say from the outset that I am not reviewing Len Deighton’s trilogy here, although I could because it is an excellent way to tell a story. In the first and second books, he presented the story from the husband’s and then the wife’s perspective. In the third, he went over the same story but from the perspective of an overview. I once contemplated combining the three books into one screenplay, but then changed my mind. I still might, one day.
This post is about my dream last night. And before you decide to stop reading right here, think about it: this is where we get our ideas from; from dreams. In this case, it was a lucid dream, so that I’m wondering if this is how it happened to me in another life.
The Hook is a classic way of baiting a chump. You let the target see something ‘accidentally’ happen in front of him that he wouldn’t ordinarily witness. In my dream, I was substituting for the cleaner who usually takes care of the washrooms at the agency. During my tour of the toilets, I saw someone exchanging a package with an agent. The package looked like it might contain a lot of money.
Line
The Line in my dream was that a couple of clerks at the agency were in on the game and as I watched them go about their clandestine business, my suspicions were aroused.
At one point the agent’s suitcase was left lying around, open on the office floor, for just a few minutes, but definitely with enough time for me to scan its contents as walked through the office on my way elsewhere. It all looked way too suspicious.
Meanwhile, the agent had noticed that I’d noticed, and he confronted me in the hallway.
Instead of denying having seen anything, I told him exactly what I’d pieced together of the puzzle. At this point, I woke up.
Sinker
Reviewing the events of the dream, I ‘saw’ what the agent was trying to achieve: he was giving me clues and incentive to do the honourable thing and report what I had seen to my superiors. It was a test.
But I seen through the ruse. I knew it was a game and not the real thing. By speaking truthfully what I saw and admitting that I’d solved the puzzle, I was acting like a renegade. This was not protocol.
It meant that I’d be perfect for the job. What job? A double agent.
This is a Kenneth Branagh film with a twist in the tale: the two lovers return to new lives, but they switch roles. I’m not sure that ever happens in ‘real’ life, but as this story is a fantasy, I’ll just relax my critical thinking.
As a hypnotherapist who has also undergone past life regression, I know that people can be very creative in their story-telling. They’re not being dishonest, they’re just allowing their fanciful sides out. In many cases, the lives they ‘remember’ may be the heroes of their past come to life. Even I may have been susceptible to this tendency. But the thing to remember is that the ethos of a particular age does get exemplified by certain ‘stars’.
In reality, the truth may be stranger than fiction.
The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956)
I read this book in the 1960’s. It was a whodunit of the most interesting kind. But it was proven to be a case of cryptomnesia, as the subject, Virginia Tighe, had known an Irishwoman from her childhood who had told her tales of Ireland. Mrs Tighe remembered them in detail, under hypnosis, as an adult, while forgetting that anyone had told them to her.
But the effect of this story was that it brought to the public’s attention that reincarnation was a possibility.
What Dreams May Come (1998)
I featured this film previously, but in juxtaposition to Robin Williams’ life. In this story, there is no hypnotism, but the alternate ending can give an indication of how ‘next lives’ may be decided upon in the ‘time’ between lives.
I caught the last few minutes of Thor the other night on TV and was startled to see that the director of the movie was Kenneth Branagh. I wasn’t startled that he was the director, just that I had forgotten he had directed that one.
This is a man who wears a lot of theatrical hats: writer, producer, actor and director. And he has won awards for quite a few of them.
His Birth Chart
As is my want, I look for the Inconjuncts in a birth chart to see what effects they may have on the individual. This chart has three, two of whom form a Finger of God (YOD):
Sun Inconjunct Mars
You have a rather strong will, which may be difficult to control. This is because your way of doing something tends to interfere with what you want to gain by doing it. Your actions in some situations may surprise people by contradicting what they have learned about you as a person. Inside of yourself, you may even begin to feel that you can’t approve of the way you act, or you may feel that you can’t deal comfortably with the results of your actions. In other words, you get yourself into real jams[…] Your angry style is different from your usual style of acting, when you are more in control of yourself.
Mercury Inconjunct Ascendant
You are likely to have some problems, but not serious ones, in communicating with others. The problem is that people’s first impression of you may not fit in with what you say or your manner of thinking and speaking. People tend to hear what they expect to hear, and they may not listen to you as carefully as they should. So you will have to be as clear as possible and insist that others listen to what you are really saying. If others do not understand you, it is up to you to set them straight.
Venus Inconjunct Ascendant
Your close friends and loved ones discover that you are quite different in a close relationship than you appear at first. It is not that you are dishonest, but that you show a side of yourself to your friends that you usually keep hidden, often because you are not entirely confident in that role. You may feel unsure that others will like you or accept your affection. This is one reason why you express your love by doing nice things for people. You are trying to win them over.
(I wonder if this is why Kenneth’s first production was Peter’s Friends in 1992?)
But there is a more dynamic (and dramatic) energy in his chart that may help to explain his mercurial nature.
Moon Conjunct Pluto
Your feelings are very important to you, and you are likely to react emotionally to every situation and person you meet. But when your emotions get in the way, it is difficult to see clearly what is happening. And your moods affect you so much that as they change, your personality changes accordingly. One day you are positive and cheerful, and another day, sad and gloomy. When you love someone, you love very deeply, and your close family and friends are very important to you. Once you have become attached to a person, or even a place, it is difficult for you to break away.
(I always wondered why he and Emma Thompson divorced…)
Following in Olivier’s Footsteps
The comparisons started from Henry V. Branagh was doing what Olivier had done: directing and acting in a filmed version of Shakespeare’s play. He would do the same with Hamlet. (I saw him in his 30’s gangster’s version on stage at Stratford, UK.)
But when he took on Olivier directly by playing him in My Week with Marilyn in 2011 the ‘light bulb’ finally went off in the public’s mind.
Marriott Hotels have created a new rewards scheme. They want it to stand out from the crowd, so they decided to call it something that people can say to each other in a TV advert. Nothing else is said, but that word, over and over again.
It’s a cross between ‘banzai’ and ‘hurrah’ and they’re so sure it’s going to catch on, they’ve even trademarked it.
Isn’t it obvious? It’s a shortened down version of bon voyage, which is what we all say when we want to wish someone going on a trip a happy time. Clever, eh?
