2012 — learning to live authentically

‘I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.’

The Awakening Slave (1525–30), Michelangelo Buonarroti.

I thought I was done with Pluto when it crossed my Ascendant and completed its cycle through Sagittarius, but it turns out Pluto wasn’t done with me. Hitting a whole series of personal planets as it dug deep into my first house, and still only two-thirds of the way through, 2012 ends nowhere near where it began.

I could never have seen it coming, this end of the Mayan cycle, this end of my year, this return to self, to a sense of home. As a saying attributed to a Zen master goes:

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.

A year ago, I was looking to possibly move jobs, towns, relationships. I felt the need for a shift, a change in energy and dynamic, but the shift was not to be found in events, or places, or other people. It was found, ironically, by being where I am — any movement has been internal, psychological, spiritual, emotional. I took a tip and ‘let go of my year’, and can only offer heartfelt thanks for the treasures that remain, return, and resurge anew.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 22,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 5 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Something for the Scorpio New Moon (Eclipse)

In this time of transformation and rebirth, dance, Magic, dance!

The dogma of compassion

Not many would deny that compassion is a virtue. Some would even say it is the opposite of dogma. On a fundamental level, that is true. Yet it is possible for compassion to become dogmatic when it is defined too narrowly, and begins to take on a form of brutal piety.

I had this bizarre exchange with a friend recently. Here’s how it went. The details have been altered slightly but the form is essentially the same.

Friend: Hi, how’re you?

Me: Not too good. I’ve just had some bad news… [I was about to explain that someone I was close to had died, so I was feeling particularly fragile.]

Friend: Hey, you know, my bunions are giving me trouble again. I could barely do my shopping at the supermarket. I was hobbling as I pushed the cart. Even the old ladies were giving me funny looks. [The said bunions had been the topic of many a dreary conversation for several months.]

Me: I’m sorry, but I can’t really talk about your feet today.

Friend (defensive and irate): Don’t you care about my health!? Where’s your compassion?

Me: Urrr…?

Full Moon dreaming

I wonder if other people have been having vivid dreams lately. I dream a lot but was always too lazy to keep a dream journal until a week ago. As a result, my recall is getting better. I have been getting glimpses of lucidity too. Lucid dreaming occurs when one is aware that one is dreaming. Some people report being able to consciously manipulate the dreamscape, talk to characters in the dream and so on. I haven’t got that far but I recall thinking ‘Oh, I’m in a dream. Let’s try floating a bit.’ It was fleeting but I woke up feeling like anything is possible.

Feel the intensity yet?

That was a rhetorical question. I don’t really have the words to describe it. So I’ll just point you to those who do.

Before Venus, and after

Toilette der Venus, Peter Paul Rubens, 1612–15

So what was the Venus occultation, otherwise known as the transit of Venus across the Sun, like for everyone? (about this transit, see astrobarry, Lynn Hayes, and Eric Francis)

All this activity in Gemini — eclipses, Venus, Jupiter — is activating my Gemini stellium and descendant (not to mention all that activity in Virgo and Pisces, too), but not yet in ways that I can fully grasp. There is a palpable sense of a ‘before’ and ‘after’ though. A sense that old ways of doing and thinking are rapidly becoming outdated. I’m not yet sure what form the ‘new’ ways might take, but I’m pretty sure the old ways won’t work anymore.

All I seem to be able to do right now is just be ready. Be ready to run, glide, flow, when the call comes (Jupiter?).

It’s all a bit scary, and a bit exciting too. What a summer this promises to be.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons.