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“When you begin to feel completely desolate, you begin to heal yourself. You make yourself at home.”
―Chögyam Trungpa

Dear One,
With all the chaos and confusion on the planet these days, how do we light our way forward?

Firstly, it helps to hold a more mystical overview in which how we deal with all our personal challenges, which I call FGOs (aka f**kin growth opportunities:)), is inextricably interwoven with how the Earth Game plays out in the probabilities.

It follows that how we cope with our toughest circumstances, when it feels as if Life is pushing at us to make us stronger—as a form of spiritual resistance training—can be experienced as our own unique contributions to the Divine symphony within the greater context of this place and time in human history. For more on this Vedic philosophy of Cosmic Play: Leela

In fact, if we can view our travails as spiritual catalysts to help grow our character on the soul-level and activate the Divine heart qualities of compassion and loving-kindness for all suffering beings including ourselves, then we’re ultimately making the best use of our FGOs from a karmic perspective.

If we’re ready to upgrade and refine our attitudes about how to work with the state of the world these days, perhaps no one says it better than Chögyam Trungpa:

“Working with conflict is precisely the idea of walking on the spiritual path. The path is a wild, winding mountain road with all kinds of curves; there are wild animals, attacks by bandits, all kinds of situations cropping up. As far as the occupation of our mind is concerned, the chaos of the path is the fun.

All the things taking place around our world, all the irritations and all the problems, are crucial. Without others we cannot attain enlightenment—in fact, we cannot even tread on the path. If there is no noise outside during our sitting meditation, we cannot develop mindfulness. If we do not have aches and pains in the body, we cannot attain mindfulness; we cannot actually meditate. If everything were lovey-dovey and jellyfish-like, there would be nothing to work with.

Very beautiful situations have developed using chaos as part of the enlightened approach. There is chaos of all kinds developing all the time: psychological disorder, social disorder, metaphysical disorder, or physical disorder, constantly happening. If you are trying to stop those situations, you are looking for external means of liberating yourself, another answer. But if we are able to look into the basic situation, then chaos is the inspiration, confusion is the inspiration.”


Especially important in times like these, when we tend to focus on all that we’ve lost or are afraid of losing, is to continue to cultivate gratitude on a daily basis for all that we have, just as it is. For what we focus on and feed with our energy and attention is what helps grow our future good fortune.

Personally, I’ve had a 40-year-old hobby of reading Holocaust memoirs, which always keeps the memory green of past lives of suffering and reinforces my appreciation for life just as it is now in this relative plane. And, in terms of my current structural body karma playing out, whenever I look at my hands, after two major surgeries since 2017, as well as ongoing challenges with healing nerve damage among other things, I recall a past-life in which I lost my hands, which always makes me pretty damn grateful to have hands at all.

My painting up top of The Deluge is a depiction of how I felt energetically about the conscious choice I made in a past incarnation during the final inundation of Atlantis, just before it sunk completely into the sea. In the painting, I’m watching the final tidal wave coming in, as I hold to the faith in my heart that “All is well.”

In that past life, most of my loved ones had already escaped the catacylsmic tsunami by taking a ship to Egypt. But I chose not to go, feeling that I was at peace with dropping my body. I also knew, from the soul perspective, that I would meet up with them again in Egypt in my next incarnation.

So too, these days, more and more clients have been asking me where they should move to be “safer” for the long-haul, as climate migration is beginning to affect us all in different ways, and is certainly no longer just a third-world phenomenon.

I remind them that, since death is “absolutely safe,” and that from the moment we’re born “we are falling” in this ephemeral plane of existence, it’s best to cast their vote to move or stay based on where their heart calls to them to maintain the best quality of life with equanimity in the Flow. 
Then, I psychically scan a few possible geographical locations which they’ve offered up to see which has the most Light on it, based on the above criterion as well as other energetic and karmic factors. But ultimately, one would need to physically visit prospective new environs to viscerally confirm that this could be a new home base.

One of the most challenging Vedic teachings which I’ve been working on, with cyclical gains, for over 15 years is:

Pleasure or pain
Loss or gain
Praise or shame
All the same.

The reason this teaching on polarities is so hard to embrace, even though it is one of the most basic tenets of the Earth Game, is because as human beings we’re entitled to have preferences. But, of course, the kicker is that to the degree with which we cling to our preferences for how we would like things to be, suffering ensues.

In Ram Dass’s words: “The basic rule is to ‘be here now.’ The rule is to start from exactly where we are at this moment. The rule is to be able to say about oneself and the universe with all of its horror, with all of its beauty, with all of its imperfections, Kali and all her manifestations, “It is all right. It’s all OK.”

If we really want to expand our consciousness and release limiting beliefs, we can ask ourselves if: We can accept that all is evolving perfectly in the Divine plan and that everyone and everything is part of One Being, Leela, Cosmic Play, the Tao, the Flow, All That Is, or Source including:

Rabid cultists
Fundamentalists of any ilk
Sickness and illness on any level
Pharmaceuticals and western medicine
Climate change.  

I specifically listed the above just to mention some of the hot-button topics I’ve been hearing from clients of late. This list can also make steam come out of our overheated left-brains if we’re following too much social media or the “news.” It lets us know when it’s time to take a break.” Ha-ha.

Both of the above lists can help us cultivate a higher perspective from the level of Absolute Truth. But, since we all do live in 3D, a plane of relative truth, it is unrealistic to dwell solely in the realm of the Absolute, unless we are fully enlightened beings with no return to lesser states. And how many of us can say that?

In fact, any spiritual philosophy or teaching that propounds a perspective of reality with no polarities, contradictions or paradoxes is NOT OF THIS EARTH as it now is. So, trying to live solely by these absolute or ultimate truth teachings—whether from Advaita Vedanta (Krisnamurti, Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle, etc.) or Christian Science (more recently Course in Miracles etc.) is unsustainable as a way of life.

Accordingly, anyone who is attempting to exist exclusively in an absolute reality with no duality, while in an incarnation in the earth plane where relative truth is the rule, as many die-hard “new-agers” try to do, is going to end up triggering feelings that something is inherently wrong or inadequate within their beings. 

My solution to this rejection and denial of 3D reality as merely a delusion or samsara or, conversely, to rage and frustration at not having even an illusion of control over the duality of the physical plane, is to utilize a perceptual split-screen to view relative and absolute levels of reality simultaneously.

This means that, on one side of the screen, I live fully embodied in the world as it is, wholeheartedly playing the game of Life amidst so much Divine orderly chaos. I still have my preferences on the individual personality level and act on these preferences as desired. On the other side of the split-screen,  I’m holding the vision of the absolute reality in which we’re all One Being with billions of faces and everything is part of the Tao—with no exceptions.

The key is to not be so attached to having our preferences met—especially in terms of how the relative reality of the world is playing out now in the Kali Yuga (Dark Ages)—that we cause ourselves undue suffering.

I view the Earth Game as an infinite perpetual motion machine in which souls incarnate to learn how to grow into cocreators with All That Is, while healing their karma. And, without doubt, the physical plane is definitely the best show in the Universe in this regard.

“If we come back into form from having merged with God, what the Buddhist call nirvana, we are in the world but not of it. We play the cosmic sport. We fill the forms though there is no one home, it is just more Lila, the dance of God.”–Ram Dass

As we view the world now while maintaining the witnessing perspective, it helps if we can just accept that in 3D reality there are endless cyclical battles between the forces of Light and Dark playing out and that we have a very long way to go before duality dissolves into the Void, or Absolute. Outside of linear space and time we’re always at midpoint as we play the cosmic sport—for the game of Leela is infinite.

As Lord Krishna said to Arjuna: “Whenever dharma declines and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on earth. I am born in every age to protect the good, to destroy evil, and to reestablish dharma.”
For more: Bhagavad Gita

The lyrics that are running through my head as I’m typing out this channeled download are: “Same as it ever was, same as it ever was” (duality, that is). Quoted from the immortal words of David Byrne and the Talking Heads in their song Once in a Lifetime. Click here to listen with: Full Lyrics


I covered most of the astrological highlights through to the end of the year in my last newsletter, Fall Psychic Preview: Do You Feel Lucky?, in which the main theme is that we always have a choice, a vote, that helps determine our luck, karma and destiny going forward. However, I would be derelict in my duty if I also didn’t mention that communicator Mercury will be retrograde from October 13 and station direct exactly on Election Day, November 3.

This means that, since Mercury retrograde cycles govern reviewing, redoing, re-evaluating and recounting, we can expect as a near certainty that the presidential election may take several weeks or more, into December, for all the votes to be counted and validated.
This delay in results in November is exacerbated by a potentially explosive final meeting between Jupiter and Pluto on November 12 followed by the Mars direct station the following day.
In addition, we have a crazy-making Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on November 30, after which we enter a warp-speed sideways elevator in which just about anything can happen, coming out the other side with the next Eclipse on December 14, which is also a doozy: A total New Moon Solar Eclipse exactly on the North Node of Destiny in Gemini.  

Therefore, it’s in our best interest to maintain the split-screen, keep our seatbelts fastened, pass the popcorn and enjoy the ride, as all the turmoil should culminate by December 21 when Saturn conjuncts Jupiter in Aquarius, at which time we may see glimmers of the beginnings of a New Age, coming sooner rather than later, let us hope.

In closing, Mother Earth, in all her innate wisdom, is giving us some mighty bitter medicine to help heal the planet which, in effect, if we maintain a veery long-range perspective, will also heal the human race. In the meantime, when we choose to participate in the greatest drama of the Universe by casting our vote towards the Light, with faith in the Divine plan and compassion for all—especially including ourselves—we may find that:

“The fragile wants tranquility, the antifragile grows from disorder, and the robust doesn’t care too much. Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Much of modern life is preventable chronic stress injury.”
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Wishing us all, first and foremost, peace of mind and equanimity in the Flow of Life. For, without these healthy heart/mind states, we’re allowing ourselves to be harmed needlessly by the stressors of Life.

It’s time to consciously choose to fully enjoy playing our parts in the bigger-picture drama of the entire Universe, rather than getting overly identified and hooked into the spectacle of the current tragicomedy being enacted in this relative plane because: What’s the point of that?

J   O   A   N

“These words I say do not belong to me.
I say them but I am not fully aware of what I’m saying.
There is energy in them and something that depletes energy.
I have no control over any of that.
 
I am the soul in a hundred thousand bodies.
What is the soul? What is the body?
I am both, and there is someone else I am as well.
In order to please that one,
I put on various personalities. I say my lines.
 
I love this world, even as I hear the great wind of leaving rising.”
RUMI

***OFFERINGS***