Still a recovering election-holic here. While I do watch movies, I never watch commercial TV (you know, with advertisements), EXCEPT at the very end of major elections like this one. My finger is sore from muting the ads over the last couple of weeks, and I now have to wean myself from constantly checking to see what is happening in politics. It is over, and I just have to return to my quiet office, the one with no flickering TV to keep me warm and distracted. I am working on it.

Of course there are many, so I will just pick what I feel in my opinion is the key or main theme for this Full Moon, and that is what I will call here “ennui.” The dictionary defines ennui as “listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.” We might call it boredom or perhaps more correctly, a lack of interest and even languor. For me the best word might be “surfeit” or simple “enough.” We are for the moment at least full up.

When I was coming up, this whole idea of "emptiness" was so mysterious. To my

knowledge none of the people I knew had any idea what it was. Back then emptiness

was called by its Sanskrit word "Śūnyatā," which is pronounced in English Shunyata. I

would read and read about Shunyata, which was translated as emptiness, vacuity,

voidness, hollowness, and sometimes simply as openness, but I was no closer to

understanding the term, much less having experienced it consciously.

Time is elastic. It expands and contracts in response to effort on our part. We stretch time and live a life in between the seconds quite different from that we live on standard clock time. Are you aware of this? I certainly didn't always know this, and I did not know how to expand time at will and I did not learn it all at once. Like raindrops before a storm, I learned about the elasticity of time slowly at first, drop by drop, and only later in any quantity. There were many hints, but here is one story of how I discovered expanded time.

Interpreting these particular astrological patterns: I mentioned in the earlier post that although the New Moon is typically (and traditionally) the seminal point, and the Full Moon is the release point, that this recent Full Moon (Saturday) was so strongly configured (astrologically speaking) that while it may not serve as a seed or imprinting point, it very likely could have served as a catalyst, something to jar us loose from the groove we might be in and cause us to wake up, look around, and take notice as to the general direction of our life, call it a wake-up call for some of us.

Some of you have written me about this recent Full Moon eclipse. Every time there is a major eclipse, in particular a double eclipse, people want to know more about what this all means. By ‘major eclipse’ I don’t mean of long duration or whatever, but rather astrologically strongly configured as this current one is. And by double I mean that we are going to have two eclipses in a row, each two weeks apart. There will be a solar eclipse two weeks from now on July 11th. First, let’s understand something about eclipses in general and I am not going to go into the astronomy of eclipses, which is well illustrated all over the web. Google for that.

We are in an intra-eclipse time, three eclipses all in a row for that matter. Theoretically we should be (or can be) more sensitive to our inner changes during this time, at least that is what the Tibetans point out. As they say, eclipses are times to observe our mindstream with more care. Why? Because things are happening now, if we will just look or learn to look. And what is happening is change, and change is what fuels creativity. By definition, change of any kind marks instability of the status quo. Life is once again in flux, and that fact impacts the way things are. This means that things will not be going on the way they have been going. Things are changing. I am reminded of the line in Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man," "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?"

It should not surprise us that the Tibetan Buddhists have a special practice designed just to handle our reactions. This practice is distinct from any sitting meditation we might do and is called Tonglen, which in English translates to something like "Taking and Sending," and it has to do with gradually becoming aware of our reactions, our likes and dislikes, and disarming them. Tonglen is about becoming aware of our own reactions, our prejudices, likes, dislikes, etc., and owning and clearly seeing them. We take in or become aware of our reactions, and we send out or respond with openness and kindness. Literally we breathe in what we react to (like or don't like, including the suffering of others) and send back out whatever is good and in us in return, the best thoughts and energy we have within us. The concept takes some getting used to by westerners. It took me a while.

The Four or Five Elements I have long been fascinated by Asian philosophy and psychology and how it differs from that used here in the West. It can be difficult to explain the difference between these two systems, but I have one clear astrological example that you might appreciate. I have been studying astrology for some fifty years, so long I forget when I actually started and what constitutes studying anyway? I have also been studying Chinese astrology for a long time. I find Chinese astrology very profound and not something one can learn in a month, day, year, or even years. I have never written much about the subject because I am still just a student, but I do want to share a little bit of Chinese astrology with you so that you have a taste and see if you like it too. To do this, I will compare just one facet of astrology as we view it through Western methods, and as the Chinese see it. You will get the idea, I am sure. I am going to use the Four Elements.

I was helping a friend move recently and had a chance to visit their new home. It was located not in a city, but on the edge of about as much wilderness as you can imagine. The view from their home inset high upon a hillside was fabulous, forest as far as you could see below and a large lake in the distance. I was told that even the occasional wolf, bear, and cougar was to be seen, and that you don’t venture into the dense forest below without a companion and a compass.

I should know better than to talk about drugs and the dharma (and I usually don't) in the same sentence. Encouraging drug use is not my intention. And it would seem that there really is no obvious link between drugs and the dharma in this country. However, there is one indirect link that to me it is very interesting, and worth risking a discussion. In my experience drugs are not per-se dharmic, with one exception, LSD. And, although they may not be popular, here are my thoughts:

The solution that I recommend is not to attempt to go back to where we started, but to finish the job and become a butterfly. The concept of the self in almost all forms of mind practice is something to get to know, handle, and move beyond. All the Buddhists agree. It is not that there is no self; of course there is, but rather that our attachment to it is misplaced at best and limiting at worst. This is why most meditation methods help us to become clear about what the self is and is not. As some of the ancient wisdom teachings say: “Attachment to the ‘self’ is the only cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky.” What do they mean by this?

In my experience as a counselor the trick with these “autistic” LSD types is to get right in there with them and show them that they are not alone, that you know exactly where they are, and that what they cling to as making them unique is in fact common knowledge to all of those who know the mind. There isn’t anything unique or special about their LSD trip and they might as well accept this and move on. Others have been there before them. There is nothing they (at first) hate more than company, because their private drug vision is what has made them unique to themselves all these years. It is all they have at the moment and they have held on to it (frozen in time) and have not progressed from that point since then.

The problem for many drug users is not that LSD snatched away the curtain from the Wizard of the Self (troubling enough), but rather that behind the curtain there was no one there. This is what gave us pause. The philosopher Hegel wrote in his main work “The Phenomenology of the Mind,” the following: “We go behind the curtain of the self to see what is there, but mainly for there to be something to be seen.” Think about that. Hegel is one of the very few western philosophers that grasped the nature of the self, which is the stock and trade of Zen and Tibetan Buddhists: the fact that the Self has no permanent existence. If the self is held together only by our attachment to its components and LSD fractures our attachment, then many of us who took those conscious-altering drugs have experienced non-attachment. We have seen what only yogis see.

LSD was virtually unknown in the early 1960s, although rumors were all around. The word on the street was that acid (as we came to call it), unlike any drug we knew up to them, actually could alter the mind itself. Of course, most of this was pure speculation because few of us had yet taken or had real experience. We trembled at what that might mean, but of course were still intrigued. Not everyone rushed out to try it. It was that down side that gave us pause, that acid could permanently alter and damage the mind. What could that mean, “permanently alter?” That phrase alone kept many drug enthusiasts at bay.

We Become What We Want Why do we have the drive and ambition to accomplish some days and don’t feel like doing much of anything on other days?. I don’t usually explain technique in these blogs because it can be too much to take in, but this technique is so easy that I will give it a try. It all has to do with balance.

Eclipses are perhaps the most important Earthly astrological event we experience. Yes, New and Full Moons are important, but if they are accompanied by an eclipse they are even more important. And when two eclipses happen in a two-week period, one after the other, then the whole time surrounding those eclipses is special.

No, I am not trying to self-destruct this blog and drive readers away, but when it comes

to dharma, my advice is to read less and do more. Do more what? Do more practice, of

course, learning how to use these techniques. And by "practice," I don't just mean

whatever practice you may be doing on the cushion. That may be working for you or it

may be part of the problem by this time. Ultimately practice must spread throughout our

entire day (not just on the cushion) for us to really accumulate enough merit and

awareness. But learning to do that is not all that easy in my opinion.

The great 19th Century Tibetan master Patrul Rinpoche wrote: Don’t prolong the past, Don’t speculate about the future, Just dwell in present awareness. The question is how best to do this? How do we not dwell on the past or the future, but somehow be mindful of the present, the one place where a future (and therefore a new past) can be built. The traditional way to do this which has been taught for over 2500 years is Shamata meditation. And there are many, many forms of meditation.

This admonition seems strange, since the future is often so inviting; in bad times the

future is almost certainly better than the past (if that's been rough), and hopefully even

better than the present. Another translation might be "Don't speculate," but that also is

hard to do because we can't help but wonder what's going to happen next. Another

Buddhist slogan that puzzles me is "Hope and Fear are not Our Friends." OK. I get that

fear is something we can do without, but hope? Hope just keeps us going sometimes,

so what's up with that?

Self-liberation is a term I encounter often in dharma texts. For me this always has a

double-meaning, first that (hopefully) I will eventually be liberated from being bound or

obscured by my own bad habits and begin to see through the endless distractions of my

busy-body-self and it's grasping at attachments. That is my hope.

And second, and more discouraging, I have this growing realization I must liberate

myself by my own efforts. No one else is going to do it for me, no matter how long I wait.

After all, that is why it is called self-liberation.

Most of my friends read books. I mean they ‘really’ read books a lot, all kinds of things, especially fiction. I am almost jealous. I am often asked what books I am reading. For some reason this always takes me by surprise because I never read books anymore. It is not that I have not read books. I have read far too many, for sure. It is just that it never occurs to me to read a book. Just so you know I am normal, I watch movies or parts of them instead.

I am surrounded by friends and family who are deeply attached to books and reading. Of all people, I should know the beauty of books and reading, because I not only have read way too much for my own health, but I have amassed several large libraries over the years, and am the curator of what is perhaps the largest astrological library in the world. So I am not throwing stones here, but I am looking at books and what we do with them, at least briefly.

This was our side yard at 1041 N. Main Street in Ann Arbor. No, my wife did not wash my kid’s diapers and put them out on the line to dry. You can do better than that. Let me give you a hint. This was in the late 1960s to early1970s area of time. Does that help? Would it help if I told you that I designed the logo for Eden Organic Foods and also picked the date and time for them to first open (using astrology)? That was November 4th, 1969. You should have it now. What you are looking at is a whole LOT of seaweed being hung out to dry before going into storage in our basement. I can't see it too well but it looks like Wakame to me. Too stringy for Kombu (Kelp). Back then organic and whole foods were just trying to take hold. You couldn’t buy seaweed. You couldn’t buy tofu either. We had to make tofu in our kitchen which took many hours and was hard work. There was no tofu. Anyone else ever do that?

I recently did four interviews during the UAC (United Astrology Conference) in New Orleans, and one of them included the question “When did you start to believe in astrology?” or something like that. My answer was that I don’t “believe” in much of anything. That is too much like what the great lama Chögyam Trungpa said years ago, “Your guess is as good as mine.” A guess is a guess; a belief is just that, a belief, not knowledge. I don’t think I ever have believed in astrology or anything else for that matter. Perhaps I believe in life after death, and I am working to make that experiential, probably all too soon for my liking. Anyway, somewhere way back then, I found astrology to be useful. I use it because it is useful.

This series of short blogs is a little more direct than some of my writings. You can always just pass over it. For one thing, it has more than a few "Do this" and "Don't do this" suggestions. It is designed for those of you who have found that the mind can at times be quite obscured and is not just naturally clear all the time. If you know this already, then you may be more willing to just get down to learning to work with the mind. What follows are some suggestions and a method of practice to deal with our emotional reactions.

I have been disappointed. Like many of us, I have had some disappointments in my life, and they are, obviously, well, disappointing. A couple of the big ones I have experienced threw me into a loop that was not that easy to get out of, so I want to talk here about the little letdowns of life. But before I do that let's look at one big disappointment that happened to me so that we are all on the same page as to what can happen.

Tonglen is a Tibetan method everyone would do well to learn whether they practice dharma or not. It is that useful! And it is easy to learn. Tonglen is also known by the name “sending and receiving” as well as “exchanging yourself for others.” It is similar to the Christian motto “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but the Buddhists take it to another whole level. Tonglen helps to develop compassion in an organic and very natural way. And the technique is very simple:

In those thirty years of practicing, as regards the results of sitting meditation, apparently the only thing I accumulated was more dharma toys. In the beginning I had no toys. I had no shrine, no statues, no mala (beads), no nothing. I had a little piece of paper with my dharma name and a line drawing of the Buddha on it. That was my shrine and I placed it on a little shelf at eye level while I practiced meditation.. But while I sat there for thirty years, although I didn’t accumulate any real meditation results, I did manage to accumulate an incredible amount of dharma “stuff”.

When I first got into astrology, the idea of a “dharma” chart did not exist. Back then there were no home computers, and not even simple 4-function calculators. Every astrology chart was done laboriously by hand, using pencil, paper, books, and log tables, and few people could do it, but that is another story. Studying my astrology chart in the early 1960s gave me an alternate way of looking at myself, call it a second opinion (and some relief) from the toxic psychological descriptions of that time, labels that were then all the rage, words like paranoid, manic/depressive, schizophrenic, etc. That was how we grew up thinking about ourselves, not at all helpful for a young person. Anyway… I soon identified with my astrology chart and inhaled its alternate description of who I was compared to the labels society had pinned on my generation.

As an American, I never thought about this much, but it is something the Tibetan

Buddhists make a very big deal over, and that is "intent"; they call it "Aspiration."

Before starting any dharma practice, Buddhists recite a short aspiration prayer and after

their practice is over they dedicate any merit that accrues from that practice with

another prayer. In other words they are sensitive to why we are doing dharma practice

in the first place as well as what becomes of any merit that accumulates from that

practice. It took me many years to realize how important this instruction is.

Why do we practice? The obvious answer, which makes sense of course, is that we are

doing it to improve ourselves, to become clearer minded and more realized. Such an

aspiration (use your own words here) might sound like:

v

As they say, "disappointment is the salt of life," and the big disappointments in life can be, indeed, earth-shaking, but they sometimes can serve as a wake-up call. However, the steady rain of quiet disappointments has less to recommend itself and potentially is even more dangerous to our mental health. With the big disappointments, and I have had a few, the best advice I have given myself is not to add insult to injury. It is bad enough that I have been disappointed, that I took a turn life gave me in a hard way, but it is much worse if then I add to that perceived injury the insult of following it with endless regret and, worst of all, bitterness. Bitterness is a real life killer.

I have written here many times about my first spiritual teacher, Andrew Gunn McIver, who was a traveling initiator for a Rosicrucian order. I first knew him in the mid-1960s as a retired person living in Ann Arbor that I connected with. He appeared as an old man who looked a lot like Bernard Shaw. There he was sitting around on benches on the U-M Diag open to contact. I have written extensively about him elsewhere. What I write here is a part of esoteric astrology, so it is not for everyone. It is not that any of this is a secret, but rather that it refers to something that is so obvious (like the air we breathe) than it is hard to catch and gather with the mind. So going in, I write this for the very few who will resonate to it. My apologies if it is too obscure or esoteric (abstract and boring) for some of you. Please feel free to just skip this blog. You have been warned.

The Odyssey Bar was where I first met Margaret, my wife, on what was called “Wine Night” at the Odyssey, which featured some cheap (and inexpensive) wine. It was in March of 1971. We were both sitting at the same long table right in front of the band, where all the locals sat. Margaret was across the table. It was noisy, but not too loud for Margaret to pointedly make fun of me for sitting there drinking orange juice. She said something (for everyone to hear) like “What are you, some kind of pansy, drinking orange juice?”

The Phases in Cycles and What They Mean Your response to the notes on the dark days of the solunar cycle pointed out to me that at least some of you are interested in cycles and their phases, so at the risk of boring the rest of you, I want to share some information about the phases in cycles. It is pretty much axiomatic that astrology is about cycles and circles, things that go round and return. If you think about, it those things that do not return or cycle are singletons and we never hear from or see them again. They are just here once and then gone. The things we know are those things that return again and again making themselves known to us by restating or positing themselves endlessly. They endure and exist.

THE FULL MOON, PART 1

February 7, 2012

Observing the lunar cycle goes back thousands of years and concepts like “Full Moon Madness” and the like have been around for as long. Yet this is a topic that is not taught in schools and is only even obliquely referenced by the media. For me it was always a no-brainer to grasp that our lives are all wrapped up in these huge bodies like the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon. When science is speculating about the wing flap of a butterfly in Brazil having an effect (chaos theory) in Greenland, what about these great rhythms of life like the solunar cycle? They must do something with us.

In my experience, one of the chief obstacles in learning to meditate was proper understanding of the word “relax.” Misunderstanding this word probably set my meditation progress back by a good 10-15 years. Yes, I said “years.” Imagine that! It is not that I did not read the words “Relax the mind,” “Rest the mind,” and so on. I did read the words, but I made the sincere mistake of interpreting this relaxing or resting as something that “I” had to do, something to be done. I had to “relax” the mind when I meditated… “had to do.” This I believe is not what is meant in the teachings.

One thing I have noticed in my years of being around the Tibetans (monks and rinpoches) and Tibetan Buddhism in general is how they approach criticism, and here I mean personal criticism. I used to think their attitude toward personal comments might be just that old cliché, you know, oriental inscrutability and reservation when it comes to being personal, but I finally had to give that thought up. It does not seem to be the case. Their attitude seems to reflect Buddhist philosophy about the self, at least among the high rinpoches that I have met.

In most towns restaurants come and go. When I was growing up in Ann Arbor there was a restaurant on South State Street up near the University of Michigan campus called The Virginian. It was not related to the TV show but was a typical American restaurant. I don’t recall ever going inside. However in 1971 an organic farmer (and friend), Ken King along with Rick Peshkin founded the “Indian Summer Natural Foods Restaurant” in the space where The Virginian used to be. This was significant because as one of the first examples of the old guard being replaced by the new alternative-culture (I refuse to call them “Hippies.”) Suddenly on one of our main streets was an organic foods restaurant where I was welcome, the owners of which I knew, and they actually had food that I would eat!

ENTREPRENEURS MAKE MISTAKES Being an entrepreneur sounds pretty glamorous until you try it. Many entrepreneurs like me have no choice. No one will have us or we can’t fit under somebody else’s roof. We find ourselves on our own and outriders beyond society’s protective fringe. Only if we get lucky do we get lucky. Otherwise we live by our wits and on a shoestring. A lot of astrologers are like this. Here is a good example of one harebrained scheme I dreamed up that was all kinds of fun to create but that went absolutely nowhere. The time was 1969 and I was surviving by cleaning the toilets in an office building and helping out my brother Stephen and his partner John Crofoot Sullivan at their metaphysical bookstore, Circle Books. It was the first such bookstore in Ann Arbor and opened on the spring equinox of 1968.

Being an entrepreneur sounds pretty glamorous until you try it. Many entrepreneurs like me have no choice. No one will have us or we can’t fit under somebody else’s roof. We find ourselves on our own and outriders beyond society’s protective fringe. Only if we get lucky do we get lucky. Otherwise we live by our wits and on a shoestring. A lot of astrologers are like this. Here is a good example of one hair-brained scheme I dreamed up that was all kinds of fun to create but that went absolutely nowhere. The time was 1969 and I was surviving by cleaning the toilets in an office building and helping out my brother Stephen and his partner John Crofoot Sullivan at their metaphysical bookstore, Circle Books. It was the first such bookstore in Ann Arbor and opened on the spring equinox of 1968.

I am off early to the Bernard farm near Lake City, Michigan. Michigan has over 11,000

lakes, so the odds of their being a Lake City were always high, and there it is.

September 19-21, 2014

https://www.earthworkharvestgathering.com/

The venue this coming weekend is the annual Harvest Gathering, a convocation of

musicians, this year some 110 bands, which means hundreds and hundreds of

musicians, four performing stages, and three days of music and community. This is an

experience not to be missed I can assure you. If you live within driving distance (or have

other ways to travel), grab a tent and get here however you can. Years from now folks

will still be remembering and writing about the seminal collective-mandala called the

Harvest Gathering.

The solar eclipse Sunday July 11th at 3:40 PM EDT brings to a close this special 2-week interval between eclipses. I will try in this post to give you a little more of the flavor of both the western and eastern astrological traditions as regards the meaning of eclipses. First, our western tradition. The eclipse will be over Sunday, but this is not the end of the effect of the eclipse. Rather this is more like the beginning, since a solar eclipse is considered like an impregnation, a seed time. Depending on the nature of the seed, what is called the solar tone, and how we receive will be the fruit of the seed -- what comes of it. The seed or tone is placed in the stream of our mind where it may remain dormant for a time since we are usually at first unaware of its message, but sooner or later that inner sound will be heard or read by us. In other words, it is like a script that is placed deep in our mind that we can only read or become aware of over time as it slowly comes up into our mind, and as we can get a handle on it.

We have had a very active Sun these last days. Also, recently released is this X-ray image of the center of our galaxy, in particular a point called Sagittarius A (Sgr A). In the enclosed image, low-energy X-rays (300 to 1,500 electron volts) are in red, medium-energy X-rays (1,500 to 3,000 electron volts) are in green, and high-energy X-rays (3,000 to 10,000) electron volts are shown in blue. At the center of these X-rays is a supermassive black hole that was very active in the ancient past, but even today produces bursts of X-ray flares every five or so days. Scientists have discovered near this massive black hole a neutron star, which is the crushed core of a supernova explosion, with mass equivalent to a half-million Earths now smashed to an object the size of Washington.

The real fireworks are taking place on the surface of the Sun and we have volley after volley of solar flares yesterday and continuing into today, Thursday July 5, 2012. And the forecast is for more and potentially larger bursts, including perhaps the most powerful X-Class flares.

There are two main types of cosmic radiation that reach us. The first obviously is radiation from the sun and that follows (roughly) an eleven year cycle. When the solar cycle is at its strongest (like now), we have a sharp increase in solar flares. This increase during the solar maximum acts like a great shield that wards off another kind of radiation that is not coming from the sun, but rather coming from deep space, places like the center of the galaxy and elsewhere: cosmic rays.

Thanks to those of you who emailed or messaged me with questions about this very strong major X5.4 solar flare (and the accompanying X1.3 solar flare following it) which peaked around Active Sunspot AR1429 on Wednesday March 7, 2012 at 7:02 EST. X-Class flares are the strongest solar flares the Sun is capable of and this very large solar flare did in fact emit a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection), and that CME is Earth-bound and due to hit the Earth today, Thursday March 9,2012 around 1:25 AM EST and will last until Friday morning. The charged particles of the CME will hit the earth at 4,000,000 miles per hour.

Spring seems finally to be here, almost a month late. When I go over my photos from past years of the chorus of spring frogs, they are usually in full swing toward the end of March. This year they have only been really active in the last few days. There have been thin layers of ice on the small ponds most mornings until now. I can only try to imagine the suffering of cold so many animals go through just to stay alive. It is unimaginable. And the spring flowers have waited all this time to pop, and now they all coming at once, which makes seeing them all, much less photographing them, a hurry-up process, and so on.

We have been vegetarian ON and OFF for some 45 years, mostly on, so it was not too hard to keep the vegetarian switch turned to on when His Holiness 17th Gyalwa Karmapa suggested that we might all want to consider not taking animal life. And that means cooking vegetables. If we are thinking of doing the same or have already taking that path, then we better know something about vegetables and how to cook them.

I have blogged here for a long time. In general, I only blog about something that I have

thoroughly gone through and feel confident to report on. My topics are, for me, "safe"

topics. Yet now I am in the middle of what I can only call new experience, so the returns

are not all in. This experience is not safe, in that sense. So, I can either not blog much,

rehash the same old stuff, or dare to blog without a safety net, without having tried and

tested my topic.

I will try to blog here at this experience level and see what happens. It may be too raw

or contain more questions than answers. Let's just see, and we can go from there.

The airwaves today are filled with electronic waves. Forget about TV signals; that was

yesterday. Today we have not only TV, but AM and FM radio waves, microwaves,

infrared, short-wave, cordless, Wi-Fi, weather radar, and you-name-it. This is aside from

visible light waves, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and even gamma rays, not to mention

gravitational radiation. We may not be able to see many of these, but they are

everywhere around us, filling all the available spots in the frequency spectrum.

We are used to thinking that our mind is within our skull and that our inner life is inside and the external world is outside. One of the first things one learns in esoteric studies and knowledge is that that actual truth is just the reverse. What we call ‘outside’ or external is within, and what we call “in” is actually outside and surrounding any “thing.” Just as sugar or salt forms its crystal within itself from the surrounding fluid, so does external day-to-day reality form within the atmosphere of our surrounding mind. The same type of logic holds true when we inquire where life began.

One of my favorite jazz tunes is the incredible Eugene McDaniels song "Compared to

What?" sung by Les McCann, with Eddie Harris on sax. For those of you have the time,

here is the original tune recorded live at the 1969 Montreux Jazz Festival. Wait for the

lyrics please… especially the punch line:

"Tryin' to make it real – compared to what?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzvlivbptXk

That line is pure dharma to my ears because until we have some realization, we have

nothing to compare our experience to. I had planned to move on to some other topics

that I find interesting, but some of your questions suggest that I am not being clear

enough with my presentation. For that I apologize, and we will take this sidebar.

Someone asked a very fair question: "Do we not experience a realization?"

Just a few words about this visionary two-week time period we are in between the solar eclipse (New Moon) that just took place on November 13th and the lunar (Full Moon ) eclipse that will take place on November 28th. I pointed out in earlier blogs that double eclipses back-to back in a two-week period is a rare and auspicious event. Traditionally this is a time for visions and vision, being able to see through the fog of the future at least something of what is in store for us, like, for example, where we may be headed. And I went into some detail that “having a vision” was not some pie-in-the-sky image that pops up in our mind, but rather a vision is a super-intense moment or time in which we are impressed or imprinted with meaning, meaning that will take time for us to absorb, and to read back out from our own mind into our consciousness and understand.

Samye and Chimphuk In 1997, at the request of our teacher, the Ven. Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, I traveled to the high mountains of Tibet along with most of my family. We were on a pilgrimage to see His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, who is the enlightened being that the movie “The Golden Child” with Eddie Murphy was patterned after. Since that time the Karmapa has escaped Tibet and is now living in India. We did meet His Holiness, but along the way we made attempts to reach some of the legendary sacred places in Tibet. Once of those places was the high caves where Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) meditated and hid many secret teachings (terma). One of the most sacred cave complexes is that of Chimphuk, high in the mountains above Samye Monastery, to which there are no roads, reachable only by boat or backpack. Pilgrimages in Tibet are traditional, a chance to visit and soak up the vibes where great beings had spent large parts of their lives. Here is my story of climbing to the Guru Rinpoche caves of Chimphuk.

The media is filled with the news of the very large coronal mass ejection (CME) event following the recent solar flare last Sunday, January 22, 2012, which is now giving Earth an x-ray bath that could be very dangerous except that it is mostly stopped by the earth’s magnetosphere. And the more we manage to damage our own atmospheres, of course the less protection we have from these x-ray storms, high solar winds, and similar events. As these highly charged protons and electrons funnel in through the north and south magnetic poles, they produce incredible light shows or the aurora. These are the obvious physical result of a CME event. And the news media is focused on the physical. But what about the psychological and ‘meta’-physical effects from such an event? Just because we can’t see them, do we really think they don’t exist, that we are untouchable spiritually?

This should be my last post on inner change, and I have thought for several days whether or not even to write this part because it touches on some very esoteric (sensitive) topics. What is the problem with inner change? The problem is that we are protected from witnessing inner change by our own social conventions, by what is called "sanity" and, for that matter, social sanitation. We do everything we can not to come into contact with our conflicting emotions, and all of the rest of the stuff that may be festering in our psyches. In reality, our internal worlds have no fixed boundaries and can include more than a little chaos and all manner of undigested experience – paradoxes that we have come up against but have failed to assimilate, especially relating to our "self." The "Self" does not like to be embarrassed.

I realize as I write this that there will (probably) be few readers for this article. I know you like variety in these blogs, and that a few stories would be more welcome. However, I tend to go where my interest goes, and right now, in this political season, I am wondering how we will ever make headway against the lobbyists, corporations, and entrenched interests. And I don’t see a quick fix for solving our problems, but rather one that works from the bottom up, one person at a time. I am sure this may seem abstract, but I don’t see it that way. It involves not with how to change others, but with how to change ourselves. Philosophers, psychiatrists, and especially Buddhists talk about labels and labeling all the time. Labels here refer to that thin film of thought that coats our true senses, a prophylactic against actually feeling life, just as it is. Labels are a self-imposed mental filter between each of us and true reality.

I am reminded of one of our trips to Tibet when we climbed to the Crystal Cave of Guru

Rinpoche, a pretty inaccessible place. It was an all-day hike and we needed whatever

help we could get, so we started out having a local Tibetan drive us up an old creek bed

in a small trailer on the back of one of those Tibetan tractor-like machines. There we

were riding in the back, as the tractor very slowly crept up the dry stream bed.

And we (too soon for me) reached a point where the tractor could not pull us any farther

and it was get out and help push or just walk. We walked, and that was still at the

beginning of the beginning of the climb. It was not long after that that we were literally

walking among the clouds.

Career changes, finding what you like or can do in life, don’t always just jump out at you. They may not always be so obvious. Some life changes kind of sneak up on you. You may even have to watch out for the signs to even know that they are there or you may already be doing for fun (or for your own sanity!) what you might be able to do for money and a job. Astrology does not so much promise anything to us, as open up opportunities or doors, and it is always up to us to walk through them. No one can do that for us.

What you are looking at here is a very large (and deep) bag of freshly roasted coffee beans from our friends at Higher Grounds (fair-trade) Coffee in Traverse City. I don't know how many pounds this is, but it is enough. Enough for what you might ask? It is enough for the recording session starting today at our studio (Heart Center Studios) here in Big Rapids, Michigan, for a new solo album by my daughter May Erlewine, with her husband Seth Bernard on guitar, Josh Davis on keyboards (and who knows what else), Dominic John (bass player for Jack White) on bass, jazz-drummer Mike Shimmin on drums, and I am sure a few others. Ian Gorman will engineer it. A few of us will get to drop by and take a listen if we are quiet.

I have tried all kinds of diets over the years, my favorite always being fasting, at least for a short time. Let’s start there. I fast for a few days, eating almost nothing and drinking lots of fluids, feel a lot better, and gradually introduce food again. I always lose a few pounds, trim down a bit, and am pretty happy with myself for that. The problem is that after I start eating again I kind of go into zombie mode and before long I am eating at least as much as I was before and sometimes more. Somehow I zone out. I forget.

Astrology and predicting the future are often linked together. Does astrology predict the future and, if so, how does that work? You would think if astrologers could predict something like the stock market, the first thing they would do is run out and make a million dollars or so. This would make their lives easier. But that does not seem to be the case. Astrologers are not usually numbered among the very rich. In fact, it is more likely the opposite, and here is a little story of my own about that. Many years ago, in the very early 1970s, I wanted to buy a programmable calculator. It was the beginning of my programming career and it led to my founding Matrix Software, the first astrological software company that offered programs for astrologers. And… Matrix today is the second oldest software company on the Internet (aside from Microsoft) according to an article written for Red Herring Magazine.

I know something about how it is to have my mind clear, and I can tell when it is foggy, as if there was some greasy film over everything, including my usual clarity. Sometimes I just wake up with my mind out of whack. Bad dreams? Who knows? Like a camera slightly out of focus, at those times I find that I am somehow beside myself, however subtly. I can feel it, sense it, and know that I am unclear. I am not talking about being cross-eyed, but just ever-so-slightly out-of-focus -- not in tune. Years ago my life-teacher Andrew McIver would take care of this for me. When I would meet him on a given day, perhaps up on the Diag (central campus) of the University of Michigan, he could tell when I was out of sorts, I don’t know how. And I would never see it coming, which is just the point. I was not seeing that well at those times anyway.

HOW TO INTERPRET RETROGRADES [ABSTRACT: Are you liberal and future oriented or conservative and rooted in the status quo? Or are you actually in the present, in the here and the now… and by how much? Retrogrades tell this story and can be measured planet by planet. The technique is easy. Find out how to use it.] A quick and accurate way to get a fix on a chart, whether of a person or an event, is to check out the retrogrades, whether the planets are moving backward or forward in the zodiac, in which direction, and how far from the conjunction with the Sun or opposition point for that planet. While retrograde phenomenon may appear complex, it is really quite easy to understand. Here is how to look at them:

Above title a line from the disco song by The Trammps of 1978, and here I am referring

to our karmic burn rate. We are certainly all slaves to our own karma, usually creating it

as fast as we can. I always liked the album title of singer-songwriter Neil Young, "Rust

Never Sleeps," only here it would be "Karma Never Sleeps."

Since I was originally raised on the Ten Commandments, when I wandered into

Buddhism and learned about the law of Karma, cause and effect, I was always on the

watch not to accumulate karma of the "Do Not Kill," "Do Not Steal," and so on variety. It

never occurred to me until somewhat late in the game that I was already accumulating a

myriad of karma of a lesser kind. I call it micro-karma and I was on the lookout for big

mistakes while trampling on the grass and stepping on ants. I am reminded of the quote

from the poet/occultist Aleister Crowley, "To snatch at a gnat, and swallow a camel."

That's about right.

Folks, this blog may be too long and nitty-gritty for some of you and for this I apologize. It may not be for everyone. Here goes: The “Dharma” or mind training (meditation methods) that the historical Buddha left us is (as we know) currently going secular big time. Today more and more people are training their minds. Does this mean that Buddhism does not have a “spiritual” component? I hesitate to use the word ‘religious’ here (and I mentioned this in the precious blog) because I don’t consider Buddhism a religion in the traditional sense. That is my opinion.

Well, “no way” as I see it. Buddhism is said to be one of the fastest-growing religions in America. In my opinion this is because Buddhism is not really a religion at all as folks who study it well know. I never thought it was and I have been working with it for over 37 years. If you must call it a religion, then it is the “religion” for the rest of us. If it is not a religion, what is it?

When I remember my first introduction to Buddhism, all that comes to mind are the

"Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind toward the Dharma," also called the "Four Thoughts

That Turn the Mind," or just the "Four Thoughts." Some traditions call them the "Four

Reversals," because these thoughts are so convincing and natural that they (when

properly understood) divert us from our distracted lives and cause us to actually change

our own mind and direction.

A powerful burst of energy from a dying star overwhelmed an orbiting observatory scanning for x-Rays and other high-energy radiation. The blast came from a star that died five billion years ago probably on its way to become a black hole. And that burst of energy has been traveling all this time to arrive on Earth June 21, basically the summer solstice.

For those of you interested in or practicing Mahamudra meditation, here is what I consider an important book to know.

I will try to be succinct. I have co-directed a meditation center for some 25 years, studied (and practiced) under Tibetans for 40 years many of the practices and techniques described by Daniel Brown. I have worked with a high rinpoche for the last 30 years on studying and practicing Mahamudra. My point is that this material is not new to me. When I first saw this very large book, I assumed that it was just another derivative dharma book of the kind that needs too-many words to say not enough, and seldom communicates what is actually needed by readers.

I have blogged here that I am donating the Heart Center Astrological Library which I

have curated for these many years to the University of Illinois to become part of their

permanent collection. The university is the third largest library in the world, so it will

have a good home. It is time.

The library may well be the largest such library in existence, and to my knowledge it

contains the most astrological periodicals ever assembled, and they are the most

ephemeral.

[Esoteric Warning: The following blog is esoteric in nature and probably too heady for some. It does have a practical aspect, but it may be difficult to grasp. You may choose to just ignore this post.] Good habits and bad habits, both have a strong effect on the mind. Habits are, of course, "habits," but I find that habits also act as viewers into the mind. Let's put the bad habits aside for the moment and just look at the good ones. Actually, I should say we look "through" our good habits, as I am certain that the habits we build are, in their own way, prisms through which we see internal landscapes we cannot otherwise see, or is it just me? Anyway, I know this works for me.

Since the mid-1970s I have been involved in dharma practice and affiliated with Tibetan Buddhism. Most of my Facebook friends must know that about me by now. I have had the extreme good fortune to sit at the feet of the Tibetan Buddhist masters that escaped from Tibet and learn. But before I found the Tibetans I had other life masters that I studied. I want to tell you about one group of them. I became involved in the folk-music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I was learning to play guitar and traveling the same folk circuit that folk singers like Bob Dylan traveled at that time. In fact I hitchhiked with Dylan for a stretch in 1961, was with him when he performed in Ann Arbor, and things like that. That would be another story.

"Mighty oaks from little acorns grow." It has taken 45 years, but that aphorism has proved itself true regarding natural foods. There certainly was nothing very natural about Ann Arbor food back in the early 1960s. And I am so tired of ne'er-do-wells telling me that "The Sixties" was a mistake and has brought the country nothing of real value. Are they serious? I keep waiting for someone to set the record straight, but as Dylan says "It's not dark yet, but it's getting there." So, as we can find the time, let's those of us who were there count the blessings of The Sixties, one-by-one, while we can. I am going to start off with food and my connection with Eden Foods. What would Ann Arbor (or for that matter, the whole country) be like without Eden Foods and endeavors like it? Eden Foods is just one of the great concepts that became companies in the 1960s. Let me set the stage here for a moment.

This is the conclusion to my comments on these great landmark festivals. And what was

I thinking during the festivals? Mostly probably not thinking, but living it, just being there.

Life also has its high points, and for me this is one of them. I was taking it all in, one

moment at a time.

In the flurry and hubbub of the constant festival activity, something was sinking in, and it

had more to do with the interviewing I was doing than it did with the festival music or

even the whole music scene itself. I already knew the music, but never before the

performers up close.

Recently I was reflecting on my interest in Mahamudra meditation, perhaps the pinnacle of dharma practice in the Karma Kagyu tradition, the Tibetan Buddhist lineage to which I find myself most naturally resonant. I calculate that my wife Margaret and I have travelled over 40,000 miles just to hear teachings on this one topic alone. That is over one and one half times around the circumference of the earth and something like 500 teaching sessions over 23 years, just on the subject of Mahamudra meditation. I figure I must be into it

Of course I am talking about meditation. Like a bulldog with a bone, I can’t seem to let go of talking about how incredible meditation is. Now, I am not talking about “practicing” meditation. That is tedious. I am talking about actually learning to meditate. The main (and hardest) part of learning meditation is building the habit of mindfulness. That is what it is all about. This typically involves sitting (often on a cushion) in some quiet place and practicing the basic technique of meditating. It does take time. The emphasis is on “practice” and the purpose of practice is to learn (make a habit of) mindfulness. We need mindfulness in order to meditate and we need (at least I do) meditation in order to see clearly and respond skillfully to life.

Back in 1964, when I spent a year living in Berkeley, California, I attended some

meetings of a group studying the works of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. One quote from

Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" that stuck in my mind was:

"If you go on a spree, then go the whole hog, including the postage."

The idea is that if you are going to do something, don't scrimp and offer short-services,

but go all the way… including paying for the postage.

First a Solar Flare Update: We finally got an X1.1 Class solar flare last night at about 8:08 PM EDT Friday July 6, 2012, the strongest class of solar flare, and it did generate a CME Event (Coronal Mass Ejection), but it looks like the CME is not headed toward Earth. Keep in mind that solar-flares affect us deep inside and its information appears or occurs to us in our mind as the “truth” and thus overwrites whatever we have been identifying with up to that point. These are good times to dig into how things really are and get down to the nitty-gritty.

I mentioned recently that I no longer read books, per se, at least not fiction. But I neglected to say that I do read magazines, although they too are dwindling in importance due to a lack of interesting content for my tastes. And this is not a put-down, but I do most of my magazine reading in the bathroom, a bit at a time. We have a little vertical wooden magazine rack on the floor at knee level that I can lay an open magazine on. How perfect! Back in the 1950s, in my parent’s home, as the oldest of five boys, I grew up reading things like Life Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and especially National Geographic; where else would a teenage boy find photos of naked women?

Here is a very general diagram of what can be involved in practicing dharma. I include it because many of you may have little to no knowledge about how simple or complicated dharma practice is. I apologize in advance for any oversimplification and am happy to try and answer questions. This diagram follows (in general) practices working toward making Mahamudra meditation an eventual goal. Here are some comments on the numbered points. Actual traditional mind practice are listed in points #2 through #10.

I have an abiding memory as a young adult of when I would return home on occasion to visit my folks. I always wanted to show them how much I had changed and they seemed determined to prove to me that I was still the same old “Michael.” I can laugh at it now but it was no fun back then. Each time I came home I had changed some since I last had seen them, worked hard to achieve it, but they just could not (or would not, so I thought at the time) see it. And they sure knew how to get the worst out of me in the shortest amount of time. They had all my buttons down cold and seemed honor-bound to push each one of them. And when I finally flipped out and reverted to my previous behavior, they sure knew how to tell me “I told you so. Same old Michael!”

In my years of counseling, relationships, and especially romantic match-ups were a high priority with almost everyone. Remember that marriage is the most common form of yoga or union. The word yoga simply means "to yoke", "to join", "to unite", or "to attach.” When we bring another person close to us in life, like a mirror before our face, we mostly see ourselves in them. By “see ourselves” is meant that in them we mirror our persona (the good, the bad, and the ugly) just perfectly. It is when we react to what we see rather than admit and carefully respond, that all of the difficulties begin.

My recent book “Blues in Black & White: The Landmark Ann Arbor Blues Festivals” (with book partners Stanley Livingston and Tom Erlewine) was just selected as one of the “2011 Michigan Notable Books” by the Michigan Department of Education. The announcement appears today and was covered by the Sunday Detroit Free Press and scores of other media. I am currently working on two other books from that era, one on the “Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festivals” and a second one on “Ann Arbor in the Sixties.”

Something that strikes me about the dharma is how authentic or natural it is, as

opposed to a set of rules or something that someone might have just made up. I

immediately felt this when I first encountered the Buddhist teachings and I feel the same

way today. The dharma is not some prophet's imperatives or ideas, but just the way

things naturally are. In fact, in many ways the basics of dharma are confirming rather

than revelatory. The teachings confirm what I always thought myself was happening in

the world, just with more detail.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," a quote from the

historian John Dalberg-Acton. No, I am not talking about the U.S. Congress, but if the

shoe fits… Rather I am pointing to an esoteric principle that I was introduced to years

ago, and I ignore at my peril --it has to do with how we are attracted to people and why.

I wish I had understood this principle when I was younger because I would not have

been taken in by what appeared as attraction with this or that supposed teacher or

"guru."

There was so much I was going to tell you these days, like that the Solstice was here (Friday) and the Sun is now moving northward, bringing more light each day, or about the so-called Mayan calendar deadline that came and went, yet the world did not end as predicted. But in the midst of all of that, some part of my world here at home did end with the unexpected death of a very close friend of the family. I write so often in these blogs about how the death of a loved one can shatter our carefully-groomed sense of self and we suddenly find ourselves, once again, contemplating impermanence, the second of the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind Toward the Dharma, and so it was.

The message today is don't sweat the small stuff and don't let accumulating responsibilities slow you down. Simply take care of them. The good news is that you should have a flood of energy and renewed enthusiasm now, so that should help. Use it to move yourself forward, a bit at a time. The point here is that any obstacles that arise are not warning signs to turn around and retreat, but just things that need to be negotiated and gotten out of the way. For the sake of forward motion, don’t let the red tape entangle you. Just deal with it. INTERFACE – Deep Motivations Appreciating the Spiritual Right now anything that is remotely imaginative or spiritual in nature fascinates, and you naturally take to it like a fish to water. Music, film, poetry, whatever unifies the human spirit, you value and can probably add some elegant touch of your own. This is from deep down.

You liked the story yesterday. I may not always have one, but here is another one that to me is funny. Over the years we have had a great many Tibetan rinpoches and lamas at Heart Center KKSG, our dharma center here in Big Rapids, Michigan. This story in involves one of the very highest rinpoches, which I won’t mention by name on the chance that it might embarrass him. Let’s just say that if someone such as the Dalai Lama is the main guy, then this would be like his second in command, rank-wise, i.e. very high up. At any rate, he was staying here with us for most of a week. On this particular day the press came, he was on TV, etc. and at the time of this incident we were finishing up in the living room in our home, with everyone sitting around very respectively. All of a sudden one of my young daughters raced into the room with panic on her face declaring “The neighbor’s cat is up in our tree and he’s going to the little baby birds.” Well, you should know that my whole family and I are all about preserving life of any kind, especially baby ‘anythings’.

In a very real sense, these outer planets’ cycles are of a duration longer than an average lifetime. For sure, the 84-year cycle of Uranus is now within range of the average lifespan, at least here in the West, but that was not necessarily true when it was discovered. Neptune and Pluto’s orbits are, of course, well beyond any one person’s lifetime. We don’t personally live that long. This fact, itself, is of interest. We could say as fact that a single person will not manage to encompass all the degrees of the zodiac these outer planets cover within their personal experience in a lifetime, and that, because of that, in a real sense we do not and cannot personally “know” the whole nature of these planets.

I have attempted to point out how the very order of the planets themselves can be a key to how they may be used, a key to our own inner journey of discovery. But it is clear that many of you are nodding off and I accept this as my fault. It is true that esoteric astrology is very difficult to grasp and if not grasped lends itself well to sleeping. I apologize. At this point, instead of going on to describe each life chakra in excruciating detail, I am going to detour around that and say something about Saturn and its relation to the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. If this does not resonate, then I will take up other topics entirely. I don’t want to wear out my welcome. It is a good question: What about the outer planets, the planets beyond Saturn: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and any others still waiting to be found?

As a counseling astrologer, you want to be able to determine which of the chakras your client is currently living and learning in. It is not that difficult, and here are some general rules that have proved helpful to me in figuring this out. Most of the clients you encounter will be in the Saturn, Jupiter, or Mars chakras, somewhere on their journey to reaching the Earth or Heart chakra, which is where each of us is trying to get to. Those who are in the Earth chakra will not need our help, and these are pretty rare anyway. The type of person who would seek out astrological council will most often be, as mentioned, those in the Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars chakras, one of these.

The Inner is the Key to the Outer The entire process we are about to describe here refers to the process of our spiritual birth or awakening and, for most of us, this does not occur until after our Saturn return (or just prior to it) at 29.4 years of age, although some precocious wake up a little earlier and witness their Saturn passage . What follows here has to do with the opening of the chakras, what has been called the process of spiritual awakening or self-discovery.

Background: Digressions

Before we get into the specific chakras and how to recognize each of them and which one you are in, let’s take one step back, and make sure you have all the background you need to understand what I am pointing out here. This will be a digression, but hopefully a very useful one. In fact, this post may be the most important post, since if you understand it, what is coming will be clear, and if you don’t all that follows will be just some words. So please read this section with care.

Astrology of the Heart - The Inner Meaning In this part of the blog, we will start by examining the astrological planets as they relate to the system of subtle internal energies called the chakras, a branch of esoteric astrology. Also called occult or secret astrology, esoteric astrology is by definition somewhat difficult to study. It is occult (hidden) or secret, not because it is some deep dark secret, and not because someone or some group is trying to keep it from us, but because it is, by its very nature, subtle and hard to grasp with the mind. It might be more helpful to say, as the Tibetans do, that it is self-secret. It hides itself from us. We can’t grasp it.

In this material, I am not going to try to pursue shamanism as it relates to personal totems, power animals, or to any of the more exotic practices that we might read about in books like those of Carlos Castaneda, and other worthy writers, although these are, of course, very legitimate interests. I am not going to skin animals, dig (or take) herbs, draw magic circles, or perform any of the many rituals that you might find in a book on traditional shamanism. Here we are looking at shamanism within the tradition of astrology itself, in particular the role of the modern astrologer as a ferryman or guide to the inner states of the mind and life.

A number of you have written to me about my studies of esoteric astrology, in particular shamanism as it relates to astrology. As it happens, this is my favorite kind of astrology so I will attempt to create a series of blogs on this topic. Let me know if you like it and I will continue. Astrology is, above all, an oracle, albeit a complex one. An oracle is a direct way for the cosmos (and our own inner life) to actually speak to us, if we will listen. This writing is about listening to that inner oracle and learning how to read and interpret the signs and messages that are endlessly appearing all around us each day of our lives.

I have not been wearing my astrology hat lately because my mind has been on other

things. Also, I don't often direct my life using astrology, but tend to check in only now

and again on what is happening in the heavens, especially if my engine seems to be

running off the track I imagine it is on. I'm not saying I am headed for a train wreck just

now, but I do find myself a little up-in-the-air these days, what the occultists call "out-ofthe-

body," a much misused phrase.