The Heart of Matters

Into the summer we go! At once and the same time a bustling of energy and relaxing with opportunities and intentions for leisure and play The sky is benevolent with the rare 6 pointed star transit of Venus and on  June 5 the planet moves between the earth and the sun, astronomically beautiful and astrologically filled with celestial force and energies purported to be very beneficial to us. If you are interested you can access much ado about the topic of "venus conjuncting the sun" or "venus transit" or "venus eclipse".“We are the stuff that stars are made of”. 

Venus is the planet associated with the heart chakra. As you know our society is plagued with heart disease. The ticker is a very resilient organ and will beat several billion times in a lifetime. But the heart suffers because it is deprived of its job and gets an ongoing beating.You can have the heart of a lion. Let your heart be a courageous one..(cour translates to heart in French!) A courageous heart is a compassionate one. A compassionate heart is the strongest of all. There is a large portion of the mind that experiences everything and everyone in concert with the heart. In relationship to “other” the human requirement is to come into your heart and realize that the other and your self are fellow or fellowette human beings. Apart from all that stands between you and makes you different, just by being human you have much more in common. Human beings strive to be happy. Human beings need acceptance and assurance, need nourishment and rest, need confirmation and affirmation, humans need the relatedness of other human beings. If you have all these then you are most likely one who is giving these to others.

 Dharma is the path of cultivating humility without humiliation whatever your role in life may be. When your pride and ego dominate such as when you want to retaliate, that is karma.When humiliation does come on your life path accept this as an opportunity for learning. When others are mean spirited towards you, your challenge is  to not take it so personally and hold the space for peace.This is a true seva. To serve and uplift the other, to make contribution to another's life is a true seva.  If someone has a completely different point of view and is all upset because you disagree just relax. And relax if you disagree. The best is to share views and try to see an issue by standing for at least a moment in that one's shoes, trying to understand how they arrived at the sense or nonsense of it. Consider if you wore those shoes and journeyed under the influence of those same circumstances and environments you might see things and act in the same way.  It is not easy to give happiness to everyone. But you can project this from your mind's eye and heart  for them and then go on your own way. Why tarry long enough to get yourself hot under the collar?  A person has to come into his or her own happiness really. Anything outside of you that you depend on for your personal happiness is limited. Flowers remind me of this. They are so magnificent but only briefly and then there they go! With an investment in perennials hold an attitude of gratitude for them.  Happiness is enjoyable and  perennial in moments or a day that comes back around when you remember how much you like this such and such or this so and so. Lots of things are like that and we call this ephemeral happiness. It is fleeting and sadly so if you have invested too much into what you expect it to do for you. At most you have about 3 months max to be continuously happy about having attained something external. That’s because happiness is inside in the heart.  That is the only place you can abide in an enduring happiness.  Happiness is happiest in the happiness of others.

May 2012

As we approach the summer season things will start to cook. I am hearing from many people regarding the pressures of the times and I will share that there are energies afoot that many are not consciously tapped into and so are at the mercy of the immense changes our planet and collective consciousness is undergoing. You may have heard of these cosmological, energetic forces as they pertain to the celestial. The orbital velocity of our galaxy has increased in speed as we move in the centripetal force towards the core of the greater galactic  system. Our sense of time and space is shifting and as we are each in our own way a micro version of the universal network. As individuals and unit microcosms of the universal system we are consciously in a greater and greater bask of our own core of light. Our collective consciousness is shifting. As a civilization we are awakening from the sleep and darkness of the ages. If you feel like something is rocking your world this is true.  If you are wondering “Am I losing my mind?” The answer is yes in a sense. Yogi Bhajan talked about these changes often in his teachings years ago, and he said that when the pressures of time and space are upon you start and they will be off. What do you start? You start with a focus from your core, which is essentially the point of view of your consciousness.  You work with the creative potential of your mind. This often begins with a change of identity; you as ‘losing it’ to you as ‘finding’ in a broader self discovery.  Challenge the entrenched habits of the light and sound of your mind. Challenge the pictures and projections of your mind, your inner talk, and your dependence on your mind. Habits are acquired and not the real you.  Changing your mind is how all else changes.

Magic Carpet Ride

In front of Humayun's Tomb

I am often asked about my trip to India and I will be doing my best to convey as best I can some of the highlights of my experiences there and what was a most wonderous time of life for me...

When I arrived in Delhi I felt at first that I engaged a very dense wall. A stagnant weather system has settled in the area and a thick cloud of arresting pollution immediately captivated my senses. I tenuously made my way  through Indira Ghandi Airport and out into the lobby ready to go full throttle forward into the crowd of taxi drivers clustered at the airport entrance. I see my name on a card, Mr Nicki Musick and yes that must be my ride. I felt a trusted acknowledgement of "everythings ok"  from the drivers and once we were off into the thicket of traffic, I began to notice other smells in the air that were of spices, wood fires and oh yes..holy cow.

Indians like to honk. I was amazed at all the honking but unlike the drivers in the big cities of the USA, they are not raising their fists and shouting obscenities. They are just honking. I think "Indians are the worst drivers in the world". But I change my mind. "Indians are the best drivers in the world". They can go fast and then stop a hairs breadth behind a bumper with great skill. I notice sometimes there are two lanes bound one way but sometimes there are more!

Women and children are in the middle of the thoroughfare selling flowers and with every traffic jam they run to the vehicles and back. I see dirt smudged toddlers hugging the traffic dividers with their wide eyes rolling back and forth under their brows in an alarmed search for the return of their mother.

Lotus  Center

It seems holy cow permeates. Holy cow is the essence of so much. Curd, crap, milk, butter, fodder for the fields. Having started out life on a farm, I found the smells different and disagreeable at first. Cow shit in the USA smells better.....but no, just different. My body had some adjustments to make at first with jet lag weariness due to the previous 14 hour jumbo jet ride over the arctic and the foreign  micro kingdom I am being  exposed to. Once on the ground I go into a spin of nausea. I finally reach the hotel I had booked  considered one of the best in in the area. It had a kind of victorian old world hospitality and some of the amenities I am used to. I was so tired when I arrived and a deep sleep had victory over excitement and anticipations for the days ahead.

Connaught Place

The next day I felt acclimated and well adjusted. I have the feeling that I have come home. I am graciously ushered to the cafeteria next door and have tea, dhal (spicy lentils) and a sweet bread in syrup. While I eat I gaze out on the streets filled with people who are hurrying at the start of the day and as I gaze I relish the unusual sights. Rickshaw cabs, person powered bicycle cabs, families on motorcycles, modern people, traditional people, saris, turbans, bangles, exotic women with beautiful henna artistry on their person, children, dogs, cows and goats running amuck, beggars and choosers. I take a vote of confidence and head out the door over to a tuk tuk (cab).The cab driver doesn't speak much English and proceeds to take me on a longer route than I had requested. But since I am so curious about my surroundings and I know where I am I let him the reigns. So, the fellow drives up to a tour shop and leads me in and I sit down and cheerfully tell the business owner that I am here out of curiosity but do not care to take his tour for the entire day for all the rupees he is requesting. He responds "of course Madame". I discover the cabbie is a fisher for the tour owner and I am learning fast how to get around. So I tell the cab driver, "ok, this is where I want to go and what I want to do. (Before I left home I failed to get my ducks in a row with global ready settings and what I managed to acquire before I left the states was lacking). I did not have a GPS, but remembered from all my reading where the things I was interested in were.  I had an amazing stay in Dehli, even though I had to haggle with the cab driver about fees. That was when I remembered you should haggle about fees first. I always felt a measure of warmth and humor when I encountered these kinds of shady transactions. I just figured exploitation for many Indians was the thing to do. It was something ingrained by the British, a normal thing, and many Indians have a long road to travel for the jaded perception of "profit" a word that is often a euphemism in my country. Not to be hungry comes first. Besides one dollar is 50 rupees! I enjoyed a lot of the time paying more. I gave away lots of rupees especially to mothers and children.

I loved the shops I visited and Connaught Place a shopping area seething with deals on everything. I visited a rug shop and fell in love with the sales clerk. He spent two hours showing me beautiful paintings of portraits of royal dynasties of India and landscapes. And he was very gracious when I told him I felt like I was in a magical place and asked him if he knew about flying carpets. He gave me such a beautiful smile and put large men to task with many an unroll and undulating wave of the most exquisite ones that just might have taken off if no big men were around.  He gave me advice on many of the clothing articles and gifts I left with and was understanding that I couldn't pack a magic carpet in my duffel, that I would forever dream about them. I didn't tell him I would dream about him too.  He was so handsome. His eyes were so dark and he was wearing patent leather shoes tightly pointed with a slight curl.

Will You Be My Valentine?

This month there is a burning thing I have to say. I'm Yours.

We are well into 2012! There are two r’s in dreary and there are two r's in February. Although February can seem ominous in grey skies, ( we will see as the weather has been fair up til now!) it's birthday time for me!  St. Brighid’s Day is in February too, when the seeds under winter's sleep quicken along with the heart's desires in anticipation of the spring tide. 

Valentine’s Day is also in February and I am reminded that the human journey is a journey of passions. By them the human heart becomes ravaged to shreds and to holes of incineration! By passions the human heart learns its requirements and comes into its sacred condition. There is the love of our attachments, our addictions, the friendships, the lust ships, the child, the woman, the man, the son, the daughter, the lover, the father, the mother, the friend, the sister and the love of many “things” and objects. We are even in love with our hates and our negatives, we can’t let go! Love knows many faces and facets.   Avatar Meher Baba said, “Being is dying by loving.” We are on a long journey of many loves that are "all about me" before arriving at the doorway to peace and inner freedom where we find a state of Love that welcomes all other loves that have been endured. This Love is the doorway to compassion and acceptance, first for one's self, because harmony among one's fellow beings is not possible without easing up on yourself. Even more so if you've been the fool who walked in where angels dare not tread a time or two!  "Other" is the reflection in life's mirror. The reflection is the projection. What do you think it is that needs to be loved? Just yours and everybody else's perfections?

  
May your hearts be more and more and time and again in the love of an equal friend. 

Agni (fire)

I'll be 60 in 2012. And so for this milestone I am gifting myself with a journey to India. I have lived long enough for alot of reflection. wow. what a life I have lived. What can I say except that I have been raked over the coals? I just couldn't resist the challenge of Kundalini Yoga in this lifetime. Somewhere in my awareness I felt invincible in the face of many a daemon. I've had good karma. I have had a very strong house made out of bricks with a good foundation.

Agni, the first word of the vedas, and I haven't read too much of the vedas but I have certainly lived them. I have apparently been a fire worshipper all my life but there has been a bitter sweetness. It has made me lost for anything but the path to the Divine. I write these chronicles as an Aquarian who once felt wandering in a strange land. It was a lonely road. Many people have thought me serious and in an ivory tower, but I have really been shy alot of my life and aloof and sad for the state of things. Some think me more or less crazy but how can they judge from the vise of their crazy? They might like my kind of crazy as much as I do if they'd try it!

Still the fire in me has been my trident and I have big belly laughs. Transformation is remarkable! Fire and transformation. Aquarian Chronicles will be about transformation for quite awhile. I know about this so I would say we will have an interesting ride.

....Piscean Epilogue

Throughout recent his(her)story, quantum and pivotal changes in consciousness have enlightened us incrementally to varying degrees. We are no less clearing the cache in these times and times to come as human sensory faculties of perception deepen. At first there is great resistance to the new view. It is very hard to let go. The unknown and the ambiguity of outcomes challenges the security of familiarity. But it is life's ever blossoming renewal that absorbs only what is useful into itself and in the revolution trumps the resistance. All is swept straight away into the next reorganization of design and completion. Unalienable truths become evident when they are committed to experience. The old stores are revealed to be great with foolhardiness.

We are winding up the last (somewhere around 2000 + years) age known as the Piscean age. Pisces is symbolized by the two fish and like yin yang represent the opposite polarities, the dual nature of things, the light and dark of it all where we are enmeshed. In ancient code the fishes have symbolized different things in cultural milieus but here I am referring to the fish's symbology of the gathering of knowledge. I was drawn to the story of the Fisher King when I was studying the mythological treatises of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. The Fisher King is a Celtic myth and has overlays of pagan and christian origins. I came to understand the king in his masculine woundedness and his redeemer, Parsifal. I was deeply touched by a passage in the story of how the fool (our own) Parsifal, came upon a salmon (the Christ Light) scewerd on a spit over a fire. He took a taste of it and it burned him. (He eventually went on to be knighted). He could never go back to his old self again! This is the kind of burn that sheds the sleep of illusions. It gives the thirst and the search for the Grail (unity with the Divine). It is most often hard earned by the comparative study of the life lived. The fish symbolizes gnosis (spiritual knowledge) gained when logos (the mind) through its fires of adversity, is sacrificed. Through the age of Pisces the speculations of deep thought,  rationalism and logic, analysis and reason and of seeing is believing have been painstakingly gathered.

The wisdom of the ancients and modern scientific basis was kindled by the desire to connect with and understand the forces of the human body, the mind, the natural world and the movement of the heavenly bodies pondered upon in the sky above. Great volumes were written down and preserved until almost completely lost and extinguished in the crossfire of religious dogma and the body politic throughout the centuries. The ancient knowledge has been said to have originated and been in long safe keeping by women. The emergence of male infused one god, one way religions sytematically brought great destruction to the feminine id of life whereby the focus transferred to dominating and subjugating the forces of creation which the feminine represents. The override and demonization of the feminine id led to a centuries long slaughter and oppression of women and children that continues even now. Special interests in power, property and profit fueled by religious dogma and uneducated masses set the precedent for where we are today facing a widespread destruction of nature. Punitive sentencings were written into the narratives of our endstories and afterlife. These iconic forecasts of the final chapter are still today fervently embraced as our rosetta stone authorized by "God Himself" and apparently supported by a mass determination to fulfil them.

Be as it may, along the old paradigm way, it was man who made the assignment to  "God Himself". It was man who authored his own blighted identity of sin and shame his unhealed wound. So it was that it energized his behavior in the world, his kingdom never changing, unable to flourish. They, believing change could only be made in the external and by external means not knowing that the only thing truly possible to change is one’s mind, the eyes of the heart.