Poetry, insights and stories of inspiration and/or anything with a positive effect is welcome for submission
Next Issue March 2008
Autumnal Greetings and many blessings to you during this change of season. As I write this it is smack in the middle of Mercury retrograde in Scorpio and by the time you view this newsletter, the sun will be in Scorpio as well.
What can be said of this type of energy? It would be a time of recess. A time to take a break and look at what has been in our lives. A time of reassembling things and reassessing our lives to prepare or at least try to be ready for what may come. If any of you have seen the film "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams the entire gist of the movie was the traversing through the underworld and the reasons why we struggle in this one. Well much of our reflective time during the Sun in Scorpio will be sensing as well as what we may need or desire to communicate about such matters i.e. the why and wherefore of the mystery of being. Hamlet would be a good one to think about. Not for his possible madness but on his reflections and concerns about where life goes and why it is worth living or not.
This may seem kind of morbid or uncomfortable, but it is a huge part of life. Right now this very minute someone is being killed through senseless wars and we try not to think about it. Yet it is a very real situation. Most of our fellow human beings that are in the midst's of such wars have no time to think about their lives in such conditions but only if they will survive. We have the luxury to be in such a dilemma and such times as these will enable us to probe this arena of our existence. Most of us have seen or have been experiencing the height of our energy and can assess what was the best application for it. My dear husband has always reminded me, (under his perspective of Hindu theology) that we are all born with a certain amount of Prana/life-force energy. When it is used up, it is gone. That has definitely been a good and fine mantra and medication to remind myself when I start to get too far ahead of myself in life or too passionate about what I think I believe. Or even who or what I may be giving or spending my energy on. It brings me back to center and I begin to slowly consider the opposite of Scorpio's passionate focus and that is what is really the most valuable thing right now in my life. What is it that I am truly grateful for and still honor in my life? Then the passion transforms into a nice comfortable simmer and I can see in a broader perspective.
HELIX NEBULA
Image Credit: NASA, WIYN, NOAO, ESA, Hubble Helix Nebula Team, M. Meixner (STScI), & T. A. Rector (NRAO).
Personally in my life I've been undergoing a processing of grief. My dearest friend in all the world has transitioned right during this season, actually a few days after the Equinox. Mind you she was a very wise woman and I am almost positive she chose this time for its smoother access into the realms of Spirit. Her parting has enabled me to embrace this time in its true context and I am being with it in its entirety. I've been questioning alot of my own mortality and what I'm doing and where I'm going and if it authentically represents my truth. . Barbara was also an astrologer and was beginning to spend alot of time in solitude during this time of year. Which is a very good practice and I've decided to incorporate it by staying close to home during these later months of the year. When Autumn closes its doors at the gates of the winter solstice, Sagittarius will have given us a good insight on what we do believe in, or else it may at least make us think about things more if we can give it some time.
I usually try to make it to Mount Shasta for my annual Vision Quest in which I very much need to participate in this year but I realize I will stay home and partake of the ritual here in Hawaii. Pele the goddess of transformation and rebirth has become a prominent energy in our lives who live here on the Big Island. I've come to respect her and honor who she is by living and participating in her cycles of life. Truly she is healing in a depth that I've only thought about in the past, but now personally know. You are welcome to join us here if you can make it on Winter Solstice. We will be facilitating a Sweatlodge on winter solstice eve and with the blessings of the goddess we will honor healing seek a direction to the greatest light and consciousness. The sweatlodge renews our life-force and allows us to be discerning to channel it in the most beneficial direction for our lives.
I was sent the above image through the internet from my dear friend Sandi who lives in Nevada. The photo is actually a composite of data from the Hubble telescope taken at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. The image was featured on NASA's Website as an Astronomy Picture of the Day in May 2003 and thereafter posted on a number of Websites under the title "The Eye of God", What it actually depicts is the so-called Helix Nebula, described by astronomers as "a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases." At its center is a dying star which has ejected masses of dust and gas to form tentacle-like filaments stretching toward an outer rim composed of the same material about 650 light years from earth. It is said to be the nearest planetary nebulae to earth. A planetary nebula is gas around what used to be a star much like our sun.Our own sun may look like this in several billion years.
I felt this a most beautiful and befittingly magnificent symbol for this reflective season. The death process of something beautiful and magnificent if we were to view it as our sun. Its image and memory immortalized by the significant contributions made upon our planet and all that benefited by its light and power.
As we look into and upon our lives and those beings that have been such a light and power to our lives may we take this time to honor and pay tribute to them. Also may I add to all the endeavors and accomplishments that we have also surmounted that have made a contribution to our own lives and to the lives of others. Such actions of service give one something to feel valued and worth being here on our glorious planet for.
on, Arizona.
Mahalo
Diveena
PS: We are changing our format to the Solstices and Equinoxes so the next newsletter will be out Spring Equinox 2008
