SPRING: SANTA FE ICE CREAM AND BOMBS

Last Sunday in Santa Fe PQ and I sat on the plaza eating ice cream cones watching people enjoy the greening grass as birds seemed to float on the air from tree to tree.  The clarity of spring made hope seem as close as the grass on the ground and I felt a bit high from the fresh air. A young man with dread locks drifted on his park bench almost as high as the birds. He was in another dimension but somehow his obviously blissful state fit the light as air afternoon. The whole world seemed transparent. Time moves by quickly holding a measure of eternity like a pond. But on a round world it can only flow in circles.

I feel subtle changes in the experience of time. I’m also more aware of how small our individual piece of it is. Time down here on earth moves too fast to catch so I mentally zoom out to scope a larger span, always hoping for a time-lapse shot.  I know there are horrible things happening with each tick on the cosmic clock.  It seems they occur closer together lately.  There seems to be a crisis generator operating out of the mass mind.  Disasters seldom come one at a time.  But, the transcendent world seems still and remote while we desperate humans thrash about in panic, like ants whose hill was kicked by a giant.  Strewn across the earth are all the horrors of the past. When I watch the evening news, I remember the way my uncle’s cattle bellowed and stomped enthralled and in fear while encircling the area where one of their own was being butchered, although greatly disturbed they couldn’t leave the scene. It appears that 24-hour news spawns the same reaction in the human herd.

Rain on the Mountain

The beautiful and the terrible are parallel channels. Perhaps one couldn’t exist without the other as a defining contrast. Yet, they aren’t honorably equal. The terrible emerges as a shadow behind the beautiful, especially when too much contrast makes the shadow very dark. 

 Astrologically, there were some explosive aspects at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion.  Pluto square Uranus, the god of the underworld, instigator of deep plunges into dark places, and radical cleansing experiences was in a tense aspect with Uranus the planet of quirky behavior and unexpected changes. In addition, the Sun was conjunct Mars the god of war in the sign of Aries, traditionally ruled by Mars, but so was Venus goddess of love and beauty, in this case perhaps, a bitter twisted love. Two young men who seemed normal on the outside but were apparently building up an explosive inner pressure, do they also reflect a larger unconscious tension. Their use of an exploding pressure cooker has a powerful symbolic facet. Terrorists often act out unconscious contracts and collective tensions. 

Complex times push us beyond ourselves into situations that bring out the best and the worst. Again, the contrast makes the picture pop. I sense we are all inwardly dispersing on the floodwaters, blowing over shores with hurricanes and blanketed in deep snow. This summer in the Southwest, it appears that we will bake like the dry earth, but it is all evidence of primal forces. We have the weather inside as well as outside and we are both victims and co-creators whether we like it or not. 

I don’t believe that our neighboring planets cause anything, but the universe is just that and the changing patterns of the cosmos are replicated on every level. Meaning is ours, as we explain to ourselves why the gods should not eat us. I remember that Gurdjieff used to tell his students that we humans are food for the Moon. I’m beginning to get a glimmer of what he meant.  For one thing, the Moon has always been associated astrologically to soul, moods, emotional connection to family and tribe and sense of belonging. When distorted by unfulfilled emotional needs it does indeed become a predator hiding behind our personal shadow. One of our modern delusions is the belief that we humans are rational creatures. It should be obvious that we are first emotional and that emotion trumps reason every time. Here in America we fear terrorists and feel safer with our guns even though a family member is more likely to shoot us than a terrorist is to blow us up. It is this primal fear of the dangerous outsider, someone from an alien tribe that grips us. Ironically, probably the same emotion inspires the terrorists. 

Potted Cat Through the Window

I’m not suggesting that we should try to be more rational. Part of the problem is that we are trying to be rational and the much stronger emotional component devours reason and takes command.  What I believe is more significant is that we unapologetically honor our emotional nature and develop it rather than leaving it in a primitive undeveloped state. Emotional desires hijack reason and take it for a ride. There are IQ tests to evaluate intellectual potential and ability but emotion develops as best it can or as worst, as the case may be. 

Once again, a weekend is approaching.  It is beautiful outside after several days of cold and wind. I’m trying to focus on some projects that have been awaiting my attention for several weeks. What is the emotional component that keeps me sidetracked? I’ve been noticing that such interruptions are also avoidance reactions to ideas that challenge me emotionally. It is time to step up the game and come out of hiding.  The winter nap is over.  Of course, there are seasons on many levels. The heart holds this knowledge. I must relearn its wisdom.