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The Grace of Mer by Autumn Skye Morrison
As a follow up to my last blog on the controversy surrounding the 2012 Tipping Point Conference in Vancouver, BC, I’ve been thinking a lot about the deeper meaning of the fact that so many well-intentioned, honorable people could become so polarized around the issue of who has the correct interpretation of the Mayan Calendar (including Mayan hieroglyphs and fragments of sacred texts associated with the calendar). It strikes me that the Mayan Calendar functions as a divination tool, much like the I Ching, the tarot and astrology, etc., and that, therefore, the deeper issue is about inner knowing, or how we come to know what we know in the face of ambiguous signs and symbols. Ultimately, it seems to me, the real question isn’t so much “What is the Mayan Calendar trying to tell us about the nature of these extraordinary times in which we live and the evolution of human consciousness?” as “What are these extraordinary times in which we live trying to tell us about the evolution of human consciousness?”
What I’m suggesting is that life itself is the ultimate divination tool if only we will learn to read its signs and symbols. If you embrace this perspective, it isn’t necessary or even constructive to debate the pros and cons of various interpretations of the Mayan calendar. In the final analysis, it’s only necessary to attune to one’s own inner knowing in relation to the world at large at this time in our evolutionary process. Day by day, everything we need to know about who we are, where we need to go and what we need to do will be revealed in this way.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition there is a practice known as koan contemplation. Koans are paradoxical riddles which cannot be solved within the limiting confines of the left-brain, rational mind. They require a leap into a transrational, enlightened way of comprehending reality. A Zen teacher will typically give each student a koan to contemplate during a meditation retreat, something like: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” But there are other, more organic types of koans: those that arise freely in life. These function like naturally occurring divination tools, it seems to me, and they are all over the place if you know where to look.
Synchronicities are probably the best example of koans that arise freely in life. Two or more events transpire in close proximity to one another in a mysterious manner that defies the laws of mere coincidence. There’s no way to make sense of this phenomenon except to take a leap to a bigger, nonlinear, nonlocal frame of reference where things are clearly orchestrated on a scale of magnitude and with a degree of complexity well beyond anything our little egos could devise. If you are reading this, I’m sure you know what I mean.
For example, a couple of months ago I had a reading with a very gifted psychic. One of the things she shared with me was her sense that energetically I am like a bolt of lightning, especially in the arena of romantic relationships. She advised me to find a partner who would actually enjoy wrapping his arms around a lightning bolt. I remember thinking at the time, “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen!” Shortly after that reading, I met a person of the male persuasion and the possibility of a romantic relationship seemed like a distinct possibility. I took a look at his astrological chart and noted that his natal Uranus (the planet associated with lightning) is in his 7th house of committed partnership conjunct my Uranus/Venus/South Node/Mercury/Jupiter (High Priestess of sudden illumination and love). On top of that, Uranus in transit is currently conjunct his natal Moon/Jupiter (wisdom of the Soul) which is at the base of a Grand Cross in his chart, also involving his Chiron/Sun/Ascendant (birth of the Wounded Healer), Mars/Neptune/Saturn (karma of the Spiritual Warrior) and Uranus (sudden illumination)!
Remember at the end of the movie “Powder” when the protagonist goes running across that field during an electrical storm, gets struck by lightning and is vaporized, presumably into some better, more transcendent dimension of reality? I couldn’t help thinking this poor, unsuspecting gentleman was about to meet the same metaphysical fate, given the above configuration of planets, especially when you consider that transiting Uranus (sudden illumination) is currently opposing Saturn (karma) and squaring Pluto (shamanic descent and rebirth), forming a powerful t-square with these transpersonal, transformational planets.
Yesterday morning, my new romantic interest called to report that he had been awakened at 5:30 a.m. by an electrical storm so intense that his bedroom was entirely illuminated in a flashing light show. For some inexplicable reason, he felt compelled to haul himself out of bed at that hour and into his backyard where he stood with arms outstretched to the heavens, feeling enlivened by the energy of the storm! At that exact moment, which was 6:30 a.m. in my time zone, my cell phone alarm clock started going off, though I hadn’t set an alarm and, in fact, had turned my cell phone off before going to bed! I awoke to the sight of my cell phone vibrating all over my bedside table with lights flashing.
What could all this mean, I wondered? I still hadn’t connected the dots enough to suspect that the reason Mr. Man and I had been experiencing a bit of conflict lately might have something to do with the Uranian influence in the world in general right now, as well as in our individual charts, despite the fact that we had just made an appointment to see a relationship counselor who specializes in helping couples achieve “high voltage relationships!” I am not making this up!
So, last night I woke up in the middle of the night and all the various pieces of the puzzle fell into place. I saw how the theme of Uranian, lightning bolt energy has run throughout our relationship. I also saw a diagram of the Uranus/Saturn/Pluto t-square and understood it’s meaning on a deeper level than I had previously. I saw an image of a woman in the throes of giving birth and understood that Uranus is the electrical, nervous system energy that acts as a catalyst, stimulating the cervix to dilate. Without this type of stimulation nothing gets born. “So, how do we work with intense, even shocking, electrical energy without getting electrocuted?” I asked myself at 4:00 a.m. The answer I got is that we need to make ourselves into electrical transformers of a sort. Otherwise all our circuits get fried and nothing gets accomplished. The baby is stillborn.
When contemplating a cluster of synchronicities such as those described above, I think it’s important to acknowledge that there are as many different ways to interpret the same information as there are people to do the interpreting, which is why divination is an art as much as it is a science. This begs the question: “Who is the final arbiter of which interpretations are legitimate and which are not and by what criteria is this to be decided?” Perhaps we are entering a new stage of revelation where we will find our answers collectively, in collaboration with one another and not in reference to ancient hieroglyphs and sacred texts, Mayan or otherwise?
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