The Way of Peace

This will be some “August to remem­ber”, what with the Lunar Eclipse of this past Mon­day, the grand Total Solar Eclipse sweep­ing cross­ing the USA from the North­west to the South­east on August 21^st, and today’s turn­ing of Mer­cury or “Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger of the Gods” from August 12^th through Sep­tem­ber 5^th.

Mer­cury turns sta­tion­ary ret­ro­grade in Vir­go at 11 degrees, 38 min­utes. Then ret­ro­grades back into Leo on August 31^st. Mer­cury turns sta­tion­ary direct Sep­tem­ber 5^th, on the very degree of the Solar Eclipse of August 21^st! As always, in the heav­ens and down here too, every­thing (and every­one) is con­nect­ed to one anoth­er, and this cos­mic dance of spir­it is filled with res­o­nances of mean­ing which can guide you upon the path of awakening.

Of course, Mer­cury does not go back­wards at all. Rather it is pass­ing by Earth on its “inside track” orbit around the Sun. But from our van­tage point it appears to stop mov­ing for­ward and loop back­wards for about three weeks, and then move for­ward again against the back­drop of the stars. But what mat­ters for you is what does this mean, what are you sup­posed to do dur­ing this (and any) Mer­cury ret­ro­grade cycle?

The ret­ro­grade of Mer­cury, which occurs usu­al­ly three times a year for three weeks at a time, is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn your atten­tion inwards, to focus your won­der­ful fac­ul­ty of per­cep­tion, analy­sis, dis­cern­ment and rea­son, and to turn this Promethean gift of the gods back upon itself. Mer­cury ret­ro­grade is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to re-con­sid­er/re-exam­ine: “how you per­ceive, what you may know and how you may bet­ter com­mu­ni­cate with one anoth­er”. You are here as human, to make use of your won­der­ful gift of intel­li­gence, so that you may learn to rea­son more tru­ly, and parse the phe­nom­e­nal world “out there” which depends upon form­ing a bet­ter cor­re­spon­dence between these out­ward real­i­ties and your thought-forms “in there” or inside of you.

Over time, you will become more aware that with­in you is a fac­ul­ty, the “watch­er who is watch­ing”, your high­er self or beloved, who will help you to align these inner and out­er worlds, and you will under­stand that they are formed by the same under­ly­ing and uni­fy­ing Ener­gy-Form that you know as Life or Spir­it. You will, as you move towards wis­dom, come to know that the degree to which you will per­ceive the Truth “out there” will be matched by the extent that you come to know your­self too. For as it is said, “As Above, So Below”, and, “All is One and the One is in us all”.

And from this you must remem­ber, that you are made of one anoth­er, that you are inex­tri­ca­bly formed togeth­er by all your expe­ri­ences you have had with one anoth­er. This is one of the great­est illu­sions you must over­come, that your phys­i­cal expe­ri­ence of being sep­a­rate and apart from one anoth­er is ulti­mate­ly an illu­sion. For whomev­er is before you, “is tru­ly of you too”.

And this is most espe­cial­ly true when con­sid­er­ing the devel­op­ment of your Self-aware­ness, which forms your ever-ris­ing expe­ri­ence of Con­scious­ness, which will even­tu­al­ly lead you to the ever­last­ing Place of Peace, which is known as the Greater Under­stand­ing. You grow in aware­ness and under­stand­ing pri­mar­i­ly by inter­act­ing with one anoth­er, by shar­ing your expe­ri­ences, per­cep­tions, insights, expla­na­tions, the­o­ries, knowl­edge and wis­dom with one anoth­er. It is pre­cise­ly this inte­gral matrix of shared Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it which makes pos­si­ble your growth.

We are all sto­ry-tellers, shar­ing our expe­ri­ences and insights with one anoth­er, and so we become who we are by being part of one anoth­er, being a part of one another’s sto­ry. We are the cre­ator of our­selves and we are the cre­ators for one anoth­er too, and we could not be who we are with­out one anoth­er. We could not be human at all with­out one anoth­er. We could not be or become with­out being there for one another.

Of course, dur­ing much of the day and days to come, life will go on. And you will inter­act with your world and with one anoth­er in your usu­al or ordi­nary ways of receiv­ing, per­ceiv­ing, ana­lyz­ing, as well as in how you share your impres­sions, ideas and under­stand­ings with the world around you. But do not assume that things are the same…for they are not.

These weath­er pat­terns in the world of mind, (yes, on a fun­da­men­tal lev­el, the whole uni­verse can be con­ceived-expe­ri­enced as var­i­ous lev­els and forms of mind-stuff, some quite lumi­nous and spir­i­tu­al and some ful­ly-formed into dense phys­i­cal real­i­ties, so that the whole of cre­ation is a hier­ar­chy of thought-forms and consciousnesses…the whole uni­verse is Alive, the entire­ty of Cre­ation is Spir­it or Life, and so it is ulti­mate­ly formed as One Mind too); Yes, these winds of the mind have shift­ed here on Earth as Mer­cury turns, and you need to make use of this time­ly gift of the spir­it for you.

Now, as you turn your lamp of per­cep­tion and aware­ness more inward, you are giv­en this time to exam­ine how well your inner map­ping aligns well or not with the out­er real­i­ty, and how well your under­stand­ing aligns with those with whom you jour­ney. For the next three weeks, you need to be even more atten­tive, more adapt­able and most crit­i­cal­ly, even more hum­ble that ever before.

If you are to grow, you must accept that there is far more for you to learn than you have so far, and that you are only begin­ning to under­stand the mean­ing and pur­pose of your jour­ney. For it is through this gate­way of Humil­i­ty and Ser­vice, which is the Vir­go Way, it is by this that you will encounter Spir­i­tu­al Grace, Grat­i­tude and Growth.

By this atten­tive and kind­ly spir­it, you will be more open to let­ting go of what is less­er with­in your mind, and you will there­by ele­vate your own mind and those around you too. For it is by self-reflec­tive refine­ment, and the mutu­al shar­ing of this with one anoth­er, it is by this that you will receive the great­est gift of Spirit.

What is the great­est thing you could ever have? Some would say Wealth; some would say Fame or Pow­er. But those who are wis­er know that none of these can be had or enjoyed with­out the great­est gift and trea­sure of all, Peace of Mind. To be at peace is the great­est trea­sure. But it is not to found “out there” (at least not yet). Peace is won and forged with­in, and then you may be able to extend it around your­self and share it with oth­ers too.

This is what is being offered to you here once more. Anoth­er chance to clear your mind and thought-forms of fear, anx­i­ety and anguish. To remem­ber who and what you tru­ly are, a being of Light and Love. You are always at Peace, in your High­er Self, in the Watch­er who watch­es and waits for you to come home to your Place of Peace and Love and Under­stand­ing. All you need to know is that Peace of Mind is found with­in, in the place of Inte­gral Whole­ness and Heal­ing that is the realm of Vir­go and Mercury.

Mer­cury in ret­ro­grade is always a time of Heal­ing, and there is no bet­ter sign to expe­ri­ence this gift than in sign of Well-Being that is Virgo.

The key to Life is to be at Peace, or as many would say, “To walk in Beauty”:

As I walk, as I walk

The Uni­verse is walk­ing with me

In beau­ty, it walks before me

In beau­ty, it walks behind me

In beau­ty, it walks below me

In beau­ty, it walks above me

Beau­ty is on every side

Sur­round­ed by Beauty

Liv­ing in Beauty

Lov­ing in Beauty

May you walk in Beauty

May you live in Beauty

For all your days

May you be at Peace

Sur­round­ed by Beauty

It is done.