Black Hole — Grav­i­ty Well

Tran­script of Radio Show: Bub­bles of Belief and The Grav­i­ty Well of Faith (4/10/2022)

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

I thought that it would help to pull back from any one issue today, as we focused on Ukraine, Zelen­sky and Putin last time, and zoom out and look at the prin­ci­pal plan­e­tary Avatars of mean­ing again, to look to Uranus, Nep­tune, and Plu­to and reex­am­ine their message(s) for us at this time.

But first, I would also like to remind us, that the plan­ets and stars do not make the con­tent of what hap­pens here on Earth. They do not cre­ate Love or Hate, Peace or War. What we have, what we face and what we will make, the very real con­tent of our indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter, the sen­si­bil­i­ties and morals of our com­mu­ni­ties, and the real­i­ty of our eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal orders, all of that is some­thing that we have fash­ioned since the moment we humans moved into self-aware devel­op­ment many thou­sands of years ago.

Con­scious­ness, Pat­terns and Self-Awareness
The moment we began to become aware and see pat­terns, with­in our­selves, and between one anoth­er, and in the world around us, the moment we began to fash­ion ways of meet­ing our needs that we could pass down to those after us, the moment we became co-cre­ators of our­selves and this world, it is then that we became respon­si­ble for what we have done well (and not so well) through­out human his­to­ry. And this under­stand­ing, of how much we make and re-make our­selves and our real­i­ty, has become increas­ing­ly evi­dent over the last 500 years. We find at this moment in our jour­ney of awak­en­ing, that we humans have become one of the prin­ci­pal instru­ments of evo­lu­tion on this Earth. And, as always, since the moment we woke up the key to our future would for­ev­er flow from the great injunc­tion of Spir­i­tu­al Wis­dom and self-mas­tery, “Know Thyself”.

But how is it that we did or do this? What is this secret of our pow­er to cre­ate, and the pow­er to destroy our­selves and our world? What we under­stand is that this awe­some gift, with the pow­er of a being a cre­ator and destroy­er, was forged when we became self-aware, and we became capa­ble of hold­ing our expe­ri­ences in vehi­cles of preser­va­tion and trans­mis­sion, in sym­bols and sounds, in Knowl­edge and Wis­dom, and it was then that we became ever more respon­si­ble as the shapers and mak­ers of our destiny.

Vehi­cles of Knowing
These vehi­cles of preser­va­tion take many forms. In ear­li­er ages, but still very much present in our own time, the cus­toms, and life­ways of a group of humans, a fam­i­ly tribe, or a small com­mu­ni­ty or larg­er com­mu­ni­ty, who hav­ing dis­cov­ered how to secure their needs in their local area, (for water, food, shel­ter, etc.), we humans would cre­ate sto­ries and rit­u­als that held this knowl­edge of our world for those that fol­lowed. Our great­est trea­sure and gift to those who will fol­low us is this liv­ing Ener­gy-Form of Mind that per­sists from gen­er­a­tion to generation.

But these vehi­cles of know­ing and mem­o­ry do not just pass on prac­ti­cal or tech­ni­cal knowl­edge. For we humans are made of much more than naked ideas or thoughts. We also find it nec­es­sary, to enfold and encode our knowl­edge and truth with “Mean­ing­ful­ness”. We do not mere­ly think, we Think-Feel, or Feel-Think, and our expe­ri­ences, mem­o­ries, sto­ries, and wis­dom are held togeth­er and passed down in ways that hold us togeth­er with these ener­gy-forms of Love and Hate, Faith and Fear, Com­pas­sion and Self­ish­ness that move us deeply and pro­found­ly and tru­ly form our real­i­ty of one anoth­er and our world.

Bub­bles of Belief
I have called these vehi­cles of expe­ri­ence, (and this des­ig­na­tion becomes increas­ing­ly rel­e­vant in the more com­plex human com­mu­ni­ties of eth­nic­i­ties, cul­tures, and mod­ern nation states), I call these hold­ers of mean­ings our “Bub­bles of Belief”. It is Neptune’s role for us, as the Avatar of Under­stand­ing and Mean­ing, by its indi­vid­ual syn­od­ic cycles (one cir­cuit around our star to the next), and its inter­sect­ing cycles with Uranus and Plu­to espe­cial­ly, it is Neptune’s mes­sag­ing that can be most help­ful in help­ing to explain the waves of mean­ing­ful­ness that sweep through us and our history.

Again, I want to stress, that it is not Nep­tune (or any plan­et for that mat­ter), which forms the spe­cif­ic type of con­tent of mean­ing that any one group or cul­ture has cre­at­ed and fol­lowed. That con­tent and that mean­ing, is made by us, it has evolved and devel­oped over time, from the very dis­tant past, and that cre­ation and accre­tion informs our present cir­cum­stances, and it can also help us to under­stand how we might be shap­ing our future too.

In what we see from our record­ed his­to­ries, cer­tain­ly since the times of the ancient or clas­si­cal worlds, before the cur­rent era (BCE), and then increas­ing­ly down to our very own time today, we see how the pow­er of beliefs of one group or of one peo­ple or one cul­ture can have the most sig­nif­i­cant effects upon that group inter­nal­ly, and equal­ly upon those with whom they have con­tact exter­nal­ly. Indeed, what we can see now in the present day is that these Bub­bles of Belief influ­ence and shape the entire world in both won­der­ful and hor­rif­ic ways.

We humans are so very pro­tean in our nature, capa­ble of cre­at­ing or mak­ing the val­ue of our­selves and of the mate­r­i­al world we live in, bend­ing and trans­form­ing in a mul­ti­tude of ways, so that the range of cul­tures, beliefs, life­ways, and hier­ar­chies of val­ues expe­ri­enced over the course of our his­to­ry is quite astound­ing, rich, and var­ied. These Bub­bles of Belief form and shape our very notions of who we are, what it means to be human, what we aspire to be, includ­ing the notion of what is the mean­ing or pur­pose of our lives.

But because how very deeply we humans are made from and held by these Thought-Feel­ing Forms, their influ­ence over any indi­vid­ual, or group, or cul­ture or nation is very pro­found. It is one thing when we con­sid­er the more minor vehi­cles of tech­nique and mean­ing, the accu­mu­lat­ed knowl­edge that enables each gen­er­a­tion to lit­er­al­ly not have to re-invent the wheel! But it is entire­ly a dif­fer­ent order of mean­ing when we con­sid­er these larg­er Bub­bles of Belief and Mean­ing that shape a group or cul­ture or nation, mold­ing and hold­ing their spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al ideals, their cat­e­gories of right and wrong, of good and evil, of truth and falsehood.

Grav­i­ty Well of Faith
This is what I meant by includ­ing in the title for this show what I call the phe­nom­e­non of “The Grav­i­ty Well of Faith”. What do I mean by this? It is the con­cept that as groups of peo­ples, and even more as a set of sub-cul­tures are formed, and final­ly as a larg­er over-arch­ing cul­ture of a peo­ple or nation is estab­lished, their core beliefs become some­what like the obser­va­tions of the influ­ence of grav­i­ty, which is itself most pow­er­ful­ly observed when we see how the pas­sage of light from a par­tic­u­lar star is lit­er­al­ly “bent” by the grav­i­ty of anoth­er star or even more by a black hole. I would argue that in a Men­tal-Emo­tion­al way, the attach­ment and weight of belief and faith has a sim­i­lar effect of pulling those mem­bers into a deeply bind­ing sys­tem of real­i­ty, which cre­ates an all-pow­er­ful Idea-Feel­ing form that holds that group togeth­er as one. It is the way of that peo­ple, the “Spir­i­tus Mun­di”, the Spir­it of a Time, or the “Zeit­geist”, the defin­ing Char­ac­ter of the peo­ple in a peri­od of history.

Through­out human his­to­ry, we have wit­nessed the awe­some pow­er of what we might con­sid­er con­struc­tive and destruc­tive Bub­bles of Belief, as in the Ideas and Pas­sions forged by reli­gious beliefs, or the dra­ma of social move­ments striv­ing to advance social jus­tice. But we have equal­ly wit­nessed the hor­rors com­mit­ted in the name of faith, or the so-called advance­ment or tri­umph of one peo­ple by the destruc­tion of anoth­er. Tru­ly these more encom­pass­ing and com­pelling Belief Bub­bles hold and bind their believ­ers in a deep Well of fer­vor which can lead to the most dis­parate of outcomes.

Through­out his­to­ry, and cer­tain­ly in what we call the “mod­ern era”, the Grav­i­ty Well of Faith that holds all a peo­ple as one, the idea of a peo­ple defined by a geo­graph­ic area, a com­mon his­to­ry, a cer­tain set of cul­tur­al attrib­ut­es, etcetera, has been a prin­ci­pal dri­ver of human inte­gra­tion with­in that group and defined and shaped its rela­tion­ship with oth­er peo­ples or groups. Yet, beyond these nat­ur­al foun­da­tions for the defin­ing of a peo­ple, beyond what some have held as the true root­ed­ness found in “blood and soil”, we also have seen the very pow­er of an idea itself, such as “all humans are cre­at­ed equal” per­me­ate, chal­lenge and over­throw these more so-called nat­ur­al deter­mi­na­tions of what forms the Grav­i­ty Well of Faith.

The shift from pre­vail­ing Bub­bles of Belief, and even from one Grav­i­ty Well to anoth­er, has both been a prod­uct of our human pro­tean capac­i­ty and equal­ly the dri­ver of that trans­for­ma­tive evo­lu­tion. Tru­ly, we are and make what we are by how we Think and Feel about who we are, where we come from, what mat­ters to us, and, and how that fits with the larg­er world around us and oth­er groups with oth­er Beliefs and Grav­i­ty Wells of Faith.

Astro­log­i­cal­ly, what we can observe over time with regards to the cycle of Nep­tune through the Zodi­ac, is that there are sim­i­lar influ­ences cre­at­ed when it is mov­ing the Zodi­a­cal Signs, and espe­cial­ly when pass­ing through Pisces (as it is now), along with sig­nif­i­cant indi­ca­tions revealed by its orbital rela­tion­ship with Uranus (as well as its orbital pat­tern with Plu­to too).

Nep­tune, The Uni­ver­sal Solvent
For our pur­pose today, when­ev­er Nep­tune, known as the Uni­ver­sal Sol­vent, is mov­ing through its own sign of Pisces, we have seen a greater propen­si­ty towards the dis­solv­ing and warp­ing of the Bub­bles of Belief and Mean­ing for that peri­od. Our peri­od from 2011 to 2026 is like that of 1848–1862, or 1685–1698, and 1520–1535. In our time, as in those peri­ods, there was a surge of mys­ti­cism and cre­ativ­i­ty, of reli­gious and ide­o­log­i­cal fer­ment, and the break­ing down of the old cer­tain­ties as bor­ders between the orders and realms of soci­ety became more permeable.

What hap­pens in such peri­ods is that the for­mer cer­tain­ties of a reign­ing order of mean­ing begin to dis­solve, and indi­vid­u­als and groups become unteth­ered to a com­mon­ly held real­i­ty for­ma­tion. This move­ment beyond the lim­its or con­fines of pre­vi­ous held truths and beliefs can be lib­er­at­ing, and indeed this “let­ting go in order to grow” has been a nec­es­sary and sig­nif­i­cant instru­ment of progress. But it is also prob­a­ble, and many times we have seen this as well, that the break­ing of those Bub­bles of Beliefs which been held togeth­er the many as one in a shared Grav­i­ty Well of Faith will lead those unteth­ered souls into wider and some­times weird­er per­mu­ta­tions of mean­ings and faith.

Dan­ger of Disillusionment
Indeed, these new­ly “freed” indi­vid­u­als and groups of indi­vid­u­als, may become entan­gled and enchant­ed by a new-found faith or truth, which may or may not be true at all. Or they may look back, return­ing to a way of feel­ing and think­ing, to a way of being that was lost and wish to reclaim it. The prob­lem is that now being no longer cir­cum­scribed and held to some sense of a cen­tered self by a fun­da­men­tal Well of Mean­ing, their very long­ing for a cen­ter of mean­ing by which to hold them­selves togeth­er can be the very instru­ment by which they become pulled into and held by a new-found or redis­cov­ered belief. They forge an alter­nate Well of Mean­ing that is not based in a wide­ly shared real­i­ty that has pre­vailed over time, and which has been test­ed and affirmed by its func­tion­ing with­in the larg­er world.

Indeed, they often take com­fort and pride in stand­ing apart, hold­ing them­selves with a high regard for their role as restor­ers, or avengers, or redeemers, and by that very Well of Grav­i­ty they have forged, they may lead them­selves into a way of being that can cause great harm to them­selves and to oth­ers, as we have cer­tain­ly seen here and around the world long ago and in our present day too.

Now, giv­en we are in such a moment now, where the old cer­tain­ties, which were not with­out illu­sions to be sure, but they held us in a belief that we had moved more close­ly into a world where con­sen­sus and agree­ment would cre­ate some kind of “Gold­en Age”, but instead we find our­selves, as indi­vid­u­als, and in groups, and even as nations con­fused and uncer­tain as to our future, so that we find our­selves des­per­ate­ly hold­ing on to what­ev­er pro­vides some com­fort amidst the tumult of rumors, half-truths, pro­pa­gan­da, con­spir­a­cies, and the hav­oc foment­ed by weak souls wield­ing dead­ly pow­ers, well, what do any of us do to find our way in such a world?

The Truth
I am sure you know what I am about to say to that. For the truth is this, the Truth nev­er changes. It is what makes the Uni­verse and you and I, and it is encod­ed in the pat­terns that make the build­ing blocks of the phys­i­cal world, from atoms, to mol­e­cules, to organ­isms (like you and me), and the stars. The truth is out there, and in us too. We have seen these pat­terns of mean­ing with both our intu­itive gifts and our sci­en­tif­ic instru­ments. Yes, we feel and think about these wheels with­in wheels, pat­terns with­in pat­terns that form the web, the warp and weft of the entire uni­verse, from the infin­i­tes­i­mal to the infinite.

The First Grav­i­ty Well of Faith, The One
You, me, and the whole uni­verse are made from, shaped by and are here because of the first Grav­i­ty Well of Faith, the One. And long, long ago and through­out the ages, var­i­ous Wise Ones and Prophets, Sci­en­tists and Seers, and many who remain unknown have found their way to this sin­gu­lar truth. That we are all, no mat­ter where we think we came from, and no mat­ter what we may feel about one anoth­er, we are all here to come back to the source of all to remem­ber and under­stand that we are made as one by the One, forged by love and we are here to love one another.

What is the way for­ward, what is the path we must fol­low? It is quite sim­ple real­ly, which is why it is tru­ly true. I wrote this ear­li­er, and it bears repeat­ing now. The only way for­ward is to fol­low the path of Ever­last­ing Truth, which is:

That this Uni­verse is formed by one pri­ma­ry Ener­gy-Form, The Uncon­di­tion­al Love of the One for all the ones; That made by Uncon­di­tion­al Love, we are here to Love and be Loved Uncon­di­tion­al­ly too; and giv­en the Ener­gy-Form that holds all of Cre­ation as One is our Root Ener­gy-Form as well, then we are here quite sim­ply to Love One Anoth­er, and it fol­lows that we should Love the oth­er as we Love Our own true Self for there real­ly is no dif­fer­ence. Each one of us, all of us are in Truth sparks of the One and so we are here to live by the light of the divine with­in each of us, indeed in all that we do, and it is by this Love that we bow to the Divine that is the entire­ty of this won­drous Cre­ation too.

The Way Forward
The Ancient Wis­dom holds that the Love of the One is Uncon­di­tion­al and All-Encom­pass­ing. And we, who are sparks of this One Divine Light, we are equal­ly called upon to strive to treat one anoth­er, and indeed all of life, as our broth­ers and sis­ters, as our moth­ers and fathers, as dear to us as we are to our­selves; that we are here quite sim­ply to learn and so become that Light which is Love; and that our entire Jour­ney in Spir­it is for us to awak­en to our true nature which is to love and be loved in this Cre­ation, a Cre­ation in which we and count­less sparks of the Divine actu­al­ly form that liv­ing embod­i­ment of Love.

So, I would say the way for­ward is clear, as it has always been clear to those who fol­low the path of Light and Love. When you see some­one in trou­ble, there you are. When you see the evil that is igno­rance, there you should be light of under­stand­ing and heal­ing. When you wish to do what is right, there is but one thing you must do.

Love one another.