Change is upon us. The problem is that most of us are too busy fire-fighting our lives that we have difficulty sorting out just how we are changing. In order to understand ourselves and, our place within this change, we need to return to some of the basic truths of who and what we are. In this way, we will be better able to steer our way to the future. As humans, we are used to thinking of ourselves as physical bodies with some kind of extra bit we call a soul but, this is a false impression. What we really are is a soul that is 100 million years old and our soul has built for itself many physical bodies over the course of human history. As each of our many lifetimes has ended, we have merged with our higher soul aspect to review our successes and failures in the physical life we have just ended. With that process of review completed, we then plan our next physical life.
Everyone who is alive on Earth has undergone this process many times, with each successive lifetime planned to provide […] new experiences, as well as to re-live some of our past failures, in order that we complete the lesson our soul chose to learn. In this way, each new physical life is lived as a mixture of clearing out past failures, lessons we did not learn, as well as learning from the new experiences our next life will provide us with. Nobody directs the actions our souls take. Every action is chosen with full and free choice. It is how we, the physical body, react to our soul’s choices, as we encounter them in life, that determines how straight forwards our lives are. If we stray from our soul’s chosen path, we receive hints from our higher self in the guise of an illness. We return to our chosen path and the symptoms heal themselves.
All of the main choices we are faced with in life are chosen by our higher selves before we are re-born into our new bodies as babies. Babies and children are souls of the same age as we are, they just inhabit younger bodies until they become adults. Who our parents are, who our siblings are, the country we are born into, our way of life, our means of earning an income, who our lovers will be…all of the main aspects of our new lives are worked out before we are born.
This is something that we really have forgotten about. Everything we do in life, our way of life, our nationality, is all pre-determined BEFORE we are born. It is very easy to become distracted by the plight of those who live in other countries as we often compare their way of life with ours. If we consider that they have less than we in the west do, we become concerned. In doing this, we are making a judgement on the lives those others are living and who are we to make judgements in this way? The old Native American saying is something we really need to pay attention to: “Before you judge someone, walk a mile in their moccasins.”
This is not to say that we should not be compassionate or that we should not care. What we should be doing is finding a balance. Having spent thirty years working with people’s health problems, there have been many times where it was very tempting to step over the line and try to take on the problems my clients were having in their lives but, I had to draw back. No matter how much I might have wanted to cross that line, the reality is that, the situations that had arisen in my client’s lives were as a result of their soul’s choices and all that I could ever do was to help them understand the choices that they were faced with whilst doing everything I could to heal their ailments.
As we undergo this process of change, we become more and more aware of the plight of others and it becomes increasingly tempting to try to step in and solve their problems for them or allow the compassion we feel to distract us from sorting out our own problems. What we need to do is to find the correct balance. To give an example: The farmers in India have been under huge pressures by the [GMO] companies to only grow [GMO] crops. The Indian government, and banks, increased that pressure by insisting that bank loans to buy seeds were only granted to farmers who agreed to plant [GMO] crops. Traditional seeds (non-GMO) are 10,000 times cheaper than [GMO] seeds but, faced with bank and government pressure, Indian farmers planted [GMO] instead of traditional crops. Consistently, the [GMO] crops failed or produced much lower yields whilst at the same time requiring 300 percent more water and, huge quantities of herbicides and insecticides. Many thousands of farmers became bankrupt and committed suicide by drinking pesticides. But, by people in Europe rejecting [GMO] products, the pressure has now come off the farmers and they are able to re-plant using their traditional seeds. This is where balance lies. [By] rejecting to buy [GMO] products, we in the west have helped to save the lives of Indian farmers and improve their lives, immeasurably. This is compassion in action. We are not physically able to step in and alter the lives of these farmers, no matter how much we might want to but, by forcing the [GMO] companies to cut back on their crops, lives have been saved and livelihoods saved.
The Best That It Can Be…
On the face of it, this is a good statement: the positive approach to our life and the way we live it. Why should it, our life, not be the best that it can be?
Three events occurred and, together, they drove my patience out the window. First of all, a friend chatted to me about her concern for her son and daughter-in-law, about how they were working all hours to buy new furniture for their new house and, that every time they came to stay, she had to take all the packaging off the food in her fridge, otherwise, they would throw it out if it was anywhere near its date. Then, I watched Countryfile on the BBC and they were showing how a whole new industry was growing around waste food collection and its use to create energy for our homes. Then, I read an article in Positive News where a tribe in India stood to lose their land because a huge conglomerate wished to mine for bauxite (raw aluminum). This is such a toxic substance that mining for it poisons all the land and the people. The article was in Positive News because the tribe won their case. Sadly, there are many other stories where the outcome is not so happy.
We humans, mostly in the west (I regret to say our influence is spreading), have come to believe we deserve the best. We have interpreted the best it can be into all aspects of our lives. This means we should aspire to the best house, best kitchen, the best car, furniture, clothes, television, computer, mobile phone and, of course, the best food. Our food has Best Before written on it so, subconsciously, we see it is not good enough for us if it is near that date or, that the apple has a blemish or, the potato and cucumber are a bit knobbly…so, we throw it away. [A]re we not worthy of the best?
How Much Does Best Cost?
The consequences of all of these choices are that, currently, the world is at war over mineral rights, (Darfur is only one example of genocide and destruction based on the greed of the west for [minerals] used in mobile phones and other electrical equipment). [M]en and women are used as slave labour to make our clothes, the planet is being carved up and, the rivers polluted for the copper, zinc, etc…to go into our newest, and best, electronic toys […]. Billions of tons of food is thrown away each year because it is considered not to be the best it can be, whilst those that live in the countries that grow our food starve.
09-14-2019
I am not advocating a hair shirt, sleeping under a hedge or eating rotten food and starving but, in all things, there is a balance. And, yes, I do have a mobile phone which is second-hand, over six years old and works perfectly for the rare emergency calls I make. The balance is, I do not feel I need to change it every time a new, improved model comes on the market. Millions of mobile phones are put into landfill and are not recycled. The price we may pay for misunderstanding best that it can be… is monumental. There are many people affected by our choices that we never see or think of. The people who grow the food or mine the mineral do so at a very high price. If a people [live] on a land that is rich in minerals, that land will be torn away from them, they will be placed in camps and the reason why, is…you. Our misunderstanding of what makes us special, a success [or] admired, is, now, tightly bound up with possessions, material goods and if I do not have the best and newest of everything, I will be judged a failure.
A Complete Consciousness
It is the best that we can be, as a human and, as a complete consciousness. The best that we are is not made up of, or lack of, possessions. It is about how we live our lives in relation to the rest of the universe and, in particular, with each other. It is we, the so called civilised world, who are so insecure in who we are as souls that we need the third world to be plundered so that we can surround ourselves with our props and say to the world Look. I am worthy. I have the best that there can be.
Think About It
In his book The Human Soul, my husband, Chris Thomas, asks that we Think About It. Think about the consequences your actions will have on others and, then, make the choice that feels right to you. It is your choice and you cannot blame the consequences on anyone else. Everything we buy is made from the planet, itself. This is the planet which has given us the choice of physical life rather than a free-floating soul. Chris has said in his book that we are here to prove that it is possible to have a full soul in physical form and, that, the whole of our existence has been to prove that that is possible. Everything that is happening on Earth, our solar system, our galaxy and the universe beyond, is currently happening in order to help us to be the best human beings we can whilst remaining on Earth. The Human Soul can help you to determine where you are within that process. With Christmas fast approaching, your love and affection to your family without buying something that would cause another family [on] the other side of the world pain and suffering? Think about it. Are you the best that you can be?
I did a post nearly a year ago for 2018. Last year, the Strawberry Moon appeared after the Summer Solstice. It’s also referred to as the Flower Moon and this year, it is also a Fathers’ Day Moon (I just made that up). Full illumination occurred at 4:30am EDT. Howl for me! ~Vic
Standing in my driveway.
I supposed my photos could be impressionist like Monet.
The colorful name is closely linked with the spread of warmer weather across the Northern Hemisphere and many Native American and, First Nations peoples, have special names for this full moon. The Algonquin tribes of what is now New England coined the nickname Full Strawberry Moon because the phase marked the best time of year to harvest the wild fruit. Similarly, the Cherokee of the southeastern woodlands knew the moon as the Green Corn Moon, the time of year when fresh corn ears grow best.
The sweetest full moon of the year is June’s full moon […]. While the full moon itself is inedible, despite how round and delicious it may seem, the Full Strawberry Moon marks strawberry harvesting season in North America. Most Algonquin tribes understood that it was a sign that wild strawberries were starting to ripen and ready for the harvest. Delicious though ripe strawberries may be, June’s full moon has another name that’s even sweeter. What could possibly be sweeter than strawberries? Try honey. In Europe, June’s full moon was actually known as the Honey Moon. Other European names for it included the Hot Moon, signifiying the beginning of hot summer days, or Hay Moon, because of the first hay harvest. Those names aside, European names for the Full Strawberry Moon overall tend to have sweet, romantic connotations, a good example [being] the name Full Rose Moon. June’s full moon is also called Mead Moon, which could refer to the mowing of meadows during summer but, there’s another more romantic interpretation as well.
Power lines always get in the way.
In Europe, it’s traditional to gift mead or honey to a newlywed couple during their first moon of marriage. The name Honey Moon, itself, has now become a common word in the English language, used to refer to the honeymoon holiday that couples go on right after they’re married. It used to be that newlyweds in ancient Europe would go on a sweet romantic holiday around the time of June’s full moon because the moon phases were seen as a symbol for the phases of a marriage with the full moon signifying the fullest and happiest part, the wedding itself. The Full Strawberry Moon is tied to romance and marital bliss all around the world. In India, for example, June’s full moon is celebrated as Vat Purnima where married women perform a ceremonial ritual to show their love for their husbands. Vat Purnima is based off a legend from the Mahabharata about a beautiful woman, Savitri, who is determined to save her husband, Satyavan, who is doomed to die an early death. Savitri fasts for three days before Satyavan dies, upon which she successfully negotiates with the King of Hell for the resurrection of her husband. Similarly, married women nowadays dress up in beautiful saris, fast and tie a thread around a banyan tree seven times to wish that their husbands will lead long, happy lives.
Peaking through the Willow Oak.
It is no wonder, then, that the Pagans also call June’s full moon the Lovers’ Moon. This is an excellent time to work on the connections in your life, romantic or otherwise, by showing affection to your loved ones and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to encourage intimacy in your relationships. During this Honey Moon, some Hoodoo practitioners will even use honey in magic rituals to sweeten other people’s feelings towards the practitioner. An example of a sweetening ritual is to pour honey into a saucer containing the target’s name before lighting a candle on top of it. Another example of a honey ritual is to tie two poppets together with honey between them in order to heal a broken relationship between two people. Honey rituals aside, true magic may happen when you invest your time and effort during this month to work on your relationships and, appreciate the love you have in your life.
Spwing has spwung! Well, maybe not. I understand that the Northeast US is getting hit by a ‘Nor’easter‘ at the moment. But, as I am typing this, the official arrival time of the Vernal (Spring) Equinox was 5:58pm EDT here in the Northern Hemisphere/Southeastern US. I posted the definition of equinox back in September 2018 but, the term ‘Vernal’ translates to ‘new‘ or ‘fresh‘. A fresh start is on the way.
Earth’s axis is tilted at an angle of about 23.4° in relation to the ecliptic plane, the imaginary plane created by the Earth’s path around the Sun. On any other day of the year, either the Southern Hemisphere or the Northern Hemisphere tilts a little towards the Sun. But, on the two equinoxes, the tilt of the Earth’s axis is perpendicular to the Sun’s rays, like the illustration (below) shows. The March equinox is often used by astronomers to measure a tropical year, the mean time it takes for the Earth to complete a single orbit around the Sun. Also known as a solar year, a tropical year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds long.
The Iranian New Year (Nowruz, No-Ruz, No-Rooz or No Ruz) occurs during the time of the March Equinox, in accordance with the Persian astronomical calendar. It has been celebrated for over 3000 years and is rooted in the traditions of Zoroastrianism. No-Ruz celebrations last for about 12 days. Preparations start well in advance and include buying new clothes for family members and thoroughly cleaning homes. Wheat or lentil representing new growth is grown in a flat dish a few days before the New Year and is called Sabzeh (green shoots).
Higan (Higan-e or Ohigan), is a week of Buddhist services in Japan during the March and September Equinox. Both equinoxes have been national holidays since the Meiji period (1868-1912). “Higan” means the “other shore” (Sanzu River) and refers to dead spirits who reach Nirvana after crossing the river of existence. It celebrates the spiritual move from the world of suffering to the world of enlightenment.
Image Credit: timeanddate.com
We will also be graced with a full moon, tonight. It was 100% full illumination at 9:42pm EDT. Busy day! Unfortunately, we have had a rainy day, today, so no shots of it full. The sky has been nothing but a boring shade of grey. I did get a few shots of it earlier in the week, though. They weren’t too bad.
All Photos Are My Personal Collection Unless Otherwise Stated
Peeking thru the limbs.
Saint Patrick’s DayBrilliant blue sky.
Looks like a golf ball.
Saint Patrick’s DayOver the Riverwalk.
Saint Patrick’s DayHanging out over the park bench.
Saint Patrick’s DayRising in town at 7:39pm, yesterday.
Best I could do.
March’s full moon is commonly called the Full Worm Moon. This is because of the earthworms that wriggle out of the ground as the earth begins to thaw in March. Here’s a little known fact about March’s full moon…it was called the Worm Moon only by Southern Native American tribes. In fact, there’s no way the Northern tribes would have ever called it the Worm Moon and the reason why is fascinating.
Essentially, earthworms did not exist in Northern America. It would be literally impossible for Northern tribes to see worms popping up in March. All the earthworms you see in Northern America today are invasive species brought in by colonists. These earthworms were brought over either out of a misguided intent to help fertilize the soil or, as an accident along with transported plants or the soil used for ballast in ships. Little did the colonists know that, during the last Ice Age, glaciers had spread so far across Canada and the northern parts of the United States that, all earthworms had been completely wiped out.
When the deep ice melted 12,000 years ago, the native forests in those areas grew back and adapted to the loss of earthworms. The growth of these forests became dependent on a layer of duff, which is a compost layer comprised of decomposing leaves and other rotting organic matter. If you ever visit one of these native forests, you will be asked to clean your shoes and make sure it’s free of earthworm eggs. That’s because, while it’s normally harmless everywhere else, earthworms will aggressively destroy the native forest’s duff layer by eating right through it.
This is why in Northern American tribes, such as the Shawnee tribe, the Worm Moon is called the Sap Moon, instead, as a reminder for the tribes that they can begin tapping maple syrup. In general, March’s full moon is known as a herald for the beginning of spring and new agricultural cycles. The Anglo-Saxons even used the Worm Moon as a way to predict the state of their crops. They called it the Storm Moon if it was stormy, which was a sign that their crops would fail. But, if it was dry, they called it the Rugged Moon, an indication of a bounteous harvest.
One of its other names is the Chaste Moon, symbolizing the purity of early spring. The Pueblo tribe named it the Moon When the Leaves Break Forth, while in Shoshone culture, it was known as the Warming Moon. Sometimes, it is called the Crow Moon, after the crows and other birds that appear as winter draws to a close. Other times, it’s called the Crust Moon, because of the snow that becomes crusty when it thaws in the sun and freezes in the moonlight.
In India, March’s full moon is also seen as a symbol of the arrival of spring and coincides with the festival of Holi. This is a riotous party where Indian communities all around the world engage in a huge water fight. Everyone goes out into the streets and sprays each other with colored water and powders, singing and dancing with strangers and, loved ones, alike. Playing and feasting together is a chance for you to repair relationships that have gone bad, reaffirming your existing social bonds as you move forward together into the new year.
