Gee, it’s 1999 already. This seems like a good time to stop farting around in life.

While I sometimes do my best to make this column a place to experience practical spirituality, and occasionally succeed, the lateness of the hour has prompted me to assert myself somewhat more directly in the general vicinity of getting people off their freaking butts. Back in 1989, most of us were probably assuming that we would be nuked, kooked and rebuked out of existence by this time the next decade, but, my fellow citizens of the Milky Way, we successfully have arrived at the Cusp of Whatever Comes Next.

Photo: Little Paper Dog.

We are at the Junction of Forever. The Hyperlink to Eternity. One foot on the Cosmic Banana Peel, one foot in the future. This is what it feels like.

Now that all of our lame excuses for not doing what we wanted in all times previous have proven to be dismally ridiculous, including the supposition that we would be dead, that we would all be dead, that the fascists would have taken over and stopped us from having fun, as well as our stubbornly refusing to deal with paralysis instilled by blatant guilt inflicted upon us by the oppressor, we must now approach the New Millennium with bold new philosophies for living.

I propose revolution. There are about seven people calling for revolution at the moment, mostly in Canada, probably because it’s illegal in the United States (though Thomas Jefferson personally said it was a healthy idea every now and again). Though the type of rev I am revving requires neither bombs nor the voting lever; both are against my religion.

On the off-hand chance you are interested in making real changes in your life, I propose you experiment with one or more of these patented techniques.

Tell only the truth for one day. It may seem that so many of us are so cut off from ourselves that we have a difficult time knowing what our truth is. However, I don’t buy this one. The truth is the original thing you were going to say right before you said something else. It is that elusive “original thing” we are after ­ how you actually feel, what you actually think, what you secretly want. Clue: It is the thing that you don’t say because you’re afraid it will “hurt someone,” or because people will “think you’re selfish” or “think” in general. Verily: a lie is what you say when you don’t trust people to think for themselves. Here’s another clue: Your personal truth changes. Life changes. If you have a new feeling, a new idea or a new response to something or someone, call that your truth and try telling it. Speak your mind spontaneously in the moment and see what happens.

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By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Cheetah died this week. Yes, that Cheetah. Who knew chimpanzees could live to 80? Then I read that Carol Channing’s husband died at 92, and marveled that Channing was still alive (she turns 91 today). I remember old black ‘n white Tarzan movies on our little TV when I was a kid, and later, brief vignettes of breathy Channing with too much Tammy Faye eyeliner and lipstick, too theatrical a persona for the movie of the Broadway musical she made famous.

I got to thinking that both stars had a pretty good run, outliving public adulation but not fame. In the end, they got mention well after they’d stopped charming the public, and that’s a kind of immortality, isn’t it? I wonder if our next generations will look back on this moment in time, and think something similar: “My mother (or grandfather, or great, or great-great) remembered that time and told me about it. I guess it was really something.”

I’d suppose if we asked around, we’d get a lot of head-nods to this period being “really something,” although at this point I feel it more as a psychic disruption than a physical one. An easy bet to predict? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. This “really something” feels like the kind of dissolution we’ve not experienced in contemporary times. It’s a profound turn and it’s ours to create.

Since there’s nothing new under the sun, the closing out of old energy without a clear projection of the new has happened before in history, largely unrecorded. We have hints about lost civilizations from archeology, from ancient manuscripts and legends, but while romantic to contemplate, no “Do Not Try This At Home” warnings were left behind to help guide us through our own era change. In fact, we’re still trying to figure out why these important cultures disappeared — although if they botched things up as badly as we have, that would be a big old “Duh!”

We all know the story of Atlantis, a technological empire that disappeared due to division among public opinion much like that which we endure today, along with the misuse of technical prowess that inadvertently caused earth changes. It’s a mythology that our world — and particularly this nation — can relate to, full of old paradigm pitfalls and ethical challenges similar to those we face today. We should consider it a cautionary tale, we might even say it’s a déjà vu of sorts, with issues of greed and power bumping up against compassion, common sense and spiritual values. In this coming year, we will be getting hints on which of those camps will win the (human) race, settling that ancient argument and defining the sustainability of our species. Yes, our coming change of consciousness is that critical.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Scorpio monthly for Oct. 1, 2006.

So much is turning on this point in your life, and the planets in their courses suggest a total re-evaluation of your priorities. There are obviously reasons for this that go beyond the range of a monthly horoscope, but suffice it to say that this is as big of a moment as you’ve ever lived, and as the autumn progresses, the message will only become that much clearer. For some years, you’ve been working with the utmost sincerity to make home — and to do so in your very own way. This is an invention process, and you are now closer to success than ever.

Note, The Oracle is a random selection from the Eric Francis horoscope archives. Each day we publish one entry from among the 10,000 in our database. It’s a little slice of horoscope history — but chosen by our Oracle program, which always speaks to the present moment. New horoscopes are published each Friday plus twice a month in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light. And for your 2012 annual reading, you’ll find Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check.

I’ve just posted a new article in the Reality Check diary, about the Mayan calendar systems.

Note: To purchase Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. — the 2012 annual edition from Planet Waves, which consists of written and audio reports for all 12 signs for the coming year — please use this link. You may also call Chelsea at 877-453-8265.

Dear Friend and Reader:

It was someone named Jose Arguelles who popularized 2012 as the time we would take what he called the leap beyond technology. Arguelles was not the first to point out the significance of 2012 — though he was talking about it as early as the mid-1970s. Frank Waters (in his Hopi prophecies) also mentioned it in 1975, as did Terence McKenna in Invisible Landscape. Astrologer A.T. Mann briefly mentioned it in his 1986 book The Divine Plot: Astrology, Reincarnation, Cosmology and History.

Jose Arguelles at the Babaji Ashram, Cisternino, Italy 2009. Jose is the one who introduced the world to the idea of 2012. He died earlier this year. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Yet it was Arguelles’ facilitation (or more accurately co-facilitation) of the Harmonic Convergence in 1987 that got the cultural meme of 2012 (and the Mayan long count) going. The Convergence was based on the idea that the 13th baktun of the Mayan long count calendar would be ending on the winter solstice of 2012, and that it was time to start preparing ourselves for whatever that transition meant. How long is long? A baktun is 144,000 days; 13 baktuns add up to about 1.8 million days, or 5,125 years, which is one-fifth of a full precessional cycle (that is, the cycle of all 12 ‘ages’ in Western astrology).

Did the Harmonic Convergence work? I say yes — so far, the world has not been destroyed by nuclear war.

Despite that barely-noticed good news, over the past 25 years, predictions of both doomsday and spontaneous enlightenment have flooded New Age literature and bled into mainstream thought, though in all of that time, none of it has struck me as particularly meaningful. Said another way, I’ve hardly ever heard a 2012 narrative I could even vaguely relate to. Pretty much everyone knows that 2012 is an important date in the Mayan calendar, but hardly anyone can tell you what it ‘means’ without drifting into speculation.

Our sin-obsessed Christian culture, clouded by truly horrid visions from The Book of Revelation (sometimes called The Apocalypse of John) — the last book of the New Testament — always seems to be waiting on doomsday. However, Judgment Day is our shit — not that of the ancient Mayans.

The Harmonic Convergence of Aug. 16-17, 1987 was a global meditation for peace. I took part in that major event as part of a spiritual community, and it had nothing to do with the ‘end of the world’ or doomsday. To the contrary, we had our minds on getting the world out of the mess that it was in — not into a bigger one. In recent years, Mayan scholars and Mayan leaders have objected to the obsession with gloom and cataclysm.

“For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Florida. To render Dec. 21, 2012 as a doomsday event or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

In the next section, read about the top five aspects of 2012. Continue Reading Here.

Ice sculpture and photo by Sally J. Smith, www.greespiritarts.com.

Today is Friday, Dec. 30, and this is the last Daily Astrology post of 2011. At the time of this writing, I’m sitting at my desk, the light is fading outside, and I am wondering – yet again – where this afternoon went. It’s a hologram in miniature of the year, I suppose: I’m not sure where that went, either.

In many ways, my 2011 has been marked by struggle and the unnecessary expense of energy. And yet I know I’m not seeing the whole picture if I stop there. Love and beauty and joy have been regular companions, as has growth. If you had asked me a year ago if I could do what I’m doing these days, I would have said no and thought you were nuts. I know that I am using my creativity much more than ever before and learning new skills; that others depend on me much more; that I understand much more about myself than I did a year ago.

From what I read here on the blog and hear from my friends, most of us are feeling a charged mixture of uncertainty and newfound confidence, edginess and a sense of being at home in our skins, anticipation and hesitation, feeling cornered and feeling spacious — about almost everything.

For me, something about 2011 has felt like the trash compactor scene from the original Star Wars movie. No sooner do I leave one crisis for safety, but I find myself in the next, trapped in a box filled with junk that isn’t mine, its murky waters hiding unknown creatures that will drag me (and maybe others) down if I don’t seek help, and the walls are closing in. But hey – at least I’m with friends, and they’re in the same boat. I’m not alone. Kicking and screaming gets me nowhere, but once a clear line of communication is established, friends with a different perspective can facilitate some breathing room.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Virgo weekly for Oct. 4, 2004.

No matter how much money you have, keep a firm grip on your cash this month, including access to your accounts and financial documents. You could find yourself having a lot more to look after in the way of assets and business affairs, and you may need expert help. In any event, those who succeed financially and make that success last usually do so through some conservative means rather than extravagant ones. This is a very good time to begin setting aside cash that has no specific purpose but to collect and draw more money to you.

Note, The Oracle is a random selection from the Eric Francis horoscope archives. Each day we publish one entry from among the 10,000 in our database. It’s a little slice of horoscope history — but chosen by our Oracle program, which always speaks to the present moment. New horoscopes are published each Friday plus twice a month in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light. And for your 2012 annual reading, you’ll find Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check.

The end is written in the beginning.
– Tao Te Ching

Twenty years ago this month, the Hudson Valley experienced one of its most terrifying days ever: the chain-reaction explosions of PCB transformers that contaminated the SUNY New Paltz campus on Dec. 29, 1991. On that day, four dormitories, a theater and a science building were contaminated by some of the most extreme toxins known to science. Today, 1,300 students still live in those dorms, which are as contaminated as they were the days they were re-opened.

Cleanup crews with independent air supply (level B protection) working outside Bliss Hall in January 1992. Photo by Eric Francis for Student Leader News Service.

Recently I was digging around my old document collection from that story. Among the piles of scientific studies and stacks of notebooks was the recording of a campus news conference from Dec. 31, 1991, the second day after seven transformers exploded and campus buildings were contaminated with PCBs and dioxins. On that day, guys dressed like astronauts were spread out over the campus, filling waste drums in the first days of a long, expensive and controversial cleanup.

The toxins released in the incident are the chemical equivalents of plutonium, measured in concentrations as low as parts-per-trillion. Exposure is associated with immune system damage, hormone disruption, reproductive issues, birth defects and cancer. Ingesting even trace levels can cause lifelong health problems. Of particular concern were four dormitories: Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder halls, what I now call the Dioxin Dorms.

In that news conference, Alice Chandler, then president of the college, took the podium and said that health officials and their contractors were especially concerned about ”channels which may have served as conduits for smoke.”

That may have been the last honest assessment she offered the community before the rationalization, posturing and denials set in.  Though I didn’t remember her statement till I heard the tape, I spent many years investigating contamination in the heating and ventilation systems, pipe chases and the electrical systems in the four dorms. Though the state and its spokespeople would issue many denials of these specific problems, Chandler had admitted the single most serious issue right up front — then she put students back into the dorms without any investigation or cleanup of the “channels which may have served as conduits for smoke.”

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