Dear Friends Around the World:
Last week I asked you, our readers, to describe your ideas about fear and your responses to the overwhelming fear that is now circulating in society.
This was a slightly veiled way of asking how you’re using your spiritual training and sensitivity in this crucial time in history. I say crucial because we have important decisions to make, and these can be made from a place of sanity, or a place of anguish and panic.
There is not much in between because fear is subversive, and it has no place in a reasoning process. Where it exists, we need help; we need to return to a loving space.
My main concern watching society the past six months is that many places, fear seems to now be mandatory. It has, for many, become a god that must be worshipped.
Of course, rationales are given (statistics, the things politicians say, the things scientists are supposed to have discovered), though they are rarely questioned. To question the arguments for fear has become a kind of sacrilege, which is an old word for “temple robbery” or the stealing of sacred things.
Those who are not afraid are often accused of madness and even of malice (such as wanting to kill people). Yet if you understand the dynamics of fear, this is about emotionally stressed people seeking affirmation of their own point of view.
A calm and loving perspective is indeed threatening to those who are living in guilt, anxiety and terror. Seeking the truth is threatening to people whose belief systems are held up by deception. This is likely to be intensified when that deception has been laid bare, and exists more as an attachment than anything else.
Long before the events of 2020, many people throughout world society have lived in anxiety, whether prompted by current circumstances, or mental training, habit, or past trauma. This week, we learned that one-fourth of young adults considered suicide in June. This was not because they felt so safe and well cared for.
In our world, provocation for fear comes in from every external angle (such as every television screen, and nearly every social media feed). And yet the deepest fears involve self-worth. The existential void exists where a person lacks the trust that they are acceptable — whether to other people, to themselves, or to what they perceive as cosmic intelligence or God. Many can question whether they exist, or want to exist.
Letting go of fear is not a matter of being convinced. It’s about letting go of an attachment. It is dangerous to try to talk people out of their fears because so many have constructed their personalities around them. For those, to give up fear is to give up everything they hold dear.
Some people do this when they are ready; others come to the point when they cannot stand the pain and toxicity of their emotions. On occasion, people figure out that the thing feared is not real and not stalking them and does not exist — an occasion that would be well suited for our moment.
A Course in Miracles is in effect one long discussion of the choice between love and fear. In this work, fear is said to take many forms, including guilt, shame, mild anxiety, separation, and anything that disturbs the mind.
Way at the beginning, we learn: “All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent you are willing to submit your beliefs to this test, to that extent are your perceptions corrected.”
This being willing is described later as the small willingness, the only thing necessary to possess. If something is untrue, it is untrue, and that is that. To be corrected requires the voluntary desire to be so. Fear, sickness, negativity and anger all require commitments. Those commitments are voluntary, though it might not seem that way.
Whether one is aware of it or not, we are all living on a tiny little planet with a limited amount of water, oxygen and resources, with nowhere to go but here. What “here” means is determined by one’s state of mind. There are many in the most dire circumstances, with no hope, who somehow live in a state of placid trust in existence.
That all said, we’ve spent the week compiling your responses to my questions about fear. You may find them at this link.
With love,
Video Preview: Introduction to Mars Retrograde
Dear Friend and Reader:
Recording and production on The Story of I AM — the 2020 autumn reading — are well underway. These are a set of 12 astrology readings for each of the Sun and rising signs, each lasting 40 minutes.
The preview is available — a 30-minute discussion of what Mars retrograde is about, how it relates to the Capricorn alignment, and what its message is likely to be. We will learn more as we go through the experience (which lasts from Sept. 9 through Nov. 13).
I’m looking at having this series done by Aug. 31, so it will be available well in time to consider the implications of this unusual transit. Mars has not been retrograde in Aries since 1988; Mars favors retrogrades over on the Leo-Virgo-Libra side of the zodiac, so like many things happening in 2020, this is a generational event.
Though we are in challenging times, I take a positive approach. I’m reading astrology, through the philosophical lens of self-actualization and human potential: ideas we have not heard discussed in a very long time. And they are ideas we can benefit from now, and which a few of us remember.
To this work, I bring all of my experience supporting countless individuals through many sensitive transitions in their lives. My training in Gestalt Therapy (in the tradition of Fritz Perls), Hakomi Therapy (personally with Ron Kurtz) and Holistic Therapy (with Joseph Trusso) contribute greatly to my knowledge base, all of which take a client-centered approach rather than a theoretical or analytical one.
I take a positive and practical perspective, and a deep one. Astrology grants the ability to see behind the scenes, and to spot issues that might otherwise get missed. When done, astrology can save years of work. In our time, anyway, we don’t have years, and cost is a factor. With an astrology reading, even one gem of an idea can focus your intentions and your progress.
These days a video chat with a therapist costs about $100. For less than that — currently, just $88 — you will get a series of 12 videos, all of which you will gain something helpful from. Your Sun and rising signs will be the ones to go to first, though Aries and Aquarius are the reference readings for this series. [The price for all 12 will go up to $99 on Friday at noon ET, then to $111 Sunday at 5 pm ET.]
These are readings that call for multiple viewings, and which will be worth watching again in six months.
The Story of I AM is one purchase per household — you may share with loved ones and intimate partners if you think the work will benefit them.
Thank you for your business, and for trusting me as your astrologer.
With love,
PS — This reading is included with the Backstage Pass.