Good morning/afternoon/evening readers! New posts are below this announcement.
Dear Friend and Reader:
Planet Waves has just completed a digital compilation of my writing about 2012 dating back to 1987. It’s called Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span. The span extends from the Harmonic Convergence through to the winter solstice of 2012. [Here is an audio introduction. Here is the purchasing link. Note that this is a different project than the Light Bridge annual edition.]
The articles in the collection are drawn from a number of sources, including Planet Waves and our various annual editions, as well as blog entries, my notebooks and one from an earlier book called 313. The book begins with a new piece that covers the history of the Harmonic Convergence and its possible influence on world events. I then present a retrospective of writing describing events that fit the pattern, either historic or philosophical, of how we approach the topic of irrevocable change. Even if you’ve read some of this writing before, the pieces will now come together when you see the ideas in context.
I have consistently treated the concept of 2012 as something we are creating now, even as time accelerates and we race toward the future. Different articles offer perspectives on the Mayan day count as well as the Western astrology associated with 2012. I am not making predictions; rather, my intent for all of these articles has been to focus our minds on the present moment and enter the future through immediate awareness. I am describing the process of opening up to the moment.
The book is beautifully illustrated with Mayan-inspired glyphs created by Carol McCloud. These are like no artwork you’ve ever seen before. Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span comes with a separate file of historic charts. We have done our best to leave links to other sources embedded in the text.
As you may have read, Jose Arguelles, who created the Harmonic Convergence and first called attention to 2012, died Wednesday. According to his website, before he departed he said to his apprentice, Stephanie South, “I have done all that I could on this planet. I am being called to assist in the closing of the cycle from the Other Side.”
Arguelles was the author of The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, which became a kind of platform for creating the Harmonic Convergence. He was also author of Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013 which was a book and a game that came out in 1990. Dreamspell is an interpretation of Mayan daykeeping that teaches one to use the Mayan calendar in a practical, accessible way. Arguelles was the father of the current movement to adapt Meso-American calendar systems and other alternative models for considering time. In a sense, what we think of as time is really a prison that locks us into a time/money orientation of consciousness.
I was never Jose’s student, but his ideas have touched my life and informed my astrology through different teachers, friends and colleagues. We think it’s an intriguing synchronicity to be making this work available when so much attention is being given to Jose’s ideas.
Here is ordering information. Delivery is instant. The format is a downloadable PDF with images solid enough that they will print nicely.
Thank you for your interest. I think you’ll love this project. It’s been a lot of fun to create.
It’s only change —
Michele, you expressed your point cogently and clearly, despite those doubts, and I thank you for that clarity. And for your listening-in-service, because even if I never meet you in the flesh or any of those you assist by hearing them in neutrality and compassion, that re-balancing that happens does benefit me and every one of us.
Eric, thanks so much for this book, which I have only begun reading and intend to savor rather than devour. One thing I am particularly glad of is the total absence of the usual doom-and-scare-’em energy that most “popular” and some “out there” 2012 scenarios preach and screech. You foster the creative impulse so very skillfully. Whatever this Grand Wave is, we are in it, so we might as well ride it and swim it as masterfully and lovingly and gracefully as possible.
I saw a headline this morning, something to do with the Japan nuclear thing, which read something like “panic is not necessary yet.” Ye gods. No matter WHAT is happening, panic is NEVER necessary nor is it fruitful. what crap. So glad this PW outfit here is going in a way of beauty. Thank you again.
Thank you, Eric. Although i lack the intellect and proficiency to comprehensively evaluate this important piece of work i can say that it is accessible to anybody’s understanding and powerfully important. This is more than astrology. It is a valuable and straightforward perspective of humanity at this point in our history.
I had a most interesting experience over the last few days and the words that most resonate in your comment is: “The more you support the people around you in doing this, in facing themselves and help them love themselves, the easier it will be for you to accept that love and support.”
Without going into four days of bewildering encounters, I’ll focus on the most stunning one. Though I have to say, they all relate perfectly to what you wrote here.
I sat beside a woman for several hours on a plane, going up, going down. At first I was somewhat uncomfortable. She’s an example of what my daughter never hesitated to tell me was the way I should be. Yeah. I was supremely uncomfortable. But rode it. She told me her life story. WHOA! I know this is not a story she tells people. I’m not even certain how many people know this story. Her freak out about herself was barely contained inside her skin. Her fear of herself. Which she has definitely layered over with success in business and her pride in risk-taking. And as bit by bit that she divulged, she grew more and more frantic, looking to me to … judge her?? I touched her hand and arm a lot. (I’m not sure why I’m adding this, but there is no alcohol on northern flights. SO this was pure inner need to share.) I hope I gave her some sense of ok-ness. Though I was hesitant to believe that since I always thought people share their stories with me because I’m so “out there” and that makes them feel more normal.
So there you go… Your words in action. People come to me and tell me their stories because I listen and embrace them. And if they feel better for it that doesn’t mean I am a negative measuring stick. It means they feel something that every day I’m understanding more clearly.
It’s an odd feeling to be experiencing a calm, observing sort of stance when all around me the world is blowing up and people are splitting their skins and feeling like they are going side-ways. I was feeling guilty about the calm and the pleasure in moments becoming more and more pronounced. But no… I have something to offer in every encounter. And in a lovely way it brings me closer to myself as much as it brings me closer to others and, evidently, brings others a little closer to themselves.
I just wish I could express it all more coherently.
I’m also curious about how much of this is related to the jupiter/eris conjunction opposite saturn. Jupiter/eris are basically on top of my saturn/eris in the 9th. Square my mercury, trine my jupiter/AC and opposite the current saturn in libra. Not to mention mercury lollygagging about my MC. For me it certainly all feels like a swirl relationship, how I see myself, how others see me, my work etc etc with a lot of detached sort of engagement. I’ve been trying to tease out the threads but it’s such a tightly woven fabric… I think I’ll keep going with that. Despite my discomfort at times, it all feels very good and I’m doing my very best to rise to the occasion.
So I thank you for breaking out the themes… It certainly helps me to understand the energy much better.
Dear Eric – At 4:41 AM PST, I am half way through Light Bridge: the 25 year span, having purchased it at the first opportunity last evening. Its price is so reasonable and its value so great, I consider it as nothing less than a gift. Thank you.
Responding to aspects of several essays, especially that Starseed one, I am moved to offer a resource of astounding simplicy and elegence to you and to the rest of the community of “wanders and worshipers” (Rumi), with whom I feel gratefully connected through your writing.
This resource is The Work of Byron Katie. http://www.thework.com. Author of “Loving What Is: four questions that can change your life” and other works, she offers a practice, called “inquiry” or “the work” – a deceptively simple meditation that cuts through attachment and fear like a hot knife through butter. After very little experience submitting stressful thoughts to inquiry, you will discover that if a thought is stressful, you will find it to be untrue for yourself. It is fun to bring so called universal beliefs to inquiry, such as “there is a past” or “there is a future.” Katie states that the worst thing that can happen to anyone is a stressful thought. I have found this to be true for myself, at least so far.
Here are the questions: Is it true? If yes, can you absolutely know that it is true? How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? Who would you be, what would your life be like, if you didn’t believe that thought? (There is a part of the work called “turnarounds”, too.)
Bringing the belief, “there is a future” to inquiry, I realize that “future” ONLY exists in the present moment as a concept that generally causes stress. Who would I be without the belief “there is a future?” I would be right now, fully present, fully responsible, in direct relationship to the planet, my body and whomever was in my presence at the time. I would no longer be in fear, which, I have come to realize is made up of stories from the past projected onto the future, which usually scare me silly.
That being said, I am doing some disaster preparedness – living on the pacific northwest coast, it does seem prudent. However, in the light of inquiry, I am doing so with a sense of humor, lightly – I mean in a tsunami, will I be able to access my food stores? Nice if I can, but, if not, I have the ability to be in whatever present moment occurs without fear, at peace, able to think clearly, help others, and, hopefully, make good decsions.
I want to get back to reading the new book. Thanks again, Eric. It is fun getting to know you. I am espcially grateful, as I have studied astrology (or more accurately, observed my life though the lens of astrology) for over 45 years, but in almost complete isolation. Finding out about your site and the community that joins together within it, feels like a miracle. Affectionately, Kathryn
Posted to Facebook.
So — in retrospect on this week, of reviewing so many past articles on the topic of 2012 in its widest form — I have some ideas about where to go; how to build on this body of work. Some key themes are coming. I’ll keep writing in the first comment, where I don’t have to keep it to a tweet.
The first is how to proceed in the face of fear. What’s the answer to all the fear that so many people find so paralyzing?
Next, how do we shift our awareness to whole-system thinking? We are cultivated to think in terms of competition. What… steps do we take toward cooperation?
Next, understanding attachment and existential fear as the basis of greed. These things begin in personal relationships rather than in a relationship to the material world. I believe we need to cultivate an ethic in relationships that helps us accept that people are not property, and cannot be controlled.
That will require overcoming the fear of freedom. I think that Erich Fromm is correct in that for many freedom is one of the most distasteful and frightening things they can imagine. I have so much difficulty understanding this that it’s difficult to even conceive of, but then if I look at my own creative process it is about a continuous, conscious encounter with fear. At the root of fear is the fear of death and the fear of abandonment, which are the same thing in different forms. We would experience freedom, if we could encounter this consciously, but we have to want freedom first.
We need to understand the nature of community, and how this influences our relationships; and how our relationships influence our communities. There are relationships and there are communities, and they either support one another or they weaken one another.
The longer we go holding down awareness, the scarier the world seems to get. I suggest we see the relationship between holding down awareness, and an increase in fear. This counts in love. Holding down awareness of love only increases the fear that keep us alienated. Being aware of love is a direct way to let go of fear, and feel closer to others.
One last. Looking within. There’s only so many times you can be told you’re evil or that your existence is wrong, and still have it be easy to look within; to sense your inner reality. Yet all of what we perceive as reality is influenced by who we are inwardly — and until that we will have no understanding of what we perceive. Keep a mirror nearby, hold it as sacred, and imagine that it’s like something that absorbs the wisdom of the cosmos and reflects it back to you. Admit your doubt and your beauty. Admit what you want, and who you are, and who you’re afraid you’re not,
The more you support the people around you in doing this, in facing themselves and help them love themselves, the easier it will be for you to accept that love and support. Take it from a guy who has done a lot of astrology readings figure that out.