Be The Cause. Inspiration From Spinoza.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza saw nature to be synonymous with God.  He saw all living creatures as a part of this whole.  The thing that tied everything together was affectivity; the capacity to affect and be affected. 

He saw everything to be relative to something else in a web-like structure.  Consciousness sits in the middle of cause and effect, attempting to better perceive this ‘web’. 

If the web of cause and effect can be somewhat perceived, something very special can happen. We can become the cause and will the effect.

If we notice that the sun makes plants grow, we can plant seeds in the right spot. If bears notice that salmon swim upstream at a certain time of year they can position themselves to capitalize on this event and fill up their bellies.

 But animals don’t focus themselves into an idea of a future that suits them on a highly individual level. They go with nature’s flow. They are nature, as we are, but with them there is no confusion. There is also no freedom to create a unique future to answer an inner calling.

 Camus said, ‘with rebellion, awareness is born.” Human awareness is free of time’s constraints. Reflective thought allows us to get outside of time’s bondage and then return to it with better ideas of navigation. The only way to navigate time is to embrace its forward push. There is no backwards time navigation and no time machines. To navigate time well is to embrace the forward push within your own chemistry.

 The web of cause and effect becomes very personal. It is now quite evident to strive to clearly see what causes your effects. Maybe the problem that you continue to face is less about circumstance and more about a mindset, and maybe not. Seeing it clearly reveals true strategies to get back to ‘forward’.

 And what about the effects that are not negative? Are you paying attention to those? This would include effects such as delight, peacefulness, enjoyment. Maybe you think that a certain tv show gives you delight but in examining the true cause it becomes clear that the delight lies in getting a taste of a certain kind of life. Maybe it’s a life of more adventure and maybe it’s a life of better simplicity. To go on enjoying the show without ever examining its true cause of delight might keep you from taking a certain action towards something wonderful for your flourishing.

 The point is that the cause and effect pattern of the wide world we live in is like an elaborate web. Scientists see much further into the web than the bear awaiting salmon. They have found ways to determine the solid causes and effects of invisible forces. They can calculate measurements that serve as learning tools for future human minds to discover even more, as they build on this knowledge. The web emerges, in plain sight for those that learn these things.

 But the web is not just for scientists, it is also for artists, psychologists, engineers, teachers, farmers, chefs, parents and athletes. Anyone can use the knowledge of this ever-growing web to their advantage. Anyone can become the cause that they want to become, in search of desired effects.

 The web is vast and worldly, but also quite intimate and immediately present should one decide to become aware of it. If we can learn what the toroscope teaches us about the ego then we can witness a very personal web that is in the constant act of being spun. The Moon, our egos, are in a continuous state of change. Constantly “arising with a tinge of the past on the fringe of the future” as the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead described. He said we inherit the past, thus we are bound to it, but we are free to create. Each moment truly is the potential to a new dawn. You can wake up to the web you are spinning, or you can stay asleep to your momentum and spin in a mechanical spidery way.

 In the zodiac, Saturn represents ’cause’. These causes make up all of science and describe the laws of our natural world.

Saturn upside down is Jupiter. The toroscopes alerts us to the reality of inward and outward connections. If Saturn is the flipside of Jupiter, they are in a sense the same thing. If Saturn is the cause then Jupiter is also a kind of cause, just consisting of fire stuff instead of earth, or willing instead of law.

What kind of cause is this? It’s a cause that stands outside of time, in fire’s eternity.

The cause is quite simply your potential to be the cause, and create an effect. Embracing this ‘reality’ within is called confidence. It is as natural to embrace this cause as it is to embrace the cause of rain falling from the sky, in fact it is more natural.

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Fibonacci Patterns and the Metabolism of Time

Libra and Saturn introduce the seasons of Fall and Winter. The leaves on the trees turn red, orange and yellow. they no longer recede into the distance like they did while green in the summer. They come forth, into our focus. We are inspired to pick up a fallen leaf and look closer at it. Winter is cold. We draw our energies in, stay inside, cook hot food and hunker down. Winter is a time of collecting our vital energies inward.

The Seasons and the wheel of the zodiac introduce a ‘time that turns’. In knowing the seasons we come to better know ourselves.

But there is another kind of time. A ‘time that burns’. A metabolism, so to speak. By transforming the zodiac wheel into a torus shape, we convert cyclic time into metabolism.

What does the Fall and Winter show us in terms of ‘time metabolism’. What happens when we draw our energies in? What kinds of things come forth, and prompt us to bring them closer yet?

What happens when we focus our energies into something we deem very worthy of our focus. With the brilliant colors of Fall and the sobering chill of Winter we peer into a beautiful relationship: the beckoning of beauty and the endeavor of effort.

Have you picked up a leaf this year to get a closer look?

Nature is capable of displaying great works of beauty. The complex design of a butterfly wing is also simple with divine laws of proportion. It is not a ‘loud shirt’ with random color schemes and mechanical patterning. It is ordered. Ordered by something wonderful that underlies all creation. The beauty of the butterfly wing is like the beauty of our own bodies with our seashell-like ears and our galaxy-like eyes. Artists were quick to recognize a kind of sacred pattern to nature in its beautiful expression. It became known as the golden ratio; nature’s divine signature of proportion.

Artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo would work the precision of nature’s mathematics into their masterpieces. The divine beauty that emerged was rooted in natural law. Heaven, as they could prove, is here on earth, by grace of these sacred proportions and relations. In knowing the formula of nature, with all of its divinity, one has the capacity to create natural divinity, or real beauty.

The golden ratio, otherwise known as phi or the fibonacci sequence, shows the pattern of nature as it grows. One plus one brings us to two. Two plus one to three. Three plus two to five and so on. The relation between each step is one of accumulation. The next step marries itself to what has come before it. The growth pattern is a spiral. Nothing is wasted, it all is incorporated into the design.

For a rose, there is no doubt about a ‘decision’ to continue growing and expanding. There is no confusion of a sense of self. The result is nothing short of a visible and tangible divinity.

Human beings are sometimes blessed with plenty of beauty. For some of us, the ratios are Boticelli-like, and we can thank the mysteries of our genetics.  But a pretty face will soon disappoint if an attitude non-supportive to growth reveals itself, such as cynism and shallowness.

Before birth, we are perfect little seashell swirls in our mother’s womb. After we are born our bodies continue to grow, in the divine spirit of nature. And then they stop growing. What does this mean in terms of this divine process? Do our own ‘masterpieces’, the sublime work of our living bodies stop dancing to this catchy mathematical beat?

What does growth become when it is no longer the growth of the body?

Michelangelo studied the laws of growing in order to produce beauty. If we want to produce beauty in our lives we too must learn these laws of growth. This is the essence of Libra and Capricorn. This spiral deals with learning nature’s laws, so that you can produce more nature, more beauty and more bounty.

We are the rose that grows by ‘marrying itself to what has come before.’ The rose delights in the full affirmation of the sun. Within the unity of nature there is no ‘agency of future’. Future is only biological growing. The future of the rose is the same thing as its growingness, or its health.

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” Gertrude Stein

But we are free agents in a world that includes a vision of the future. We can envision ourselves in this future and we can reflect on ourselves in the past. This is how we are infinitely more related to our own capacity to grow. We share the same laws of the rose, but our world is wider and deeper. We can apply these laws to vision, reflection, and planning. We can encourage a healthy fibonacci pattern by being honest enough with what came before so we can consciously marry some freedom into something new.

The New Normal; Saturn in Aquarius

Saturn.  Father Time.  The planet of normalcy and status quo.  In the stirred up airy waters of Aquarius- the sign of the times.  This can only mean one thing- that we are entering a New Normal.

Oh I don’t know, what’s new with you?

Saturn and Mars have trudged through the cold and merciless Earth of Capricorn- and now they both have emerged into the sign of the Future.  As curves are seen to be flattening- yet tragedies ever more on the rise, a compelling cry for FORESIGHT echoes through the infinite canyons of consciousness itself.

Aquarius’ totem Greek God, Prometheus, a name that means “Foresight.”

With a desired future in mind- foresight comes naturally.  With a responsibility towards such a future, real change can happen.

Abe Lincoln, an Aquarius- with his Sun conjunct the Ascendant.

The New Normal.  Saturn in Aquarius.  The new standards to live up to.  On a personal level as well as on a social one.  New standards like new laws.  Laws that allow nature to flourish and thrive.

Because she’s worth it and so are you!

As Taurus Season begins this Sunday- the heart moves into a fire of homeostasis-craving Earth.  A Beauty-thirsty Season- that needs to quench its aching heart with bounty.

In the New Normal- the bounty is not taken for granted.  We have grown.  There are new responsibilities to be shared and honored.  The air in the world of the New Normal is a wake up call to true Interdependence.

Uranus- the Great Awakener, Aquarius’ ambassador planet, is also in Taurus- and for the next 6 years.

To protect our bounty, our life and liberty, we have to take a tip from the bees!  And work together!  Fairly!  

The New Normal- emerging out of a dark time- may turn a grocery clerk, or bus driver wage into one of a Government job!  Or guarantee a health care worker that they will never be unprotected by lack of protective gear ever again!

Who knows- maybe even health care itself will be a human right not a privilege as a wise man says.

Reality as it stands, is bizarre, and for many quite traumatic.  The future is all bound up with every churning of every gear.  Yet the power of Aquarius- is in its realization of interdependence.  The interdependence depends wholly- on the power of the individual.

The individual who, with perfect foresight, can take responsibility of the future.  Even if it’s just their own personal future, they can lead by example.  For the leaders that seek a better future for everyone- let’s hope their eyes are wide open- to the New Normal.

As Always, Happy Astro Pondering.

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