Springtime Follies for Seekers and Mystics: “Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys!”

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“The expansion (i.e., projection) and the contraction (i.e., dissolution) of the universe are called lila (the divine sport) in Hindu scriptures. In this divine play, the One becomes many and the many return into the One in endless rhythmic fashion.”–Nostradamus, 1503-1566

Dear One,
Happy Spring Forward! March is the most astrologically significant month of 2023. Consequently, if we’re especially mindful of how this month’s major transits will be affecting us, we can make the best use of these potentially auspicious but also intensely challenging energies for the greatest benefit.

To start with: Karmic Teacher Saturn just moved into spiritual Pisces on March 7 for the next thirty months, setting up our karmic lessons (aka FGOs, f**kin growth opportunities) focused through whichever house or area of life Pisces falls in our birth chart.

The good news is that, overall, taskmaster Saturn can be a bit more mellow in dreamy Pisces, allowing those of us Saturnian types who still cling to any vestige of an illusion of control (over people, places things and circumstances), to be able to relax and chill out more in the Piscean cosmic ocean of consciousness (aka the Flow state).

This means that when any form of free-floating anxiety does arise (regardless of any seeming external trigger), we’ll find it’s easier to mindfully witness it without judgement, as it’s spontaneously arising from our samskaras (habitual karmic grooves) so that we have an opportunity to unwind them, one layer a time.

The trick is to allow the anxiety (aka metaphysical angst) to disperse without engaging, feeding, indulging, acting out or repressing it. This most spiritually pragmatic solution, which I’ve been practicing daily for over 40 years, is to: Inhale Faith in the Flow and exhale all varieties of fear as they arise, and to do this as often as needed, even if it means with every breath in the beginning.

“Nature does not hurry, yet all things are accomplished.”–Lao Tzu

For more:Becoming ONE with the Inner Guru … Or How to Make Saturn Your BFF

To get your chart for FREE: ASTRO.com

Next, on March 12, abundant Jupiter conjoins with Wounded Healer Chiron in action-oriented Aries, with Lover Venus in attendance, signaling that this month is an exceptionally good time to take tangible steps to initiate moving to the next level of healing–be it physical, mental, emotional and/or karmic. As, with beneficent Jupiter working synergistically to heal what ails us, this energy will be permeating our beings all month, signifying that encouraging results could well occur so suddenly as to appear positively miraculous!

Last, but certainly not least, on March 25 an exceptionally big deal is commencing: Transformer Pluto is giving us a foretaste of what is to come over the next two decades with his three-month transit into idealistic, innovative and humanity-loving Aquarius. After that, he retrogrades back into the last two degrees of Capricorn, before fully moving into Aquarius in November, 2024. For more: Owning Our Inner Pluto Before… It Eats Us for Lunch

The last time Pluto was in revolutionary, freedom-loving and altruistic Aquarius was in 1797 (the French revolution ran from 1789-1799). However, since Pluto wasn’t even discovered until 1930, this is the first time in human history that we have the opportunity to consciously work with these energies as they will certainly be working ON all of us.

This is a game changer for all Life on Earth as we now know it. Watch for signs and signals of what is to come on the world stage during this preview of our global coming attractions. For while disasters will continue to lead the news cycles (it’s what “sells”), we may feel our hearts opening wider than ever before with empathy and compassion for those suffering from these events with a visceral inner knowing that: “There, but for the grace of the Goddess and the Lords of Karma, go I.”

On an even deeper personal level, Pluto helps us grow through cycles of death and rebirth and, since Uranus-ruling Aquarius governs our higher minds, this transit indicates that we’re in for a total upgrade of our inner operating systems. This includes the falling away of attachments to stagnate ruts of identity, as well as chronic mental and emotional patterns which no longer serve our evolution.

Keep in mind that Plutonian energies can be quite ruthless, akin to how a rose bush might feel as it is getting pruned to allow for new growth under optimal conditions. This is especially so for those of us going through major life-changing Pluto transits during the period when Pluto will, once again, as in 2022, conjunct then retrograde over the degree of 28° Capricorn in 2023, and then travel to 3° Aquarius by 2025.

Therefore, if you have planets or angles at these degrees or aspects to them, you’re already experiencing some, if not all, parts of your old personality on the ego levels falling away or becoming so translucent that something much lighter and fresher on a more timeless soul level (or beyond) can shine through.

Because Pluto transits take a minimum of two years, it can feel as if: “When one door closes, another opens . . . but its drafty in the hallway.” I like to think of this hallway as an elevator of consciousness taking us up to a brand-new portal which will open, at the perfect time in the Flow, to a relationship with all of Life at a higher level. YAY!

One of the best ways to work with these transformational energies is to cultivate a new point of view about the Earth Game and how we play our roles in it.

One of my favorite perspectives comes from the most ancient and sacred text considered the origin of Tantra called the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra in which there are 112 techniques. Here’s one of my favorites:

#58: “This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.”

To see a list of all 112 techniques as well as books on them: Spiritual Practices Reading List

These meditations and practices of Tantra were born, legend has it, out of a conversation between two lovers, Shiva and his consort, Devi, some 5,000 years ago. Shiva and Devi, entwined in a lover’s embrace, were discussing the mysteries of the universe. Shiva, inspired by his lover’s intense desire to know the meaning of existence, composed 112 sutras that were designed to give her the direct experience of how the universe came into being through a direct experience in her body.

When I discovered these practices over 35 years ago, especially seeing the world as a juggling show (aka circus), I knew I had found one of my true spiritual paths (along with Taoism) as it exactly aligned with my earliest visions of the workings of the Universe as they appeared to me in my memory.

Starting at age four, I became obsessed with drawing cartoons daily–as this is how I saw the Universe–as a giant cartoon in perpetual motion. Then in my mid-teens, with a little boost from marijuana, my vision of the cosmos became more elaborate as I saw it as a gigantic movie projector with an inexhaustible array of reels of live film clips running through it for the Divine’s entertainment as well as my own.

For the last twenty years or so, one of my favorite visions has been seeing all souls as infinitely spinning wheels of light going round and round like an enormous amusement park ride in the game of Leela, cosmic or divine play. For more: LEELA

For those of you who have no trouble seeing the drama, tragedy and horror of the human condition but, as to cosmic humor–not so much–then this particular tantric practice will be especially challenging, but all the more needed. Why is that?

Because we’re here as souls incarnate through cycles of karmic development to ultimately play out all roles possible within the human condition as we open our hearts so expansively that we get to experience the fullest range of the human emotional repertoire–including laughter at the wonder and absurdity of it all.

The reason laughter is so good for the soul is because hilarity, mirth and glee–out of the full range of emotional condiments– supplies our beings with some of the most juicy, alive and spicy energy. Think about some of the peak moments of your life when you laughed the hardest. Ever wonder why these hilarious times stay so dominantly in our emotional memory bank?

For me, it’s usual been in situations where the absurdity of what was going on made me laugh so hard I either fell down if standing or fell off my chair and usually peed my pants (a little). Once, on magic mushrooms, while watching the grass grow, I started uncontrollably laughing for so long it spontaneously flipped into sobbing with joy at the wonder of it all. Not too many funny movies have ever triggered such an intense emotional response as actual real-life experiences.

So, cultivating light-heartedness is an essential part of the package deal we signed up for before our very first sojourn in the Earth Game. There are even some schools of chi gung where laughing is the primary practice because it opens the heart and heals what ails us. For more: Laughter Qigong

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.”
–William Shakespeare, from As You Like It

For those of us stuck within a darker view of the Earth Game, this usually comes from a place in us where we’re still not totally accepting of ourselves just as we are–wounds and all, dark side and all. So, it’s only natural to project these uncooked and unacceptable parts of ourselves out into the world–so that it is the world that is not okay or acceptable just the way it is.

I have seen this time and again with clients who are working with a soul assignment of heart development 101 (aka self-love, self-worth, self-acceptance) but haven’t quite gotten there yet. Their view of the world appears as an exact mirror reflection of all that they judge as dark or bad or not okay in themselves.

Many times, this dark world view is amplified by unresolved karmic PTSD from being attacked or wounded by external forces, which if not healed by doing inner work, can feel like a legitimate reaction to what has been experienced. But for there to be full resolution, a higher level of skillful means is needed to dissolve all the trauma that is blocking a lighter and brighter world view going forward.

Taken either further, this projection outward of the uncooked parts of ourselves can go into a world view where we need to protect ourselves from Life before it devours or destroys us. Then, by default, especially if we have porous boundaries, we allow this devouring energy to take us over and permeate down to the cellular levels somatizing into many dis-eases such as auto-immune dis-orders and cancer.

Also, choosing safety first (which is the biggest illusion in this ephemeral plane) leads to stagnation, which is the opposite direction of where we need to go, as we’re here to continuously grow and evolve. This can only come from being willing to take risks, which always make us feel more alive. For those of us who have fully armored our hearts, so as not to feel vulnerable in a negative sense of ever getting hurt and risking feeling pain again (which is part of the package deal of being fully human), various forms of heart disease are often part of this somatizing devolution.

When Marpa, the great Tibetan meditation master and teacher of Milarepa, lost his son he wept bitterly. One of his pupils came up to him and asked:
“Master, why are you weeping? You teach us that death is an illusion.”
And Marpa said: “Death is an illusion. And the death of a child is an even greater illusion.”

“Death is absolutely safe.”–Ram Dass

If we really want to expand our consciousness and release limiting beliefs about the nature of the Earth Game, the question to start with is: Can we accept that All is evolving perfectly in the Divine Plan and that everyone and everything is part of One Being, Leela, Cosmic Play, the Tao, the Flow, All That Is, or Source including:

Rabid cultists
Fundamentalists of any ilk
Sickness and illness on any level
Pharmaceuticals and western medicine
Climate change

Wow! I specifically listed the above just to mention a few hot-button topics agitating many of us these days. This list can also make steam come out of our overheated left-brains if we’re following too much social media or the “news.” It lets us know when it’s time to take a break. Ha-ha.

For as long as there have been human incarnations, there has always been natural and man-made disasters, plagues, wars and other cataclysmic events. But, never before in human history, until the internet, (ruled by Aquarius btw), have we been bombarded with a 24-7 news cycle of endless catastrophes broadcasted daily from all over the globe and into our psyches.
In fact, the amount of info we’re bombarded with in just one day now is about 150 times more than humans had to contend with in an entire lifetime a century ago!

Unfortunately, for many of us, by not consciously screening what we allow into our minds with our discriminating awareness, we get inundated and stressed-out rather than watching the show with equanimity. For tools to cope with feeling too porous and sponge-like mentally, emotionally and psychically and to learn how to maintain peace in your inner kingdom: Psychic Empowerment Practices (This session includes two Taoist Practices MP3s.)

Because we’re not equipped to handle this level of bombardment from the little self/ego/personality level, we’ll never be able to be truly happy and fully enjoy the Earth Game unless we raise our perspective to the witness/soul level.

From there, we can embrace it all–from horror to delight–-as a play, a picture show in which we’re simultaneously participating by playing our roles while viewing it all without judgment or aversion, but always with an open-hearted compassion for self and others. And it is from this place that samsara (maya, illusion, 3D) and nirvana (heaven, paradise) become One and the entire world becomes our bliss body.

For those of us who remember our past lives, especially those of great suffering, it helps to keep this memory green. Then we can let go of any survivors’ guilt and just be grateful that some of our karmic dues have already been paid in full by expanding our range via lives of extreme hardship. The karmic purpose of these experiences is to crack open our hearts with compassion as nothing lesser could. Then, we can enjoy the fullest range of the Earth Game even more ̶ ̶and be a channel of joy out into the world in the ripple effect.

Most of us find at least parts of the above hot-button list hard to embrace as part of the Tao. And therein lies our inner work to help us cultivate a higher perspective from the level of Absolute Truth. But, since we all do live in 3D, a plane of relative truth, it is unrealistic to dwell solely in the realm of the Absolute, unless we are fully enlightened beings with no return to lesser states. And how many of us can say that?

In fact, any spiritual philosophy or teaching that propounds a perspective of reality with no polarities, contradictions or paradoxes is NOT OF THIS EARTH as it now is. So, trying to live solely by these absolute or ultimate truth teachings—whether from Advaita Vedanta (recent proponents include Krisnamurti, Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle, etc.) or Christian Science (more recently Course in Miracles etc.) is unsustainable as a way of life.

Accordingly, anyone who is attempting to exist exclusively in an absolute reality with no duality, while in an incarnation in the earth plane, as many die-hard “new-agers” try to do, is going to end up having feelings that something is inherently wrong or inadequate within their beings.

My solution to this rejection and denial of 3D reality as purely a dream or, conversely, to rage at not having any control over the duality of the physical plane, is to consistently utilize a perceptual split-screen to view relative and absolute levels of reality simultaneously.

This means that, on one side of the screen, I live fully embodied in the world as it is, wholeheartedly playing the game of Life amidst so much Divine orderly chaos. I still have my preferences on the individual personality level (what’s left of it) and act on these preferences as desired. On the other side of the split-screen, I’m holding the vision of the absolute reality in which we’re all One Being with billions of faces and everything is part of the Tao—with no exceptions.

Thus, the panoramic view from the witnessing perspective of the mystic becomes: “All our circus and all our monkeys . . . and what an entertaining show of pure aliveness it is.”

The key is to not be so attached to having our preferences met—especially in terms of how the relative reality of the world is playing out now in the Kali Yuga (Dark Ages)—that we cause ourselves undue suffering in the here and now.

I still view the Earth Game as an infinite perpetual motion machine in which souls incarnate to learn how to grow into cocreators with All That Is, while healing their karma. And, without doubt, the physical plane is definitely the best show in the Universe in this regard.

If you’re ready to begin to appreciate Life just the way it is, then it’s time to consciously choose to fully enjoy playing your parts in the bigger-picture drama of the entire Universe, rather than getting overly identified and hooked into the spectacle of the current tragicomedy being enacted in this relative plane because: What’s the point of that? (Unless you’re still unconsciously attached to suffering as your karmic rut of identity–meaning: Who would you be without so much unhappiness?)

In Ram Dass’s words: “The basic rule is to ‘be here now.’ The rule is to start from exactly where we are at this moment. The rule is to be able to say about oneself and the universe with all of its horror, with all of its beauty, with all of its imperfections, Kali and all her manifestations, ‘It is all right. It’s all OK.’”

To fully enjoy the Earth Game in all its wonders and sorrows it helps if we can also incorporate the perspective from the Void (also known as the 8th body of consciousness in Taoism) or from the Buddhist concept of emptiness as the ground of Being. In Tantra, this translates into embracing the ambivalence of existence and non-existence sparkling through each moment.

All dimensions or planes of consciousness (aka form) arise and fall away spontaneously and infinitely in every moment out of formlessness. This is called non-duality or “the one taste” in many Buddhist teachings. From here, we can view everything that happens in 3D as a “plus:” meaning pure aliveness and adventures in learning how to be cocreators.

On a personal note, my most recent good news is that, for the vast majority of this past winter, at least in New York City where I live in an east village garden apartment, I’ve been sun-bathing in my backyard throughout January and February.

The bad news is that, given that this is the first winter in recorded history that I had to watch out for sunburn, the cause is most likely global warming. The good news is that I no longer have any habitual longing to get out of town by February and travel south to soak up some rays.
The not so good news is that, over the last decade or so, the majority of dream destinations on my bucket list have kicked the bucket decidedly sooner than is in the cards for me as yet. This is due to global warming destroying reefs (as most places on my list involve snorkeling) as well as the ongoing destruction of any peace and quiet in nature caused by being overrun by marauding tourists ̶ ̶another contributing factor in climate change.

Joan’s Secret Garden

The best news is that, most of the time, I’m at peace, content with life as it is, and that my old craving for travel to feed my hungry ghost for more, different or better appears to have fallen away (with the “encouragement” of internal and external circumstances). My daily morning sitting practice has reached a point where the monkey mind dissolves almost instantaneously into a place of emptiness and equanimity from which pleasure, joy and bliss spontaneously arise in the Flow. This does “it” for me like never before. And, hey, it only took 70 years:).

“Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase. Diminish what you give your physical self. Your spiritual eye will open.”–RUMI

In closing, my metaphysical philosophy encompasses the concept that the Divine created the Earth Plane because he/she was bored and we’re the live entertainment. In other words, the 3D world of form was/is created as a relief from the formlessness of the Void. (Just kidding, sort of:))

In the Earth Game, everything is continuously changing and evolving in a multidimensional tapestry of pure aliveness in this plane of contradictions, paradoxes, and above all duality. What a fantastic work of art it all is!

In addition, as 3D functions as a school for soul growth, we are continuously evolving into being cocreators with All That Is. So, it behooves us, as budding cocreators, to look at our own personal realities–what we have manifested as well as the emotional tone we radiate out through the ripple effect to all others and the earth plane itself–as our greatest work of art.

As part of our higher mind reboot/upgrade, it’s time to look at what we’ve been cocreating to date in a glass half-full kind of way–primarily focusing on high points and lessons learned for sure–and, going forward, to more consciously choose to take actions in our world that we have a heartfelt soul-level passion for.

But, please please please, if you think that only changing the world will truly make you happy–remember that “This so-called universe appears as a juggling, a picture show. To be happy, look upon it so.”

This teaching, while 5000 years ago in the making, is perhaps even more relevant now. Consequently, before you reject this timeless viewpoint out-of-hand, allow me to point out that this is the only sutra out of 112 that actually says: If you do this, you will be happy.

Therefore, once we do the inner work to be truly okay with who we are, this transformation will allow us to see that maybe the world as it is doesn’t need to be overhauled quite as much as we thought we needed for us to be happy campers during our sojourns here.

Lights, camera, action–ha cha cha,
J o a n

“An old aphorism from India says: “What is beyond, is that which is also here. And yet, you must not take this for a kind of blasé boredom or a tiring of adventure. It is instead the startling recognition that in the place where we are now, we have already arrived. This is it. What we are seeking is, if we are not totally blind, already here.” ̶ ̶ Alan Watts

“If we come back into form from having merged with God, what the Buddhist call nirvana, we are in the world but not of it. We play the cosmic sport. We fill the forms though there is no one home, it is just more Lila, the dance of God.”–Ram Dass