Prick up your ears. Listen to the world as well as your own heart. Feel the wind in addition to your own intuitions. Look up and out as well as within. You are approaching a time to gather in with all your senses. Not to judge. Judgement can wait. Not necessarily to draw conclusions either. Rather, you approach a time to listen for echoes, but not from the past.

As this week draws to a close, begin to listen for echoes from the future. You have the ability to discern them. It’s not absurd to do so. It just takes a bit of conscious practice.

First, it’s a matter of timing – knowing the best time to listen. Astrology helps with that. Then it’s a matter of knowing what not to listen to (or rather what to consciously tune out).

The best time begins nearly three weeks before every time Mercury stations retrograde. Many astrologers call it a shadow phase. Years ago, Eric proposed the more positive and empowering alternative term ‘echo phase.’ Either way, it is a both a period of time and a slice of the zodiac.

The first echo/shadow phase takes place when Mercury in direct motion enters the part of the zodiac where it will retrace its path in apparent reversal only weeks later. The second echo phase comes after the retrograde is over, when Mercury moves through the same area a third time. Think of a windshield wiper moving in its confined arc three times – once towards the left (direct), then towards the right (retrograde), then left again (direct again) to get the idea.

Just as the first swipe of a windshield wiper gives you some idea of what to expect from the second (and even third) swipes, Mercury’s first echo phase implicitly contains information. The important thing to grasp, however, is that the information is not fully formed and organized, like data from the past. Rather it is like a scent on the breeze. Echoes from the future consist of hints which repeat and add up. Your place in the process is to actively listen for patterns, and do the adding up.

That first swipe begins less than 24 hours after Mercury enters Libra shortly after 11:44 am EDT (15:44:25 UTC) on Thursday, and will continue until Mercury retrograde commences on September 17. Now is a good time to make plans to start your active listening, because you will probably have to change your personal routine a bit in order to do so.

One of the best ways to pick up echoes from the future is to turn off the television and otherwise turn away from the pasteurized process product called news. That’s because most of what is called news is anything but new.

Instead, presuming you are blessed with ambulatory ability, walk the streets in your neighborhood. As you walk, pay attention to all you meet. Listen to everybody you either meet and engage with or overhear. Listen for patterns in words, phrases, attitudes and viewpoints. Ride a bus and do the same. Or sit in a coffee shop. Or go to a park and watch people play softball, soccer, or basketball. The possibilities are nearly unlimited.

As this week draws to a close, leave the manufactured world for spaces where people gather as much as possible. Not just people either. Assuming you are patient enough to get into their groove, listen to birds singing, dogs barking, babies crying, children playing, and any form of voice that comes your way.

Additionally, watch the skies, whether cloudy or clear. Indeed, let every form of sensory input which is not processed through electronic media tell you something. Pay special attention for what you are told over and over. If you give your effort enough time for a sufficient number of times, you will catch on.

The future really does echo, especially in the weeks before a Mercury retrograde. You really can bring meaning to those echoes as well. All it takes is a bit of intent, some planning, and your ability to follow through by getting out into the other world (besides the world of electronic media) where Mercury manifests in a wholly different way.

For of all the ways Mercury manifests, the most important is how it does so through you. You have the ability to do more than just listen. Within your power is the ability to be the mythical messenger you would want others to be for you.

Yes, you can for all practical purpose deliver the sort of messages you want to hear from the world. But you must hear the world first. Now would be a good time to get started making plans for how to do that, and change your life just enough to listen for echoes from the future.

Offered In Service

This week I found myself time traveling. Astrologers can do that, you know. I animated my natal chart so that I could watch the movement of transiting planets over the chart as I clicked the “forward” button. I’ve played this little game before, but it’s been a while and I was wondering about the timing of the next Pluto-Uranus opposition, and whether it would hit any major points in my chart. Yes, indeed it will — if I am still alive.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

One of the first things I tell people during a tarot or astrology reading is that I don’t predict the future and I cannot tell them what to do.

I believe that astrology and tarot are excellent predictors of spiritual and emotional trends, and that free will comes in when we decide how to act based on those trends.

The interplay of fate and free will is such a tightly orchestrated little dance, I don’t like to give the divination tools too much power. I also believe it’s important not to ignore them altogether.

As someone who has a whole bunch of planets grouped together in fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), any time a slow-mover like Saturn or Pluto trudges through one of them I tend to experience a whole lot of change. Being able to see that there will come a time, in that far off place I call my fifties, when Pluto is on my Descendant and Sun at the same time as it opposes transiting Saturn on my ascendant helps me to contextualize what I’m going through now as a kind of preparation for that later phase.

I’ve also joked at times about quitting astrology until a given transit is over. Just ignoring it for a bit. The temptation to project all kinds of fear or anxiety over a set of symbols can be tempting. The gift of being able to prepare, however, is such a blessing. There is so much to be understood about that fear and anxiety, and such a delicate balance between staying aware of it and manifesting it.

The increased awareness that tools such as astrology can facilitate now brings to mind the question of fate versus free will. It allows us to understand and sometimes amplify our fears, especially those that manifest as recurrent patterns. My personal goal has been to be careful not to frame this as victimization, but rather in a way that underscores potentialities and tools for healing. I rest assured that my soul somehow had a say in the challenges I’d be facing in this life, and most of the time that’s helpful.

A few months ago, I kept coming across a thread on the interwebs that was spawned by a discussion between two astrologers. It appeared as if one was arguing that when ‘bad’ things keep happening to a person, it is an indication that they are less evolved. That’s a pretty rough paraphrase, but his comments sparked some pretty intense debate.

I found myself laughing at the audacity it takes to claim to understand someone else’s evolutionary path in hierarchical terms, even though I sometimes find myself referring to ‘consensus’ reality — the reality of those living in the normal 9-5 grind, watching prime time television, eating whatever the heck they want, never questioning the system, and happy (at least seemingly so) to play by the rules — in a way that evokes the same kind of divisions.

But the idea that those who struggle in their evolutionary journeys are somehow doing it wrong or less aware does not sit well with me. In fact, who am I to judge anyone’s path at all?

It seems that there is something inherently challenging and confrontational about the act of learning about one’s own astrological chart. Don’t we have to confront and trudge through our shadow material in order to learn to work with it? Isn’t that process at the root of astrological work, at least in some forms?

I’m reminded of a passage from Rudhyar’s Astrology and the Modern Psyche, which I have re-read now several times. In it, he discusses the ways in which in-depth examination of one’s own natal chart forces the potentialities of our individual paths to the surface, intensifying both the ‘good’ qualities as well as the ‘evil.’ He says:

“…as human beings are usually more struck by and respond more crucially to the ‘bad’ than to the ‘good,’ if a person strives after self-knowledge by studying his birth-chart with an intense belief in the validity of astrology, this study very often leads to an intensification of Karmic confrontations. This is as it should be; for this intensification of pain and tragedy through the focusing of Karma is an inevitable part of the process of purification and purgation (catharsis) of the ego. And this process is the first manifestation of the fact that the ‘education to personality’ is gaining momentum and becoming effective.”

This basic notion — that intense study of one’s chart increases the potentialities of the chart — also indicates that the ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ is particularly brought to the surface because we tend to be more comfortable with the good. Therefore the more harrowing, shadowy or perhaps just yucky stuff constellates in our psyches, finding room to express there and throughout our lives.

This passage in Rudhyar’s book is followed by a discussion of something Jung once wrote, which has to do with the fear that so many humans feel when trying to locate or listen to their inner voice. Jung gives credence to this fear by pointing out that the inner voice is something that can bring us in contact with the shadow. By guiding us towards our true calling or path, much in the way an astrological chart can, it also brings us in contact with our fears and our shadow.

Honoring that fear is part of the work. That’s why, whenever I meet someone who learns what I do and expresses interest in having a reading, I give them my contact information but I don’t push. I wait for them to reach out to me, indicating their readiness.

As much as I believe the survival of our species is dependent on people accessing and working with tools for consciousness such as astrology, I also know that at its most potent it can open windows to the soul that sometimes aren’t for the faint of heart. Although I suppose everything happens in the right time and place.

So while I’m grateful to be able to do some time traveling, I also hold the power of that spark of knowledge with lot of reverence because it isn’t a matter of fortune telling and parlor tricks for me — it’s a way of tuning into the soul and working with what is found there in a way that gets us in touch with that divine spark.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Jimmy Carter may not have been the most productive president of the last century, but I doubt that few took their responsibility more seriously or had more faith in the cause of democracy. Like Obama, he inherited a nation torn by final instability and marked by growing distrust of government.

Running as an outsider and truth-teller, he remained both during his one-term presidency, which was likely his downfall. The American public preferred the manufactured optimism of Warner Bros. contract player, one-time union rep and former-Democrat, Ronald Reagan, who — despite all indicators — insisted it was “morning in America” (cue the extras and hit the Klieg lights!).

Jimmy is something of a futurist, a man of positive vision. Where would we be today, I wonder, if we had taken his advice, put on a sweater, turned down the thermostat and learned to conserve energy? His decision to put solar panels on the roof of the White House speaks volumes about his sense of stewardship of  the planet, as did Reagan’s decision to remove them.

Jimmy was green before it was fashionable, and Kermit had that right: it ain’t easy being green. There was something else Jimmy showcased, even when he took hits for it. James Earl Carter is a shining example of mid-20th century Christianity, at its best.

Carter’s announcement this week of melanoma metastasized to his brain is a death knell, not unexpected in a man of 90 years, but it still brings a lump to my throat and a stinging rush of tears. We need more like him in this world, not fewer.

Like the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and others who have practiced their faith to the point of certainty, Jimmy’s dedication to the advancement of humanity, delivered with characteristic and unshakable humility, defines him. He and Rosalynn have spent the majority of their lives in service to others.

When asked if he had regrets about his presidential performance, he had this to say:

“I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages, and we would have rescued them and I would’ve been re-elected. But that may have interfered with the foundation of the Carter Center. If I had to choose between four more years and the Carter Center, I think I would choose the Carter Center.”

The enormous good that Jimmy Carter has done for the world is, as the gentleman says, more important than his presidential legacy, and isn’t that what we’d expect of him? Truly, what he has accomplished globally would never have been allowed nationally, and that is one of those ah-ha! moments we need to acknowledge as we track this man’s career.

Presiding over one’s nation requires a competitive edge that precludes doing good across the board, and not much has changed since Jimmy was in office. As a CEO is obligated to profit, the American president is expected to play a zero-sum game like a champion going for the gold. The popularity of Donald Trump’s brutish brand of capitalism in place of statesmanship illustrates our continuing — and archaic — devotion to ‘exceptionalism.’

Fortunately, past presidents have the ability to move in broader circles, capture public attention for the greater good, and represent an international agenda. If they will. Some, like our Dubby, keep to themselves, but not Jimmy. He has decades of statesmanship to his credit.

Read about the Carter Center’s amazing work eradicating and controlling disease, and promoting civil rights at this link.

While you’re at it, juxtapose the Clinton Foundation’s admirable work in treating AIDS patients worldwide, while making no complaint against the outlandish cost of drug cocktails supplied by Big Pharma. Both foundations do good work, but only one is politically “connected,” as they say.

In a season when economics take center stage once again, with staggering levels of income inequality and government not trusted, Hillary may well come to envy the Carter Center’s track record and ethical standing.

I can’t say that the 39th President did everything right back in the days of Billy Beer, but I will pledge my oath that I always felt his heart was in the right place. I think the years since stand in testimony of that truth, and I hope he feels the love, in these last months of his life. Here’s a cartoon with the warm hug we wish him.

Jimmy is still an outsider, all these years later, hated on the right and avoided by many in his own party. Why? Open this link and admire the raw courage it takes for a former Commander-in-Chief to tell it like it is. A truth-teller in Washington, D.C. has few friends. But a peacemaker, a healer, a man willing to roll up his sleeves and win hearts and minds with sweat equity? He is beloved by millions.

In a press conference this week, Carter was calm and relaxed discussing his cancer, saying that he was “looking forward to a new adventure.” I can pretty much assure you he wasn’t talking about the four rounds of chemo ahead. In a nation terrified of death, Jimmy is, once again, modeling a faith and positivity that should instruct us all.

To the only U.S. president who did not wage war during his time in office, I send my thanks, my admiration, and my prayers that his coming adventure provides him reward for the love and compassion he extended to his fellow travelers here on Planet Terra. He’s one of the good ones. May all the kindness and mercy he set in motion gently lift him up and take him home.

(A word about last week: I’m again without a computer, tippy-tapping this on my tablet. Last Friday, I lost my piece at the last minute and I apologize to all you Saturday morning readers for the blank space where it should have been. I’ll do my best not to let that happen again!)