♥ ૐ ~ Losar Virgo Full Moon ~ ૐ ♥ Feb 2010

The month of miracles and Losar New Year light blessings, Chotrul Duchen, culminates with Sunday’s Virgo Full Moon, at 16:38 GMT. As one of the four main Buddhist holidays, we celebrate today with practice, and light, flower and food offerings in honor of the fifteen miracles the Buddha performed. We also perform long life prayers for our masters. Karma is multiplied on this special day.

Events around this Moon are also magnified because the Sun in magical Pisces conjoins expansive Jupiter, a combination in which we could surely count our blessings. I’m sure however, certain people around the world, in Chile, Haiti, Darfur etc, would count themselves lucky if they could even get to read this. Thus we, the Digital Tribe of the love & light working Cyber Sangha, really are the fortunate ones, currently thrice blessed.

Psychic Pisces detects the undulating waves of collective unconscious emotion, and denotes our individual conscious connection to the Divine (through prayer, meditation, music, dance, yoga etc). Our Pisces Sun is now with Jupiter (Pisces’ traditional ruler), representing a philosophical search for life’s meaning – and an extrasensory urge to surrender to infinite cosmic unity that will broaden our understanding of what it means to be blessed.

Our Western grasp of the word ‘blessing’ generally means favoured, worthy of worship, able to passively enjoy heavenly bliss. But in Buddhist teachings the word can have greater value: Not only does it mean we receive the spiritually honed prayers of the compassionate and holy meditation masters (who are natural conduits of the heavens), but we can also actively generate a personal intention to take this unconditional universal blessing and use it as a means of transformation to heal and ameliorate through our own kind thoughts, words and deeds.

By harnessing the power of the received heartfelt vibration – the blessing – we can then add our own love to the collective Metta, Karuna, Agape - And therein lies the miracle: The more we share love, the more LOVE there IS to share.

There is a danger however, of feeling overwhelmed when Piscean energy pervades; when it’s all too easy to turn towards toxic oblivion. Beware that opting for the path of the sleepwalker leads away from truth. Instead, be willing to accept there are some things we have no control over and go with the flow, towards the enlightened peaceful state. Being at one with the unified collective, and inclined towards spiritual service, we generate empathy and bring joy to others. Bare in mind you can’t ‘save’ everyone, lest you become a martyr. When the light of the Pisces Sun is reflected by our beautiful receptive full Virgo Moon, wholesome and pure in a sensible and solid earth sign, we’re offered intellectual integrity through practical service. Virgo underpins the solar-lunar gravitational influence so that visionary altruistic intention blends with right thought and right action; and so we needn’t feel victimised by nebulous fairytales of longing, or ‘lost’ in the Piscean Samsaric sea.

Our third blessing, together with the Sun and Moon, comes from Venus, currently exalted in Pisces. As Queen of the Heavens, she is the planet we normally associate with personal relationships and love. Venus is about to make contact with group-orientated Uranus, also in Pisces, suggesting a change of heart could suddenly be directed from self towards others as quick as a flash, as in the blink of the eye of Brahma. Awareness is the key to riding current change.

For instance, on a personal level I am an intuitive water sign, prone to being super-sensitive, too sensitive sometimes according to my darling husband. But everything I read and see around me at this moment in time points to us all feeling as though something big is happening. I am not alone in sensing the change and development we are now experiencing is of mega importance; how we handle that change will determine the outcome. Both environmentally and economically our collective civilization is struggling, psychologically and physically, on a scale previously unseen, to understand the truth of the matter. But as His Holiness, Dalai Lama says, “We all want to be happy”. Just that one goal unites us; consciously ‘as one’ we can evolve harmoniously so each and every sentient being can thrive in relative freedom. And this is now humanity’s objective.

All of which may seem a lot for one person to take on board. So my advice with this Virgo Moon is to work within everyday capabilities to raise the cosmic love vibration and generate a protective aura. We can do this in simple ways that cost nothing: for instance we can start by blessing the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear, the work we do, the people we meet, and the earth we walk upon.

And seeing as Pisces is also the sign that rules feet AND prayer… Bless each step you take…

On that note: Bless YOU dear friend, with Love and Full Moon light ~ may all beings be happy!

Thanks and credits to mandalalaw.com for pisces pic, to Karmyn for funky pic of HHDL, and other unknown, but much appreciated photographers.

Day of Miracles ~ Valentine Losar 2137 ~ Year of the Metal Tiger 2010

How wonderful it is when, for no other reason than glorious happenstance, diverse traditions meet to celebrate on remarkably auspicious days and double any potentially supreme good fortune. This year in our Western calendar the day of red hot passionate love hearts, St Valentine's, is the same day as Losar, the Tibetan New Year, which, according to Tibet's Eastern tradition, also marks the start of a month of miracles. Bringing the two hemispheres together we have a whole month when love is the key for making miracles happen. How cool is that?

As a result, Valentine’s love vibration abounds while we also have an altruistic and friendly Aquarius New Moon (2:51 am GMT), enabling us to generate the self-existing mindfulness that fully opens the heart to the loving kindness and consideration for others and ourselves that we can all enjoy: Welcome a new moon that accents heartfelt individuality within the ‘whole’, celebrating diversity in unity.

Interestingly, two adversaries also come together with this year’s Aquarius New Moon, a lunation which always marks a Chinese New Year, yet not always a Tibetan New Year (which can move - rarely into Capricorn, but often into Pisces): Valentine’s ‘arrows of love’ point to both cultures meeting at the New Year of the romantic and passionate Metal (or Iron) Tiger. With the elemental focus now upon sharp and cutting metal, strength comes this year from being be clear and focused, resolute and utterly beautiful and unique.

Differences in interpretation (and opinion) do exist: from China the Metal Tiger is assertive, direct and forceful, with a tendency to be self-orientated and rigid. From Tibet we also have the freedom-loving, generous commander; yet there is another side to the determined Tibetan Tiger, who is symbolic of meekness, less complicated by ego desire and therefore able to more easily show compassion towards others. According to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, “the Tiger is an expression of ‘unconditional confidence’ …not stalking for prey, but self-satisfied and modest, watchful and relaxed, mindfully aware of how to conduct affairs”.

Losar is also a time of ‘Light Blessing’. A Tibetan blessing differs from our usual understanding, in as much as it suggests purification with an intentional transformation.

Tiger is associated (in both cultures) with Aquarius, a future orientated zodiacal sign of hopes and wishes, symbolic of humanity’s desire to come together and build a brighter tomorrow. Tiger’s planet is Venus, the planet of love, who now flourishes in her exaltation, in Pisces. So the kind of love we are now talking is deeply felt, oceanic and delightful, nothing short of unconditional cosmic love.

~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~

It’s been 60 years since China invaded Tibet, the last Metal Tiger year. This means a whole new Metal Tiger cycle is about to begin. According to Chogyam Namkhai Norbu, this is a completion of a first 'metreng' of the 'cycle of the mewa' (smen 'khor – i.e. the element and number relation). Sixty years is also mega important in Kalachakra astrology, being the above mentioned as well as a completion of five elemental cycles of Jupiter through the twelve signs of the zodiac, plus two cycles of Saturn (the planet that orders the flow of bagua): this is a cycle that demonstrates how wisdom and karma work together.

Let's hope then, at the start of this second metrung (60 years), that miracles can and do happen, that we can string the necklace of the numerically magic ‘mewa’ together in peace and harmony, so that the people of Tibet (and China, and the world over) have the Aquarian liberty to practice their non-harmful light-shining spiritual belief, free in speech and worship, and free from fear or want.

~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥ ~

From the western astrological point of view, the horoscope of this year’s Losar, erected for GMT, has positive and forward-thinking Sagittarius rising, with beneficent Jupiter ruling the chart. Optimistic Jupiter is in the third house of communication, in his traditional domain of enchanting Pisces, conjoined by the sympathetic, loving and harmonious Venus. This strong combination is astro-speak for potentially very helpful relations, willing to enter a dialogue that could bring about an end to matters, or at the very least, agree on the need to co-exist and co-operate and co-create (much like this surrogate tiger mum to a litter of pigs).

The life-giving Sun is also currently with visionary Neptune and healing Chiron, as well as symbol of the collective, the Moon. At best this combination suggests spiritual healing, big style, (through the cyber airwaves?). At worst it is about a harmful intention to pull the wool over the masses’ eyes. Working together (with or without miracles) we could quite feasibly make it the former.

Tiger is also an endangered species. One wonders if this is a year when more of an effort is made to protect them. With the all-consuming love shown in this year's chart, one might well hope this is the case.

Many thanks to all tigers (especially the one I saw on my honeymoon, all those years ago in India's Sarsika national park) & credit to Janosh for beautiful healing mandala www.janosh-art.com