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February 13 through February 19, 2023

Take care on Monday, as the Scorpio Moon could cast illusions your way. Be mindful of what you hear, but take it with a grain of salt and do your research before moving in any direction. A lighter energy prevails Tuesday and Wednesday under the Sagittarius Moon, casting a productive but balanced energy around you. If you have any heavy lifting to do this week, or projects that need to be completed, Thursday and Friday are the days, as the Capricorn Moon casts a diligent and energetic vibe into the atmosphere. The Sun moves into Pisces on Saturday, and we’ll spend the next four weeks traveling a more spiritual and ethereal highway. Exploring our inner lives and investigating the metaphysical will be a theme. Also, as the final sign of the zodiac before a new cycle begins, this is the time to wrap things up, review the past year from a spiritual perspective, and resolve long-standing issues in the area of health, wealth, and relationships. This is also a time when secrets can come out, so if you’re hiding any, be extra careful, or they might end up on the evening news! The weekend’s socially-oriented Aquarius Moon promotes, unity, friendship, and catching up with loved ones!

Shamans, Saints, and Sages: What is a Spiritual Hero, and What Does it Take to Become One?, by Roger Walsh

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

"Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities and upon all kindsof goals which are not of real importance."—Carl Jung

Throughout history, certain extraordinary individuals have lived, loved, or excelled so well that ordinary mortals have regarded them with awe and bewilderment. These are humankind’s heroes, the healers, helpers, saints, and sages who exemplify our untapped potential. Ordinary mortals have wondered and puzzled about them, venerated or even worshiped them, and often felt that they must be more than merely human, even when the heroes themselves made no such claims.

"Are you a God?" they asked the Buddha.

"No," he replied.

"Are you an angel, then?"

"No."

"Then what are you?"

Replied the Buddha, "I am awake."

The mythologist Joseph Campbell collected diverse accounts (legends, myths, biographies) of all types of heroes—warriors, healers, saints, and gods—and distilled the stages of life that they pass through. Campbell's genius lay in recognizing the common thread that runs through these many lives, and in unifying them into a single grand story.

But this grand unification comes at a price, and that price is the obscuring of differences. For while it is true that there are similarities between the journey of a saint and a warrior, there are also major differences, and Campbell tends to elevate them all to the same transcendent status.

Our focus here is on spiritual heroes. These are the shamans, yogis, saints, and sages whose lives' aim and game center on the quest for enlightenment, liberation, salvation, or awakening. It is a quest which began untold thousands of years ago with shamanism, our earliest and most enduring healing and spiritual tradition.

The book The World of Shamanism examines this ancient tradition in the light of modern medicine, psychology, neuroscience, consciousness disciplines, and religious studies. What becomes evident is that shamans were our first forebears to develop a "technology of transcendence:" a set of practices capable of inducing altered states of consciousness (ASCs). In these ASCs, shamans were able to experience themselves as free "souls," engage in "soul flights," and to use these experiences to learn, help, and heal. As such, they became humankind's first spiritual heroes, first adventurers in consciousness, and first master game players.

The "master game" is one name given to the quest for enlightenment and awakening. It is the game of exploring and mastering, not the of the outer but the inner world of one's own mind and consciousness. Its ultimate goal is no less than to recognize and dissolve into one's true nature, and to delight in the greatest of all possible discoveries: the ecstatic realization that this nature is inseparable from the Divine.

Different traditions express this discovery in different ways, but the message is clearly the same. In the great monotheistic traditions we find:

• The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. (Jesus, Christianity)
• Those who know themselves know their Lord. (Mohammad, Islam)
• He is in all, and all is in Him. (Judaism)

Centuries earlier, similar words were already pouring from ecstatic Chinese practitioners:

• Those who know completely their own nature, know heaven. (Mencius, Confucianism)
• In the depths of the soul, one sees the Divine, the one. (The Chinese Book of Changes)

Indian traditions also offer the same gift, the recognition that, in their words:

• Atman (individual consciousness) and Brahman (universal consciousness) are one. (Hinduism)
• Look within, you are the Buddha. (Buddhism)

But this raises a painfully obvious question. Why do most of us sleepwalk through life oblivious of our true nature? In his book The Master Game, Robert DeRopp explains that the basic idea underlying all the great religions "...[i]s that man is asleep, that he lives amid dreams and delusions, that he cuts himself off from the universal consciousness….To crawl into the narrow shell of a personal ego. To emerge from this narrow shell, to regain union with the universal consciousness, to pass from the darkness of the ego-centered illusion into the light of the non-ego, this was the real aim of the Religion Game as defined by the great teachers: Jesus, Gautama, Krishna, Mahavira, Lao-tze and the Platonic Socrates."

Emergence, reunion, and enlightenment are the aim of both spiritual heroes and the Master Game to which they devote their lives.

The World of Shamanism shows how the Master Game progresses through five major stages, which are:

1. The hero's early conventional life
2. The call to adventure and awakening
3. Discipline and training
4. Culmination of the quest
5. The final phase of return and contribution to society

Conventional Slumber

The normal adjustment of the average, common-sense, well-adjusted [person] implies a continued successful rejection of much of the depths of human nature.—Abraham Maslow

At first, the hero slumbers unreflectively within the conventions of society like the rest of us. To a large extent, the culture's conventional beliefs are accepted as reality, its morals deemed appropriate, and its limits seen as natural. This is the developmental stage of conventionality, where most of us languish unquestioningly throughout life. Conventionality is an essential stage of life's journey, but it can be a stopping point or a stepping stone. Since our culture rarely recognizes further possibilities, most people settle here and die here. But if there is one point on which Master Game players agree, it is that though conventionality may be a necessary stage of life, it is definitely not the highest.

In fact, the conventional way of being and state of mind are considered as suboptimal, clouded, and inauthentic. In Asia, this clouded state is described as maya, illusion, or dreamlike. In the West, existentialists label it as automaton conformity, everydayness, or inauthenticity. Likewise, psychologists describe it as a shared hypnosis, a collective trance, or to use Freud's term, "the psychopathology of the average." Whatever its name, the painful implication is that most of us sleepwalk through life, ignorant of our potential, and unaware of our clouded trance because we are born into it, we all share it, and because we live in the biggest cult of all: cult-ure. The hero's task is to go beyond these conventional limitations.

The Call to Adventure and Awakening
At some point the hero's conventional slumber is challenged by a crisis, an existential confrontation that calls previous beliefs and ways of life into question. The call can come from within or without. Outer physical crises may take the form of sickness, as with some shamans, or suddenly staring death in the face.

An inner call may take the form of a powerful dream or vision, or of a deep heartfelt response to a new teacher or teaching. It may also emerge more subtly as "divine discontent:" a growing dissatisfaction with the pleasures of the world or a gnawing question about the deeper meaning of life. No matter how this challenge arises, it reveals the limits of conventional thinking and living and urges the hero beyond them. In our culture, this may appear as an existential or mid-life crisis. Tragically, the deeper causes and questions of the crisis are rarely recognized, its potential rarely fulfilled, and one of life's great opportunities is then missed.

As Jesus said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." Indeed, few choose to even recognize the call. And no wonder! For those who hear the call now face a terrible dilemma. They must choose whether to answer the call and then venture into the unknown realms of life to which it beckons, or deny the call and retreat into their familiar cocoon. If the call is denied, then there is little choice but to repress the message and its far-reaching implications. Only by such repression can non-heroes fall again into the seductive, anesthetic comforts of conventional unawareness, suppress the sublime, and sink into what the philosopher Kierkegaard so aptly called "tranquilization by the trivial." The result is a life of unconsciousness and conformity, which existentialists call inauthentic living and alienation.

But the call never really goes away. It lurks in the unconscious, alienated, and repressed, but periodically sending into awareness bubbles of vague dissatisfaction and disease that demand still more defenses and distraction. No wonder that a potential shaman who refuses the call is said to be at risk of sickness or insanity.

Discipline and Training
For the next phase, a teacher is essential. The teacher's job is to assess the would-be hero, and then tailor an appropriate training program. This program will inevitably include at least some of the seven central practices that all the world's major religions regard as central and essential for anyone who would live fully and awake. For a description of these practices and practical exercises to use them, read Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices, and for a conceptual understanding of such practices see Paths Beyond Ego: The Transpersonal Vision.

Physical disciplines train the body as well as disrupt the ordinary physiology and state of mind, and thereby open the mind to new possibilities. These disciplines include fasting, sleep deprivation, physical exertion, or exposure to extremes of heat or cold. Rhythm is a powerful adjunct and may involve singing, drumming, and dancing. Spiritual practices may involve meditation, yoga, ritual, or prayer, often combined with periods of quiet and solitude. Social disciplines may incorporate compassionate service to cultivate generosity or menial tasks to instill humility.

Whatever the method, the aim is the same. It is to work with body, heart, and mind so as to reduce the compulsions of greed and fear, to strengthen capacities such as will and wisdom, and to cultivate emotions such as love and compassion. The final goal is to develop the seven qualities of heart and mind that each of the great religions regards as central and essential to anyone who would live fully and awake in their spiritual identity.

The Culmination of the Quest
For successful players, years of discipline culminate in life changing breakthroughs. These may take the form of visions, insight, or experiences of death and rebirth. There may be a sense of dissolving into the Absolute, of union with Spirit, God, or the Tao. The potential experiences are numerous and the names many: salvation and satori, enlightenment and liberation, moksha and wu, fana and Ruach Hakodesh, death and rebirth, to name but a few. But whatever the name, the result is similar: a realization of one's deeper nature and a resultant self-transformation. For Master Game players, such breakthroughs represent their life goal.

With the great quest complete, the seeker has become a knower, the novice a shaman, the student a sage, the pupil a potential teacher. But there is one more phase before the journey is complete: return and contribution. With one's own questions answered, the world's confusion begs for clarification; with one's own suffering relieved, the pain and sorrow of the world cry for healing. The desire to contribute becomes compelling and the direction of the journey now reverses. Whereas one had formerly turned away from society and into one's self, now the hero turns back to society and out into the world.

There are numerous metaphors for this return. In Plato's parable, after escaping from the cave the hero reenters it to help others make their escape. Zen's famous "Oxherding Pictures" portray in exquisite images the stages of spiritual life. In the tenth and final picture, the enlightened one "enters the marketplace with help bestowing hands." In shamanism, novices first tame their spirits and then use them for the benefit of their tribe. For Christian mystics this return is the final stage of the "spiritual marriage" with God—the stage of "fruitfulness of the soul."

This phase completes a cycle that historian Arnold Toynbee called "withdrawal and return." Spiritual heroes withdraw from society to wrestle with the fundamental questions of life, find insight and inspiration within their own depths, and then return to help, heal, and teach.

Of course the spiritual hero's journey can be, and usually is, played out less fully and dramatically. Many set out on the path but few attain the greatest heights. Nor do the stages of the soul always constitute a single great circle of withdrawal and return. Rather, the journey may consist of a series of circles, like a spiral in which one returns again and again, but each time to a higher vantage point.

Fortunately, the hero's journey is not limited to saints and sages. It is available to us all to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the sincerity and intensity with which we undertake it.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2008. All rights reserved.

I recently was told about twin flames, and I have some questions about them. Is it possible to create your twin flame out of the person you are with now? Also, is it possible to find your twin flame? I deeply long to find that kind of love, but I don't know where to look or how to go about it. Any guidance would be appreciated! Thank you!

Marta

Dreamchaser:

Words like "soul mate" and "twin soul" are thrown around so often in today's society. In order to answer your question, we must first define "twin soul."

Twin souls are supposedly the other half of one's soul. If you believe in twin souls, then you also believe that God/ Spirit/ the Universe - whatever term you prefer - split from one whole into many souls. In order to experience BEING and SELF, these souls divided into others who divided into others and it went on and on and is STILL going on with each birth. The final split would be when we become human beings, and the other half we split from would be our "twin soul."

It is said that we don't meet our soul twins until after we've learned essential lessons of love, loss and forgiveness through various relationships. Before we can come together with a twin flame, we must be whole within ourselves. When we reach the point where we don't look on the outside of ourselves for anything, then we're ready to FULLY share in a relationship that is intimate on all levels.

If we are not completely whole within ourselves, there is NO WAY that we could withstand the intensity of a twin flame relationship, for at that level of experience, our strengths and our weaknesses will be exposed and amplified. We can't put off any lessons we don't feel ready for. Unresolved issues are painfully opened to push us into further healing.

Ego will also be extinguished. Most relationships are based in the Ego: fear, superficial matters, and learned responses and patterns. When we are coming from a place of Ego, we cannot be coming from a place of Love. We cannot be in both at the same time. I always say that ego is like a light switch: It is either on or off, but not both.

So you now see that you can't make the person you are with into your twin flame. You also can't go seeking a twin flame. What you can do to bring your twin flame to you is to open up your heart completely. Do not hide behind walls worrying what others will think of the real you and what you may say or do, or worry about what society says is "right." Do what is right for you. Come from a place of love in your everyday life. Love attracts love.

In seeking love, we often "make do" with what we can find. We find someone "good enough" and then we try to change them into what we consider our perfect partner. However, our ideas about what is perfect come from a place of Ego. By just being in a place of Love and loving ourselves and being whole in ourselves, we will attract our twin soul.

Seeking wholeness in Spirit is the best way you can begin to bring this person into your life. When we are looking inside, we are ALLOWING things to happen on the outside because we are not attempting to force our will.

I wish you unconditional LOVE.

*****

Astrea:

I'm probably not the best psychic to ask this question, as I think all that "twin flame" and "soul mate" stuff is media driven. It's a bit of harmful nonsense that sells movies and boosts ratings. I believe in choices and consequences. With care, your "twin" soul can be anyone YOU CHOOSE him or her to be!

Every day I talk to people who say, "I KNOW that he is my soul mate!" or "Some psychic told me she is my twin flame." Talk like that makes Astrea feel SLEEPY.

Why are we so eager to surrender our control in relationships? Why do we want to blame the Universe for our choices? Why can't people take responsibility and look for a person they can get along with and love for the long haul? So many times I hear, "Why would GOD PUT HIM IN MY LIFE if he wasn't my SOUL MATE?" Like God has TIME to do that?

We DRAW people into our lives on our own! Sometimes they're good, sometimes we make mistakes, but we SELECT those people with our free will. This is how we LEARN about what we do and don't want in a permanent partner.

Love has been made so MYSTERIOUS by popular culture, especially in the U.S. and Europe. Thanks to the "soul mate" people, it controls us. We are now unable to choose who we will love because of our Destiny. HA! We've been taught that we are at the mercy of some OTHER POWER when it comes to selecting a mate.

If people have had PAST LIVES together, they may feel a strong draw towards each other, but hopefully one or both of them have learned how to behave better THIS time around! Incarnations are supposed to IMPROVE us, not repeat themselves over and over. Often people say, "I can't control whether I love her or not, I was told we had a past life together." If you can't control your emotions, no one can.

Some of the saddest people are the ones who say, "He lies, cheats on me, takes my money, and is selfish and cruel, but I LOVE HIM! I can't HELP IT!" While that person may be addicted to his DRAMA, she can ABSOLUTELY CHOOSE NOT to be in love with someone who would treat her that way! Why would she love someone who does all that? The fact is, she wouldn't! She could be addicted to his personality, or she could believe she DESERVES to be treated that way, but she doesn't LOVE him.

It's lovely to think that we have a "soul mate" or "twin flame" who is going to walk into our lives and understand everything we say, do and feel. People who elicit those responses in us ARE out there, but it still takes careful choices and lots of time to develop that kind of love and understanding. It isn't going to fall from the sky. Two people can create a wonderful, caring, giving relationship together when they're willing.

You can create what you want with another person! Welcome AUTHENTIC love into your life and you'll find it!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.