a d v e n t u r e

Adventure

Zen says truth has nothing to do with authority, truth has nothing to do with tradition, truth has nothing to do with the past - truth is a radical, personal realization. You have to come to it.

Knowledge is certain; the search for personal knowing is very, very hazardous. Nobody can guarantee it. If you ask me if I can guarantee anything, I say I cannot guarantee you anything. I can only guarantee danger, that much is certain. I can only guarantee you a long adventure with every possibility of going astray and never reaching the goal. But one thing is certain: the very search will help you to grow.

I can guarantee only growth. Danger will be there, sacrifice will be there; you will be moving every day into the unknown, into the uncharted, and there will be no map to follow, no guide to follow. Yes, there are millions of dangers and you can go astray and you can get lost, but that is the only way one grows.

Insecurity is the only way to grow, to face danger is the only way to grow, to accept the challenge of the unknown is the only way to grow.

Osho Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter 7

Commentary:

When we are truly in a spirit of adventure, we are moving just like this child. Full of trust, out of the darkness of the forest into the rainbow of the light, we go step by step, drawn by our sense of wonder into the unknown.

Adventure really has nothing to do with plans and maps and programs and organization. The Page of Rainbows represents a quality that can come to us anywhere - at home or in the office, in the wilderness or in the city, in a creative project or in our relationships with others. Whenever we move into the new and unknown with the trusting spirit of a child, innocent and open and vulnerable, even the smallest things of life can become the greatest adventures.

core

Thought provoking

http://blogs.yogajournal.com/corevalues/2010/06/making-the-tough-choices.html?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_campaign=Facebook

When you keep moving towards bhavana, and walking the way of more life, more love, and more freedom, you'll begin to see that even the most seemingly unclear choices suddenly come into sharper focus. Do you want the chocolate cake or the salad? The answer to both questions may be yes, each for good reasons. But which is going to invite in your highest, most integrity-filled and conscious self-expression? It depends. And which choice is right, right now, is entirely up to you.

Core Pose: Root Release

I teach this posture to help students access the healing energy at their source. You can do it between poses or any time you want to unlock and unleash the creative, nourishing, vital force that's found in the pelvic area.

Lie on your back. Bend your knees and cover your kneecaps with your palms. Press down strongly on your knees so the thighbones deepen into the hip joints. You want to ground through the leg bones, not pull the knees into your chest as you do in some other poses.

Relax your legs and hips completely, and, maintaining the downward pressure on your knees, roll your legs in circles, shake them out, and dissolve any areas of tension you might have accumulated during your practice or your day.

Enjoy the root release for one minute then move on to your next adventure.

15-6-10

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
15-6-10 Silence ~ Yes please

The energy of the whole has taken possession of you. You are possessed, you are no more, the whole is.

This moment, as the silence penetrates in you, you can understand the significance of it, because it is the same silence that Gautam Buddha experienced. It is the same silence that Chuang Tzu or Bodhidharma or Nansen.... The taste of the silence is the same.

Time changes, the world goes on changing, but the experience of silence, the joy of it, remains the same. That is the only thing you can rely upon, the only thing that never dies. It is the only thing that you can call your very being.
Osho Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt Chapter 1

The silent, mirror-like receptiveness of a star-filled night with a full moon is reflected in the misty lake below. The face in the sky is deep in meditation, a goddess of the night who brings depth, peace and understanding.

Now is a very precious time. It will be easy for you to rest inside, to plumb the depths of your own inner silence to the point where it meets the silence of the universe. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, and the quality of your inner silence permeates everything you do.

It might make some people uncomfortable, accustomed as they are to all the noise and activity of the world. Never mind; seek out those who can resonate with your silence - or enjoy your aloneness. Now is the time to come home to yourself. The understanding and insights that come to you in these moments will be manifested later on, in a more outgoing phase of your life.

moving up

ephemeris and 2010 Rigidity is almost certain to spell defeat, because the forces that oppose you will become equally unbending and rigid, use this time to gain new perspectives through education or travel or by participating in one of the consciousness raising activities. This is also a good time to travel, both for relaxation and for educational reasons. You e to take the initiative.

Ascendant
2nd House	Aquarius	10°11'07
3rd House	Pisces	2°54'00
Imum Coeli	Aries	1°53'08
5th House	Taurus	8°26'56
6th House	Gemini	17°22'34
Descendant	Cancer	20°45'27
8th House	Leo	10°11'07
9th House	Virgo	2°54'00
Medium Coeli	Libra	1°53'08
11th House	Scorpio	8°26'56
12th House	Sagittarius	17°22'34

Saturn conjunction MC: Peak opportunities
Beginning of November 2009 until end of August 2010: This is the time when all your past preparations for the future will have their most important consequences. This influence represents an important life pinnacle for you, but it also entails very important duties and responsibilities. About fourteen years ago, you began a new cycle of personal development. During this entire period you have laid the framework for what will happen now. For older people, this is one of the most important times in life. It is almost as if you have been climbing a mountain for many years, and now the peak is in sight. As you approach this culmination of years of effort and ambition, it is very important to review just what you have been trying to achieve and how you have been going about it. The more solidly you have laid the foundations for your success, the greater your capability for achievement at this time. But if you have taken shortcuts anywhere or broken the rules of the game you are playing, you will have trouble in those areas of your life. The areas of your life that you have prepared carefully will become tremendously productive now. Your opportunities are at a peak for achievement and for additional responsibility and power in your work and in your personal life. People will look to you for leadership, whether you want it or not. If your preparation for this period of your life has been sloppy or full of shortcuts, or if you try to avoid its increased responsibilities, you run the risk of losing everything, even in the areas where you have prepared well and have taken responsibility. Saturn opposition Mercury: Rigidity spells defeat End of November 2009 until beginning of September 2010: At this time your ideas and plans may be defeated, or they may have their greatest concrete realization. In either case, you will run into considerable resistance from others to what you say. This may result in severing relationships with those who disagree with you because there is no longer any communication between you. Or it may result simply in the breakdown of communication that was once quite good. Other people's resistance to your thinking is not intended solely to defeat you, although you may think so. You may be tempted to give up if you are not secure in your thinking and plans. But the resistance of others also forces you to give your plans clearer form and to take definite steps to implement them. This takes hard work and much heavy thinking, but the results can be quite good. If your ideas cannot withstand the challenge or you do not have enough confidence to defend them, this is likely to be a time of self-doubt and questioning. You will seek to find out what is wrong with your ideas, and if you can be sufficiently detached, you may indeed find out what is wrong. But if you just wallow in guilt, doubt and "being wrong," you will accomplish little except to become depressed. Although this is not an especially easy time, you shouldn't take a negative or pessimistic view of matters. There are concrete challenges to be met, and you should use your energy to recognize and meet them. Negative thinking is a form of self-indulgence that you cannot afford at this time. One factor of this influence may be causing you problems. If you have already allowed your thinking to become too rigid and fixed, you will find it difficult to make occasional necessary compromises when you are challenged. Even with the best ideas, a certain amount of mental flexibility is necessary. Rigidity is almost certain to spell defeat, because the forces that oppose you will become equally unbending and rigid. Jupiter trine Jupiter: An opportunity Mid June 2010 until beginning of February 2011: This influence usually represents a time of optimism and positive thinking in your life. You seem to be at a quiet point of balance that enables you to look over the affairs of your life and get a good perspective on them. Therefore, it is a good time to make long-range plans and to reorganize. You should use this time to gain new perspectives through education or travel or by participating in one of the consciousness raising activities or groups that exist now. This is a time of psychological and physical equilibrium. If you have recently been ill in either body or mind, this influence will help tremendously with the healing process. This is also a good time to examine your ideals and your goals, for it may be possible to actualize them in various ways now. At other times there is too much tension in your life or too much resistance from others. If you are involved in any movement for reform, now is a good time to take some positive action. Or you might become more involved in religion or philosophy, because you need to know much that is beyond the apparent order of things. It is quite possible that you will do nothing during this time, because it gives you a feeling of balance but no drive to do anything in particular. You have an unusual sense of ease and relaxation now. This is also a good time to travel, both for relaxation and for educational reasons. The important point to remember with this influence is that it is fundamentally an opportunity. You will not feel driven by any energies, nor will you feel any resistance to your efforts to do something. You can make great usehav of this time, but you e to take the initiative. Jupiter conjunction IC: Your inward needs Mid June 2010 until beginning of February 2011: This is a time for expansion and growth in your innermost personal life, a time when you will seek security at home and with your immediate family. It may be necessary to reexamine your past life to find out what it can teach you about yourself. But this should not be a source of anxiety. In fact, you should feel quite good about what you learn at this time. Your parents may be able to assist you considerably in this process. The symbolism of this influence is that you incorporate more and more of the outer world into your innermost life.

On the material level, you may buy a larger, more elegant or more spacious home. Certainly it would be a good expression of this symbolism to improve your existing home and make it more comfortable. At this time you should do everything to ensure that your personal life is as comfortable and secure as possible. You need to have a feeling of inner peace and security in order to continue to move out in the world. In fact you should not think so much about outward success now as about the more personal and inward needs that we have discussed here. And you should realize that your real need now is not land or a larger home, but a feeling of strength and inner growth. This is the time to tie up any loose ends in your personal life, straighten out any relationships that are not working well, any leftovers from your past life that are still affecting the present adversely. To do this you may have to speak to others very openly about yourself and your innermost thoughts. So this is a good time to settle and put down roots. The feeling of belonging to a place and a group of people is very important to you now. You don't have to do this in a way that limits your freedom of movement, and during this time it is very unlikely that you will do so. But everyone needs a solid home base so that they can feel at peace in their other activities. If you don't make an effort to construct such a base now, you will have difficulty later when your principal concerns are turning elsewhere.  

Jupiter conjunction Mercury: Foresight End of June 2010 until mid February 2011: At this time you are able to combine breadth of vision with sharp perception and intellect, knowledge of the particular with knowledge of the general, and thereby see the whole scope of anything you are involved in. This reveals itself as foresight and long-range planning ability. This is a good time to map out your future, because you can understand and interrelate all the elements that will affect your life. At the same time, you feel optimistic and proceed with the belief that everything will come out exactly as you want it to. And it probably will, because you don't get completely carried away with grandiose thinking. This influence usually indicates a good balance between details and generality in your thinking, but there is also a tendency to deemphasize the details and not pay adequate attention to them. If you are not careful, this can result in sloppy or hasty thinking. Be sure to slow down somewhat and do not get carried away with your plans. Otherwise, this is an excellent time to make decisions or to conclude any kind of transaction. It is a superb time to buy or sell, because you will almost certainly be satisfied with the deal. As your mind tries to expand, you will want to learn more and more. This is a good time for returning to school, but even on a less formal level you will be anxious to learn. You may even travel long distances with this aim in mind. Any dealings with the law should prove to be quite fortunate for you now. You will prepare for such a confrontation skillfully, leaving no loose ends to trip you up. Communications with others are exceedingly fortunate under this influence. Your optimism and positive state of mind bring you good news from others concerning matters of importance. At the same time, everything that you say to others is very positive and reinforcing, which leaves good feelings behind you wherever you go. Saturn square Saturn: Soul-searching 7 September 2010 until 23 September 2010: This is a critical period in which several aspects of your life and experience will be tested, especially those that began to be important about seven years ago. Most often this influence is experienced as a sort of identity crisis in which you begin to question what you are doing. You may suffer a crisis of confidence at this time, fearing that you have made the wrong moves in life or committed yourself to some course of action that will not be good in the long run. During this period you will think about and question all the long-term trends in your life. You will not be thinking about trivial matters. Sometimes a particular event triggers off this period of soul-searching. Others may create difficulties for you, especially in your business or professional area. Perhaps they detect the first signs of insecurity that will afflict you during this period. If they are people who naturally compete with you, they may try to take advantage of your apparent weakness. Employers and other superiors may also sense your feelings of insecurity and wonder whether you are the right person for the job you are doing. You must recognize that some aspects of your life need to be questioned at this time. But don't stand in one spot quivering about your life. Examine it and make whatever changes are possible and seem appropriate. Any project you started seven years ago or any new aspect of yourself that first surfaced then that is truly worth continuing will still be worthwhile after this period. This is a time of testing, and anything that withstands the test will be better for it. Things that do not pass the test are well got rid of. Shortly you will enter a period of stability and fruitfulness that will justify the events that take place now. In fact, if you are truly conscious of your life and your objectives, you will not undergo a real crisis at all. You will only go through a period of examining what is working and what is not. Your difficulties with the outer world at this time are signals about what you should be doing.

Short Report - Forecast June 2010 to November 2010 for Alana Hampton (female) born on 8 March 1959 local time 1:20 am in Launceston, AUSTL U.T. 15-20 147e08, 41s26 sid. time 12:06:55 Planetary positions planet sign degree motion Sun Pisces 16°18'34 in house 3 direct Moon Aquarius 25°08'17 in house 2 direct Mercury Aries 3°20'22 in house 4 direct Venus Aries 13°46'41 in house 4 direct Mars Gemini 11°51'36 in house 5 direct Jupiter Sagittarius 1°47'29 in house 11 direct Saturn Capricorn 5°46'38 in house 12 direct Uranus Leo 13°01'30 in house 8 retrograde Neptune Scorpio 6°44'41 in house 10 retrograde Pluto Virgo 2°38'23 in house 8 retrograde True Node Libra 13°14'17 in house 10 retrograde House positions (Placidus) Ascendant Capricorn 20°45'27 2nd House Aquarius 10°11'07 3rd House Pisces 2°54'00 Imum Coeli Aries 1°53'08 5th House Taurus 8°26'56 6th House Gemini 17°22'34 Descendant Cancer 20°45'27 8th House Leo 10°11'07 9th House Virgo 2°54'00 Medium Coeli Libra 1°53'08 11th House Scorpio 8°26'56 12th House Sagittarius 17°22'34 Transits Saturn conjunction MC Beginning of November 2009 until end of August 2010 Saturn opposition Mercury End of November 2009 until beginning of September 2010 Jupiter trine Jupiter Mid June 2010 until beginning of February 2011 Jupiter conjunction IC Mid June 2010 until beginning of February 2011 Jupiter conjunction Mercury End of June 2010 until mid February 2011 Saturn square Saturn 7 September 2010 until 23 September 2010

http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swepha_e.htm

... interesting

Are You Highly Sensitive?

A Self-Test

Copyright, Elaine N. Aron, 1996

Instructions: Answer each question according to the way you personally feel. Check the box if it is at least somewhat true for you; leave unchecked if it is not very true or not at all true for you.
http://hsperson.com/pages/test.htm

http://talentdevelop.com/3399/highly-creative-people-have-brains-similar-to-those-with-schizophrenia/

washing the hands, throwing the bones

"What did you learn?

About people, about attending to something internal, tracking a particular thread of attention when doing the work. About how to be kind and still tell the truth, as far as one can know it. About entering the place of "the spirits"

"Each sangoma had their own bones. They were bones and stones and little artifacts found along the way, collected over time. In the highly charged state of post-initiation, certain things glowed with meaning. So, they would gather these things, and when a patient came, they would throw the bones, on a mat or on the ground. Then, looking at the patterns made by the throw, they would begin to speak."

"In the 16th century, we began to realise that we were not the centre of the cosmos, that the only celestial body going round us was the Moon, that we were just another planet - like Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn - all going around the Sun. It was such a shock! We just about got used to that, and then two-thirds of the way through the 20th century, we were standing on the Moon sending back pictures of Earth from outer space. We began to see Earth as our home planet, and that image is growing in us and changing our perceptions - of ourselves, the sky, and the universe. We're getting used to that picture now.

I've been curious to see if our poetic vision of the Moon has changed and how it has changed. So, I've started investigating 16th- and 20th-century poetry, to see if the changes in perception show up there."

"You feel the Jupiter restlessness in Pisces, the adventure calling through their Jupiter. And then, the sweep of Neptune, the diffusion, loss of self, the call to something beyond that evades articulation. 

... There is a notion I like in chaos theory about all life being "on the edge of chaos". I think of Saturn and Uranus when I read that. If you go too deep into Saturn's realm, it is all rules and laws: This is right and that is wrong, and there's no freedom, life slows down, darkens, and freezes. But if you move too far away from that, anarchy breaks everything apart, and things cannot bind enough for life to happen. Life is change, but if nothing stays stable for any length of time, then there is no container in which life can change.  

... creating a space in which desire was put to rest for a moment."

"the 12th house seems to contain the ancestral ghosts that come to you through myth, story, and dream. Another way of saying it might be that they have slipped into the ancestral pool which becomes Jung's 'collective unconscious'. With planets in the 12th we are connected to one or another of our ancestors in some mysterious way.With planets there, we are pushed or pulled to live something out that was perhaps unfinished - to resolve or dissolve something."

"The client would walk out, and I'd still be swimming with the images, and I didn't know how to get rid of them. ... Again, hanging out with the witch doctors helped me with this. They were so sensible and practical: "Well, Da, wash your hands and brush your hair after you see a patient."

"You can't tell the sangomas that, because they won't respect you. You were given that gift to serve the spirits and to live on the Earth. Because if you're not earning your money by the gifts God gives you, God takes those gifts away." It may not be true in other cultures, in other times, but it was true for them, at that time, and I took it on board."

Darby Costello's Water and Fire Interview

submerge

take me there

home Self

The following is from Susan Griffin’s Woman and Nature:

Passage
Her Journey
Through the Labyrinth
to the Cave Where
She Has Her Vision

The Cave
The shape of a cave, we say, or the shape of a labyrinth. The way we came here was dark. Space seemed to close in on us. We thought we could not move forward. We had to shed our clothes. We had to leave all that we brought with us. And when finally we moved through the narrow opening, our feet reached for ledges, under was an abyss, a cavern stretching farther than we could see. Our voices echoed off the walls. We were afraid to speak. This darkness led to more darkness, until darkness leading to darkness was all we knew.
The shape of this cave, our bodies, this darkness. This darkness which sits so close to us we cannot see, so close that we move away in fear. We turn into ourselves. But here we find the same darkness, we find we are shaped around emptiness, that we are a void we do not know.
The shape of a cave, this emptiness we seek out like water. The void that we are. That we wash into as sleep washes over us, and we are blanketed in darkness. We see nothing. We are in the centre of our ignorance. Nothingness spreads around us. But in this nothing we find what we did not know existed. With our hands, we begin to trace faint images etched into the walls. And now beneath those images we can see the gleam of older images. And these peel back to reveal the older still. The past, the dead, once breathing, the forgotten, the secret, the buried, the once blood and bone, the vanished, shimmering now like an answer from these walls, bright an red. Drawn by the one who came before. An before her. And before. Back to the beginning. To the one who first swam from the mouth of this cave. And now we know all that she knew, see the newness of her vision. What we did not know existed but saw as children, our whole lives drawn here, image over image, past time, beyond space.
The shape of a cave, the bud, the chrysalis, the shell, what new form we seek in this darkness, our hands feeling these walls, here wet, here damp, here crumbling away; our hands searching for signs in this rock, certain now in this darkness, what we seek is here, warm and covered with water, we sweat in this effort, piercing the darkness, laying our skin on the cool stone, tracing the new image over the old, etching these lines which become clear to us now, as what we have drawn here gleams back at us from the walls of the cave, telling us what is, now, and who we have become.
This round cavern, motion turned back on itself, the follower becomes the followed, moon in the sky, the edge becoming the centre, what is buried emerges, light dying over the water, what is unearthed is stunning, the one we are seeking, turning with the ways of the earth, is ourselves.
This cave, the shape to which each returns, where image after image will be revealed, and painted over, painted over and revealed, until we are bone. Where we touch the ones who came before and see their visions, where we leave our mark, where, terrified, we give up ourselves and weep, and taken over by this darkness, are overwhelmed by what we feel: where we are pushed to the edge of existence, to the source which sounds like a wave inside us, to the path of the water which feeds us all.
The way of the water we follow, which has made this space, and hollowed the earth here, because the shape of this cave is a history.

from: http://allecto.wordpress.com/2009/04/05/caves-the-eeriness-of-reading-susan-griffins-woman-and-nature/ 

paths

Authenticity

Milarepa and the false teacher

The real thing is not a path. The real thing is the authenticity of the seeker. Let me emphasize this.

You can travel on any path. If you are sincere and authentic, you will reach the goal. Some paths may be hard, some may be easier, some may have greenery on both sides, some may be moving through deserts, some may have beautiful scenery around them, some may not have any scenery around them, that's another thing; but if you are sincere and honest and authentic and true, then each path leads to the goal.

So it simply can be reduced to one thing: that authenticity is the path. No matter what path you follow, if you are authentic, every path leads to the goal. And the opposite is also true: no matter what path you follow, if you are not authentic you will not reach anywhere. Your authenticity brings you back home, nothing else. All paths are secondary. The basic thing is to be authentic, to be true.

trees

"Concerning trees and leaves... there's a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud and flower. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn't make one. A tree stands there, accumulating deadwood, mute and rigid as an obelisk, but secretly it seethes, it splits, sucks and stretches; it heaves up tons and hurls them out in a green, fringed fling. No person taps this free power; the dynamo in the tulip tree pumps out even more tulip tree, and it runs on rain and air."

Annie Dillard