Catching up...

Well hello again. I've not been blogging lately, as I feel I've been deep in my personal alchemical laboratory, tinkering away at improving myself. Its been fairly intensive and demanding work so all my attention has been focussed inward recently. I wanted to wait until I came out the other side of this process before blogging again.

So here I am, and with a new month which also brings a new season - Spring for us down under - it feels like I have indeed finally emerged out of the wintery tomb. From the moment the winter solstice hit back in June, I feel like I've been under the hammer, being reshaped, reforged, remade into a better version of me, with many of the old habits and vices eliminated, and the hope of a brighter life at the end of the tunnel.

I feel really grateful that I've had what feels like a lot of spiritual guidance around me at this time. I pray a lot, not in a religious-specific way, but to ascended Masters and Archangels, Michael being the angel I seem to gravitate toward the most. I believe all the ascended and angelic beings are looking out for our Earth at this time, doing the good work of regulating the emotional atmosphere of our planet and keeping it all in balance. For myself I definitely feel my prayers for self-improvement have been answered, and in the most subtle yet powerful of ways that its hard to express in words.

I am in my mid-thirties now, and like a lot of young people I certainly went through a time of partying, drinking, and burning the candle at both ends, as my dad would say. Now more than anything I want to live a more pure, happier life. And its hard to live a happy life when one is polluting oneself with too much that is harmful.

I guess what I'm saying is I've learned very much to value myself more ~ my clarity of mind, my purity of spirit, balance in my emotions, and lightness in my body. I still enjoy good eating, but I find that I just don't require alcohol anymore. I just don't miss it! The last couple of times I did drink, I only had to have one glass of wine and I already felt like crap. Its just something I feel I've grown out of now, and I'm thankful for that.

The theme most in focus lately though has been my mind and emotions and the link between them. Specifically, learning to spot the negative thoughts engaged in by the ego-self, which I've now learned are always lies, illusions. Not only that but when we feed into the cycle of negativity, we keep ourselves locked in a prison of negative emotion, which then generates further negative thought. What I've realised is that the truth  is so much better than the lies of the ego; that in truth I have access to all the inner bliss and happiness I could ever need. Naturally its an ongoing learning process, to spot the illusory and promote the true, but as I say I feel I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel and I feel much encouraged in my process.

There's no doubt that just as harsh chemicals pollute the body, harsh and unforgiving thoughts pollute the mind and soul. There is such a drive in me now to get purified, because the truth is, its my body, and my mind and soul. If I don't look after them, I fail myself at the first test of integrity. So now I am more determined than ever to safeguard these things, which really are the first point of wealth that I possess. With a pure mind and spirit I can enjoy all the natural bliss that life has to offer.

I just want to say again how grateful I am to the heavenly beings who look out for us all. Thank you! May heavenly blessings be with everyone.

Well how is everybody feeling after Wednesday's eclipse?

For me certainly this was an intense week, with the focus on home & family issues. The solar eclipse fell on degree 29 of tropical sign Cancer, and the 29th degree of a sign is understood to be a "critical" degree. The 29th is the final degree of a sign, so its as if the energy of this eclipse was tying up the loose end of family affairs, trying to bring a resolution to some nagging or ongoing concern.

From my own perspective this involved various improvements and works being carried out in our apartment building, which threatened to be quite disruptive, but my partner and I managed to keep a positive perspective and refrained from reacting with any knee-jerk negativity. This happily made things smoother than they might have been, had I given in to my overly intense urge to act out!

Meanwhile my partner's family was the focus of some interesting issues. She has 3 sisters and 1 brother, and for a while there the sisters almost coerced my partner and her younger brother into buying a joint present for their father's 70th (he's a Leo). We instinctively knew this was a bad idea, and subsequent events proved us right. Things really came to a head on the very day of the eclipse, and our intuition was vindicated and the joint present is no longer going ahead.

This eclipse was a real education in the energies that can be at work. It was a solar eclipse, meaning the moon passed in front of the Sun from our perspective here on Earth. So the Sun and Moon were conjunct, as I mentioned in the sign Cancer. Cancer is said to govern many areas of life but perhaps most notably women, children, home, family, clannishness, and strong emotion. I feel grateful that my studies of astrology and other esoteric fields gave me a good dose of objectivity so I could navigate these rather tricky waters with a balanced attitude.

It's so handy to know when these big astrological events are coming up ~ it's like having a heads-up from the cosmos as to what to expect on a particular day. It's been a fairly full-on year for astrological events so I feel especially grateful to have the inside scoop so to speak!

The Sun rings "like a bell"

Recently I read the following article that talks about the strange lack of sunspots coming from the Sun lately:

Mystery of missing sunspots solved

19 June 2009

by Tony Phillips

The Sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for several years. Now, solar physicists think they understand why.

A JET STREAM DEEP inside the Sun may be migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

A team at the U.S. National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the star.

The physicists, Rachel Howe and Frank Hill, announced the results this week at an American Astronomical Society press conference in Boulder, Colorado.

The Sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22º, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear.

Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10º range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.

The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.

"It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22º, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging."

THE CURRENT SOLAR MINIMUM has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the Sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century.

This new result dispels those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not broken.

Because it flows beneath the surface of the Sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology - the study of pressure waves within the Sun. Shifting masses inside the sun send these waves rippling through the stellar interior.

So-called 'p modes' (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the Sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the Sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet.

Excerpt from www.cosmosmagazine.com.

I find this so fascinating! I had no idea that sunspots were caused by huge currents of sun material, travelling in a "jet stream" beneath the surface of the sun. Also note the intruiging number symbolism ~ the Sun produces new jet streams every 11 years, and to create sunspots, the jet stream must reach the critical latitude of 22 degrees. The numbers 11 and 22 are very important in numerology ~ they are non-reducible and represent constants: they are numbers of great tests and mastery (for example there are 22 cards in the Major Arcana of the tarot.)

But it's the notion of the Sun's echoing vibrations causing it to "ring like a giant bell" that I found the most fascinating. In esoteric philosophy, the Sun God was said to have "sung creation into being" with his glorious and triumphant song. Perhaps the Sun is still keeping this process going today ~ every so often it makes "music" that causes sunspots, which affect our Earth and the entire solar system.

Update on work

This post is a sequel to May Musings, and I'm glad to say is about a much more pleasant topic.

Almost 2 years ago now I was looking for an alternative to office work, and I decided to register as an extra. An extra is someone who might appear in the background of a TV or print ad, a movie, or a TV show. I called the agency a few times after that, but they had nothing at the time and I did not hear from them again ~ until a couple of weeks ago.

They were trying to track me down because my old mobile number is defunct and they had an assignment for me. I was so excited to hear I was required for a photo shoot for an ad campaign. I was to go to a local cinema and take part in a 3-hour photo shoot for a series of print ads for Cityrail.

This had been a dream of mine for ages. I'd worked in commercial radio, met musicians and spoken to TV personalities, and had been a musician back in my 20's. Now I was finally getting the chance to work in entertainment and be an extra.

It was the easiest three hours work I'd ever done. I sat in the back half of a cinema with 7 other extras / actors, with my arm around a strange woman pretending to comfort her while watching a scary movie. It was so much fun! There was a really good atmosphere on the "set", with lots of laughs as the photographer and director tried to get the right poses out of the talent.

It was an experience I would definitely like to repeat. I plan to register with a couple more agencies soon. This time I hope I don't have to wait another 18 months to get an assignment!

New blog

For some time now, I've been running a separate blog on Wordpress, where I talk about the various celebrities sightings that I seem to have in my local area of eastern Sydney.

I've finally started transferring the contents of this blog here to Blogger, with the rest of my writings. It's a fun read ~ take a look and see which of your favourite celebrities you can spot!

http://sydneycelebwatch.blogspot.com/

And view the original at:

http://sydneycelebwatch.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Anthony

Obama is not the answer - you are

Hello again gentle readers

Lately it's become trendy to revile Barack Obama in the blogosphere. When he was elected there was general public euphoria ~ now it seems the honeymoon is over, and because instant Utopia has seemingly not emerged, the public are gradually turning on the man.

Can I urge a little balance here people. Frankly I too was glad to see him elected ~ not because he was any kind of saviour, but he was at least a well-spoken, articulate man of apparently, at least, some sensitivity. Surely it's better we have someone in office who is interested in the future as opposed to simply maintaining a worn-out status quo.

My view is simply this ~ you wanted him to solve all your problems, now you are blaming him for what is still not fixed. Can I suggest that as the man himself said in his inaugural speech, it really is up to each one of us ~ yep, that's right - you! ~ to address our personal and collective problems. I am not advocating the radical individualism of the past. I am reminding us all that we have the power in our own hands to improve our personal reality.

The way to do this, in my humble opinion, is to realise that much of what we do is dysfunctional. This is not to condemn anyone, but rather to help. We need to stop trying to solve our problems at the level of the mind ~ because it's our overactive, self-deceptive, monkey-chattering minds that ARE the problem.

More and more, I find I am craving a better way of living ~ not, in the first instance, a "better life", which is the well-worn egoic mind's perpetual external-seeking of something "better". I crave for myself more objectivity, more inner stability both of my mind and persona. I really feel I need to get out of the way; to be the observer rather than the reactor. As I cultivate this inner observer more, I can see that others sense the change in me. I cease to have any particular agenda, therefore I get back from the universe a positive reaction, smiles from strangers, and a greater sense of inner peace.

All this can be done while being active in the world. We just need to come back to square one ~ which is our very self. Let's tear down the idea of "my-self"; this entity that needs constant fulfillment and distraction. Let's try to return to the sacred inner source where all our needs are already met.

I am constantly reminded of the words of Eckhart Tolle ~ such simple, nourishing words that being me back to first principles every time. That's what I believe we need right now ~ in a world that wants to take us away from our inner self, let's remember that without our inner self we can never have the truly better quality of life we all crave. Blessings and peace to all

Anthony

May Musings

This post is more of a journal-stroke-musing entry, as I reflect on where I'm at currently.

For a long time I've really struggled to find either suitable or even just ongoing work, not just with the economic climate but really throughout my life since university. I have a lot of interests and fields of study that I engage in, but my biggest theme has been trying to integrate my passions and interests into some kind of meaning and also into work.

I'm glad to say I have an interview today for a job and I feel my prospects are good. To try to cover my bills I've been doing a lot of temp work but boy am I tired of that. When you temp you never know from week to week if you'll have an assignment, and therefore an income. The job I'm going for today is a 9 month contract to fill a role vacated by secondment. It would be great, if the role seems suitable, to have that kind of rare stability at this time!

I find that parallel with my economic situation, my inner world is just as active and in a process of flux. Right through my life and especially now I find I am really continuing to question what is real and what is true, in terms of the world of spirit and how it applies to actually living your life. The Buddhists say, before enlightenment, chop wood carry water - after enlightenment, chop wood carry water. This is so true! Its the human condition to carry on living one's life even while undertaking an internal spiritual quest. It doesn't make the inner world any less meaningful - in fact I consider it a blessing to have the external world in which to anchor my senses and my perception of reality even while I search my inner self for meaning.

One thing that frustrates me about the "modern" world of ours is the materialist interpretation of reality. So many so-called "experts" peddle the line that all things - including our consciousness - have emerged from matter. As well as this being philosophically absurd, to me its a deliberate insult to the human spirit. I feel grateful that I carry a knowing within that the spirit world is very real - the realm of clear knowing that we all originate from exists, and it has no need to justify itself to the world. I can't help but feel angry when the militant, scientific materialists deliberately downplay the importance of the clear light of the spirit world because right now I believe as humans in a materialistic age we need to be connected to our spirit more than ever. I know it's silly of me to take it personally but occasionally I can't help feel that way.

There are so many thoughts, theories, and unnecessary diversions today clouding the knowing of spirit. Just as our cities are being clogged with physical pollution, the mindstream of human consciousness is logjammed with extraneous thought. Fortunately I am of the conviction that most people have a deep-down sense of what is true and right ~ it may be only a whisper within their souls, but I am convinced that it is there. To me it's vital to maintain this kind of tentative optimism even in the face of a seemingly heedless march into a technologically-based false ecstasy. Personally I look forward to a time when this orgy of technology is replaced by a more sensitive, receptive and thoughtful outlook, based on a knowing that something higher and more "true" is there, just outside our noisy, rushing lifestyles, waiting for us to simply tune in and acknowledge it is there.

So while we chop wood and carry water, we can at least carry an inner joy, an inner peace, content that the true reason we are here is to grow in wisdom, to refine our inner knowing, and to bring more of that quiet joy and peace into our world. That way, no matter where we are or what we do for a career, we can infuse this world with more of the spirit of consciousness that flows from the finer realms. And to me that is the reason we are here ~ to help gently uplift and refine this material world, and our very being.

Peace be

Anthony