Derek’s Newsletter – October 2020

A warm Autumn Welcome to this month’s Newsletter!

Much has happened since last month. The Magic Garden’s Festival celebrating 11-years in September was a wonderful experience for everyone – and all the many hours of musical delights was recorded. Also recorded was my 48-minute presentation on “The Astrology & Tarot of The Magic Garden”. It is included on my website for your enjoyment too – here is the link

      Another major event that you need to know about is the International 5-Day event 23rd.-27th. Oktober focused upon Europe: The 3rd. World Parliament On Spirituality, organized by The World United, India. 

This is an amazing Online manifestation involving no less than 1000 speakers, touching all Continents and millions of people. Australia was the focus 5-9th. Oktober – and now it is Europe’s turn. The main theme is awakening the unity consciousness. Each Day will have 4 Tracks: Pure Spirituality, Spirituality & Health; Spirituality & Education & Spirituality & Child Development & Family Well Being. There will be a great variety of individual presentations plus a panel discussion at the end of each track. Donations are welcome. You can see the entire schedule by visiting their website: www.theworldunited.org 

I shall be making a contribution Friday 23rd. Oktober from 12.30-14.30 entitled: “Entry & Exit: Exploring Planetary Cycles for 2020-21”.

Please join us for this wonderful event!

In the coming days the transit Sun will leave the sign of Libra and enter  the first degree of Scorpio on Friday 23rd.Oktober and the challenge before us in the yearly cycle is to journey deeper through this autumn month, to explore our hidden depths, to confront our dragons, embrace transformation and emerge victorious from the battle. Scorpio is the sign of challenge, stretching us to our limits – demanding that we dig deeper into our hidden resources and find those energies we need to master our circumstances.

This is a personal process and most definitely a Collective process. The two are obviously linked – and this reminds me that on the 24th.Oktober it will be the birthday of the United Nations, celebrating 75 years of existence. The existence of the United Nations Organization in our midst today is both a great hope and a great challenge. It reflects at the same time humanity’s aspiration for unity as well as many conflicting forces that have to be overcome if we are to enter fully and safely into the new global age. When evaluating the United Nations at this time we can easily be overwhelmed by the stumbling blocks. To see a more “whole” picture, however, we need to consider the UN from the angle of its deeper meaning and in a long range perspective. 

The horoscope for the UN is more a mirror of karmic clashes than a blueprint for world peace. 20-degrees of Aries rises with its planetary ruler Mars the Warrior conjunct Saturn, the planet of Fate & Destiny in super-sensitive Cancer, which describes the UN more a “House of quarrels” than a forum for the resolution of global conflicts. The hope of the United Nations comes from an extremely idealistic & utopian Venus conjunct Neptune in Libra, joined by Jupiter & Chiron, The Wounded Healer.   

We need to see the UN as an “entity”, a living thoughtform and an evolving entity. To limit our perception solely to the outer appearances, or to be overly engrossed with its outer successes, failures or mistakes, is a negation of the underlying life. See the UN as a living center of contacts, a forum of continuous discussion, a network of information on global issues, an embryonic central nervous system of a family of nations, where already many forms of cooperation and coordination take place. Therefore, even if this family of nations disagrees, and even if cooperation in certain controversial issues if often precarious, the instrument of contact, the nucleus of cooperation is there and awaits further development. It also needs purification and spiritualization. Spiritualization would mean a further integration of the outer form and mechanism with the inspiring idea, its soul, which essentially is the soul of the One Humanity. It is clear that the UN is still evolving after 75 years existence, and it would be good always to keep in our minds – as clearly as we can – an image of its possible future and goals. Above all, it requires the vision  of an enlightened public opinion, to see the goal of ultimate cooperation and integration of humanity. We need to hold the vision of international life and planetary cooperation, for this is the Aquarian goal before us: group consciousness.

I need not remind my readers that on 3rd. November the American peoples go to vote on what type of Leadership and Government do they want for the next 4 years. Rather than make astrological predictions about the outcome of this significant event, I would draw your attention to the obvious fact that we need to move into the future where all are included and not just a specific section of the population. Inclusion is the pathway of spirit and the opposite is exclusion, the pathway towards greater materialism and further denial of our true nature. The great American drama is a potent reminder to us all that through contrast we can see things more clearly – and the two candidates for Presidency and their two pathways, representing their value systems couldn’t be more obvious. 

Before the USA Election we shall be celebrating the Celtic Festival of Samhain, which means Festival of Peace - the 31st. October or Halloween, which is the Feast of the Dead and the start of the Celtic New Year. In Latin America, the Day of the Dead corresponds with our Halloween and is a festival of rejoicing rather than one of horror or sadness. In ancient Egypt, the Mysteries of Osiris, concerning his death and resurrection, took place in early November – the sign of Scorpio.

The Celtic civilization which stretched all over Europe did many things different to that of our modern culture. For example, at birth they wept and at death they laughed! The dead were honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who held the root-wisdom of the tribe. 

For the Celts it was a 3-Day Festival and they recognized the veil between this world and the World of the Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights and journeys could be made both ways. They saw them as Doorways into mystical experience, a time to gain access to the higher worlds.

With the coming of Christianity, this festival was turned into Halloween (31st.Okt.), All Hallows or All Souls Day (1st. Nov.) and All Saints Day (2nd. November). Here we can clearly see the way in which Christianity built on pagan foundations.

        With the current Covid-19 global pandemic, humanity as a whole is challenge to review and reevaluate its attitude towards the true meaning and significance of death and the afterlife. We all have our personal views, our likes and dislikes – yet unpleasantness, agreeabilitry or disagreeability, is nothing but your own viewpoint. If we make judgement, then our actions are conditioned. And it builds up more resistance and more self-denial, so that more unhappiness builds within. And what we might call “evil” is our own concept of evil. To place our awareness in the space that exists beyond the “good-or-bad” viewpoint is the greater reality. So that which we dislike is the energy or form that has been created by the One God – and if we seek to practice spirituality, demonstrate our soul quality, then it is through a celebration of our diversity and an acceptance of all forms that you find. Humanity as a whole has been living in collective fear and self-denial around the true purpose of Death or the archetype of Change.

      We should know that for the Celts, as indeed all religious presentations of Death before Christianity – Death was pictured as FEMALE - the Dark Mother who draws all life to herself was an advanced metaphysical concept. Halloween is the start of the Celtic New Year and was always represented by the Female Goddess of Death, The Washer at the Ford. The Celtic culture had no heaven or hell and their Otherworld, like their philosophy was a source of primal power and inspiration. The Otherworld was a place of heightened reality where great Gods dwell and where the fullness of personal potential is revealed. It was not a place of ghosts or horrors, as in Christian and classical tradition, instead, we find plenteous salmon (symbol of wisdom for the Celts), feasting halls and pillars of silver rising from the sea. Whatever terrifying beings and challenging scenarios we meet in Celtic traditions, or in the Egyptian & Tibetan Books of the Dead, they are not evil demons, for their nature is to guard, to challenge and ultimately to guide.

The Goddess of Death and Change was eventually replaced in popular imagery by the Medieval figure of a skeleton with scythe in hand – and that is significant because Death was then pictured more as a masculine image. 

The change was gradual and the Goddess was deliberately removed from the Roman Church, as the Church lead a campaign to have her symbols & images corrupted, re-educating people that they enslaved rather than liberated – which was completely the opposite. The ancient Goddess of Death & Change offered well defined gifts of transformation and insight to approach the truth behind manifest creation. The image of Death that we Europeans have inherited from Christianity is flawed or at the very least, inaccurate and inappropriate. 

The ancient Egyptians dedicated the Lands to the West to their Goddess Hathor, who was simultaneously a Goddess who brought joy & happiness through art, music, dance, singing & good food – and was also the one who protected the dead on their journey to the next world. I know what my image of death is - do you know your image?

What personal image do you have of death? Is it an image that portrays your religious views, the conditioning from your family background, or the impact of your present culture, or from a past culture and civilisation?  Does the Angel of Death come as a male or female figure, young or old? 

    The human soul is not at home in our so-called modern Cosmos. Why? Because our mystical participation with Nature has been lost. There is a profound sense of separation of Self to the World – we are a separate ego, divided from Nature and in denial of our true nature.

Our crises is essentially a masculine crises and its resolution lies in the growth of feminine values – with the increasing sense of unity with society and the planet. This calls forth a longing for reunion with that which has been lost.

So we can say that during our times a sacred marriage is taking place – not just a return of the repressed Feminine – but the goal of spiritual evolution is to achieve this reintegration with the Feminine – and that requires a real act of masculine Heroism – to own our unconscious shadow.

This evolutionary drama is reflected in our own present time – a climatic stage of bringing forth something fundamentally new in human history.

Wishing you Peace Profound during the approaching Scorpio Full Moon that culminates Saturday 31st. Oktober, Halloween evening.

Loving thoughts, Derek

PS Any brave souls who wish to participate on my Weekend Workshop: “Entry & Exit: Your Birth & Death Horoscope” 31 Okt. & 1st.November, there are still places available .