Where is this place called ‘elsewhere’?

‘The human comedy doesn’t attract me enough. I am not entirely of this world….I am from elsewhere. And it is worth finding this elsewhere beyond the walls. But where is it?’

The pull of elsewhere has dominated my life. As a child, lying tucked up cosy and warm in bed, listening to the wind beyond our walls tearing the world apart, I used to luxuriate in the contrast between in here and out there – and wonder where the Power came from to cause the winds to rage, and the sea to beat endlessly against the coastline of my native island.

The Big 'Why?'
The Big ‘Why?

It would take me a long time beyond childhood to understand and accept that my obsession with the big “Why?”, from the moment I opened my eyes to the world,  is not the norm for most of humanity. Sensibly, they just want a quiet uncomplicated life.

Apart from my maternal grandfather, a loving and very broad-minded Christian  ‘remember, child: whatever our race, colour or creed we are all God’s children’ – nobody knew what went on in my head and heart throughout my entire childhood.

There is no such thing as one biography of a life.

 Your perspective changes with the passage of time and the way life’s inevitable challenges are dealt with. You rewrite your own history in your head all the time, mostly without realising it. For example, I never understood the full extent of elsewhere’s pull until my mid-life descent into and return from the Underworld, a period which lasted seven years – undoubtedly the most difficult and the richest time of my whole life. I feel in better relation now to that mysterious elsewhere than ever before.

To me, elsewhere is the vast wave of which everything – universe, cosmos, galaxies, planets, Earth, all life forms – is a droplet. We arise from elsewhereand that is where we return. Call it the quantum vacuum, the Zero Point Field, God, Buddha, Krishna, the Ground of our being, the Source, the One: the name we give it does not matter.

 I have also learned that elsewhere is not somewhere else. It is here, present, now, everywhere – always.

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(headline quote is from Eugene Ionesco:quoted in Philip Yancey’s “Reaching for the Invisible God” p25)

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400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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Brilliant Posts: when Einstein met Tagore

I have a new Twitter follower, Deirdre in Action. Greetings, Deirdre! Whilst scrolling through her very interesting-looking tweets, I came across a gem, from which this short extract is taken: 

‘….On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history, exploring the age-old friction between science and religion….. The following excerpt from one of Einstein and Tagore’s conversations dances between previously examined definitions  of science, beautyconsciousness, and philosophy in a masterful meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence….’

Read, and reflect….

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/

(Brain Pickings has a free weekly interestingness digest. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles.)

      

Einstein and Tagore
Einstein and Tagore
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130 words copyright Anne Whitaker/ 2013

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

When we relocate, do we get a new horoscope?

Dear Readers And Followers
I have been lying low for a while for reasons you will see below. But do keep dropping by as you have been – there is plenty to read on this site! I will be back ere long…..
In the meantime, here is an extract from yesterday’s post –
on Astrology: Questions and Answers.
Do drop by and have a read!

Dear Anne,

I have a question for you. When a person moves far from their birthplace (as so many people do these days), do we cast a new chart for them with the new latitudes and longitudes? Or, what DO we do, if anything. Thank you for your consideration.

Hello Rian

nice to hear from you again! I am currently taking a rest from blogging because of tendonitis in my left hand. So, a brief reply….

Asian Tsunami Dec 2004

To read the reply to Rian’s Question, click HERE

Watch this clip – feed your soul!

A core memory from my Hebridean childhood is located in winter’s depths. Whilst dashing out to play after our evening meal, running up the garden path, breath frosty on the clear cold air, a glance at the pitch dark sky stopped me dead. A magical swirling dance of colour was washing the Northern sky with translucent radiance. I held my breath, friends forgotten,  gazing for a long time at the wonderful display. Gradually, inevitably, it faded and vanished. I remained entranced for a very long time afterwards.

Polar Spirits
Polar Spirits

Subsequent adult reading provided a scientific explanation for the phenomenon of the aurora borealis. But science cannot explain the sense of wonder and awe which the Northern Lights have evoked in countless numbers of us since our remote ancestors scanned the skies, seeing the Divine in natural beauty.

This first experience of awe has remained etched on memory. It imprinted on my soul, at a very young age, a deep intuitive sense that there is a sublime mystery at the core of the interplay between light and dark.

Several decades later, my ambition is to witness the Northern Lights again before I die. Perhaps I will, maybe not.

In the meantime, one can access and enjoy many, many film clips of this wonderful natural phenomenon via the internet. This morning on Twitter, thanks to Jeff Faria @PatriotsOfMars, I came across the finest film of the Northern Lights that I have ever seen. It is titled

Polar Spirits: An Epic Northern Lights Time-Lapse Video

Do treat your soul to an uplift by watching this clip. Forget the Measurers and the reductionists for a few minutes. Whatever they may do their best to tell us, there are and always will be sublimely mysterious dimensions to life for which materialist science with all its brilliance can provide only one dimension of the answer…..

A day for spreading Sunshine!

On my Twitter biog I describe myself as a ‘Glasgow weather survivor’. With good reason. Last Thursday it was unremittingly wet all day. I even had to apply blotting paper to my eyebrows when I got home. However, good news awaited. I found that one of my blog followers, emariaenterprises, had nominated me for a Sunshine award for my most recent post “Holy Dharma with Heron”. Many thanks, emaria! Your award certainly cheered up a lousy day.

There are a few rules to follow on being nominated for a Sunshine award. I am complying – most unlike me!

1) Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog.

2) Answer 10 questions about yourself.

3) Nominate other fabulous bloggers.

4) Link your nominees to this post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

5) Share the love and link the person who nominated you.

sunshine-award-logo
sunshine-award-logo

Here are seven answers – more than enough! And you, dear Reader, have to work out what the questions are….

1. I have far too many planets in Leo. 2. Just as well they’re in the Twelfth House! 3. I was actually born in the 12th House – 12, Plantation Road – on the street in which my parents were living at that time 4. My birth was so premature and I was so tiny that I was anointed in olive oil, wrapped carefully and placed in a drawer – too small for a cot – and not expected to live. Wrong!!! 5. I have my Honourable Discharge Papers from the British Merchant Navy 6. At a time when I was utterly dismissive of astrology, an astrologer I met by accident in a launderette drew up my chart and predicted that I would become an astrologer in my early thirties. Right!!! 7. I am still asking the same question I started asking when I first opened my eyes to the world: “Why are we here?”

(answers, under a plain wrapper, to this site. Reward for most original response)

Here are six great blogs,  in no particular order, whose writers can always be relied upon to inspire, inform, move, provoke and amuse. Check them out!

http://selmainthecity.wordpress.com/ – Holding on to hard won hopefulness

http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/ – The Task at Hand: a writer’s on-going search for just the right word

http://blankieandgoatie.wordpress.com/ – Reflections on parenting….

http://prettyfeetpoptoe.com/ – It’s just my point of view. Love it or hate it.

http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/tma-this-week – Your gateway to understanding the cosmos

And last but not least, with my thanks, the blogger who nominated me:

http://emariaenterprises.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/oh-how-sweet-is-this/ – Musings on life, love, politics, and the nature of happiness

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400 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2012
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Following the Sun – into the Twelfth House

The Twelfth House, amongst many things, is a place of retreat, contemplation….today the Sun entered that place in my horoscope.

I’ve decided this year to honour the shift by having some quiet time…. to contemplate this year of retrogrades: Mars in Virgo from late January to mid April, Venus in Gemini from mid-May to end June – and Mercury in Leo, from mid July until early August – not emerging from its ‘shadow’ period until 22nd August. 

For me, it has been a year of returning: going back to work.

To my old craft, astrology. To re-writing my publicity material, revising and updating this blog, going back to Twitter and applying myself to using it more creatively this time. To re-joining professional organisations. To re-establishing my supervision and most happily, going back to my valued supervisor of twelve years ago. To re-connecting more directly through work with clients and students, to that sense of being in touch with the mysterious order which lies behind all of our lives.

It’s been quite a year! 

I’m sure many of you who read my blog – astrologers or not – will have found that this has been a year very much about re-evaluation, delays,  moving backwards in order to move forward (come the autumn!). I’d be interested to hear about it via comments or emails.

So – enjoy August. Enjoy reading your way through this archive of articles which “Writing from the Twelfth House “ has become. Let me know what you’d like me to write about when I return to regular posting. Keep an eye on the Twitter feed which will still be active.

See you again come September!

Chill out time....
Chill out time….

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300 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2012

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

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