As if things on planet earth had recently become dull, non-eventful, and boring (!) the powers that be decided to throw in three eclipses between June 1^st and July 1^st.

Since life has been anything but dull and boring for most people I speak with around the world, it's anybody's guess what June will bring.

Unlike the rest of astrology, eclipses are the wild cards in the deck - you never know what you'll get. Most planetary movement occurs in regular cycles, but eclipses cut across that regular motion, throwing a curve into the works of prediction. Three curves thrown in around the time of Summer Solstice indicate the summer of 2011 to be highly unusual, defying prediction. My hunch is that this summer will prove unforgettable to many of us, and June is the doorway in. August, especially, as I've said in earlier columns, feels particularly potent to me, and June's tunnel of eclipses is the set-up to that.

Since the matter of eclipses raises the issue of predictability, this is a good time to discuss the issue of fate versus free will. If life can be predicted by the stars, how does that leave any freedom in the hands of human beings? On the other hand, if we have freedom to determine our own fate, how can there be relevance to the art of prediction?

Like most modern dualities, the question itself has to be depolarized to get to the truth. When the only choice is a highly charged polarization, like Democrat or Republican, the whole worldview itself has already been so severely restricted, that every further choice can only yield further restriction. A binary system like bipartisan US politics is highly effective for eternally cycling the same stale, tired ideas, bouncing our sense of choice like a ping-pong ball between your favorite team and the other guy, when there's little substantial difference. But in terms of substantially changing the future of our planet - making sure that we even have a future, in fact -- something entirely different is needed - you gotta step outside the box. When you apply trans-dualistic thinking to the matter of predetermination and free will, the two poles turn out not to be so opposite after all, but mutually reinforcing.

You came here for a reason, more than to get caught in the volleyball game of this-against-that. After you died in your last life your soul emerged from that body and opened itself back to the universe. From Oneness you looked back at what you'd done in each human life, surveyed your accomplishments, and decided whether to return. The fact that you're here reading this reveals the answer to that question.

Out of some combination of free will and cosmic need unique to your soul's experience, you chose to revive an earth existence and explore key themes you could only explore on this side of the veil. Something in the world of matter was compelling enough to lure you out of Oneness into the vast diversity of the world at large. Themes you explored in earlier lives had unfinished business; you didn't feel complete and so were motivated to return. Each life is both a unique experience in itself, as well as a thematic chapter in the greater book of the soul. There is ample room for both freedom and fate, both choice and prearranged design. The great power of film and literature is that they combine unpredictability with fate. Somehow you know what's going to happen even if you're not sure exactly how it'll take place. So too with the story of the soul.

My job is to stir the part of you that knows why you're here and what you're doing. It's to catalyze the one in you who recognizes the deeper design in the surface movement of your life. That part lives on in the form of your core nature, or soul, which is the deepest part of you. Even when the rest of you forgets what the hell you're doing and why you're here, even when a whole species gets lost in duality at a time of great shake-up and rumors of apocalypse, there is a part of each person that remains crystal clear.

Almost everyone who comes for a soul-level reading in recent months starts out the same: I'm done with everything else. Point me in the direction of my soul, please, so I can get on with what I'm really doing here.

In a healthy and vital world culture this matter of life purpose wouldn't be so hard to identify or take so long to find. In today's world few individuals are living the life they were born to. Why? Because we've been talked out of a thriving existence, in favor of aptitude tests that squeeze creativity into pre-fab boxes, replacing the towering life of the soul with sitcoms and strip malls. To keep the wolf off our backs and go along with the herd, we choose a flat predictable version of normalcy. We pretend the only choice is Republicrat and Demmican. We trade in the highs and lows of the soul in for false security. We forget that we chose this life when we had the power to do so. We forget that choice we made immediately prior to the moment of stepping back into the strange illusion of Normalcy.

An eclipse has the power to cut across this strange illusion, and restore the primacy of a poetic, soulful existence. Three eclipses triple that power. When destiny comes calling, it rarely takes the form of an easeful, comforting reminder of your inner stature. It usually grabs you by the collar, pitches you out of the way you thought things were, and hurls you into some deeper truth that was there all along, but you were too caught in duality to notice.

This June when the soul comes calling, try imagining a world where truth rather than fiction reigns. Try dredging up the power buried within you to recreate existence along more creative lines. Try matching the strange changes of our time with something so real that it launches a new dream to take us beyond the stale ideas of the past.

 

Who are you really?  What are you here to do?