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In This Issue

Venus in Libra

Timing is Everything

Schedule

This is a 2-hour slide show presentation that is designed to help you tune in to Saturn and make the most of what this Amazing planet offers.

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Path of Light Vol. 1
By James Kelleher

This book has all of the symbology about signs, planets, houses and nakshatras that can help you understand your chart better. Even if you are not a student of Vedic astrology, it can help to get a deeper feeling for the astrological influences in your life..

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Rahu and Ketu

A two hour slide show presentation on Rahu and Ketu. Find out how you can tune in to the Shadow-Planets. Click here to find out more or purchase the class.

Beginners Class

Jyotish Fundamentals

Recorded Class

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December, 2015

Venus in Libra

Venus entered Libra on November 30th, ending its one-month debilitated and afflicted stint in Virgo. Libra is Venus' own sign, where it tends to gain strength and where it tends to express all of its best qualities.

Venus is the planet of love, enjoyment, pleasure, and comfort. It rules over relationships, marriage, partnership, creativity and beauty. So these things may express themselves with more energy during December.

This means that right up until Christmas Eve, Venus will be in good form to deliver lots of Christmas cheer, good food, as well as presents from Santa.

At about 1:54 am on December 25th, however, Venus will change signs and enter Scorpio beginning its more constrictive transit towards a conjunction with Saturn, which takes place on January 8th. So don't tell anybody, but I have asked Santa to put my house on the first part of his route, and he has promised to come down my chimney before 1:54 am. I let him know that if he doesn't make it in time, I will be leaving him Brussel Sprouts instead of milk and cookies.

Anyway, the sign of Libra will get a boost during the period from November 30 - December 25th. That means you might experience more activity, mostly good activity, in the domain of life represented by the sign of Libra in your chart. I say, "mostly good", because Venus is also hemmed in by a conjunction of Rahu and Mars on one side, and a conjunction of Saturn and the Sun on the other. This might produce ups and downs, as well as starts and stops, related to the house's domain.

Here's how to tell what area of life Venus will affect in your life during the period from November 30 - December 25. I am just listing the domains this time. You will have to use your imagination as to what the exact effects will be. In general the things signified below should improve and there should be positive activity or events related to those areas of life, but there could also be a challenging undercurrent as well. Also remember that these are Vedic Sun Signs, so be sure that you look at the birth dates carefully. The Vedic zodiac is different from that of Western astrology.

Vedic Sun Signs

Apr 14 - May 14 (Aries) Relationships, partnership.

May 15 - Jun 14 (Taurus). Health, employment.

Jun 15 - Jul 15 (Gemini) Children, romance, creativity, education.

Jul 16 - Aug 16 (Cancer) Home, mother, vehicle.

Aug 17 - Sep 16 (Leo) Communication, siblings, short travel.

Sep 17 - Oct 16 (Virgo) Money, purchases, family, food.

Oct 17 - Nov 15 (Libra) Self, physical body, sense of confidence.

Nov-16- Dec 15 (Scorpio) Distant places, introspection, meditation, expenditures.

Dec 16 - Jan 13 (Sagittarius) Friends, groups, achievements, finishing things.

Jan 14 - Feb 12 (Capricorn) Career, projects.

Feb 13 - Mar 13 (Aquarius) Travel, father, sense of purpose, education.

Mar 14 - Apr 13 (Pisces) Joint finances, money from outside sources, partner's income, therapeutic and transformational activities.

Timing is Everything But

Carry a Light Backpack

"Kelleher!, We're going to Norwegian Memorial this weekend. Wanna Come?" As close as I can recall, it was the Monday previous to Columbus day, 1968. I was at the beginning of my Junior year in High School. This invitation was coming from one of my teachers, Don Campbell, an avid backpacker, and a long-time family friend. Mr. Campbell's weekend backpacking trips to the a remote beach on the Washington peninsula were legendary. He frequently invited students to come along, and I had been looking forward to this possibility for years. I said, "I'll have to check with my mom, but I think she'll probably let me go." Two hours later, I was planning for my first backpacking trip. Little did I know that I had accepted the offer on a lunar eclipse.

Of course, in those days, even if I had known about the eclipse, I would never have thought twice about it. Astrology was the furthest thing from my mind. All I ever thought about was music (and girls of course) , and if anyone had ever told me that I would end up as an astrologer, I would never have believed it.

Yet, I did accept the offer on (or very near) an eclipse. Now that isn't necessarily a recipe for failure. In fact, many great people were born on eclipses and many a successful venture has also begun on an eclipse. Nevertheless, it is also true that eclipses are more beneficial for the soul and tend to teach a person how to shed their attachment.

You might say, "Well, that should be good for a backpacking trip, right? Because when you go on a backpacking trip you need to let go of your love of comfort and be more detached. You commune with nature, and it can a spiritual thing." While that is true, let's just say that experience has taught me that eclipses aren't my first choice for starting things that you want to go smoothly.

There was another student going on the trip with Mr. Campbell. His name was Arvid Stendall. Arvid had been on a few of these trips before, and he had all of the equipment, the backpack, the stove, and the whole list of necessary gear. This was my first trip, on the other hand, so Mr. Campbell offered to lend me a back pack. So a couple of nights before departure, Arvid and I went to Mr. Campbell's house for a planning session, and in order for me to get the pack.

It was an old REI cruiser backpack, which obviously had some miles on it. I was impressed by the large capacity and impressed when I realized that I would have no problem with space. But this pack had a special feature that I did not appreciate at the time, or should I say, it lacked a special feature. It had no hip belt. It had been made before backpackers had realized the wisdom of carrying all of the weight on your hips instead of your shoulders. Anyway, I was happy and grateful for the loaner pack, and with a packing list in hand, provided my Mr. Campbell, I took the pack home and filled it to the max with everything I needed for a comfortable trip.

Have you seen the Movie "Wild". If not, you should see it! Reese Witherspoon plays backpacker, Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest trail, a 2,663 mile, high altitude hikers path that runs from the US/Mexico border to Canada, on her very first

backpacking trip. To prepare for the trip, Strayed did exactly what every novice backpacker does. She over packed. After a hundred miles of agony, carrying an insanely heavy pack, someone took pity on her and showed her how to pack light. She got rid of everything that was not related to her survival, and lightened her pack by many pounds. This made all the difference, and she managed to not only complete the trip, but had an amazing adventure along the way.

Anyway, that's what happened to me on this trip. When I was done making sure that I would be well fed, well entertained, and totally comfy, my pack weighed 80 pounds. I weighed 135 pounds as a teenager, which means I would have to carry more than half of my body weight, without a hip belt! I have often written about the value of minimizing your attachments and your possessions as a way of making life easier and less stressful. Well now you know why. I was about to learn the heavy-pack-lesson the hard way.

Our destination was Norwegian Memorial, the sight where a Norwegian freighter, the Prince Arthur, sank on January 2, 1903. Perhaps, they too, had planned their trip under the influence of some challenging astrological configuration.

We may never know. However, all but two of the crew members were killed. The small memorial to the lost sailors is located on the long sandy stretch of wilderness beach, where the two survivors washed ashore. There is a backpacker's shelter near the memorial. Our intention was to make the twelve-mile hike at night, so that we could claim the shelter before any other weekend backpackers arrived.

Leaving as soon as school was out on Friday afternoon, we drove to Seattle, took a ferry across Puget Sound, and then drove up the Olympic Peninsula, arriving at the trail head at around 10 pm. We waited for a couple of hours for the heavy rain to settle into a drizzle, and then donned our packs, in my case I needed Mr. Campbell to help, and hit the trail.

Immediately I was hit by the overwhelming load. It was like trying to carry an NFL linebacker down the trail on my shoulders. I couldn't believe the oppressive weight of that back pack! As we made our way down the beach by flashlight, in the drizzling rain, the pack seemed to press relentlessly into my shoulders. I did everything I could to counteract the weight, trying to hold up the bottom of the pack with my hands, trying to hold the straps out from my shoulders with my thumbs, but nothing worked. After a couple of hours my shoulders were on fire with a constant searing pain.

One of the tools we were using on this hike was a tide table. Mr. Campbell, who was a seasoned ocean backpacker, had this part wired. There is a section of the trail known as Yellow Banks, a two mile stretch of cliffs that can't be passed, accept at low tide. Campbell had estimated the time to reach Yellow Banks and had planned to arrive just at the point of low tide. But a few miles before we reached Yellow Banks, my body began to complain.

Athletes call it bonking. It happens when you have gone too long without food and your blood sugar bottoms out. In my case, it was a major bonk, compounded by an oversized, and incredibly overweight pack. My body started to shake and I found myself getting dizzy. I started to sweat profusely and felt nauseated. I told Mr. Campbell what was happening. He said, "How bad is it? Do you need to stop?" Knowing that I faced another 8 miles of hiking, I said, "I'd better stop. Just help me find a place to sleep. You guys can go ahead and I will catch up tomorrow".

"There is another little backpacker's shelter that is hidden in the woods just above the beach," Campbell said, "Let's see if we can find it." Campbell led the way off the beach, up the bank and through the thicket, and within about 15 minutes, we found the dilapidated little shack. "We can all stay here tonight," he said. He opened the door to the shelter and I shined the flashlight inside. A surprised man in a sleeping bag rolled over, looked up, and put up his hand to shade his eyes from the bright and intrusive light.

He turned out to be a backpacker who was also headed for Norwegian Memorial. He was perfectly willing to relinquish his cabin to me, but he wanted to continue down the beach, probably in order to get there first. Mr. Campbell immediately understood that if we all stayed at the little shelter that night, we might lose our chance at the Norwegian Memorial shelter the next day, so he asked me if I would be okay by myself. I said I would be fine and that I just needed a little rest and some food. "I'll join you tomorrow", I said.

So the backpacker from the shelter joined Mr. Campbell and Arvid, and they all continued the hike together. As they left, Campbell gave me a parting warning. "Don't sleep in too long. You need to start early. If you don't time it right, you will miss the tide and have to wait at Yellow Banks for at least another 8 hours."

If I could just have a dollar for every piece of advice, given to a sixteen-year old that went unheeded....... because by the time I arrived at Yellow Banks the next day, the tide was already half-way in. Now I had to make a decision. Should I try to hike across the two miles of extremely rocky beach in front of cliffs at Yellow Banks and see if I can beat the tide? Or should I play it safe, wait it out , and try again in about eight hours. Of course, that's a no brainer for a sixteen year old on his first backpacking trip. I decided to go for it.

I was surprised at the slow progress across the first part of the extremely rocky beach. I had to dodge tide pools and boulders as I hopped from rock to rock. I continued down the beach, nervously eyeing the waves as they steadily encroached on my route.

Eventually, the tide won the battle, hemming me in to a small cove, against a nearly vertical cliff. Not able to advance or retreat, I took off my pack, hoisted it up, and hooked it on to the branch of a tree that was growing out of the steep embankment. When I was reasonably sure that my pack would stay above the high-tide surf that would soon be pounding against the bank, I climbed up the steep bank and found a perch. This became my home for the next eight hours, while I contemplated the folly of challenging nature to a race, as well as my unwillingness to start at the right time.

The experience of waiting for the tide to change was not all bad. This was probably the first of several times in which life has brought my plans to a screeching halt. Sitting there for eight hours, waiting for the tide to change, forced me for the first time to just sit still, listen, and wait. No TV, no book, radio, or anything else to distract me. Eight hours, admittedly, isn't much, but to a sixteen-year old, it can be an eternity.

Waiting, by the way, is one of most time-honored remedial measures in astrology. Sometimes, it is just not the time to go forward. Sometimes you just have to wait it out. Of course, it helps if you can have a "heads up" about those times in advance (an unsubtle plug for seeing your local astrologer occasionally), instead of getting the message by running headlong into a brick wall, or being pressed by the surf up a steep embankment, as the case may be.

After several hours of waiting, I noticed the tide beginning to retreat. Of course, by this time, I was getting pretty restless. Sixteen-year-olds are not known for their patience, and apparently, I had not yet learned the art of starting at the right time. So I waited until the waves had retreated just enough to expose some of the rocks, climbed down from my perch, dawned my heavy-weight pack, and started hopping precariously from rock to rock.

The going was very slow and erratic. The route was covered with wet, slippery, kelp-draped and barnacle-encrusted rocks. It also had slimy, downed trees that were very difficult to negotiate. It was hard to keep my balance with the heavy pack, while I jumped from rock to rock. I was dodging large, deep tide pools that required me to weave and snake my way along the beach. Due to my impatience, there was also the issue of the occasional outlier wave that would break out and wash across the rocks, soaking my boots. But I pressed on tenuously, and eventually, I made my way across the remainder of the beach in front of Yellow Banks....... That is, except for the last 50 yards.

I had arrived very close to the end of the cliffs. The only thing between me and the long sandy beach, leading to Norwegian Memorial, was a fifty-yard tide pool. Unfortunately, there was no way around the pool without wading into the incoming surf or going directly through the pool itself.

I was completely stuck. Once again I pondered my predicament. "Should I wait at least an hour for the tide to retreat a little more, or should I just go for it?", I thought. I looked at the tide pool and tried to estimate its depth. "Maybe a couple of feet deep, it might get me wet up to my thighs", I thought. Since my feet were already soaked, I decided to try it. I stepped into the tide pool. Immediately I sank up to my chest in the frigid salt water. " Ahhhhhhh" I shouted as I struggled to keep myself from toppling over and completely submerging my pack.

Chest deep in water, three quarters of my pack completely below the water line, I managed to remain upright, and slogged through the remainder of the tide pool. At the end of the pool, I took of my pack off and hoisted it out of the pool, and then crawled out onto the beach. "Shit!" I muttered. It was now dusk, I was soaking wet, freezing cold, and it had just occurred to me that I did not know how to find the shelter.

Before leaving, Mr. Campbell had given me a description of the destination beach. I was pretty sure that I had arrived at the beginning of that beach, but the shelter was somewhere in the woods and the beach was a couple of miles long. It was quickly getting dark, there were bears in the woods, I was freezing cold, and the thought of having to search the entire two miles of forest above the beach for a campsite was not appealing.

I dragged the pack to the upright position, hoisted it awkwardly onto my back, and began to walk down the sandy beach. As I walked I scanned the tree-line at the top of the beach looking for a hint of smoke or light from a camp fire. I saw nothing and no one, just a section of large driftwood logs and, beyond that, dense, dark, and foreboding forest.

I continued down the beach, now occasionally calling out. "Campbel! Arvid!", but the sound of my voice was completely absorbed by the sound of the surf. "This is useless", I thought. Just then, about a mile down the beach, I saw a light. It was a flashlight and it was bobbing up and down as its owner ran toward me. It was Arvid.

Apparently after arriving at Norwegian memorial, exhausted , in the early morning, Arvid, Campbell, and the guy from the backpacker shelter, had all immediately gone to sleep. They woke up at sunset, and, realizing that I wasn't there, they got worried, so Arvid had been sent out to look for me. "You look wet!" Arvid said, as we continued down the beach towards the shelter. "I'm soaked", I said. I didn't make it to Yellow banks in time."

Later, around a warm campfire, I dried my cloths, had some hot food , and started to feel my spirits lift. As the fire sputtered and glowed, I slowly came to life. We listened to Mr. Campbell regale us with stories of camping here in the past during violent storms, with the waves pounding the beach so heavily at high tide, that the huge driftwood trees at the top of the beach would float and bob and crash violently against each other in the night. "This is one of my favorite places", Campbell said, "I come here frequently, as often as I can. But you always have to be careful with Yellow banks. On this hike, timing is everything". "You've got that right" I chimed in, "And a lighter pack with a hip belt might also be a nice touch!"

San Jose

I will be in San Jose doing in-person readings from December 10 -12. If you would like to schedule an appointment, please call 408-354-6719 or email me at james@jameskelleher.com

Schedule

San Jose

December 10-12

In-person readings by appointment

408-354-6719

james@jameskelleher.com

World Predictions 2016

The USA Enters the Rahu Period

Saturday, January 30, 2016, 7:30 pm

East West Bookstore

324 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

For advance tickets call (650) 988-9800

New York

April 2 - 8, 2016

Readings in Manhattan by appointment

408-354-6719

james@jameskelleher.com

Vedic Astrology Conference

Grass Valley Yoga Farm

June 30 - July 5, 2016

14651 Ballantree Lane Grass Valley, CA 95949
530-272-9322 (tel) | (800)469-9642
email: yogafarmregistration@sivananda.org

Namaste!

James

Astrological Gift Ideas for the Holidays

If you have a friend or family member who is into Vedic astrology, why not give them the gift that keeps on predicting good things in their future? My Books, CD of the 9 planets Mantras, or Downloadable courses on astrology are all available on my website and only a click away.