Your Relationship To The Universe At Equinox

This morning our title is Your Relationship to the Universe at Equinox.

You know, I was very startled when I discovered that not some, not even most, but practically every astrologer I know hasn't the slightest concept of the significance of Equinox, which is really quite startling because astrologers are those who presumably have been studying the heavens the forces as they play upon earth and most certainly the idea of equinox is one of the most important ones and carries some of the most potent energies yet in several years I did a research on it so to speak and everyone I met who was an astrologer, everyone whom I knew to be rather more or less adept at astrology, I would ask them, I've asked them, what can you tell me about the equinox? And in most cases I've been given the most bewildered expression. In some cases there's hemming and and just some idea of well there's something about the harvest or about the spring planting and this is really strange because you see the celebration of both the vernal and the autumnal equinox happens to be one of the oldest forms of practice in the esoteric mystery schools I'd go back to such a period of antiquity that really back to be cool because it's part of our training it's part of our ability to learn how to understand what we are in terms of the universe and what the universe is in terms of ourselves so esoteric astrology definitely is a part of Qabalah and Tarot as is all or I should say as are all of the various branches of occultism because Qabalah does embody every aspect of occult teaching and training in one synthesized or balanced whole and therefore usually it is only the very advanced type of soul who will proceed with the tarot and Qabalah consistently enough to really achieve all that it has to offer because there is so much and most human beings get caught up by inertia most understandably of course this is no criticism but it does have so much and an understanding of each phase helps us to become really a correlated whole in our own inner makeup and in our relationship to life itself and to other people so let's consider the vernal equinox now actually when we say this is the vernal equinox what we ought to remember is this the vernal equinox may be spring on the northern hemisphere but in the southern hemisphere that is below the equator they can very properly be calling it for themselves the autumnal equinox because remember when we are having our summers in the northern hemisphere the southern hemisphere is having its winters those of you who have studied a little astronomy may know why if you do you certainly will not object to a little description as to why this is so to be given to those who do not understand it because even when we understand a thing we need to be reminded in order to tie it up with other ideas therefore we all gain by shall we say reviewing the idea of why this is so though most of us no doubt do know why you see our planet revolves around the Sun and also revolves around its own axis now what do we mean by revolving around its own axis well if you think of our planet as being shaped like an egg instead of like a sphere so it isn't really shaped that extremely but I'm just giving you this picture to help you be able to see what causes the difference in the hemispheres and you'll see it more clearly if we exaggerate the shape of the earth which really does bulge incidentally at the equator and is not a complete sphere at all but let and therefore there is a tapering at the poles so remember the equator is what we might call the middle of the earth or the girth and this is just a line drawn arbitrarily around you know in our minds eye around the approximate shape of our earth and the therefore we draw a line imaginatively around the fattest part of the earth and this is called the equator and then the tapering part up and down if you'll think of it as being shaped somewhat like a an egg up and down uh taper more into the um like a novel though I'm giving you an extreme picture it is not like that at all it is very mildly so now the earth then revolves around when they say the earth revolves around its axis in your mind's eye in your imagination just think of a of a line or a chain or a rope that goes down into the middle of the earth from the North Pole right through the middle into the South Pole and then think of the earth as revolving like a top except that it isn't shaped like a top think of the top as being shaped like an egg so that's what's meant by revolving on its axis and at the same time while it's doing that it is rotating around our Sun so it is having two motions of its own although there are more involved the Sun with its planets you know is going around the Milky Way that is it's rotating around a center which we call our immediate universe the Milky Way and so the Earth along with its sister and brother planets you notice how I say sister and brother planets I'm not going to hurt anybody's feelings male or female since some of them are called he and some she they revolve around the Sun and the Sun with its planets remember going about the milky way is revolving around the center so there what we already have three motions of the earth but we're not concerned with those at the moment I mean they are certainly concerned with us but at the moment let's not be concerned with them because what we're trying to do is get a picture of the equinox and what it is then we'll be in a better position to discuss its inner psychological and spiritual meanings and also what we can do to utilize these meanings for our own aid both in our outer world and in our inner life which can't really be separated as much as we usually do separate it now the rotation then of the earth on its own axis remember that is the part where like the spinning of a top. Let's think of the earth as spinning. It spins, it doesn't spin in one exact manner.

It tips like a top. You've noticed the top, how it tips in one direction, and as it goes around it tips in the other direction, and just tips back and forth. You've all seen that, I'm sure. That'll give you a picture of the way our planet earth rotates around the sun, and is rotating, that is, around its own axis while it's also carrying on its motion about the Sun now because of this tipping that goes on first tipping it in one direction and then in the other we have a variation of climates in the North Pole and in the South Pole as you can see if for six months of the year the tip is towards the earth on the North Pole. That is on the upper, let's think of it as the upper part of the egg.

You can see that while it's going around and it's remaining in that tip position, that it the that upper part of the egg is going round and round, tipped, is going to get more sunshine. Whereas the bottom part of the egg is planted away. It therefore receives less sunshine. Shine. Now as it keeps going around the Sun and around its axis then it gradually is moving and then gets comes to a point where it is up and down. When it is up and down that is the equinox vernal and autumnal. There are two times in the year where it is in other words where it is not tipping either its North Pole or its South Pole that is the upper part of it of the egg or the lower part of the egg. It is straight. And at that point then, it starts tipping in the opposite direction, and then the North Pole starts getting the winter, and the South Pole starts working itself towards its summer. Now, I think that perhaps I have made it clear to anyone, even those who perhaps have no knowledge of astronomy, and those who do have a knowledge of astronomy, I'm sure that being able to watch the picture in your mind has not hurt you at all so now we can all proceed together to look into the significance of this particular description and factor now at the point where it is where our earth shaped more or less like an egg for our own purposes in the mind is straight up and down this is the only time that day and night are exactly even all over the world this happens twice a year at the vernal and autumnal equinox and the rest of the time you always have your days growing shorter and your nights longer and then it reverses itself and your nights grow longer and your days shorter as we all know and of course when we come to summer june 21st for instance which is uh uh the height of the our summer that's when the sun is most directly overhead for us and therefore we have the longest day in the year then it starts going towards its shortest and incidentally those periods also have significance and we perhaps if we give this a series of talks on esoteric astrology we'll have time to go into the significance of all these things and how they affect us and what we can do to use them positively for ourselves. Now, I'm sure you must realize that there must be some meaning in the fact that for some split fraction of a period, whatever it is, the whole world is in perfect balance in accordance with its day and its night.

The rest of the time we're either in a down cycle or an up cycle at least as far as our seasons of cold and warmth and therefore light and dark they're tied in together are concerned and when you remember that all evolution proceeds by the principle of this resistance that is the tipping of the balances in off directions this creates the resistances this creates the situation this creates the pressure which grows us which evolves us in all ways and on all levels and as we have noticed when we have studied things from the scientific point of view that is just what seemed to be material occurrences we have noticed that everything grows in spurts nothing is a gradual thing you know you even if you take pictures of the growth of a plant you know it will give a sudden spurt of growth and then it'll stop rest you know in other words eating digesting resting the stomach eating digesting resting the stomach the same way with any kind of growth whether it's physical mental spiritual we have a period of absorption we have a period of assimilation we have a period of rest and it's done in spurts because we don't keep nibbling a little a bit of food all through the 24 hours to survive we get in there in a spurt and we eat a meal and some of us moan and groan because we eat too much you see we don't like the results and some of us moan and groan because we feel we're not eating enough but whatever takes place on one plane it has us correlate on other inner planes when we learn to understand the correlation so you see according to esoteric tradition which stems from these age-old times it is the period of the vernal and and a terminal equinox, in which we have a very special kind of magnetic, it's not magnetic attraction because we have that all the time, but I mean the magnetic attraction enters a very special field for us and we for it during that period because of the fact that the whole earth in other words the world's soul goes into a sort of psychic pause as indicated by its physical apparent pause which isn't exactly that but we try to find words to indicate a particular idea now when you realize that the earth revolving around the sun is what it's really not away from the sun or anything like that we really live within the sun because after all the sun's rays shine and the earth is inside the rays of the sun if we look out in the heavens and we see something shaped like a round object which we call the sun we think it's out there there. Let's say, let's put it this way, up to the core of it is being experienced as being apparently off there. But after all, the core of a thing isn't its whole thing.

Your heart is the core of your being, but you have the rest of your body, haven't you? And we, along with the planets, the rest of our sister and brother planets, are the rest of the body you could say of the sun on the outer planes or the way we experience the outer planes and we are a part of the conscious and spiritual being of the inner and spiritual sun therefore the thing whatever it is that's happening at equinox which we'll discuss a little more in a moment because we want to get this clear in our minds whatever it is that's happening you see, is happening within a larger vehicle than we are usually accustomed to thinking of. Now realize this. Why do we manage to remain within an orbit around the Sun? It's because of the Sun's gravitational attraction. Now what is the Sun's gravitational attraction? These are They're beautiful scientific words, but let's get them into a spiritual idea.

Let's understand it in accordance with occultism and with Qabalah. The gravitational pull of the sun can be said to be the fact that, shall we say, the love nature of the spiritual sun is holding its own, bathing its own, feeding its own and growing its own within its own being and this is really exactly how it is it isn't even an analogy those who come to experience and I hope all of you will and soon your true relationship to the parts of your environment around you and the universe you will come to see as many have come to see that there is no such thing as a separated and a body here and the body out there. They're an interconnected thing. There are magnetic links which are stronger than what we think of as physical matter. And these are the linkages of consciousness. So you can say we belong to the Sun, but you can also say the Sun belongs to us. It's just like if a child belongs to the parent.

The parent also belongs to the child. It's a two-way deal and realizing it in that sense we can now go on to some of the meanings of the equinox held then by the love of the spiritual sun or our solar locus as it is often called in occultism which incidentally is said to be the center of christ consciousness and you know it's in our own heart chakra that we usually experience the Christ love and the tie-up is really very exact I remember the first time that I had any experience that related to the universe in terms of planets which and it startled me very much because I was one of the young people who was much smarter than most because I knew it all and you know this is being very smart and of course knowing it all I certainly knew that astrology was superstitious bunk and only morons would even begin to give it a second thought or look I mean I didn't think this I knew it in as much as I was so bright so it was a quite a comedown for me you understand when I came to dr. Case and heard him using all this gobbledygook language about now this is attributed to Venus and that's attributed to Uranus my thought how fantastic what if this brilliant man was fantastic vocabulary and his depth of perception is using this gobbledygook language has he got a hole in in his head in one area and bring in the rest of it you know I mean it was very disturbing to me to notice this but finally I thought you know my superior man of well I mean with his brilliance he seems to think that there's something there I'll try to look into it so I looked into it and it flattened me I became very moronic incidentally very quickly I I stopped knowing so much and I'm sorry for your sakes perhaps we could learn more together if I still knew as much as I knew then nevertheless at least together in this way we can reach for something that might be more real at least let us so hope so I looked into it and of course when I especially at that time when I looked into anything it was I was a holy terror I never did anything halfway and I alarmed Dr. Case very much he was afraid I might become fanatical and this he couldn't tolerate I he didn't realize at the time yet it was early in the relationship that I attacked everything that was important enough to me in that way to really try to get to know it fast and furious as quickly as possible. So I sat down with reams and reams of books and charts and taught myself all sorts of things and drove all sorts of friends who were astrologers of the Dr. Case's and the work. I just drove them quite crazy was very foolish questions I'm sure I realize today but I started to test the idea at first you know to see if there's anything in it this was the first thing I had to do and if I found there was anything in it then I would I would and was willing to go on try to learn a little more but never in the way that exoteric astrologers do always in terms of its spiritual esoteric meaning and while I was in the midst of this I had an extraordinary experience I was just resting for a moment and suddenly I had this inner vision of the heavens and the Sun and the planet and the and the way they revolve which I mean this wasn't so very special I'd been rather more or less interested in astronomy a good part of my life in any way but I saw it in a special way this was what was unusual and remarkable and wonderful because what I saw was that the earth revolving around the Sun is of course receiving from the heavens that is from interplanetary space a certain portion or section of vibrations. You know, cosmic, you can call them cosmic rays, you can call them negative ions and positive ions and give them all the little sub names you want. Nevertheless, they are emanations and breakdowns of emanations, vibrations, light, that come from innumerable stars off into distances beyond our conception and all converging on this planet as they converge on any planet anywhere in the universe because as a sort of circle or sphere you can see that the planet is having is being affected from all sides in other words even think of it materially from the the impact of atoms and rays and whatnot.

So I saw in this vision our Earth going around the sun, and as it went around, therefore being exposed to each section of the rays of what you might imaginatively call the sphere of the universe.

And I saw that therefore each of these marked off areas, which we call a sign of the zodiac, this is really a name given you know to a type of consciousness which is having its impact on us and yet the relationship to the sun was the most significant because within the sphere these planets around the sun are the most influenced by its own sun out of which it came and in which it still resides it never really came out of it at all we are members of this Sun in essence and I saw that no matter what sign anyone was born in be it Aries Taurus Gemini Sagittarius Scorpio it was the same Sun it was the angle of the earth in relation to the Sun in other words if the earth was a one section then its relationship to the Sun was in a line with that portion of the heavens if you think of it as coming down together, you know, into a point, you know, and then going out on each side in a line, which eventually would make a triangle, I could see that therefore, no matter what we call another person, an Aries or a Taurian, it's the same sun that was just in a part of the heavens, and it's the sun of our individuality. Therefore, our individuality is the same even though it expresses from a concentration of certain energies more than others.

And that was the only difference between signs really, which is a difference to us. I know when we have relationships we need to understand it. But the point is the one sun was the individuality and is the individuality no matter what part of the zodiac it is in at birth. Now this, of course, was most significant to me because it was really a spiritual perception I had with this inner vision. And indeed, it's this realization also that gave me my further perceptions regarding the equinox forces.

Because realizing that we go through cycles continuously, we have cycles within cycles within cycles of work and rest, eating and sleeping. There are cycles within cycles. These two major high points of the cycle, which we call the equinox, happen to be the point where, because of the balance of the tilt that our Earth has in its relationship to the Sun, and because we, after all, are members of this world soul and therefore are affected completely by the entire magnetic interchange that is taking place at all time it's part of our life fluid it's just like blood flows through our veins in our own physical vehicle the inter magnetic interflows happen to be the same kind of permeating blood shall we call it psychic blood that it gives us our connection with the Sun and with the rest of the universe but particularly with our Sun in this instance as we're discussing it so it's at that point because of that magnetic balance that relates that we can and should incidentally because all of the mysteries are tied up with this idea we should very deliberately and consciously relinquish everything that we are doing thinking feeling hoping yearning for in other words we get we should give it up at this point but don't get upset and say gee I'm not ready for anything like that, they have to evolve a little more. We should all give it up. We should be saying in essence, Lord of the universe, Thou, Creator of us all, in Thee we live and move and have our being. At this point everything I have done within the past cycle belongs to Thee. I relinquish it. It's Thy work. I give it up.

I relinquish my position and all the implements of my position which happen to be whatever other things that you're trying to do and accomplish you should do this in your mental life in your emotional life in your in your physical life I mean in your in your inner essence is this giving up but that isn't the point this is equinox equinox remember is the finishing of one thing and the beginning of another because the thing's motion is going to continue evolution is going to continue and you as a living being and a part of the motion of the entire universe you as a member of the heavens who live on this what you call a planet earth but it's a member of the heavens and you're swinging through the heavens and you're expressing the powers of your star which we call our sun but it's a star of the starry heavens and you, an angel, and some of you mightn't think you act like it once in a while, but sometimes we're little dark angels. Nevertheless, you are an angel, and you who have all this can afford at this period to take stock by giving up all this personality attitude that is crediting the personality with all these powers at this point you should be able to meditate a little more profoundly and to say in essence that after all what are the plants but something the sun grows what are we but something the sun grows and live what are the creatures but something the Sun grows and lives it is the work of the Sun is the work of God it is the work of the Father we should deliberately take away this crediting or anything and everything good and bad away from the personality and hand it over on this balanced period this is the time it can be the most readily the most easily done of any point in the year just like there's a time to live and a time to die there are also times when we can do things far more intensely and effectively and it's during the two points of the equinox uh during the week of the equinox as a matter of fact because it's potent throughout the whole week that we need to do that and then of course because as I said we are living creatures and we are living creatures living in the sun, whatever it seems like in terms of the outer senses. We need to take up our next cycle. In other words, to be willing to go on, to take up the responsibilities of livingness, recognizing that we're doing it in God, of God, from God, with God, for God, and therefore for all life and humanity. So having relinquished everything that we can think of, going over one by one then let us take it up and say and so and decide on keeping in the in proper motion with the motion of the universe as the sun keeps its planets rotating around itself orbiting around itself exactly in accordance with its laws let us tune ourselves in to that power for we too are orbiting remember and we have our emotions as we weave in and out of life and in and out of people and injure them or bless them as the case may be and sometimes both let's then accept our next cycle of growth because remember the vernal of the autumnal it is the planting of the seed it is the harvesting of the seed spring fall in either case that's the equinox because both are taking place because with one side of the world I remind you is it beginning to plant because it's vernal equinox for them the other side of the world is beginning to reap because it's autumnal equinox for them and therefore for us as members of the whole planet we use them both we do not limit ourselves so we take up and we claim our heritage in dedication to the Son, in dedication to God, in dedication to the One, in acknowledgement of ourselves as being in motion through the power of that One.

And as we do that, as we dedicate our every motion and claim our every motion as being our birthright, as children of the Sun, members of the Sun, we will find that we will be strengthening the parts of our being which need strengthening. We will find that our various studies and meditations through the rest of the year go more readily, more easily, especially when we read if we remind ourselves of this equinox motion that we have undertaken. To remain in line with that, it's pretty much like saying I am going to do naught but the will of god except that saying it that way adds the power because you're using all of the levels you're recognizing a relationship and yet you're not letting yourself uh think of yourself as being a slave but as a hand of god as a whirling dance of God, which you are. Or don't you think so? Therefore, when you leave today, you look out at the sky. Don't say it's a gray day. Please say, isn't it a beautiful silver day? When you look out at the stars, especially through this next week, remember that the works of his hand that thou lovest includes thyself and that you choose to be in motion with this entire universal motion to get into the harmonious swing that you choose on this seesaw of up and down as we go from equinox to equinox you choose to learn how to get your feet balanced on each side of the middle of that seesaw so that though you must tip because this is where you grow you must but you accept the tipping and gain the controls and keep your head up there with the sun and the stars and under that guidance and miracles will start to unfold I could give a month's talks on what could be done with equinox powers but this at least has given you an idea I hope a spirit please try to go out and practice it love the stars and love the sun and get into the dance of the motion of the orbits of the planets of life and see yourselves as being that in all your ways