2017 COMING ATTRACTIONS: “Greatest Hits of the Kali Yuga* (Darkest Age)”

Dear One,

This is the hardest newsletter I’ve ever felt called upon to write. Why? Because I wish I could share more unequivocally positive coming attractions for 2017 and beyond. So, I apologize in advance for not pulling my punches.

But, those of you who know me well personally and/or have received readings from me will get that I always call it as I see it, and now that I’m in my sixties, I’m perhaps even more blunt and less of a people-pleaser as my psychic gifts mature.

So, that’s the warning label on this newsletter. However, I promise that by the end you’ll come away with some pragmatic spiritual solutions to make the absolute best of what is coming down the pike.

To begin with, many of you have been sharing with me how sad and disheartened you’ve been feeling about the state of the world, especially since the election. The good news is that: Sadness is not a toxic emotion that will adversely impact one’s health. That being said, if we do want to consciously allow our emotions to flow through faster, it helps to:

1. Remember that we’re in an ephemeral plane of constant flux on inner and outer levels and that which rises falls away.

2. View reality as a dream, Cosmic or Divine Play, in other words, live entertainment, also called: Leela.

3. Practice a daily mantra of “This too shall pass.”

4. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude for what we do have now.

Conversely, it’s important not to indulge in, act out on or repress feelings of fear, anxiety or metaphysical angst, not to mention varieties of anger and impotent rage, as these emotions DO make us sick—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Added to this, whatever emotional tone we emanate is affecting the mass tone in the ripple effect. The challenge is to continuously release and dissolve afflictive or toxic emotions or thoughts ONCE they arise, as this is one of the few things we actually do have absolute power over.

This grows increasingly more consequential moving forward, because we may be feeling more aware than ever before of our powerlessness over mass events unfolding and the illusion of any semblance of control over external people, places and circumstances disintegrating at a more rapid rate as our new normal.

What we can do is make it a priority to cultivate and maintain the witnessing perspective of the soul, where everything is always evolving perfectly for our karmic healing and soul growth in the Divine Plan—personally and en masse—and hold the faith in this as the permeating primary tone of our Self and our personal reality. As Ram Dass says:

“We are in the perfect circumstances for our Souls to learn whatever they designed this whole game to learn. What is freedom? It is awareness not trapped in attraction or aversion.”

If you are feeling really stuck in negativity or despair and find the above ideas challenging to implement on your own, I encourage you to read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Transformation and Healingto help get you started.

Or you can set up a psychic empowerment session in which I’ll share my own personal practices for how to release toxic emotions; not allow people, places and circumstances affect you adversely; and maintain peace in your “inner kingdom.”

For details: Psychic Empowerment Practices on my website

(This session includes two Taoist Practices mp3s.)

The Taoist point of view is that everything is part of the Tao, i.e., Divine or Flow of Life, and that the conscious energy which makes up the Earth, which is a plane of duality, moves naturally in cycles of life and death, yin and yang, light and dark, expansion and contraction, moving forward and retreating, and so forth.

Right now, linear time is accelerating more rapidly in this New Age in human history because of what I call “the Quickening,” i.e., a continuous downloading of high frequency energies from beyond this plane to assist in speeding up the evolution of consciousness.

This means that, within the divine orderly chaos of the Universe, the mass consciousness has been stretched like a giant rubber band—as far as it could go without splitting apart. And what we are experiencing now as a natural part of this extreme unprecedented expansion is an even more extreme retraction or snapping back in reaction to this stretching open.

If we view the mass consciousness as one giant organism, or as I like to call it, One BEING with billions of faces, WE have reacted en masse from having too much Light and Unity Consciousness enter too fast, so that a natural reaction of flipping back into our collective shadow of darkness and separation has occurred. Ultimately, this will come into a balance of not “either/or” unity or separation but “and” and “both” simultaneously.

I have seen this phenomenon occur hundreds of times on a personal level when working with clients over the last 40 years. When people in psychic therapy raise their vibration and spiritually expand or accelerate more rapidly than their little self or ego/personality can handle then, after the therapy is over, there is sometimes an extreme retraction or snapping back, like an over-stretched rubber band when released.

This means that they regress into old self-destructive karmic behaviors that feed their default karmic rut of identity and gives them the illusion of control through safety, security and familiarity. I call this pattern the “Spiritual Cha-Cha,” one step forward and, at times, a giant leap backwards. And I’ve learned to view it with cosmic humor as an inherent part within the spiraling evolution of consciousness.

But now we are witnessing this Spiritual Cha-Cha as part of US, i.e., the mass consciousness. It’s our challenge, or as I like to call it a huge FGO—f**kin growth opportunity—to view this as an innate, organic part of how the Flow of Life moves. And, imperatively, we need to find ways to use this shadow part of the dance as rocket fuel for the evolution of our consciousness.

Since linear time is operating faster, what once took over four centuries, such as the decline of the Roman Empire, as part of the spontaneous movement of the Tao, might now take just over four years, barbarian hoards and all:). We’ve lived through many dark ages before in human history and learned that it’s all an integral part of the Earth Game. It just means that it’s time, once again, to batten down the hatches, retreat to gather our forces and sustain and feed the Light with like-minded souls, while we wait for the perfect time in the Flow to expand outward again.

Synchronistically, this time in history also coincides with the possible ending of the Kali Yuga in 2025, as predicted by some sages in the ancient Vedic spiritual philosophy of India. The ancients understood time as a circle, not linear, and the circle of ages is comprised of the yugas. Like the four seasons in our year, there are four yugas in the full cycle (Mahayuga). Each cycle has distinct themes and spiritual lessons for humanity. Below is a diagram of the four yugas in order from beginning to end. It is important to note that the first stage, Satya Yuga or the Golden Age, is the longest, with each one getting successively shorter (4:3:2:1) until the cycle starts again.

As you can see,(see diagram on website's newsletter), while this final Iron Age, which by some estimates began 2,700 years ago, lasts only one-tenth of the cycle, it is epitomized as one of darkness and ignorance. Here is a compilation from various Vedic texts and writers about the Kali Yuga:

“People slide further down the path of dishonesty, with virtue being of little value. Passions become uncontrollable as unrestrained sexual indulgences and manipulations run through society. Liars and hypocrites rise. Important knowledge is lost and scriptures become less and less common. The human diet is now ‘dirty’, and people are not even close to being as powerful as their ancestors in the Satya Yuga. Likewise, the once pristine environment is now polluted. Water and food become scarce, as do family bonds.” Sound familiar?

“The end of this Yuga will inevitably be followed by cataclysmic earth changes and civilization collapses, as is characteristic of the transitional periods. We need to be aware of these greater cycles of time that govern human civilization, and the changes that are looming on the horizon. In the Mahabharata—the longest poem in the planet’s history; the Kali Yuga is considered the Darkest Age, a low point.”

So, even if the Kali Yuga does wind down in 2025, the predictions of volatile earth changes,which occur during the transitional periods between yugas—evidenced by thecurrent upswing in earthquakes and increasing incidences of extreme weather phenomena—indicate that we may be in for an external bumpy ride for some time to come. This means, for most of us, for the rest of this incarnation. In 10 years, we may actually look back at this period, even with all the upsets and instability going on, as a relatively peaceful calm before the storm of the earth changes.

What to do? The Vedic scriptures and major Taoist teachings concur: Meditation and various spiritual practices are the natural medicine to help us survive during tumultuous times such as these. Now more than ever, we must strengthen our personal practice and act as a light for those around us who are lost. To find inner peace within the most unpeaceful of times is true spiritual attainment and a most worthy goal.

When I look into the eyes of Syrian refugees, I see hopelessness, suffering and despair. When I look into the eyes of unemployed Trump supporters standing for hours in free food lines, I see hopelessness, suffering and despair. And, believe it or not, when I’ve looked into the eyes of my clients, the ones that are the most unhappy and dissatisfied are the billionaires and super-models.

Why? Because no matter how much cash and how many prizes they accumulate externally, that can still never fill the inner black hole or void that can only be filled by something spiritual and infinite. Their greatest fear is that if they lost their money or beauty, nobody would love them just for themselves. And since they instinctually know that their external gains are all relative and ephemeral and could possibly disappear in any moment but will certainly all fall away in time, they live in terror of this ultimate outcome.

And the lesson? That all pain and suffering feels the same from the inside and that the only spiritual solution is to cultivate compassion for suffering in all forms. Whether it be our own, the ignorant, asleep or mentally ill:

The Bodhisattva Vow:

Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.

Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.

The awakened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.

For more: Global Mental Health Alert: It’s Time for the Witnessing Protection Program

On the astrological front, we kick off 2017 with:

I. Trickster Uranus in combustible Aries stationing direct at 21 degrees on December 29, signaling an uptick in devastating disasters, man-made combined with nature- made, such as the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan which occurred exactly when Uranus fist moved into Aries in mid-March 2011, setting the theme for these types of events.

For more: Embracing the Unexpected: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Uranus (But Were Afraid to Ask)

II. The North Node of Destiny moves into Leo the “me first” sign in early May, and since the Nodes move backwards, it will be sitting on “his majesty, the baby” Trump’s Mars and Ascendant at 26/29 degrees Leo, signifying that his ego will get even more outrageously overblown, crossing the border into megalomania. Oh boy!

III. Karmic teacher Saturn is spending his last year in philosophical Sagittarius before moving into his ruling sign of builder Capricorn in December 2017. So, expect lots more debating on the world stage of what is the “right” direction to go in, and in 2018, expect several years of rebuilding infrastructure to be the theme, especially since structures will be disintegrating at a faster rate than ever before.

For more: Becoming ONE with the Inner Guru . . . Or How to Make Saturn Your BFF

In terms of longer-range astrology, Pluto the Transformer, who operates through cycles of death and rebirth like the Hindu Goddess Kali, and thus epitomizes the Kali Yuga, moves into Aquarius in 2025, synchronistically confirming the dates of the ending of the Kali Yuga and the moving into a transitional period. Also, Neptune conjoins the Moon’s South Node of our Karmic Past at 29 Pisces also in 2025, indicating the culmination of a very l-o-n-g karmic cycle on a mass level.

For more: Owning Our Inner Pluto before . . . It Eats Us for Lunch

Neptune: The Urge to Merge . . . and Then Some

What is the mental and spiritual antidote to the above not-so-cheery predictions? I would suggest reading stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius, holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Victor Frankl and of course a little Walt Whitman, couldn’t hurt:

“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

For more: I Sing the Body Electric

In closing, the Taoist view of historical and personal crises is that they are optimal times for spiritual growth opportunities. YAY! If we truly are all here as souls incarnate in the Earth Game, aka Leela, to evolve and grow our souls, then the highest view may just be to view all the mishegas, i.e., insanity or craziness in Yiddish, in the world as miracle-gro accelerant to help us make the most of this precious human incarnation.

The Taoists say: “The lesser sage lives in a cave in the mountains, the greater sage lives in the heart of the city.” I’ve always held to this view as my personal philosophy, as after spending many past lives meditating in caves, or safely ensconced in temple compounds doing my spiritual and psychic work, I’ve lived in the heart of NYC since 1971 as a form of constant spiritual resistance training. As Life pushes at me on every level all the time, it encourages me to make peace of mind my primary goal and do my Taoist practices daily to keep me sane, grounded and internally stable at my core of Being regardless of external flux.

So, my Dear One, for those of us with a more mystical bent, it’s time to gather our forces internally, hold to the light and emanate it, and wait patiently for this worldwide Spiritual Cha-Cha to change its tune as we witness it all like a circus or juggling show, clowns and all. And, yes, waiting for our move in the Flow is a highly attuned spiritual act.

For others of us with more active temperaments, we may feel passionately called to support the Light externally by contributing through word and deed to those in need and supporting those organizations that hold the Light for all of us going forward. And for some of us, it will be a mixture of the above two paths.

And finally, the perfect story for the present time, originally told by the Buddha:

“A Zen Master, while out walking one day, is confronted by a ferocious, man-eating tiger. He slowly backs away from the animal, only to find that he is trapped at the edge of a high cliff; the tiger snarls with hunger, and pursues the Master. His only hope of escape is to suspend himself over the abyss by holding onto a vine that grows at its edge. As the Master dangles from the cliff, two mice—one white and one black—begin to gnaw on the vine he is clutching on. If he climbs back up, the tiger will surely devour him; if he stays then there is the certain death of a long fall onto the jagged rocks. The slender vine begins to give way, and death is imminent. Just then the precariously suspended Zen Master notices a lovely ripe wild strawberry growing along the cliff’s edge. He plucks the succulent berry and pops it into his mouth. He is heard to say: “This lovely strawberry, how sweet it tastes.”

Wishing you all the sweetness of Life in the year to come and sending out ongoing light and love, peace and joy in Being,

J O A N

“The character of your existence is determined by the energies to which you connect yourself.

“If you attach yourself to gross energies—loving this person, hating this clan, rejecting one experience or habitually indulging in another—then you will lead a series of heavy, attached lives. This can go on for a very long and tedious time.

“The way of the integral being is to join with higher things. By holding to that which is refined and subtle, she traverses refined and subtle realms. If she enters the world, she does so lightly, without attachment. In this way, she can go anywhere without ever leaving the center of the universe.”

“The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu”