Tag: solstice

Ancient Festivals

and the Four Seasons

Since it’s solstice, here’s an extract from a book of mine, Power Points in Time, about the cycle of the solar year, for your interest. More about the book below.

We tend to take the cycle of the year for granted, viewing it in a rather reductionist, calendrical and mechanical manner. This is partially because the Western calendar has no natural basis, so we tend to think of a calendar as a matter of dating with no further significance. For a solar-based calendar it would make better sense to anchor it in the solstices and equinoxes, allowing us to move more in harmony with the seasonal undertow of life and nature and with overall energy-conditions.

The seasons are brought about by Earth’s orbital relationship with the Sun, in which she exposes each of her poles to the Sun for half of the year as she orbits around it. Each pole is maximally exposed to the Sun around the time of summer solstice, experiencing the midnight sun, while the other pole is in perpetual darkness during its winter solstice.

Outwardly, the Sun gives Earth light and heat, and inwardly there is a deeper energy-weather cycle activating and modulating life-force on Earth, connected with the solstices. Life-force courses through the subtle meridians of the Earth and the energy-systems and patternings of all living things. In terms of our daily lives, a year takes a while, but for the Earth it is just a short inbreath and outbreath in the long course of geological time.

The ancients took it upon themselves to invoke favourable seasonal change, in the knowledge that change is the essence of earthly life and rhythm is the breathing of life-force. They knew also that subtle energy patternings are the energy-framework upon which physically manifest things are draped.

Psycho-spiritually, the Sun within us resides at the centre of our being, around which all of the constituent parts of our psyche orbit. The Sun represents our fundamental raison d’etre, our will-to-live and our source of aliveness. It gets us up in the morning to meet a new day. You could say it channels the soul through into our personalities and earthly natures. It’s a vibrant, shining place within us which seeks to make something good out of life and to evolve through life’s experiences.

Through the Sun in our birth charts, we seek to become something more than we now are, to evolve and serve our purpose, to be part of the life-process and to contribute to it.

This inner Sun goes through its own cycle of the year. We each relate differently to it, depending on the position of the Sun in our birth charts, but we have a common cycle too – the Earth’s cycle. It’s about the fluxings of energy in life and nature and the thrumming of the resonant sphere of the Earth – we’re bathed in it, even when we live in big cities, even on the 25th floor. The Sun moves around the zodiac in the course of a year, exposing us to different shades and tonalities of life-experience as it moves through the signs. An Aquarian day can feel quite different from a similar Piscean day, and what we make of each is up to us.

There are twelve signs of the zodiac, and the zodiac is anchored in the four quarter-points of the year – the two solstices and two equinoxes. The solstices represent turning points and the equinoxes represent tipping points in the four seasons.

There’s a three-sign sequence in each season. The zodiac has little to do with the stars and everything to do with the solstices, equinoxes and seasonal alternation, outlining the qualitative and archetypal undertow of the four seasons.

An archetype is an image or root-model of fundamental patterning behind and within all happenings and situations. If I say ‘oak tree’ then you will immediately form an image of an idealised oak tree, even though oak trees vary in shape, size and detail. So an archetype represents a basic patterning or template by which living beings and things shape themselves, even though the precise manner of their shaping varies enormously in real life. And yes, trees have thoughts and feelings.

There’s something interesting here. In Britain, NW Europe and other temperate climes (between about 40° and 60° from the Earth’s equator), nature manifests its actual physical changes in an eightfold, not really a twelvefold pattern. This eightfold pattern is marked out by the four quarter points and also by the mid-points (or cross-quarters) between these. These are important in temperate higher latitudes because the alternation of light and dark, day-length and temperature are more emphasised there. This also happens on a subtle-energy level, and it is these changes which pull us around and squeeze us through certain kinds of experiences at certain times of year.

In latitudes closer to the equator, other factors are emphasised by local circumstances or traditions, such as prevailing winds, rainy seasons, river floods, the rising points of stars such as Sirius or the orbital cycles of Venus. Localised cultures saw things in the light of what was visibly important in their own localities. In Europe, the great ocean is westwards, yet in China it is eastwards, and in Brazil the rainy season determined the way indigenous peoples structured their beliefs, while in Europe or Canada spring and autumn do so.

An eightfold calendar is more natural in NW Europe than a twelvefold one, which originated in Mesopotamia – though they interlock. The Sami (Lappish) people of far-northern Europe have an eightfold year, five seasons being different kinds of what most of us would call winter. The ancient megalith builders of Atlantic Europe 4-5,000 years ago, stretched between Portugal and the Baltic, embodied eightfold mathematics into the alignments and placing of the standing stones and stone circles they built. But both eightfold and twelvefold calendars are anchored similarly in the solstices and equinoxes. So they are related.

The energy principles behind each year are represented by the twelve zodiac signs, and manifest seasonal changes are represented by an eightfold subdivision of the year. This interlocking of principles and practicalities has meaning to it. Here we’ll look at the eight annual subdivisions, and in the next chapter we’ll examine the twelve, the zodiac. The eight, the quarters and cross-quarters, were marked in ancient times by festivals when fires, beacons and lights were lit, representing and re-invoking the life-force.

Power Points in Time. This isn’t a normal astrology book – it has little to do with birth charts or specific events. It’s all about cycles of time – cycles big and small, as astrologers see them. But when the original version of this book, Living in Time, came out in 1987, we found that it wasn’t so much astrologers who got excited about it, but it was pagans, druids and lovers of nature, ancient sites and shamanic practices. So, 28 years later, I updated and reworked the book, which came out in 2015.

It’s still available in print, published by Penwith Press and, while it’s a bit late for Christmas, here’s a thought…

If you are a seeker on a quest to understand a bit more about what lies behind and underneath the events of your life, it pays to have a modicum of understanding of astrology as part of your general knowledge – really, the basics should be taught in schools to teenagers.

It takes a while to get your head and heart around the details, but it pays off, since it’s really interesting, and your understanding of it and of life will evolve over time, as the years progress – whether or not you become an actual astrologer. And wintertime is a great time to get focused on it.

If you’re into ancient sites and working with the inner magic of nature and of time, then here’s a secret. The ancients built their sacred sites at power points in the landscape, but they carried out their ceremonies, rites, healings and workings at power points in time. I wrote this book to help my friends identify and understand power points in time.

Time is what stops everything happening all at once.

With love, Palden

This is where to get the book:
https://penwithpress.co.uk/product/power-points-in-time/

This is about the book:
http://www.palden.co.uk/time/

And this is the original 1987 book, Living in Time:
https://www.palden.co.uk/living/

Forgiveness

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Staggering around with a zimmer frame at the age of 69 wasn’t part of my plan. But then, I’m being taught a new level of acceptance: what is, is, and that’s that. Simple. It’s fascinating, because this process brings up issues, issues about the acceptance I’ve faced in life.

I’ve been searching inside myself for the causes of my bone marrow cancer. There are the obvious causes such as radiation exposure, environmental toxins, vaccines, fillings… though I’ve had a reasonably good diet and lifestyle for fifty years, for what it’s worth. But there are deeper causes too.

I’ve been going through a deep forgiveness process with my late mother. I don’t think she really wanted me or felt ready to have me when I came along. During pregnancy my father went far away to start a new job and she was, in effect, a single mother at my birth and for the first 4-5 months until she, my elder brother and I moved to join my father in our new home. Things had not been at all easy after WW2, but my parents made sacrifices, worked hard and did their best in a hard situation, and bless them for that.

I was reluctant to be born. I knew I had to do it, but it was a teeth-gritting thing. I didn’t come for the chocolate and rewards: I came because my soul knew there was a job to be done. In my birth chart the Moon squares Saturn and the Sun conjuncts it – a lot of rock-and-hard-place stuff. So my mother and I matched each other, and we did what we had to do. Don’t complain. Don’t make a fuss. Think how lucky you are. So we did. We made do. Throughout my life I’ve accepted many things that weren’t easy. Not least having loads of shit dumped on me and terrible dishonesties, and dealing with it.

This has made me good at working in war zones and other challenging situations, and without this gritty attitude a lot of things wouldn’t have happened and a lot of people wouldn’t have been inspired to break through in their lives. So it has paid off and I’m happy about that. I’m grateful too for a heart and a conscience that is relatively clean – as they go. This cancer experience allows me to drop stuff, forgive the past and draw a line on it, starting a new life. It has been my story – starting over again and again.

So cancer, for me, is a gift in disguise. Right now, I’m filled up with chemicals, my hands shake, I’m behaving weirdly on steroids, yet I’m growing stronger. I can now get out of bed to fetch something or go to the toilet! This is a big achievement. Sounds funny. But it gives me more freedom and relieves Lynne of some of her carer’s duties. So the chemicals are beginning to work. They’re doing so partly because of the compensatory holistic remedies I’m taking and also, I believe, because of attitude.

This is a core issue around healing: spirit, belief and will-to-live. Without these, the healing juncture I’m in becomes more empty. What am I doing this for? What is there to live for? What will I do differently with a possible five, ten or fifteen years? If my spirits are infused with hope and a reason to keep going, I shall stay alive as long as I need – this I believe, and I’m betting on it. I’m also starting to write a book – my eleventh.

I’m writing down all that I understand about the prehistory of West Cornwall, dense as it is with ancient sites. To me, these ancient sites represent a neolithic and bronze age geoengineering project working with the very issues of climate, biodiversity and human society that we face today. There’s even a chance that the bronze age megalith-building project was a response to an earlier climate catastrophe or a plague that severely reduced the people of neolithic Cornwall around 3000 BCE.

For fifty years I’ve been confronting sceptics, in the form of archaeologists, academics and people who believe they’re being rational when actually they’re being emotionally subjective, hanging on to a worldview that lacks imagination and doesn’t really work when it comes to understanding the megalithic culture.

This came to a head in September when I published some research in a Facebook group, asking for people’s insights. What I got was a put-down, with ideological scepticism from two characters who closed down the conversation from its start. These are what astrologer Rob Hand calls ‘Saturnine brain-police types’, or people who consider it their duty to protect others’ thoughts from subversion and self-questioning.

These two shut down all debate amongst the other people in the group. So much for peer review. Then came the cancer diagnosis. After that I made a deep-seated decision: to come out with it, speaking my truth and ideas more clearly, in a well-put way, to give these quasi-rationalists a counterswipe and lay out a completely different picture. Because beliefs such as theirs are destroying the world.

It’s already part-written on the Ancient Penwith website, but I’m sharpening it and no longer hedging. This is stage one of my revival process. With other interests – parapolitics, society, humanitarian work, extraterrestrials, the world’s future – there’s more to do before I pop my clogs. If, that is, life gives me the time and grace.

Problem with mission-driven people is that we don’t let up until the job is done. It’s relentless. Meanwhile, the vision of love and peace with which I emerged into adulthood in the 1960s hasn’t happened. That’s been hard to live with, but it’s what happened anyway.

There’s a choice here to shrug shoulders and give up – resignedly getting stuffed and drunk at Christmas instead – or to beaver away endlessly toward a historic-scale goal that won’t be fulfilled quickly, though in the next life or the one after that there’s a greater chance. This motivates me now. In between cups of tea.

This is the core of our healing process, whether or not it’s cancer egging us on. What are we here for and what are we doing? Right now, a Saturn-Pluto conjunction is happening, with its peak on 6th-14th January. Last time this happened it was the Falklands War and the Polish Solidarinosz uprising in 1982. It’s about ruthlessly hard facts – not what you want, but what you get. What actually works? What’s really true? How hard are we willing to work for it? When actually will we lose our fear?

Solstice and Christmas are a time for reflection and there are things worth contemplating instead of getting blotto. Do we really want to go along with a mass-murder of turkeys or do we truly support ecological sustainability? I’m one of the awkward squad on such matters, an Aspie like Greta, who keeps bloody well stirring things up. Cancer is sharpening my wits and undermining my hypocrisies. Yet this honesty process brings a feeling of relief, an unburdening of complicity. It’s literally enlightening my weak hips, making them more able to support me.

To the extent that I can now stand up, leaning precariously on my ‘walker’ (zimmer frame), tottering into the kitchen to cheer up Lynne, who is valiantly working away at all hours to earn a living because our wondrous system of social care in Britain doesn’t actually support cancer carers like her. Saturn and Pluto are doing their business here with cringeing efficiency.

So, Happy Everythings, everybody. This is what we get! Choose your devils to blame (good old Boris), but don’t forget the devil within. We can turn this round. Everything is a gift. A clock is ticking. Now it’s time to make good. That’s what’s happening for me, at least – that itchy feeling inside that winkles out a further turning in the deepest seat of consciousness.

Forgiving first involves remembering, and not forgetting. It’s worth remembering awkward things, and things that need repeated re-forgiveness. Forgive the world. Yes, it’s hard. But forgive the world. Because it’s an uncanny kind of mirror.

With love, Paldywan