The Road to Diamond, Day 27: A Simple Beauty

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December 25, 2024, Winslow- I came upon the midnight clear, or close to it, into this small but vibrant community, which Jackson Browne once chose as a surrogate for nearby Flagstaff, in his song “Take It Easy”. Flag already had a lot going for it, being the Snow Capital of Arizona, and Winslow seemed to be both more “poetic” and in need of a boost, so “Standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona…..”. it was. Besides, anyone who has ever driven along Route 66 in Flagstaff knows that the girl wasn’t slowing down on account of ol’ Jackson. She was merely stuck in the city’s legendary traffic.

Anyway, back to Christmas. In Home Base I, and across the Southwest, anyone looking for snow was out of luck. Christmas, and its antecedent, Yule, for that matter, does not depend on snow and cold to be truly meaningful. That hype simply has made a nicety out of the sheer terror that a hard winter can bring. In that regard, it is no different than the Ice Festivals and Winter Carnivals held in Quebec-Ville, Sapporo and the depths of the forest in the Saami lands of Scandinavia. Man carves joy out of adversity, and we survive to face a sometimes kindly, and other times frightful and tornado-riven, Spring.

What makes Christmas meaningful is the promise that the great Teacher, Whose birth is celebrated today, made in His ministry: “The Kingdom of God on Earth will come”. It’s taken a long, perhaps an excruciatingly long, time. We’ve approached peace among ourselves, only to scurry back to the shadow lands of conflict and warfare, countless times since the Day of Resurrection-and well before it. It will take a few more centuries, perhaps, but achieve peace, we will. Astrologers say the Aquarian Age will arrive sometime in the 26th Christian Century, sometime around 2534 AD/CE (591 Baha’i Era). I’ll be off weaving new planets, or whatever the Divine has in Mind for me, and my descendants will be of the sixth or seventh generation, by then. In any event, this theory squares with Baha’i Teachings, that the Golden Age, the Most Great Peace, will be in full flower around that time. How difficult a process that is will be determined by us, as a species.

I attended two gatherings today, that could be seen as harbingers for the sort of peace that humanity can build. In early afternoon, eight of us gathered at the grave site of a much-loved wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Her husband sang prayers, and sacred music that he had composed. The rest of us offered prayers for spiritual progress, healing and the well-being of humanity. Marcia was, no doubt, very pleased.

Later in the afternoon, thirteen of us gathered in the Spirit of Christ, at a friend’s home in the forest of Prescott’s west side. We shared the simple beauty of home made chili and cornbread, salad and three very rich desserts. Hot chocolate took the edge off the cold that came with nightfall. The toddler son of a young couple entertained us with his harmonica-each extended one-note generated applause from the adults, bringing his little face to radiance. His little sister was just glad to be in the loving arms of at least one of her parents, or grandmother, or aunt. We talked of everything from the operation of a dog-boarding facility to the approaching travels of two of us-a young lady to Costa Rica, for her first journey outside the U.S. and me, on my third visit to the Philippines. Both have elements of joy and promise, and elements of uncertainty. Undertaken in faith, though, the right thing will prevail.

Christmas is best observed as a day of simple beauty-and so it was today.

Prognosis

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March 30, 2024- Astrology is an inexact science, to the extent it is scientific. Astronomical energy and physics are taken into account, certainly, but even the most fervent astrologers admit they may be off, in their estimations. This is mainly because no one knows, with certitude, where one constellation ends and another begins.

That said, the astrologer to whose webinar I listened this afternoon gave an assessment of the rest of 2024, and a broader picture of the five years that will follow, that indicates the pace of change will, for the most part, accelerate. There will be periods, he says, of lightning-fast, perhaps dizzying, change and other periods of sluggishness. In other words, it’ll be more of what we have been experiencing, just more intense in degree.

It was explained that we have been in the energy cycle of the Piscean Age, roughly since 1 A.D. and that sometime between now and 2150 there will be a total shift to the Aquarian Age (yes, that Age of Aquarius). Generally speaking, this will mean a shift from individualism to the collective; from top-down decision-making to a two-way flow of information ( both horizontal and lateral, as well); from separation to unity. The early glimmerings of this shift were seen as far back as the late Eighteenth Century, with the American and French Revolutions, the Mesoamerican and South American Wars for Independence and the Enlightenment. The recent scurrying, in some areas of the planet, including some parts of Europe and the Americas, towards retreat into authoritarianism, are a natural human and fear-based reaction to this shift, but these are destined to be short-lived-even if their immediate effects cause much suffering and destruction-as did the excesses of the European Fascists and the Stalinists/Maoists of Eurasia and East Asia did, in the second half of the 20th Century.

He spoke of this coming month, April, as being a time of particularly jarring change. Of course, this is no more specific than the old “weather forecast” of children’s games: “Light, followed by darkness”-but at least it won’t come as a total shock, if April 20-21 feature some sort of cataclysm. Okay, I will be in and around Home Base I. Conversely, September and October are forecast to be a period of sluggishness. That’s fine by me, as my current plans are to be in the Philippines and east Africa during those months, and I want to be focused on whoever, and whatever, is in front of me.

That is the nice thing about inexact predictions: If they come to pass, we have been forewarned. If they don’t, then there is more time to prepare for what is about to happen.