Aries Within - Connecting with our Force

by Guru Rattana, Ph.D. - Issue #103 - March 18, 2005

The Sun moves into Aries March 20th, the first day of Spring, at 4:34am PST (12:34pm GMT.) The Ram will be in the green spring pastures through April 18th.

The Libra Full Moon is March 25th at 12:59pm PST (8:59pm GMT).

The Aries New Moon, April 8th 1:32pm PDT (8:32pm GMT) features a Solar Eclipse.

Three planets change direction between March 19th and 26th, creating a very interesting energy dynamic during this period. The planets move slowly as they change direction, giving us a chance to slow down and catch up with ourselves.

Saturn Goes Direct

Saturn, retrograde since November 7th. goes direct March 21st. While Saturn shifts direction, from now through Easter, is an opportune time to take note of:

1. how your priorities have shifted,
2. how your boundaries have been redefined, and
3. what you have learned about your life path.

Have you defined new goals? Have your objectives or game plan changed? Where do you feel more capable, more mature and a bit wiser?

Saturn obliges us to be realistic about the personal, financial and social costs, and consequences of our projects. It is important to assess your inner progress, because this is the foundation upon which you will move forward. Both our personal landscape (mental ability, emotional maturity and physical health), and practical feasibility factors figure in the calculations that determine the success of our next moves.

Pluto Retrograde

Pluto, turning retrograde March 26th, will clean out the basement of our psyche through September 2nd. Whatever we were unwilling to look at during Saturn retrograde will be exposed during Pluto's obligatory purge. Pluto exposes the beliefs, assumptions and modes of being and doing that impede our evolutionary growth. We can either do our inner work and get honest with ourselves about our self-sabotaging programs, or we can stay in denial and try to hide. Our choice will determine if we embrace change, or if we are obliged to change through the tough grinding of the Plutonian wheel.

Mercury Retrograde

Mercury goes retrograde March 19th at 4:15pm PST (12:15am GMT March 20th). Mercury will make our minds move inwards through April 12th at 0:46am PDT (7:46am GMT). Mercury goes retrograde at 14° Aries and returns direct at 2° Aries. The full cycle will complete April 30th when Mercury catches up again to 14° Aries. Because of the retrograde movement, Mercury will be in Aries for 68 days instead of the usual month.

We could feel like we are spinning our wheels and frustrated if we do not properly use the energy dynamic offered us by the heavens at this time. How to appropriately use this opportunity is the theme of this issue of the New Millennium Being.

New Moon/Solar Eclipse April 8^th

The Moon covers the Sun during the Solar Eclipse/Aries New Moon April 8th. The eclipsing of the Sun accentuates the need to focus inward at this time. Our inner reality creates our outer reality. We need to seriously examine this truth, not just agree and move on. We are being asked to deeply explore how our inner dynamics shape our lives. We must do the inner work necessary to align our psyche with what we intend to create.

Where 19° Aries falls in our birth chart is where a new frontier is opening up in our lives. We will have to take the initiative and act on our own. There is a lot of energy for cooperative endeavors, but if there is going to be a party, we have to play a pivotal role in making it happen. In order to blaze new trails, we have to be totally in alignment with our soul purpose. There is no room for fantasies and wishful thinking dreaming. This is a time to downsize the fantasy department and upgrade the heart inspired, soul-directed action.

The Ram's Vital Spirit

Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac. When the Sun bursts into Aries we are reborn. It is springtime and a new life is coming into form. Aries embodies our life impulse. We are alive, innocent and free. We are fearlessly assertive. We eagerly take action. We are wildly adventuresome. The Ram infuses us with the impulse to charge ahead. There is no holding back. The Ram learns by taking risks, exploring new territory and going for the gold. His modus operandi is courage, directness and enthusiasm.

The Ram's spirit is dynamic, active and outgoing. The Ram is totally comfortable taking action alone, but he is not at home in the internal arena. The Ram likes to be out exploring the world, not home doing chores or meditating. Thus Mercury retrograde is not familiar territory for Aries. In addition, the Solar Eclipse cramps his style. Yet there is a higher purpose in every energetic configuration.

So what we must ask is how can we benefit from this internally directed Aries energy? The basic answer is that we can use this time to discover the fire of our spirit, and explore the universal energies that course through our body.

The purpose of the Solar Eclipse is to hide our ego so that our subconscious can become known. The Moon is not blowing out our flame. It is ensuring that it is re-kindled and nurtured from the light of our soul. We need to become aware of the extent to which we operate off of adrenaline, hoping things will turn out. The remedy is to tune into our innate life force and connect with its more sustainable vitality.

The Fiery Impulse of Our Soul

Aries embodies the fire element. We all experience the impulsive drives within us that determine our actions and control our reactions. While Mercury is retrograde in Aries we can get to know these impulses. We can feel their primal nature in our body. We can get in touch with their attributes - their drive, their courage, their vitality and their commitment to live.

As we connect with the fiery impulse of our soul and feel the flow of our life force, we experience a whole new level of aliveness and vitality. This is the energy that motivates us, that sustains us, that empowers us. This is our will. This is the primal cause of our determination, our courage and decision-making. The more we befriend this energy, the more we are able to consciously move forward in our life from the inside out.

Usually this force unconsciously directs our lives. To participate in co-creating our life, we have to be able to consciously consult this primal force when we ask Where am I headed? and Where do I want to go? Our connection with this force determines the extent to which we can act in full integrity with our soul.

The fire of this force burns away illusions and creates lucidity, so that we can have a clear understanding of our intentions, goals and life purpose. The fire of this force purifies our intent so that we can act honestly and sincerely. The fire of this force makes our actions purposeful and impactful, so they produce viable and effective results.

The Proper Use of Our Force

As we connect with our force, we find that vitality replaces anxiety and stress. This is because we are using our force for what it was intended - to give us fuel and to guide us. We find that we are more in control of our lives. We know what is happening and why. We can change our course when appropriate and in a timely fashion. We no longer have to create traumas and dramas to get our attention and to learn our lessons. We become attentive to our instinctual and intuitive guidance system.

In our power means that we are consciously connected to our power. We consult it. We follow its guidance. We don't allow our mental ideas to supersede our internal wisdom. We don't allow our emotional programming to sabotage the directives of our soul.

How Do I Affect Others?

The Full Moon in Libra, March 25th, confronts Aries with the question, How do your actions affect others? The opposition energy of the Sun and the Moon invites us to investigate the internal nature of our relationships with others. To do so, it is revealing to explore the symbology of the Ram in real life. At first view, the Ram butts its way through life. Head down it forces its way through obstacles, with little regard for the impact of its brute force on the situations and persons that it must conquer, subdue or remove from its path, in order to get what it wants. This is indeed the lower expression of Aries.

The problem with this egocentric approach is that it has undesirable consequences. We offend others. We create problems for ourselves. We seed conflict instead of harmony. We produce destruction instead of beauty. We support injustice instead of fairness. We create disequilibrium instead of balance.

The law of cause and effect ensures that every action has a reaction. The law of karma guarantees that we will be held accountable in one way or another for our thoughts, feelings and actions. At this Full Moon, April 25th, we are being offered an opportunity to honesty examine the external impact of our presence, intentions and participation in life.

Exercise to Explore Our Impact on Others

You can explore the nature of your impact on others, by attempting to look into the eyes of everyone that you meet and interact with. Eyes to eyes, it is hard not to realize that who we are, what we think, and how we project, impacts everyone we encounter. With this realization, we either withdraw or we move into our heart. Our need to feel secure will direct us to either withdrawal or to heart-felt openness. If we choose to not to interact, we are alone. If we choose to open our hearts, we create the space to connect with others.

While the Sun is in Aries, explore the dynamics inside yourself, which determine how you choose to use your power, to create connection or separation, and conflict or harmony in relationships. It is important to be present to your feelings and let them guide you. Some relationships do not feel safe, in which case to create open connection is not appropriate.

Also, there are different levels of connection. We can maintain a connection with our heart without allowing someone else to enter our space. The definition of boundaries is a critical skill to be cultivated. We want to be able to establish and maintain boundaries without reverting to strategies that lead us to shut down, escape or energetically disappear.

The Soulful Ram

The symbology of the fiery Ram has another interpretation and a more conscious expression. The awakened Ram is not blindly charging forward. The conscious and regal Ram tunes into his third eye and follows his intuition. His intuition is empowered by the fire of the navel center. The instinctual navel center and the intuitive third eye have achieved an integration of the body/emotions and the mind/spirit. In total awareness and with perfected calculation, he can act directly in response to life's challenges, and purposefully take action to create a fulfilling life and a better world.

Yogi Bhajan expresses the practical relationship between the navel center and the third eye in the following quote: "In order to achieve your main desire, you need a directed thought form. That is commitment. It means that you have to have an incorrigible, unchangeable, undefeatable, undying will".

The third eye is used to direct our thoughts. The navel center focuses the capacity of our will. Aries ultimate goal is to get in touch with his soul and let his soul guide him throughout his journey through life.

Kundalini Yoga - Third Eye, Navel Center Integration Meditation

Meditations using the following mantras instruct us to pump the navel center while chanting each sound:

• Har Har Har, etc
• Hari Har
• Hari, Hari, Hari Har and
• Har, Hare, Hari, Wa He Guru

As we pull the navel center toward the spine, we can also be aware of moving the fire energy created, up the spine to the third eye. The fire facilitates the opening of the third eye and creates a connection between the third and sixth chakras.

Har, Hare, Hari, Wa He Guru can be chanted in easy pose in a monotone or with a CD such as Longing to Belong by Gurudass (below). This mantra is also used in Brainwave Meditation which can be found in my free online Kundalini Yoga course Lesson 22.

Chant for 11, 15, 22 or 31 minutes.

Har, Har, Har is used in exercise #5 in the set for the Kidneys on page 101 of Relax and Renew 2nd Edition, specifically to connect the navel and the third eye. There are numerous other times these mantras are used in both Kundalini Yoga kriyas and meditations. Whichever one you choose, gradually build the connection between your intuitive and instinctual faculties.

As you chant, pull in the navel point towards the spine, and feel the fire at the navel move up the spine to the third eye. Feel the navel and the third eye pulse together. The navel and the sixth chakra are both experienced as points. They are our centering mechanisms. When they are joined and synchronized, our life force and our wisdom unite to create a sense of authentic power.

Practicing these mantras in this way will wire you, to act from the purity of your soul impulses and the clarity of the wisdom of our intuition. Soul and Spirit are integrated into one unified force. Your instincts and intuition will work together to give you accurate, insightful information.

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