You are a piece of the collective consciousness.
Your mind, memories, thoughts and ideas are yours … and ours.
What you feel and think, you are putting in, sharing and augmenting the field with. Others can access this information if they want to, and what others feel and think can be accessed by you if you want to, and for some people, even if they don’t – any empaths reading this will know this only too well!
There are different levels, different “sub-collectives of consciousness” filled with available information; if you’ve ever walked into a room full of people and felt a certain atmosphere, this is what you’re tapping into. Companies, schools, geographical areas, even families have a kind of sub-collective consciousness that can all be accessed: it’s not as spooky or woo-woo as it actually sounds when you start to break it down… and you’re probably doing it already.
You can choose to be absorbed by these sub-collective consciousnesses, letting the thoughts, beliefs and feelings they contain dominate yours, or you can resist, which is much harder. Their invasive nature isn’t always a bad thing: imagine you’re in a slump and a friend drags you along to a party where everyone’s having a good time. It’s probably going to be pretty hard not to join in and become one of the collective cheerleaders! But if you wake up happy and everyone around you is glum, it may be just as hard to keep that smile on your face, if the collective vibe is just not feeling it.
The collective consciousness and all its minor expressions are real and powerful interactive containers, in which we exist. Not good, not bad. Real.
On the 13th June at 12:43 PT / 20:43 UK time, the New Moon falls at 22º of Gemini.
As a mutable air sign, Gemini rules the mind, the ether, the connective channels through which we share information. Seen and unseen.
Gemini thinks quickly, disseminates information, spreads it, shares it and also chooses what not to reveal so freely. Ruled by Mercury, the trickster of the planetary pantheon, Gemini decides which dots to leave un-joined.
This New Moon is a Supermoon, which means She swings extremely close to Earth on her orbit, though of course, being dark and conjoining the Sun, we won’t see this. But we will feel it.
Supermoons are well known for creating extremely high (and low) tides … and the energetic and emotional extremes, though perhaps less well documented, are no less potent. Which means that at the time of this Supermoon, your power to put in, augment and share into the collective consciousness and all it’s sub-levels, is also very high. And your mercurial capacity to share and spread information is also being heightened by this New Supermoon. So choose wisely what you share.
Talk with care.
Feel authentically (and not as a programmed response)
Connect with love.
Speak the truth.
As well as strengthening your ability to add and alter the state of the collective consciousness, this lunation will also amplify your ability to receive from it.
You may feel overly sensitive, empathically connected to other people and almost prophetic in your spontaneous knowledge of what comes next. These are states that, to be honest, we will all have to get used to as we move closer toward the New Earth paradigm, so you had better start practicing how to navigate such wide open channels now.
There is something else happening here, another gift from this New Supermoon in particular. The channels of communication are being opened sky high.
Uranus, which has just entered Taurus and is beginning its long task of shattering our illusions of earthly delight, and is currently making a tight sextile to Gemini’s ruler, Mercury. These two planets are intrinsically connected (above and beyond this aspect) as Uranus is the higher octave planet to Mercury, elevating its qualities from the personal to the collective, and from the immediate to the universal.
This current harmonious and very beneficent aspect serves to raise the access point of this lunation even higher, offering us a strong connection to a higher consciousness. The Gemini is us all is being activated and enlivened not only by the proximity and darkness of this Supermoon, but by it’s ruling planet’s sextile to it’s own higher octave planet! It’s a pretty rare alignment of events and what this all means for us, for you, is that if you choose to open up to it, there is a LOT of high frequency, evolutionary information accessible to you at this juncture. Make space, make time and crucially, lead with intention, and some radical downloads of insight WILL come your way.
As inferred before, intention here is key. So when this New Moon phase begins, which is around three days before it is exact (the 10th June) set a clear intention to receive/connect/understand (whatever it is you wish for, from this New Supermoon) and make space for it to happen.
It will.
New Moon Blessings,
K
Raven taken in Alberta, Canada by wise owl Keith
Gibbous Moon Phase: trust
Moon in Pisces
Sun: 10 Libra – “a canoe approaching safety through dangerous waters”
Earth: 10 Aries – “a teacher gives new symbolic forms to traditional images”
When the Sun reaches 10 Libra, “a canoe approaching safety through dangerous waters,” as it is today, we are well-advised to be cautious. The energetic can be challenging to navigate. Decisions tend to have long-lasting or even unanticipated consequences.
The keyword in the symbol is “approaching.” The canoe is approaching safety, but not there yet. It is still in “dangerous waters.” The symbol does tell us that calm is ahead, and it is important to remember this as we go through the day. It is important to TRUST this.
Trust is the key today, and it will save us a lot of wasted energy (worry) if we engage it as our “go to.” We are in the Gibbous Moon phase of the second of two lunar months that are like month-long Gibbous Moon phases, so the Gibbous theme of trusting is in super-force.
The energetic that the Earth is discharging, “a teacher gives new symbolic forms to traditional images” tells us to use our personal discernment to avoid getting “talked into” something or “told” what is true. We want to be cautious of not following anything that could potentially be (mass) mind controlling. A good way to do this is to check multiple sources, not just one or not just the “voice of authority” (which may be the voice of tyranny). Use your own mind to think and analyze. Revisions are good under this energetic, but only if they have honesty and integrity at their core, so keep a high heart and mind.
What we think and feel has great influence today, so we want to attend to Wisdom and Will and maintain our course. This month has us seizing our willpower, and today that may face challenges. All we need to do is persevere. We are skilled at this, as we have been practicing it all our lives. We are strong, and we need to remember it. Keep your head. Let’s trust in the aeons Sophia and Thelete’s abilities to implement solutions. Take a deeper look and see a bit longer-term. Look for magical happenings underway to revise life conditions (the second keyword for Gibbous phase is “magic”).
As we navigate the day, let’s remember that all waters lead to liberty, even (especially) the “dangerous waters.”
(Note: The Sun and Earth had already moved to these degrees when the Las Vegas shootings occurred.)
Copyright Oracle Report 2009 – 2017. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to repost is granted provided credit is given to www.oraclereport.com.
NorthPoint Astrology Journal
Highlighted Aspects This Week
MON: Venus semisquare Uranus, Mercury trine Pluto
TUE: Pluto square Ceres
WED: Sun square Neptune
THU: Venus square Neptune, Sun opposite Saturn
FRI: Venus opposite Saturn
SAT: Sun square Jupiter, Venus square Jupiter, New Moon 7:59pm PDT (2:59am GMT on Sunday)
OUR SENSE OF “REALITY” continues to be challenged this coming week. In one moment, we may feel hopeful and inspired, and just a short time later feel depressed and disillusioned. Our nervous systems and mental capacities are being stressed to their maximum as we work with the unstable energies of the mutable t-square involving Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune.
This t-square is pushing us to face and move through many of the karmic patterns we brought into this lifetime. Because it is working on emotional, mental, and physical levels, we may feel especially moody, confused, and exhausted when we run into places where the energy is stuck.
THE ULTIMATE INTENTION of a t-square, according to astrologer Bil Tierney, is to “drive us onward with a well-defined sense of aim and direction, while forcing us to confront and overcome obstacles in our path.” It appears that many of the obstacles involved with this particular t-square are mental, as we are challenged to overcome long-standing pessimistic, cynical, or judgmental thought patterns and beliefs.
As we do our work to free up these areas where the energy has been blocked, Mr. Tierney writes that we begin to “harness and control the versatile powers of our minds” and become “capable of masterful technique in all areas of mental creativity.”
THE INFLUENCE of the t-square is emphasized this week starting on Wednesday, when the Sun and Venus begin interacting with the t-square planets. But, we are likely to feel the strongest effects around the time of the New Moon over the weekend (Saturday at 7:59pm PDT/Sunday at 2:59am GMT).
At the time of the New Moon, three planets (the Sun, Moon, and Venus) are all at 14 degrees of Gemini, filling in the missing leg of the t-square. This creates a mutable grand cross with Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune.
IF YOUR BIRTH CHART contains planets or points between 11 and 16 degrees of one of the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, or Pisces), this is an especially important and powerful New Moon for you. Over the next four weeks, a specific part of your personality and certain areas of your life are being reconfigured. As you allow this shift to happen, open your mind and forgive and release the past, you also open doors to new experiences and spiritual growth.
For all of us, this new lunar cycle is designed — and perhaps destined — to sensitize us and open our hearts (Pisces), help us gain a broader perspective and understand deeper meanings (Sagittarius), enhance our conscious understanding and ability to think through important issues (Gemini), and assist us in clarifying the practical steps we need to take to make improvements in our lives and in the world (Virgo).
THE CHALLENGE is working with so much energy — and so many growth demands! — all at once. Watch especially for the signs that mean it’s past time to take a break, such as respiratory problems, nervous tension, and mental stress.
This is a time of accelerated evolution for those who are willing to participate. Throughout the next four weeks, it will be vital to take the time — and make it a priority — to calm your mind, reflect and relax, meditate, write down your thoughts and your dreams (waking and sleeping), and otherwise shift your consciousness to provide a break from the pressures of so many “growth opportunities.” It is, of course, very important to do this in healthy ways, since it can be tempting to fall into old habits of addiction, avoidance, and escapism as a way to cope.
THE SABIAN SYMBOL for the New Moon provides another way to help us navigate the energies of the new lunar cycle:
“Two Dutch children talking to each other, exchanging their knowledge: The need to clarify one’s experiences through actual contacts with like-minded individuals.”
We all know that it can be very fulfilling to interact with others who share our beliefs and support our life perspective. This image of the Dutch children — and the fact that conversational Gemini is the “missing leg” of the ongoing t-square — reminds us that sharing experience and knowledge with others is a vital part of our process.
HERE’S MORE from astrologer Dane Rudhyar about the meaning of this Sabian symbol:
“Transcendent experiences and supernormal faculties must be tested and clarified through the use of normal and collectively tested means of communication … this demands a ‘clean’ and open mind, eager to test what is experienced in an exchange of views with one’s peers.”
When we’re in the midst of so many changes, we can sometimes withdraw into ourselves. And, introspection is of course essential. But this New Moon reminds us that our growth also involves interaction and sharing with others. We are not alone, and even brief exchanges with others who support our journey can be very helpful now. Those “others” may be dear friends or family members, or even a therapist or practitioner who you feel can be your ally at this time.
REGISTER NOW FOR MY JUNE TELECLASS! After so much change and growth already this year, are you wondering what the last six months of 2016 have in store? In “Bridging Realities,” my teleclass at the end of June, we will talk about everything that’s going on astrologically during the last half of the year. The class will provide insights and explain timing to help you take advantage of the opportunities and navigate the challenges ahead.
To read more about the class, please click on this link:
Please note that when you register, you should immediately receive an email confirmation from EventBrite. This email contains important instructions for attending the teleclass and listening to the replay. If you don’t find it in your inbox, please check your spam folder!
Below, you’ll see the title page of my slideshow for the class, which contains a photo of a suspension bridge. This is the image I’m using to represent the themes for the last half of 2016.
I hope you can join us!
In peace,
Pam
Copyright Pam Younghans 2016. All rights reserved.
Seed Libraries Fight for the Right to Share
State crackdowns heighten interest in this alternative to conglomerate farming
By Christopher D. Cook, On the Commons | Spirit of Change
Published: July 15, 2015
It’s easy to take seeds for granted. Tiny dry pods hidden in packets and sacks, they make a brief appearance as gardeners and farmers collect them for future planting then later drop them into soil. They are not “what’s for dinner,” yet without them there would be no dinner. Seeds are the forgotten heroes of food—and of life itself.
Sharing these wellsprings of sustenance may sound innocuous enough, yet this increasingly popular exchange—and wider seed access—is up against a host of legal and economic obstacles. The players in this surreal saga, wherein the mere sharing of seeds is under attack, range from agriculture officials interpreting seed laws, to powerful corporations expanding their proprietary and market control.
Seed libraries—a type of agricultural commons where gardeners and farmers can borrow and share seed varieties, enriching their biodiversity and nutrition—have sprouted up across the U.S. in recent years, as more Americans seek connection to food and the land. This new variety of seed sharing has blossomed from just a dozen libraries in 2010 to more than 300 today. The sharing of seeds “represents embedded knowledge that we’ve collected over 10,000 years,” says Jamie Harvie, executive director of the Institute for a Sustainable Future, based in Duluth, Minnesota. “Healthy resilient communities are characterized not by how we control other people, and more about valuing relationships.”
10 corporations occupy 76% of the global seed market. Monsanto alone has 26%, with Du Pont and Syngenta not far behind.
As Harvie suggests, seed libraries offer a profound alternative to the corporate takeover of seeds, which has reached frightful proportions: according to the non-profit ETC Group, just three firms control more than half of the worldwide seed business (more than doubling their 22% share in 1996), while the top ten corporations now occupy 76 percent of the global market. Monsanto alone has 26 percent of the world’s seed market, with Du Pont and Syngenta not far behind.
A 2013 report by ETC Group shows the startling scope of the industry’s market power, across the panorama of seeds, agrochemicals, and genetics: Four firms control 58.2% of seeds; 61.9% of agrochemicals; 24.3% of fertilizers; 53.4% of animal pharmaceuticals; and, in livestock genetics, 97% of poultry and two-thirds of swine and cattle research.
Kristina Hubbard, communications director for the Organic Seed Alliance, sees a direct connection between corporate control and the seed-sharing movement. “I think community-based projects like seed libraries are at least in part a direct response to concerns people have about who controls our seed,” explains Hubbard. “It’s a necessary response, as seed industry consolidation continues and is increasing the vulnerability of our seed and food systems. We need more decision makers in the form of seed stewards, and more resiliency in our seed and food systems.”
Seed Libraries Rising
“Love the earth around you,” urges Betsy Goodman, a 27-year-old farmer in Western Iowa, where “most of the landscape is covered in uniform rows of corn and soybeans.” Working on an 11-acre organic farm that sprouts 140 varieties of tomatoes and 60 varieties of peppers, among other crops, Goodman has become something of a seed evangelist. In 2012, she launched the Common Soil Seed Library, just across the Missouri River in nearby Omaha, Nebraska—enabling area gardeners and farmers to borrow some 5,000 seed packets (112 different varieties) to date.
“It didn’t make sense to me that no one was perpetuating the cycle of seed and life,” says Goodman. “People have this idea that you put a seed in the ground, harvest your food, and let it die.” Goodman says she is working to perpetuate life. “The basis of our whole food system comes from the seed,” she says. “I think people are not generally conscious of how grateful we should be for our food diversity and wealth.”
Goodman sees the seed library as an essential reclaiming of farming traditions and local food security. “I want farmers to go back to saving seeds. It’s our responsibility to uphold our food system. It takes everybody.” But, she says, many farmers remain isolated and unaware of the seed-sharing movement. “The consciousness around this is not there yet. I haven’t really heard from farmers yet…The farmers buy their seed each year from Monsanto and Syngenta, this huge industrial system that’s very much in control of this state and surrounding states.” Farmers, she adds, “rely on these companies to buy their corn, they are very tied into these companies, and can’t even feed themselves off of the food they’re growing.”
Motivated by similar concerns, the Wisconsin Seed Savers Alliance has helped germinate six seed libraries (with three more on the way this spring) across five counties in the state’s economically isolated northeast, along the shores of Lake Superior.
“A lot of food grown here is shipped away,” says Alliance director Tessah Wickus. She explains that seed libraries are about “sharing the burden of growing food and making sure we all have something nutritious…We don’t have a whole lot of income sources, our schools are in the system for hot lunch programs, and we have a high poverty rate. One of the concerns here is food security and expanding local foods.”
While small in scale, Wisconsin’s seed library alliance has tapped a well of interest among new farmers and old, says Wickus, who is 25. “Sharing seeds is part of helping the next generation of farmers…[T]his is an integral part of how to survive and sustain yourself, how to pass along knowledge from one generation to another. People have a hunger to know where their food comes from, something we’ve lost.”
About 200 miles westward, on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, a new seed library offers varieties of sunflower, bean, corn and other seeds to residents—many of whom are poor and seeking a reconnection to indigenous food and farming. Most of the money here “goes off the reservation,” says Zachary Paige, farm manager at the White Earth Land Recovery Project. “This is one way to get the economy back on the reservation, and save money for food, instead of buying seeds from catalogs,” he says, while also “closing that loop in producing food.”
Paige (who is not Native American) helped start the White Earth Seed Library two years ago, and is working with local college and school garden projects to cultivate traditional seed varieties. He points to an indigenous tradition of growing and sharing food, and a revival of highly nutritious pre-Columbus crops, such as Bear Island Corn. Sharing seeds fits into a larger goal on the reservation of “trying to eat healthier and relieve diabetes.”
Seed-Sharing Crackdown
But all this seed-sharing love is butting up against some prodigious economic and regulatory challenges. As the libraries spread across the US, they are catching scrutiny from agriculture officials in states such as Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Iowa, who express concerns about unlabeled seed packets, and the spreading of contaminated seeds and noxious or invasive species.
One flashpoint in this battle is a small seed library in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, which ran into a regulatory dispute with the state’s department of agriculture. Last June, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture informed an employee of the Joseph T. Simpson Public Library that its seed library ran afoul of state seed laws and would have to shut down or follow exorbitant testing and labeling rules intended for commercial seed enterprises. County Commissioner Barbara Cross raised the specter of terrorism, telling local media, “Agri-terrorism is a very, very real scenario,” she said. “Protecting and maintaining the food sources of America is an overwhelming challenge…so you’ve got agri-tourism on one side and agri-terrorism on the other.”
The library was forced to limit its sharing, holding a special seed swapping event instead. As Mechanicsburg seed librarian Rebecca Swanger explained to media at the time, “We can only have current-year seeds, which means 2014, and they have to be store-purchased because those seeds have gone through purity and germination rate testing. People can’t donate their own seeds because we can’t test them as required by the Seed Act.”
While the Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC) insists that laws regulating large commercial seed companies do not apply to seed libraries, “other states are now considering adopting Pennsylvania’s seed protocol,” Shareable reported—potentially stopping the seed library movement in its tracks.
But Pennsylvania and some other states “have misapplied the law entirely,” says Neil Thapar, staff attorney at SELC, which is spearheading a national seed library campaign called Save Seed Sharing. Pennsylvania’s Seed Act, he says, “does not actually authorize the state agriculture department to regulate noncommercial seed sharing through seed libraries.”
Thapar argues that applying state seed laws to the libraries is “inappropriate because it violates the original spirit and intent of these laws. Seed laws were created solely as consumer protection laws to protect farmers from unscrupulous seed companies in the marketplace.” In contrast, seed sharing takes place outside of markets, as a “noncommercial activity in community.”
Minnesota’s budding seed library movement has encountered similar resistance. Last September, the state’s department of agriculture (MDA) informed the Duluth Seed Library that it was in violation of state seed laws that prohibit transferring ownership of seeds without comprehensive testing. Harvie, who helped organize the library effort in Duluth, recalls the crackdown “really shocked people…it seemed like an egregious overreach.”
Harvie says the Department of Agricultures enforcement nationally is galvanizing people to support seed libraries. “What people are asking is, who’s being hurt,” he says. “Nobody is being hurt. The only one anyone can imagine being hurt is the seed industry.”
Was the seed industry behind the MDA’s actions? Harvie does not suspect a conspiracy, but he notes, “There had to be some pressure, the [MDA] has plenty of other things to do. Perhaps the MDA knew that by purposefully enforcing the law, it would draw out support for saving.”
Minnesota’s Seed Program Advisory Group, which advises the MDA on state seed laws, meets three times a year and publishes no records of its meetings. Its members include major state commodity groups such as the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, Soybean Growers Association, and the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.
When the advisory group met last December, Harvie recalls, “I think the Department of Agriculture was excited for us to be at the meeting. It provided them with some community voice,” he says, “when too often it is only industry that can afford the time and expense of attending meetings. The lesson is, the community has to stand up and be present.”
With nationwide challenges to seed libraries, activists worry about a chilling effect on this nascent and increasingly popular form of seed-sharing. In Omaha, Nebraska, the community “has responded really well and been very supportive” of Common Soil’s initiative, says Goodman. “We’re not being attacked, we are being supported,” she says, by gardeners and lawmakers interested in putting the libraries on more solid legal ground. But, she adds, “I was approached by others across Nebraska who wanted to open seed libraries, but they were afraid they would put all this work in and get shut down.”
It remains unclear whether the seed industry has played any role in promoting the enforcement push, but this powerful agribusiness sector is vigilant about expanding its control over seeds. As first reported by MintPress News this January, the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is peddling its “Pre-Emption of Local Agricultural Laws Act”—a law providing “exclusive regulatory power over agricultural seed, flower seed and vegetable seed and products of agriculture seed, flower seed and vegetable seed to the state.” Despite the conservative mantra of “local control,” ALEC’s measure would prohibit local governments from enacting or enforcing measures to “inhibit or prevent the production or use of agricultural seed, flower seed or vegetable seed or products.”
Meanwhile, the American Seed Trade Association advocates for “Strong intellectual property protection,” to keep investment dollars flowing, and to “add value to agriculture and society through new products. Any state legislation that could undermine this simple principle is vigorously opposed.”
Asked for its stance on seed libraries, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) stated, “We have not received any formal complaints of mislabeled seed being distributed in interstate commerce through these programs (seed libraries).” The Federal Seed Act (FSA) governs “truthful labeling of agricultural and vegetable seed shipped in interstate commerce,” the agency said, adding, “It remains to be seen if any of the seed being obtained from these libraries will make it into interstate commerce.” Unless the seeds are shipped across state lines, or “determined to be a variety protected” under the federal Seed Act, the FSA “has no jurisdiction over this seed. Individual States will need to establish internal methods of dealing with labeling and possible mislabeling of the seed packets.”
Saving the Libraries
As state agriculture agencies consider whether to curtail seed libraries, legislative efforts are underway in Nebraska, Minnesota, and other states, to protect them. The Community Gardens Act [pdf] currently moving through the Nebraska legislature would exempt seed libraries from state laws governing seed labeling and testing. In December 2014, the city council of Duluth, Minnesota passed a resolution supporting seed sharing “without legal barriers of labeling fees and germination testing.”
Perhaps more significantly, the Duluth resolution advocated reforming the Minnesota Seed Law to “support the sharing of seeds by individuals and through seed libraries,” by exempting these forms of sharing from the law’s labeling, testing, and permitting requirements. After one reform measure was withdrawn from the Minnesota legislature, activists are gearing up for another legislative push soon.
In coming months, seed-sharing advocates can expect legislative battles across the US—some seeking to expand libraries’ sharing rights, and others limiting the exchange. Meanwhile, agribusiness continues to widen its economic and legal control over the world’s seed supply. “Seed sharing is an interactive and vibrant contrast to the extractive marketplace,” says Harvie. The battle over seed libraries and sharing represents “a clash of worldviews that just don’t reconcile.”
Despite the challenges, Goodman remains buoyant about the seed library movement. “It’s natural for companies to try to get power over this, but it’s our responsibility to push back and establish our freedom,” she says. “We are losing huge chunks of our food system, and it’s our responsibility to reclaim it. We have to be the ones to do it.”
Please sign the Save Seed Sharing petition. Further reading on the Save Seed Sharing campaigns.
Christopher D. Cook is an award-winning journalist and author. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, the Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Nation, Mother Jones and elsewhere. He is the author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis. http://www.christopherdcook.com.
See also:
United Plant Savers’ Botanical Sanctuary Network
Pesticide Free Farming and Gardening
Remember, these are the days we’ve been waiting for. May we flow gracefully with change… -PB
You see the changes happening within you with your inner eye, for so much of what is going on now, is taking place in that inner landscape of yours. And even if some of what we are referring to is indeed happening to your physical body, most of it is happening in a space that is not defined by any such boundaries. In fact, most of what is going on now is taking place in those parts of Creation that mankind seems to think do not exist at all, or perhaps only as figments of your imagination. Well, let us just say that in this, you could not be more wrong, for the space we refer to, is indeed far more real than the illusion your currently look upon as your reality.
Let us explain. Mankind has for eons gotten used to the idea – for that is truly what…
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