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“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man; that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Last week’s Transit of Venus left me bemused as an astrologer. I researched the phenomenon, but found nothing that seemed to fit, nothing I could feel any kind of resonance with. So I simply marked its passing here on the blog-site with a factual account and a good film courtesy of NASA. I now perceive that, at a deeply personal level, this retrograde Transit represents a ‘gestation’ period for Love; it represents an opportunity in time for all of us to reflect on Love’s place in our lives and in the world. It is time to face up to reality.

Since the Transit I have experienced several dreams significant enough to alter my waking perceptions, igniting a kind of ‘opening of the heart’ that is causing me to become more heart-fully aware of a world in great fear and suffering – and horror at the sheer scale of human acts of depravity and cruelty around the world. I have become more aware too of various movements and individuals who are mobilising in a loving way to evolve and take Humanity to a harmonious state. I am especially glad to have encountered Kevin Annett, a gentle, soft-spoken, yet very courageous and tenacious ex (yes, they threw him out) United Church of Canada Minister who has endured and struggled to reveal the hidden holocaust of Canada’s aboriginal children - not for punishment or retribution, but to try to put things right. Below is a link to a full-length documentary, which has received numerous accolades, including Best Director of an International Documentary, New York Independent Film and Video Festival, New York, November 2006, and Best International Documentary (Feature), NY Independent Film Festival, Los Angeles, March 2007. Please take the time to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=88k2imkGIFA

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?  William Blake

The almost unbelievable extent of violence, horror, death, oppression, greed and depravity that humanity has perpetrated during this long night of our dark age - in far flung places, and closer to home – reveal our species to be capable of a peculiar viciousness that takes pleasure from artistically torturing its prey. My reactions and responses have ranged across a fairly predictable spectrum of emotion; empathy and distress, frustration and anger, despair and hopelessness. I can’t change the big stuff, but yet somehow finding strength to look at it and accept it has set in motion a deep kind of inner reflection, re-evaluating and redefining what matters and how I go about my life in the world.

Venus’ retrograde motion as she transited the face of the Sun has created an opportunity to re-evaluate Love in our lives, and take care of unresolved hurts and resentments. Her retrograde motion is the gestation period of Love, and when she resumes forward motion on 27th June, I hope more and more people will overcome their feelings of fear and suspicion (mother and father of hatred), and begin to reach out to their neighbours, colleagues, and the many strangers they meet in their daily lives.

This recent transit of Venus signalled a kind of ‘awakening’ to the transformative power of Love. I don’t mean necessarily a sentimental, romantic kind of love (nothing wrong with that, by the way!) but the kind of Love that recognises we are all unique, individual cells of one whole organism called Humanity. To hurt another person is to hurt the self. War is a mad kind of self-destruction.

Coming down from global concerns to my own small existence, I realise that trust has to be a big factor in turning this world around, from the bottom up. If trust grows, fear and suspicion will just disappear. However, as we all carry around an assortment of ‘usual suspects’ in our baggage of personal insecurity - who will be willing to trust first?

I once read a story about a man who conducted an experiment. He started up a bakery business, and decided to deliver up great trays of fresh doughnuts and pastries to local businesses and factories each morning – along with an honesty box. His advisers said he was nuts, and that he’d be lucky to find a few pounds and some foreign coins in his so-called ‘honesty’ boxes at the end of each day. But they were wrong. His boxes were only ever short by around 5% each day as a small minority did not (or could not) pay. He worked out that he could easily carry this, and so his business grew from there.

What would you do if you could drop the baggage of fear? What is in your basket of gifts that insecurity is preventing you from expressing for the benefit of all? To lovingly share what we have brought with us, to be who we were meant to be regardless of notions about status, income, or pride (the currency of fear) is what will set us free. Love is about ‘taking heart’, having the courage to do the right thing, and not living in fear.

I am currently working out new ways to share my own gifts, and I’ll make an announcement about that here on the blog very shortly. In the meantime, pregnant with love, I send you my sincerest wishes for bliss and happiness ..