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Spiritual Company Newsletter
By Steffan Vanel • Astrologer • Tarot Reader
Author of:
The Astrological Karma of the USA
Charles & Diana: The Inside Story: An Astrological-Karmic ViewNow on YouTube:
The Astrological Karma of the USA and The New Presidency
Bridging Heaven & Earth Show #238Goa & Confessions of a 60's Chauvinist
As I said in earlier newsletters, the original inspiration for this trip was an invitation to a four-day wedding held in Goa. I happen to be friends with the mother of the bride and her two daughters. They are an Indian family, now living in Atlanta, but largely from Delhi. One of the daughters, who now lives in New York, was marrying an American guy.
So the wedding was a clear mix of Indian and American cultures, inclusive of a ‘multi-faith’ service at the wedding itself. One clear purpose of a four-day wedding, however, was to allow the two immediate and extended families the time to blend and merge.
The first night was a Goan feast at a special restaurant. The second night was the applying of the Mehindi Henna tattoos on the bride, and anyone else who wanted, along with musical and other entertainments (including me doing short Tarot Readings on the side).
The third night was the wedding itself, with the groom arriving by elephant!
The ceremony was held on a platform under a canopy on the beach, during the setting Sun, the time of day associated with the Astrological sign Libra, the sign of balance, partnership and marriage. I also happened to know that the bride herself is a Libra.
Being a rather romantic Libra myself I thoroughly enjoyed this elaborately staged and decorated Libran, Prince and Princess wedding, here in the Libra section of the planet.
The Hindu ceremony was a lengthy, elaborate ritual with a burning fire helping in the transmutation of the two souls into one.
The reception and festivities went into the wee hours of the morning and the fourth day was a final brunch.
On the second and third days special outings were arranged for those interested in partaking. On the third day I took the tour to ‘Old Goa’, learning of the history of Goa and the Portuguese involvement there.
For those who don’t know, Goa was a Portuguese colony in India until 1961. You will get a range of reactions from people when you mention Goa, such as the young German woman I met in Bodhagaya who said, “I will never go to Goa, because it's not really India.”
Indeed, Goa is definitely different, with a large Catholic population and a level of horn honking at about 20% of what I have heard in the rest of India. But I think most Indians would resent being told Goa is not really India, as they know India herself is made up of a vast quilt of different cultures and religions, and Goa and its Catholicism just happens to be one of the patches on the quilt.
For others, Goa is known as a very popular tourist destination, including in recent years those drawn to the big techno trance parties Goa has become famous for.
Goa was also one for the assembling pilgrimage places of the hippies back in the 60's and 70's.
I must say, I had a pretty great time in Goa, making it to a hip town where I found an inexpensive room along a Cliffside path, shaded by coconut palms, above the sea, where all I could hear were waves, birds, and occasionally monkeys.
I found I could make some travel money doing Tarot Card readings at the end of the beach with the other blanket vendors at sunset, and at the famous Saturday Night Market. I was, once again, meeting people from all over the world, and from different parts of India.
The earlier tour of Old Goa, however, had one very profound moment for me. It was quite interesting to hear the history and view the body and coffin of Saint Francis Xavier, but at the end of the tour we were walking though the streets of the old part of the current capital, Panjim (where we actually met two elderly ladies who still spoke Portuguese).
Our guide, however, brought us to a restaurant, which used to be one of the few hotels in Panjim that would rent rooms to the hippies back in the 60’s. The hippies back then had written statements, poems, philosophies, and declarations on the walls and ceilings. They had been preserved and could be viewed in one room of the restaurant.
For me, walking into that room was like walking into a time capsule, because I had been in that same room in Boston, Atlanta, New York, San Francisco and Hawaii, all the places I had frequented during the ‘heady’ days of the 60’s and 70’s. It took me right back and got me rather sentimental.
Our guide had been in Goa at that time and she shared with us what it was like for her, how it was a time when people really were trying to believe in Love and that that was what was going to change the world. It may have been naive, but at least we really had that hope and that faith.
I honestly feel that my work and the information coming from Hilarion through M.B. Cooke have helped me to consider myself as an old hippie who never gave up the faith that the world really is going to change into the way we know in our hearts it can be.
As much fun as Goa was, I still couldn’t help wishing I could have been there back in the 60’s and 70’s, hence the subtitle of this newsletter: Confessions of a 60’s chauvinist.
In my next newsletter I will be writing about my visit to Pune (Poona), my experiences at the Osho Meditation Resort, and the EBook publication of another Hilarion book: ‘Dark Robes, Dark Brothers.’
One thing I can say now about Pune and the Osho (aka: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) is that it too was a place I first heard about from friends who were visiting there in the early 70’s, and again, visiting there now I couldn’t help but feel how I would have enjoyed being there back then when I am sure it was very different.
At the same time one must accept that everything unfolds as it is meant to. And I was certainly enjoying the 70’s in other venues!
Now, I would like to apply a little Astrology to this discussion.
Those of you who have heard me lecture in recent years have probably heard my ‘rap’ about the upcoming Pluto/Uranus squares, seven of them, over the next three years.
I now have a fuller discussion of those squares and the amazing Astrological heavenly configurations following this challenging period.
Here I just want to reference one part of that discussion, relevant to the time of the 60’s.
In the middle of the 1960’s there was a Pluto/Uranus conjunction. This was the start of a whole new Pluto/Uranus cycle and is the Astrological signature of what we call ‘The 60’s,’ which we know wasn’t all peace and love, but it was definitely deep Plutonian death/rebirth transformation from the underworld (inclusive of the ‘sexual revolution’) combined with surprise, unexpected, Uranian revolution and freedom from old patterns that had outlived their purpose.
It was conjuncting the natal Neptune of the United Sates, so there were some of the stronger manifestations of this transformation in spiritual, musical, and of course mind-altering substance consumptions.
This Pluto/Uranus conjunction was also squaring the natal Mars of the U.S, which was manifesting as Vietnam, all happening at the same time.
The thing is, most of us who are old enough to remember the 60’s can attest that it was a time of major transformation, when huge numbers of people were deeply questioning everything they had been told to believe.
As I say it, If I were to go back to the year 1970 and imagine where the world would be in the year 2012........ It would be way further than this!
But now I look at that Pluto/Uranus conjunction as a seed being planted, like a New Moon, Sun/Moon conjunction. And as that seed was being planted it created all of this transformation in consciousness.
But then those planets started to separate and that particular energy became subdued, more in the background, as other Astrological configurations came to the fore in intervening years.
But this year, and the next few years, Pluto and Uranus start to square each other, relatable to the First Quarter tension in the Lunar Cycle, the first real test and challenge as to how well one has lived up to the vision in the seed.
This is why we can already recognize sociological ‘weather patterns’ similar to the 60’s, i.e. the ‘Arab Spring’ and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movements.
People had a lot of different visions of what the 60’s was to teach us. Personally, I think the Beatles said it best: ‘Love is all there is.’
I am actually writing this newsletter from Pondicherry, India after having been in Pune, Mumbai (Bombay), and Tiruvannamalai. I’ve been too busy to keep up with completing my writings about those places, but will catch up soon.
It does seem significant, however, that this afternoon I am finishing this discussion about the 60’s is on the day that I had to wake up at 3:30 AM to go to a bonfire, ceremonial ritual meditation and celebration to commemorate the 44th birthday of the Auroville community, an international community with residents from 45 countries based on equality and unity, and started in 1968.
I’m always happy to see the pockets of the 60’s energies still continuing.
And I must say, even if Goa wasn’t the same as in the 60’s & 70’s, it was still a lot of fun and I shouldn’t be such a chauvinist!
Blessings,
Steffan Vanel
Steffan’s Spiritual Company Newsletters and ‘Starwise’ Monthly Forecasts are available by email on an annual, sliding-scale donation basis; from $10 - $50 a year.
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