The Stars Tell All at the Star of the East

 

The Stars Tell All at The Star Of The East

by Kathy Lee Strong

Namaste! I greet the light in you.

The ninth anniversary of ‘The Star of The East’ and an opportunity to ‘read the stars’. Rev. Pamela Crane usually prepares charts for people - but here she was preparing charts for a building, and what beautiful charts they were!

I must admit that I took one look at the charts and being a life-long avoider of anything that looks remotely mathematical (I put it down to a bad teacher – I like blaming, takes away my sense of guilt), I went into total confusion. For the first time since I had started writing for The Star of the East, I wanted to run out of the door!

Good thing I didn’t, because the evening unfolded to wondrous revelations of our future at ‘The Star of the East’. If you are remotely interested in helping yourself and other people to heal, read on.

Karin introduced her guest with her usual aplomb but this evening there was an added edge of humility and elation. Karin told us that it was in gratitude for the many people who had helped and supported her over the years - those still there and those who had passed on, some recently.

It was also the ninth anniversary of the hall and the day had been filled with celebration of our purpose for being there. There was definitely a sense of awe, wonder, and thankfulness that we had travelled this long road for nine years. As a newcomer, I could only watch in deep respect these people who had decided to commit their lives to helping people find meaning in their lives.

The first thing that Reverend Pam Crane told us was that our actual Solar birthday was the previous day, and our cosmic patterns suggested that we were living in the real world and coping with it well. This has to do with earthy, practical Taurus - which is ideally a sign of peace.

This was followed by an explanation of the Sun, (a male energy) in our chart, describing our Heart, and the kind of men drawn to the Star of the East – committed, peaceful, practical, good with the purse strings. I distinctly heard a few grunts of approval at this comment! A deeper Solar energy we have is womanly, child-like, protective, nurturing, and can apply to men here as well as women.

Opposite the Sun in our chart is a Full Moon in Scorpio. Scorpio is Grand Opera! A sign of the occultist – do not be frightened by the word – it is a sign of great healing and works in this way whenever you are in a divine place invoking God. The energy of Scorpio is concerned with transformation and resurrection. The Moon represents the women here, our Soul, and the public, as it is an living archetype of women as opposed to a lifeless stereotype.

The people who belong here are therefore deep, committed, courageous, always looking for a fresh challenge and potentially healers if not already so. (Look around you – what do you see?)

There are symbolic levels of spiritual expression within all the Zodiac signs; Scorpio at its highest is the Dove, and below this are the Eagle, then the Scorpion, then the lowly Frog.

We have, most importantly, a Fixed Grand Cross at the centre of our chart. It is a mark of distinction to be born with a Grand Cross. (The symbol for matter is a circle with a cross in it.) From its challenges will come great strength. Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius are the signs on its arms. It is formed by the Full Moon crossed by Jupiter which is the Spirit of the Law vs. Saturn which is the letter of the law.

We should ‘honour the Spirit of the Law’ because it is the Spirit that gives life. But we must never ignore the Letter of the Law either, as it helps us manifest the Spirit in the material world.

There was a warning to remain calm, patient, organised, detached, and sensible in our approach to life but with a proviso that Guidance (in the shape of Neptune) would always be available to take us forward. An energetic but serious Mercury would aid our communications and there would be many moments of transforming illumination (via Uranus).

We need to be learning, thinking and talking about suffering, healing and enlightenment. A strong Aries in our chart indicated that we need to work at maintaining interest, as its element, Fire, can lose interest as fast as it finds it! We must therefore lengthen the attention span.

The only way we can do this is to give more time and reflection and peace to ideas. We need to go deep and be enthusiastic. Once we arrive where we think we need to be, we need to sustain it. Reverend Crane used an Oak tree metaphor; we need to give something time so it grows slowly and grows strongly – not just quick in and quick out. ( This is also true for the world at large!)

Our rising sign, or “Ascendant” (which is the face we present to the world, learned through responding to its demands) is Virgo, and Virgo rising tends to want to help. It represents humility and attention to detail. We are therefore content to do the little essential things which are actually the critical things. (Who actually does make the tea??)

On the Meridian, or “Midheaven”, there is another identity that we build for ourselves – the ‘I did this’ type of identity. This represents your own ambition, goals, aspirations, and how you fulfil these creates this part of your identity, the ‘What do you do, then?’- ‘I’m a rich and famous brain surgeon!’ syndrome.

At the Star of the East, then, our identity is that of a busy place where people come. In the Star of the East chart, this is shown by Venus which is at our Midheaven. This is the planet of love, pleasure, peace, beauty, and harmony. Our Venus is in Gemini – very diverse, needs lots of things to do, experience and see, like pictures, books and pretty things. Pam Crane assured us we were providing all that beautifully at the hall. (I was relieved – I am a Gemini!)

Jesus Himself, born on May 7^th 5BC, was a Taurean ruled by Venus. So St. John called him “the bright and morning star.”

The role of the Star of the East is to provide this delightful, welcoming environment and within it to give selflessly to those who come here the spiritual healing, the emotional and psychic energy they need and ask for.

From our viewpoint on the Earth, you do not see the planets in their proper relationship/perspective. Although we cannot live physically on the Sun to see the universe accurately, we need to place ourselves mentally there to get a ‘God’s eye view’ of us.

If we were able to do this, we would get a completely different view of how the planetary energies relate geometrically to the Earth and to each other. We would see our true nature, instead of the illusory nature of incarnation.

Applied to the Star Of The East for instance, inherent creativity is shown in the united male and female energies of Mars and Venus. The Cross, with its great life-challenges, would no longer be there. The advice was that as long as we keep God involved in all that we do, we will cope with the main potential conflict ( a Pluto influence). We must therefore allow the Divine to feed us and respond to that Divinity.

Underlying everything is a wonderful, adventurous, philosophical, open mind, focussing on religion – absolutely heartfelt with boundless love (I blame it on Karin Page – thank God!)

Moving onto the second chart, the soul and karma of the Star of the East became apparent. The Sun-sign of the Soul is Cancer, so we believe in the importance of caring; we are like a big mother, protective and nurturing. It is always behind everything we do. Our aim is to nurture and embrace. Therefore the presence of Mother Meera is good and if we were to obtain a picture of Mother Mary for the hall - even better!

In contrast, the influence of the soul’s Moon in Capricorn provides a practical, calm, common-sense approach – we feed people with every kind of food metaphorically.

When we are at our most spiritual, we become very strong, deep, and committed. We offer heartfelt love, warmth and are very trustworthy. Our goal is to grow in love constantly, and to be spiritual warriors carrying the banner of love.

We have tremendous energy focussed on transforming people and bringing enlightenment. In the wrong hands, power to change somebody else can wreck their life. This needs to be practised at a far higher level, as we try to do always at the Star of the East.

Rev. Crane advised us to dwell on the positives and pass over weaknesses - just as in prayers for healing we do not give any illness its name and thus give the illness power.

She spoke briefly about Eastern astrology in India, which looks at even personal things in relation to the whole of creation. Indian culture puts others first ( family, children, relatives and so on). The incomes of wage-earners go first to support those they love, as opposed to our attitude in the West of thinking in terms of ‘me first’. We in the West are in a mess – this is an almighty challenge for all those who would serve.

On the 4^th May (not the 7^th, for calendar reasons), Jesus celebrates His own Solar Return. This is an opportunity to transform materiality into service and selflessness. Strangely enough, this is also the day chosen by Karin to do the World Peace Meditation at 1.00 p.m., when we have the opportunity to transform greed to peaceful co-existence.

As shown in the Eastern zodiac (the “Sidereal”), the Star of the East has a place in history – a place of leadership and the role of being a guiding light. This is the Aries Sun energy – ‘fight the good fight’ energy.

Opposite is the Moon in Libra which says that leadership has to be gentle, exercised quietly, patiently, diplomatically, calmly and preferably on a one to one basis.

Our sense of responsibility must be strong – the more we develop that, the more joy will animate us through our words and deeds (which is the Mercury influence on our minds and behaviour.)

The Star Of The East is now entering a three-year period of tremendous change. September and November this year are very important. Whatever it is that we are having to learn now is very important for the next phase of our work. Any pain we have to go through will help us the better to understand other people’s pain and therefore to help us to heal it.

For we can heal the world; and although it may appear to happen slowly, by improving our world little by little the change may escalate and eventually accelerate to produce real transformation.

We need to pay attention to the years 2001 through to 2003. These are crucial years for the Star of the East. We will grow through massive change and will have to do some deep soul searching. We need to chuck out what is no longer useful and maybe re-evaluate old ideas and reintroduce them. This is Pluto at work.

Something important is going to happen so we must try and be ready. The spiritually-aware are usually more prepared than others, because we are people already working at the process of Awakening. If Rev. Crane were talking to the spiritually asleep, she would be more worried by these patterns in the chart because such people are usually rudely awakened and suffer much. Our most important task is to listen to God at this time.

It seems that May next year is an important time – the time of our 10^th anniversary. This will be happy time for us but a year from that, grim reality sets in and could be connected to finance.

Rev. Crane warned that if there are any financial concerns, we must attend to them now. We must know exactly where every penny is coming from and going to. We must beware of large donations we cannot afford and beware of chaos at the material level. She cautioned us to keep orderly figures and ask for help Upstairs. Most of all we must reach out to God!

Karin confirmed that she is still trying to buy the hall but is being thwarted by a lack of information as to who the original owners are. (Here is some of the Neptunian confusion Pam Crane could see.) Her daughter had managed to trace the owners back to 1940 and had now come to a dead end. Anyone who can help with this valuable research should contact Karin as soon as possible.

I think that the main thing to come out of this evening if it is not already obvious is that the Star of the East Hall is for all of us. We can all be a part of the spiritual change we are trying to bring to our community. While many of us go there for our own healing (and there is nothing wrong with that), there is nothing so healing as to give something back to our fellow man.

What are you doing to contribute to your life here on earth? Something to think about maybe.

Until next time – Peace, and may you go with God!