COSMIC HEART CONGESTION? Planets cluster around Regulus in the lion in August, 2019

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On August 11th the Sun entered the fixed stars of Leo, the Lion, the macrocosmic heart region. This occurs during the peak of the Perseid meteors, those meteor showers which herald the Michael activity in the cosmos and the start of the Michael season...the season of courage and the call to resurrect intelligence to is true divine origins. Rudolf Steiner describes this meteor activity thus: Those impulses that are contained in the dispersed iron (from meteors) begin to have a special meaning for human beings: they are employed in the cosmos in the service of the spiritual by a special spiritual being, who here again acquires a special significance and whom we call the Michael-spirit...The cosmic iron with its spiritual efficacy makes it possible for the Michael-spirit to mediate between the supersensible world and the sensory world of Earth. (Rudolf Steiner, Hague, 1923) He also describes the Michael activity in human beings in The Michael Mystery as "Hearts begin to have thoughts, that is the new way of thinking with the heart." From about August 14th to the end of the month, we find a congestion of planets gathering in the Lion, the region of the heart, around the star Regulus. Regulus can be seen as the heart of the heart of the cosmos. It's latin name means "little king" and the Arabic name means "heart of the Lion". It was one of the four royal stars of ancient Persian astronomy/astrology. In the ancient Babylonian MUL APIN it is called Lupal, which means king. So this star is long associated with both the heart and with kingship. In ancient times the King was in a sense the "ego", of a folk or nation. He represented their connection with the divine guidance of the gods, their cosmic center in relation to the heavens. As evolution progressed, the divine kingship faded as the personal ego developed, so that each person has now became their own "king", their own "I". Yet there also came the turning point in evolution when the True Ego, the cosmic "I Am" united with the Earth, bringing the potential for a new Self to be born within this individuated self; that Self which can unite with the Christic Self in service of the world. Let us explore a bit the symbol, the hieroglyph, for Leo as a preparation for looking at the planetary activity in this region in August:

The symbol for Leo, the Lion, is a kind of hieroglyph of the heart. It is a small circle with a tail that curves outward towards the periphery. This symbol is like the heart, indicating the central place with the back and forth flow of center to periphery; of heart center to body periphery, in the flow in and out of the blood. However one can also expand this image in relation to the self by connecting the tail to a greater periphery, a cosmic sphere surrounding the centric sphere of self. This completed image takes on the greater meaning of Leo, in that it denotes this relationship of self to world, of my I to the greater I. This is a picture of the spiritual communion of the heart, of the self with the divine as wel l as with the world community of humanity. The challenge of Leo in these times is that the earthly narrow self becomes primary and egoistic and the interrelation communion or exchange with the higher cosmic periphery is lost.

From August 14th to 30th we have a gathering together of Mars, Venus, Mercury and Sun all conjuncting Regulus, with the New Moon culminating on August 30th passing Regulus. How can we understand this activity of the cosmic intelligences, meaning the interrelationships of the beings of the planetary spheres, as expressed in the movements of the visible planets now coming together with Regulus? Is it a time of congestion and challenge; "heart failure"? Or is it a time of renewed forces of love and transformation coming from the thinking heart out into the world? Is it a time of enhanced egotism or a time of recognizing the greater "I" in our shared humanity? These are questions in this configuration from the hierarchies of the planetary spheres to humanity which seem to be particularly relevant today in a time of increasing nationalism and separation of peoples. They await our answer. The stars do not determine our choices, our actions, but rather now wait for us to speak, to act. If we do not take up the questions, then we will reap the consequences of our lack of understanding of the spiritual tasks being asked of us. This is the essence of the new star wisdom for our times, of speaking to the stars. An important consideration out of astrosophy is that the physical planets themselves which we observe are merely pointers, somewhat like the hands on a clock, indicating the activity of the beings in the entire sphere of the planet. The term planet in the sense of astrosophy incorporates the entire sphere defined by the orbit of the planet as a kind of circumference of the sphere, yet the spheres interpenetrate each other. Within these spheres of consciousness (not physical spatial spheres per se) the hierarchic beings have their activity. So when we observe the position of a planet we are really being allowed through our senses to have a visible image of where the entire activity of the beings of that sphere are directing there intelligence, their relationships to each other, to the zodiac and to the earth. For example a 90 degree relationship indicates a kind of challenge or frustration between spheres, a 180 degree angle a kind of need to bring into balance the qualities which are on opposite sides, a conjunction a kind of meeting or conference between the planetary beings. So with this in mind, first let us look at the phenomena of the planetary bodies in the heavens. These are all exact conjunction days, but one must understand that these planets are all essentially "conjunct" or in close proximity to each other, gathering around Regulus during these weeks: August 11 Sun enters constellation of the Lion August 14 superior conjunction of Venus with Sun at Full Moon (meaning Venus behind the Sun from the Earth view) August 18 Mars conjunct Regulus August 21 Venus conjunct Regulus August 23 Sun conjunct Regulus August 24 Venus conjunct Mars exact August 29 Mercury conjunct Regulus August 30 Mars, Mercury and Venus all near conjunct Sun at New Moon (Sun conjunct Moon) In this article if is of course impossible to go into depth about the nature of all of these planetary spheres, so I will give only some basic indications of how to understand them and out of that perhaps the questions that are being raised in their meeting at Regulus. The spheres of Mercury, Venus and the Sun are all transformational spheres pointing us to the future and to our higher spiritual faculties, even though they, as do all planetary spheres, have a shadow nature of regressive beings. Mars, though it has also a role in transformation, is more related to the past and to the establishment of the modern object consciousness and earthly-centric ego development. The sphere of Mercury is concerned with the interplay of cosmic intelligence with earth intelligence and its integration. In this sense we can see in Mercury a deep relation to Michael helping humanity to restore the fallen intelligence to its divine nature. Mercury is that figure with winged feet (or sometimes a winged helmet), who as the messenger of the gods is in communication between earth and gods. Even in the movements of Mercury we see him traveling fast, always weaving between the Earth and the Sun, with whom he is always close. Sometimes he swings behind the Sun from the Earth picking up the cosmic intelligence from the zodiacal regions, then swinging between Earth and Sun handing over the cosmic intelligence to the Earth. This weaving communicating activity of Mercury is something that we can work consciously with in following these loops and conjunctions with the Sun in the various constellations of the Zodiac. The question with Mercury is the same question that Michael poses. Will we be able to break through to a new relation to cosmic intelligence or will the fallen intelligence continue to serve the goals of that which would harden us and define us as material/mechanistic creatures? Venus and Mars, even in mythologies, have a special counterpoint relationship -the god of war and the goddess of love. Venus seeks to re-integrate the human being with the cosmos in a harmonious way through the force of love. In the work of Willi Sucher, he connects the sphere of Venus with the development of the new Christian mysteries, with the re-union of humanity with divine love. In fact this particular Venus/Sun conjunction is specifically related to one event during the Three Years which lays the foundation for these new mysteries. That event is the Raising of Lazarus. More can be read about Venus and the Christ events in Willi Sucher's Cosmic Christianity, but this cannot be developed in this article. Venus also has a deep relation to the artistic and feeling life of the soul. However it also is the planet of Lucifer, and can serve the distorted love that is essentially self-love. It can serve illusion, fantasy, eros, even narcissism as it seeks its own satisfaction. Thus in Venus as in Mercury we can see that it can serve the highest sense of community and brotherly love or serve a kind of narcissistic self love or romanticized fantasy. Mars is that sphere which underlies the first half of Earth evolution in the sense that it brings us the capacity to separate out into our own selfhood. From Mars we have developed object consciousness and thereby a separation, but a freedom, from the spiritual world. From Mars we learn what we are NOT. It underlies the development of materialisim and the natural scientific perspective. It can be the supreme egoist. Though Mars has gone through its own redemption in relation to the deed of Buddha (not to be gone into here), it continues to carry on in most of humanity as that separating aggressive force that attacks and establishes itself as central. Here we can see the dangers in the sphere of Lion and Regulus. Mars would be stuck in the center proclaiming itself king and challenging all others. The statement of Louis XIV is one image of Mars with Regulus: " Je suis l'etat. L'etat, c'est moi". (I am the state. The state is me) The Sun of course is that sphere which is the image of the Sun spirit in the cosmos Who has united with the Earth. It is the cosmic representation of the Higher Self, the transformative force in the cosmos. The nature of the Sun is an immense study in itself. So here briefly encapsulated we have some pictures of the cosmic activity taking place in Lion around the heart of the Lion, the kind and heart star, Regulus. With these pictures we can consider for ourselves the challenges these planetary spheres are posing to humanity as we begin to enter the Michael season. Will hearts begin to have thoughts? Which Self do I serve? Will the force of love for our fellow human beings overcome the self love that separates us? As I was contemplating these coming conjunctions and the stars of the Lion, I remembered that at his birth Donald Trump has a special relationship to Regulus and Mars. The eastern horizon point, or what is called in astrology the Ascendant, which is a quite significant place in the chart, is directly in line with Regulus and Mars sits there on the horizon Ascendant also at Regulus (3 degrees away). Whether one sympathizes or not with Trump is irrelevant, but it is significant I think to consider that now in August we will have this cluster, including Mars, around Regulus, where Donald Trump's Ascendant and Mars stood at his birth. Does the mentality of "I am the state" reign as king in this configuration? Or can the transformational forces of Mercury, Venus, and Sun bring new heart forces to the world in these times?