Lent – 40 Days & 40 Nights – a Reflective Time
Tuesday this week was Mardi (Tuesday) Gras (rich, fat) – always falling the day before Lent (40 days & nights of purification & preparation). Lent is almost like a Mercury retrograde – a time of assessment re-ordering re-viewing and reflection.
Wednesday was the Pisces new moon, along with Ash Wednesday. Crosses of ash placed on our foreheads, reminding us, “From dust our bodies are made and unto dust they shall return.” As the Soul carries our spirits back to heaven.
Lent: Forty days and nights preparing for the Aries, Taurus and Gemini Three Spring Festivals –Easter, Resurrection, (Wesak), and the Festival of Humanity. Preparing also for the Three Forces of Restoration, Enlightenment, Reconstruction, their saving graces needed on earth during these times of war.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ash Wednesday is a celebratory day (akin to Mardi Gras) called Clean, Ash, Pure or Green festival. The words, “clean, pure, green,” refer to the body, the result of fasting during Lent, purifying one’s life, leaving behind all hindrances and obstacles to health well-being and goodness.
Celebrations begin at Vespers (evening prayers) with prayers of Forgiveness, participants asking forgiveness, understanding and love from one another and offering that in return. After this ritual, we begin Lent with a clear (pure), forgiving and loving heart.
Reference to Purification is in the Old Testament – Isaiah 1:16-20,
“Make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes.”
Purification and cleansing through fasting is an ancient religious discipline. Isaiah (58:8-9) describes a fast and its health effects:
“Then your light breaks forth like morning, healing, restoring goodness. Then peace and prosperity spring forth, and Glory protects you. And when you call out, the Lord answers, ‘Here I am’”
Fasting is done to create new rhythms. We fast during Lent not only from foods. We also fast from unwholesome thoughts and behaviors.
Let us, as we fast (from unkindness, criticism, too much of anything), also consider forgiving. Forgiveness releases, liberates and offers freedom, the Aquarian task. Forgiveness is an aspect of Deity, the “very breath of life itself.” Forgiveness offers the remembering of joy, a depth of gratitude, the receiving of grace, and the blessing of peace beyond measure. May forgiveness within each of us be given during Lent.
ARIES: A quiet peaceful change enters your life. You become sensitive, compassionate and sympathetic towards everyone, especially those in need. You’re drawn to things mystical, religious, spiritual, meditative, all functioning behind the scenes and the why isn’t apparent. You seek forgiveness while offering it. You allow no persecutions of any kingdom. Here your Aries comes forth.
TAURUS: All that you do, consider and ponder upon has to do with groups, friendships, organizations and the forming of community that restores and reforms society. You know what’s coming. You are concerned with offering new ideas, creating collective objectives, helping others realize hopes, wishes and dreams that sustain life on earth. There is a mantram that is useful to say. “Let reality govern my every thought and truth be the master of my life.”
GEMINI: You can use the mantram for Taurus, too. It’s very useful for the dissolution of glamours (illusions, deceptions, confusions, etc.) not only the glamours of self but when encountering the glamours (distortions, miasmas, illusions) of others. Eliminating glamours helps us focus on accomplishing goals, achieve a successful life, and allows for an honorable reputation. You have authoritative tasks to perform and an influential position to fulfill for the saving of humanity. You might begin to prepare now.
CANCER: The light of Pisces Sun is providing you with aspirations and high ideals to learn something new that develops a new level of consciousness leading to wisdom. Remember to never assume a position of knowing until it is experienced or its validity proven. You will expand your mind through travel, study, a philosophy or encountering the elements, the soil and the earth (gardening). Then you are to teach others. Be adventurous and experimental.
LEO: You search for your values. They have changed over the years. You explore the values of others, listening to their talk of sex, intimacy, money, death, regeneration. You discover your ability to intuit and sense (possibly diagnose) illness in friends, extending this ability to pets and small animals. You are like a detective. Read several mysteries, the type that provide courage through conflict. Be not jealous or combative. You will lose. Life in the shadows for a spell is best.
VIRGO: You find yourself through relationship interactions, whether intimate, close friends or who and what you identify with in the moment. You want to cooperate, seeking harmony within all situations so a sense of life-in-balance emerges. From person to the political, from social justice to world peace, you travel the range of relationships within the world of humanity’s endeavors. Do you remember the esoteric formula for peace?
LIBRA: You become practical in all ways, tending to daily necessities for self and others. You become the social worker for the world, using your gifts and capacities to create roles for others so they too can be of assistance and of service. You make improvements wherever you are, tending to details, being scientific and concrete in your healing information. You drop all levels of criticism. You understand forgiveness. You forgive.
SCORPIO: When observing you for a time we sense a new level of dignity emanating from you. We also sense a new level of creative self-expression, which in time can initiate a new artform that helps restore the art of living to yourself and perhaps for the world. Sometimes, you focus on happiness, things that entertain and playful. You speculate on ways resources can manifest and be used to assist those in need. You look to your past. You write about sadness. You deepen into this daily.
SAGITTARIUS: Family continues to be your concern – creating, tending to, or writing about family heritage and traditions. Your history is like a tree growing within you, its roots go deep; the trunk is your life force, and the leaves how you interact with the world. You realize how important parents were. Whether they were capable enough or not, all parents are “good enough” in terms of what we must learn. We eventually realize we actually chose them. A radical thought. Moodiness may assail you. Take shelter for a spell.
CAPRICORN: You’re interested in new ways of communicating, expressing yourself and talking with family, friends, neighbors and siblings. Most important will be things literary and artistic, either in books, attending museums, galleries, music fests or in exploring your creativity and art. You love change, being very adaptable. Realize that others may not be. Restlessness can upset our organized and artistic apple cart. Keep creating. Paint a color wheel of white/red, indigo blue, emerald green, golden yellow, golden orange, rose blue and violet.
AQUARIUS: During this month you will be asked to recognize the values held within yourself, your abilities, talents, gifts resources and possessions. You will realize you have vast resources, some of which you will want to give away. You will seek ways of making money and will find a state of reserved strength that sustains conservative yet Aquarian values. You will seek comfort and new ways to keep yourself warm. Love is all around you in the magical kingdom called Earth.
PISCES: There’s a sense of well-being, a radiance and willingness in all that you do. You will initiate new ideas others will ponder upon, accept, reject and/or react to. Controversy is good, calling forth the harmony at the core of chaos and conflict. The many stars in Pisces are creating a state of magnetism and confidence. Pisces always has much to contemplate as they are often in realms others cannot see. Tend with care to diet and health during this Lenten time. Think green (plants, clothes, drinks, shoes, clothing, etc.). Green is intelligent.
