More Potential

6. Resolve

We hereby resolve...............

We are thinking about making a change, a fundamental change.  We are going to make a resolution to do something, to be something.  We are making a resolution to be the cause of change in our lives and thereby in the world.

Let's explore what this means.

Webster's dictionary tells us that "re-solve" is made up of two parts.  "Re" means again or anew.  "Solve" means to find a solution.  During the First 12 Days of Aries our challenges are resolved into simple elements so that we can find a solution.  It's like being on a treasure hunt for the pieces of ourselves that are blocking us.

The dictionary says that a synonym , a word with almost the same meaning, of "resolve" is "decide".  So, in effect, we are going to decide to face our challenges, and resolve to remove our blockages.  Is this simple?  Yes.  Will it be easy?  No!

The dictionary takes us even further on our journey.  It describes "resolution" as the progress from dissonance to consonance.  I know, the words are growing and perhaps getting harder to understand.  By using more letters they are drawing more meaning to our awareness.  The words use familiar letters in ways that will capture our attention and our imagination.

Dissonance is lack of agreement, especially inconsistency between the different beliefs we hold, or the inconsistency between our actions and our beliefs.  Consonance is harmony or agreement among the components.  During the First 12 Days of Aries we are allowed to resolve our challenges into simple elements so that we can find a solution.  We are searching for a solution so that we can create harmony within ourselves by removing the inconsistency between our actions and our beliefs.  We are searching for a solution so that we can bring harmony to our interactions with others.  We are searching for a solution so that we can bring harmony to our interactions with the world around us.

Our resolution is to progress from dissonance to consonance.  We have an opportunity to see how to bring our actions into alignment with our beliefs, and to see how to bring consistency to all our beliefs.  During the First 12 Days of Aries we will be given opportunities to distinguish the individual energies that are contained in each astrological month and to see how they manifest in our lives.  This will allow each of us to see what energy we need to learn how to control.

Learning to control the energy is critical to our purpose.  When we fail to take control of the energy we get caught in our reactive behavior.  To progress we need to be able to see what it is that we need to learn how to do.  That's our purpose during the First 12 Days of Aries.  We can gather our courage, face the places where we are challenged, and know that these are the places where we have blockages between us and the Light, blockages to behaving with complete human dignity.

Imagine that each time we are faced with a challenge, each time we are tempted to fall into our reactive behavior, we can take a picture.  We can freeze that moment in time and create a photo album of how we behave when we are influenced by the energy of each month.  I'm not sure that it's a photo album that I would want to have out on my coffee table for everyone to see when they come to visit.  However, as I write I realize that when I behave without awareness, when I let my reactive nature take over, it is much worse.  Instead of having a picture to look at, there is a live performance.

As we approach the beginning of the First 12 Days of Aries we can plunge headfirst into the opportunity to ask the Light to show us who we are.  When challenges come, that is when the Light is being turned up in our lives so we can see our blockages.  When the LIght is turned up in our lives it increases the sharpness and the clarity of the image of who we are.  When the Light is turned up in our lives it is to guide us to the solutions.

This leads us to the synonym, a word with almost the same meaning, of resolution: Courage.  Courage is the mental or moral strength to venture, to persevere, and to withstand danger, fear or difficulty.

There is another interesting connection in the dictionary.  The Latin root of the word "courage" is shared with the Latin root of the word "heart".  As we find the courage to learn more about ourselves we will learn that we are on a journey to the heart of who we are, to our character, to our feelings and to our inclinations.  As we seek the heart of who we are, we will find our essence.

All of us can ask the Light for the gift of courage to seek our heart and find our essence.

5. Resolution

Resolution allows us to develop the clarity and sharpness of an image.  Greater resolution allows us to clearly define the image.

4. Shabbat in Bergen-Belsen April 20, 1945

During the First 12 Days of Aries work to be open minded, to look for the signs from the Light, and to listen to what others are saying.  Chasing an idea can be like chasing a butterfly.  Sometimes it is in front of you, sometimes it stops for a brief second, and sometimes it turns and causes you to chase it.  If you catch it you need to be very careful so that you do it no harm.

The use of the word "resolution" was questioned by one ofyou because it is often used in terms of conflict.  However, there is another meaning, in terms of light and visibility in an image.  That is what I was going to write about today.  Then something happened that has opened another opportunity for awareness.  It appears there is something we need to think about before we talk about "resolution".

As if by "accident" one of my special friends sent an email and asked me to transcribe a recording made in Germany in 1945.  The email said it was urgent.  As I listened to the short recording and typed, I knew this was something all of us should be aware of.  This is a message of hope in the midst of incredible chaos, pain and suffering.

If all of us can remember this recording during the First 12 Days of Aries we will know that our temporary reactivity, our needs, our personal agenda is meaningless in the face of the work we have committed to do.

Listen: http://geneaology.org.il/BergenBelsenHatikva.mp3

(Transcription of the tape)

Seven years ago today a remarkable recording was made in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. The recording became part of a radio report on the liberation of that death camp that was filed by Patrick Grodon Walker who worked for the BBC.

Recording from Shabbat Services April 20, 1945

This is London calling North America.

The day I reached Belsen concentration camp, the fifth day of liberation, was a Friday, the day before the Jewish Sabbath.  Something like half of the surviving prisoners at Belsen were Jews.  And the Jewish Chaplin to the British Second Army, the Reverend L H Hartman, held an eve of the Sabbath service in the open air in the midst of the camp.  It was the first Jewish service that many of the men and women present had taken part in for six years.  It was probably the first Jewish service held on German soil in absolute security, and without fear, for a decade.

Around us lay the corpses that there had not been time to clear away, even after five days.  Forty thousand or more had been cleared, but there was still one or two thousand around.  And people were still lying down and dying, in broad daylight, in front of our eyes.  This was the background for this open-air Jewish service.

During the service the few hundred people gathered together were sobbing openly, with joy at their liberation, and with sorrow at the memory of their parents and brothers and sisters that had been taken from them and gassed and burned.  These people knew they were being recorded.  They wanted the world to hear their voice.  They made a tremendous effort, which quite exhausted them.

recording of Hatikva

3. Timing is Everything

Have you ever made a New Year's resolution?  How many of them have you kept? 

Mine lasted a few days, or a few weeks, if I was lucky.  Some of them only lasted long enough to think about them.  I was sincere when I made them, but the tendency is to forget or to let them fall by the wayside.  Have you ever wondered why New Year's resolutions are so hard to keep?

Maybe the answer is simple.  Maybe our timing is off.

We know, even it is' only a dim awarenss, that different calendars have different New Years.  How many of us have ever thought about the New Year for the Zodiac.  I didn't even think in terms of an astrological calendar, let alone that it had a New Years.

According to the astrological calendar New Year's day is the first day of Aries.  That will be March 19th in 2007.  The reason why it's March 19th, and why it changes every year, is something that we can explore later.

Contained in the wisdom of Kabbalah is a very special understanding about the First 12 Days of Aries.  This wisdom tells us that each of these days corresponds to the subsequent months of the year -- one day for each month.  According to the ancient texts, we can take control of our ego, our energy, our desire on these 12 days and prepare to make our entire year better.

Being in the right place, at the right time, and taking the action opens doors we can only being to imagine.

2. Flammarion Woodcut

The Flammarion woodcut, an anonymous wood engraving, whose first documented appearance is in Paris in 1888.  It depicts a man, dressed as a medieval pilgrim and carrying a pilgrim's staff, peering through the sky as if it were a curtain to look at the inner workings of the universe.  (source Wikipedia)

A segment of the original transcription translates "A medieval missionary tells us that he has found  the point where heaven and Earth touch...."

               

1. Opportunity is Knocking

We have a huge opportunity from March 19 to March 31, 2007.  It's the First 12 Days of Aries.

When we speak of the First 12 Days of Aries, we are referring to a complete day, a day in the biblical sense that starts with sundown and ends the next sundown.  As well, we are referring to the name of a month found in the astrological calendar.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches that each one of these First 12 Days of Aries corresponds to one month of the Zodiac.   These 12 days are our opporutnity to take control of the energy for the entire year.  We can rise above the influence of the Zodiac.  Think of it as a new Year for the Zodiac -- and we are going to make resolutions that we can keep for the whole year.

By working on ourselves, by working with the energy for each day, by learning how we can control it, we can become stronger.  When we discover our strengths, and our weaknesses, we can do more for ourselves and, by extension, for the entire world.

You are invited to be part of this "experiment".  Come with an open mind and the willingness to discover more about yourself.  Come prepared to be honest with yourself.  Come prepared to challenge yourself.  Try to follow the steps.  See if they make a difference for you.  The goal is to know what works for us, not to blindly follow in another's footsteps.

If you have any thoughts or questions, post them so we can look for answers for all of us.  Each of us has a different perspective, a different experience, a different awareness.  It is when we work together that we can see a bigger picture.  It is when we work together that we can make the best choices.  It is when we work together that we can bring the uniqueness of our diversity into union and harmony.

If you know others that you would like to include, please send them this blog address.