Dunthor.com - Virgo 2002

Book Review

Astrology, Psychology and The Four Elements: An Energy Approach to Astrology and its Use in the Counseling Arts By Stephen Arroyo, MA

Those who have been reading my newsletters for a while know that Stephen Arroyo is my favorite author of Astrology books. He is not only a writer but is also a psychologist and therapist in California. The beauty of that is that he uses Astrology every day as a diagnostic and developmental tool. He formulates a theory and then relates it back to his clients. This book has two parts. Part 1 examines the various approaches to Astrology and answers many frequently asked questions about Astrology. This is the most popular part of the book but it kind of dragged for me because I really don’t care whether Astrology works because of electromagnetic forces, or solar flare cycles, blah…blah. He does touch on names in Psychology and Astrology as well as a general overview of where the Queen of Sciences (as it was called by the scholars of the Renaissance) stands today. Part 2 is a great analysis of the elements in Astrology. Mr. Arroyo makes a wonderful point about psychological analysis:

“Within the field of psychology, there are dozens of "theories of personality" which attempt to discover and define some semblance of order within the character and life-style of the individual. Every theory of personality assumes that there is such a thing as "human nature" which the newborn brings with him into this world, chiefly in the form of general predispositions and potentialities rather than specific traits. The problem with all the personality theories commonly utilized in psychology today is that each is inherently biased toward the sort of person who shares certain characteristics with the inventor of the theory. In other words, since the theoretician assumes that everybody is really like himself down deep, and since he has no cosmic framework to enable him to gain a broader perspective on humankind, the use of such limited and biased theories in actual practice has profoundly destructive effects. If however, as the evidence in this book indicates, astrology is indeed a language that describes the very energies that activate a human being, it could very well be the most accurate way we have of describing what is truly the "human nature" of each individual. After utilizing astrology extensively for the past nine years, this is certainly how it seems to me; and, over the past few years in my practice, I have gradually let all the other theories go by the wayside. To me, astrology is without a doubt the most accurate and comprehensive means of understanding human personality, behavior, change, and growth.”

Click here to learn more about purchasing this book from Amazon.com.

Urban Treasure Hunting - Mullein

Have you seen the yellow torches of mullein growing beside the highway? Or perhaps you have seen it growing in a garden. Mullein is a rosette of velvety, grey-green leaves its first year – often no more than 6 to 9 inches high. The second year it will have a stout stalk of up to 8 feet, the last 1 or 2 feet solid with butter-yellow blossoms. This plant, like so many of us, originated in Europe and Asia but is now a part of the North American landscape. In fact, it has done so well here that it is considered an invasive plant. Mullein requires full sun and prefers a sandy or even rocky soil. If the soil is very poor, shallow, or very dry, mullein will be quite short – I have seen it as short as 1 foot with only a few inches of bloom. If it is pampered, it is quite massive – 6 to 8 feet with branches off the main stalk and a rosette width of 2 feet.

Mullein is most commonly used to help with lung and bronchial complaints. The dried leaf and flower are used to make a strong tea, at least four cups a day, for bronchitis, persistent coughs, achy lungs, and hoarseness. The dried leaves and flowers are combined with coltsfoot and smoked for asthma. The dried flowers are very sweet and make a delicious tea that you may want to drink just because it tastes so good! The flower is also used, often with garlic, to make a very effective ear oil for earaches or to soothe irritated ear passages. I use it most often when my cats have itchy ears.

If you are following old wise woman recipes and come across the ingredient “graveyard dust” it is most likely referring to dried and powdered wild mullein leaves. Mullein was a common garden flower, but hybrid mulleins do not have the medicinal properties of wild mullein. Since mullein likes broken but undisturbed ground it likes graveyards. It also likes roadways, but graveyards are much cleaner. Dried and powdered, it looks very much like dust. If you are gathering mullein for your medicine chest you will also want to avoid hybrids and roadways. Mullein pulls pollutants out of the soil – nice for the soil but bad for you if you consume the mullein! Because mullein is classed invasive, you can gather it from pastures, or at least well back from the road, anywhere you find it (except from someone’s yard, of course). It is also easy to buy at a good herb shop. If I run out of dried leaves or flowers during the winter, I buy them from Dandelion in the Fremont district.

The leaves and flowers of mullein are covered with short, soft hairs. These hairs are not conducive to a soothing cup of tea. I always strain mullein tea through a wet (so it doesn't soak up the tea) washcloth or folded dishtowel rather than the usual mesh tea strainer. Mullein seeds are poisonous. Because the plant is so easy to transplant at any time in the first year, I don't even collect seeds for my garden.

So, head out to the country and see if you can find some mullein (or over to Dandelion!). Sit out in the evening air this summer with a good book and a cup of mullein flower tea. This fall, at the first sign of a cough or hoarseness, drink mullein leaf and flower tea. I believe you will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly the irritation is gone!

If you would like to know more about mullein, contact:

Tambrey
with
Laughing Rabbit Herbal Adventures
at
(206) 243-6729

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I find information on Tarot cards and spreads?

On the Internet, of course:

Publisher of many decks including my favorite The Universal Rider Waite Deck: U.S. Games Systems

Another popular occult book publishing house: Red Wheel/Weiser

Some interesting spreads to practice on Wicce's Tarot Collection website.

A great companion website to Joan Bunning’s book: Learning the Tarot - An On-Line Course

Joan also offers a class: Tarot for Beginners sponsored by the Barnes and Noble University. If you haven't seen the on-line courses offered on the B&N website, I encourage you to take a look. You can take courses on such varied subjects as Walt Whitman, jazz, web animation and yoga. Many course are free; some are available for a small fee. Registration is through the B&N website. Tarot for Beginners is listed under the Life Improvement Campus.

Check out The Pythagorean Tarot - An Interpretation of the Major and Minor Arcana on Pythagorean and Alchemical Principles.

See pictures of different decks at Learning the Tarot Store.

A Seattle source for Tarot decks: Astrology et al - Books and Learning Center.

See what Tarot decks are available for sale on Ebay.

Read reviews of Tarot decks and books at Tarot Passages.

Letters from our Readers

We think of this newsletter as a community forum. You, our friends and clients, are welcome to participate. We celebrate diversity and we'll print whatever you send in be it Wiccan, Christian, Pagan, New Age, etc., as long as it reflects Love. You may choose a one-time holiday to write about or have a regular column. We'll give you space and a byline! Please send in your own book reviews, ideas for rituals, ideas about stones, your journal excerpts, your experiences and most of all, ask us questions. We love answering questions!

A funny story from Elizabeth:

As I went in a bar to meet a friend, two pretty girls looked at me.

"Nine", I heard one whisper as I passed. Feeling pleased, I swaggered over to my buddy and told him a girl had just rated me nine out of ten.

"I don't want to ruin it,"' he said, "but when I walked in, they were speaking German."

From Donnie:

For those interested in exploring the real (not so frill and lace) Faery realm, there are ways. And of course, some are better than others. I recently read a book entitled: Earth Light: The Ancient Path to Transformation: Rediscovering the Wisdom of Celtic & Faery Lore by RJ Stewart. Although the title’s long, the book is only about 150 pages. Containing mostly essay-like narration and visualizations, the book was hard for me to pay attention to, because it was at times boring.

This book’s not entirely awful though. Earth Light did in fact deepen my understandings of just what Faery really is. Stewart enlightened me to a more mystifying and real view of the world of Faery, exciting me by saying things such as: “The Underworld and Faery Tradition is a transformative initiatory system involving a mysterious realm hidden deep within the land, and echoed within our human consciousness.” Phrases as such stimulate me, because I feel I had known all along, but had forgotten, and was just reminded! I only wish that I had been exposed to these ideas as a child, when the channels to the Fae were even stronger. If personally interested and connected to the Fae, I recommend reading this book when you’ve got some spare time. It may be a bit boring in parts, but over all, it is a refreshing view into what Faery really is.

After finishing Earth Light, I began getting acquainted with another Faery-oriented book called: The Faeries’ Oracle, by Brian Froud and Jessica Macbeth. The book’s main purpose is to suggest how to use and interpret the beautifully illustrated 65-card deck that comes with the book. Almost like a tarot deck, but directly linked with and created by Faeries, this oracle has entertained me from the moment I began it! The artwork on the cards captures me in an extraordinary curiosity, and inspires me to remain close to my distant yet ever-present Faery roots. This is a great way to spend time with the Faeries and yourself, and can be a nice way to help work out a problem. At only around $18.00, this is a great item that I suggest to all Faerykin out there!

If anyone knows of any really good Faery websites, books (preferably non-fiction), or the like, please e-mail me at dneel@radford.edu. - Donald Neel

From Scott:

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. -- Katherine Hepburn

If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. - Graffiti on the bathroom wall at Revolution Books, New York, New York

I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, its a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. - Dr. Seuss

The Duncan Domain

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I knew I was overdue for a vacation, especially with the extreme chaos of the past 12 months at work. And yet, it really didn't sink in how out of shape my body/spirit/mind alignment was until I got in the saddle and took off on an 8-day motorcycle tour of Glacier National Park in Montana and the Canadian Rockies.

As I rolled down the road with my 3 companions, I realized that I was carrying a great deal of pain in my emotional and physical bodies as evidenced by the deep depression and the considerable back discomfort I was experiencing. To sum it up, I felt pretty trashed! So here I was faced with having to ride for 8 days and I was wondering how I was going to eliminate these significant distractions as the key to riding safely and having fun is being in the moment. Quitting the ride was certainly an option if I couldn’t get this situation under control but I had committed to my brother and friends that I would make this ride. I searched my intuition for ideas as my conscious mind was fearful and on the verge of panic. As I did, I sensed a distinct purpose to this ride and the idea of a vision quest came to me. I have always been fascinated by this Native American practice of hiking to a place of solitude and remaining there for three days and nights, often without food or water, until a vision came. I was certainly in need of a vision and some healing so I decided to use the challenge of this ride for such a purpose. Instead of wanting to flee from my depression and pain, I would approach it and go through it to see what answers lay beyond them. Once I made this decision, I became calmer and I began working on realigning my body, mind and spirit while I rode.

I focused on grounding myself by visualizing that I was inhaling energy from Earth into the base of my spine. As I exhaled, I spread that Earth energy throughout my body and with each breath I took, I felt my body relax into the motorcycle and the world around me. I then shifted my attention to the top of my head. I visualized opening my crown chakra and as I inhaled, I pulled a beam of golden light from above into the top of my head to activate and cleanse that chakra. When I saw a clear silver color appear in that chakra, I moved my attention down my spine to the next chakra, the 3^rd eye chakra located even with my brow. When I got a clear image of purple, the color associated with that chakra, I moved down to the next chakra and repeated the exercise until I reached the root chakra at the base of my spine. I then visualized inhaling simultaneously through the crown and root chakras, pulling in spiritual and Earth energies respectively, blending them in my belly and then exhaling them to form a white light sphere around my motorcycle and me.

From within this sphere, I viewed the world with a greater clarity. Everything sparkled and I became more aware of the beauty of Nature. I felt and sensed the consciousness of the Earth, Fire, Water and Air Elementals all around me. The flow and clarity of information from Universal Mind was enhanced. My normal mental anxieties were replaced with a deep calmness. My spirit guides appeared within my sphere and my spirit animal, a grey wolf, ran next to me as I ride. I was ready to explore my pain and seek a vision.

I focused my mind on the pain in my mid-back. I inhaled through it and asked it to reveal itself to me. The first thought that came to me was this is where my back gave way as a teenager in this lifetime. From that event, my life took a serious turn down a path of chronic pain and despair, ending with a near-death experience on an operating table in a hospital. I absorbed that revelation and looked for the next. Over the next couple of days, it came to me that this is the same spot where my spine broke in my previous lifetime as my home collapsed due to a German bombing raid during World War I. I dreamt of this death over and over during the past twenty years and I now realized that I had not done anything to resolve the issues surrounding that death. And lastly, it occurred to me that this spot in my back is the location of the solar plexus chakra. I inhaled through that chakra and saw the yellow color come forth. What would a blockage in this chakra mean? And then it came to me: this was about not listening to or trusting my intuition to guide my actions.

So I had achieved my vision. I knew that I had a major healing ahead of me. I felt this would best be accomplished by working with Inga. I also knew that I was ready to face whatever had caused this psychic, emotional and physical wound. I spent the rest of my ride absorbing the amazing beauty that we experienced during our ride and I felt it rejuvenating and strengthening me for the healing work ahead.

Upon returning home, I told Inga of my vision and she agreed that exploring my solar plexus chakra would be a good course of action. She guided me to a very relaxed state, much like the state I achieved while riding with the distinction that my body, instead of being in motion, was shifted into a dreamlike state where my muscles were virtually immobilized. And instead of expanding my consciousness into the world around me, she guided my conscious mind inward to the realm of my unconscious mind. As directed, I looked with my spiritual sight at my solar plexus chakra. I saw a large cord emanating from it and Inga instructed me to pull myself along it as if it were a rope, away from my body. Hand over hand, I did so and I arrived at the time of my back injury as a teenager in this lifetime. Inga asked me to describe what was happening. I could sense that a fearful childhood had overwhelmed by intuition to the point where I was deeply confused as to what I came here to achieve. It took a near-death experience some four years later to correct this. Inga asked me to follow the cord further back and it led me to my death in the previous lifetime during World War I.

I noted a lifetime of despair and little hope. I walked through that lifetime as a virtual zombie. I could see that I carried this state of mind into this lifetime and how it didn’t take much fear to push me over the edge again. I could also see that I brought this fear from yet an earlier lifetime, one that I’ve extensively explored and worked on healing during this lifetime. If you’ve read earlier articles of mine, you’ll know I’m talking about my life as an officer in the United States Union Army back in the 1800s where I experienced the Civil War and the Indian Wars. The real despair started here as I witnessed suffering, violence and loss. I saw how I battled with what my intuition was telling me about an enlightened path of action vs. what was happening around me externally. Ultimately, I gave into fear and I was swept away by the tide of violence. Sensing that the cord went back even further, Inga urged me to move on.

I saw the lifetime Inga and I spent in southern France as husband and wife, where I was a blacksmith and she was an herbalist. In that time, war was sweeping the land as religious factions battled for control over ideas and the hearts and minds of people. I played a role in supplying the Knights Templar with armor and weapons. I wanted to get more deeply involved and make a difference but I instinctively sensed the danger of getting swept up in the struggle. I stayed out of the direct conflict and as a result, the storm broke and went around the little region where we lived. I could see I was not content with this outcome and this clearly set the stage for me to risk getting more involved during the Civil War lifetime.

I followed the cord back to another lifetime and I returned to another death that I’ve dreamed of countless times since childhood. I am a Japanese samurai and I am thoroughly dedicated to the perfection of my warrior craft. Where my intuition guides me to take action counter to that required by my clan, I ignore it. I am totally loyal to my clan and I’ll do nothing to jeopardize my place in it as my clan and my skills are the foundation of my sense of security. When we invade the Korean peninsula, we engage in battle and I ruthlessly dispatch my many opponents with expert skill. I am unassailable until a number of Koreans with long spears surround me and I am finally killed. I now notice for the first time that the killing blow enters my mid-back at the location of the solar plexus chakra.

I pull myself back further to an earlier lifetime where the wound and blockage in my solar plexus chakra began. I am a Viking woman and wife of the village’s shaman. That shaman is Inga. Times have become fearful for our village and I overhear people questioning whether our shaman is truly protecting us. I feel responsible somehow as the shaman’s wife and I feel a fear growing in me. A village elder comes to our home while Inga is away and shares his grave concerns with me. As I listen to him, my intuition that is telling me that Inga is very powerful and deeply committed to our village and that with faith and clarity, we can weather this storm, but I become infected with the elder’s fear and begin expressing my own fears and doubts. This starts a chain reaction that results in us being cast out of the village. We take refuge in Scotland and later immigrate to Greenland where we eventually die of starvation. I view this outcome as the result of not listening to my intuition.

I can now see the chain of events leading all the way back into this lifetime and see how the scarring of this wound thickened, as I was unable to heal it. I realize that I now can and Inga guides me to relive the event with the village elder but this time, I am to replace my fear with Light and Love. I perform the same ritual that I did on my motorcycle and I pull Earth and Spirit energy into my body to form that sphere of white light. My spoken words are now those of Truth from Universal Mind, Father/Mother/God. The elder’s fears are dissolved and replaced with leadership and strength. I see myself become a woman of wisdom and a powerful companion for the village’s shaman. I see our home become a restful sanctuary for Inga, which better enables her/him to do the necessary work to guide our community. We weather the fearful storm sweeping the countryside and instead of being cast out and eventually dying in Greenland, we live out our lives in this village as productive, beloved members.

I now can see a different parallel history emerging for me, one where fear is not passed on from lifetime to lifetime and instead, truth and love take its place. The pain I was feeling in my back in gone. I no longer have a blockage to my intuition. I feel a simple, uncomplicated trust in my intuition developing and it’s been lifetimes since I’ve felt that, literally! I'm left with a feeling of expectancy, that I've been profoundly changed and that new, wondrous opportunities are now available to me that were previously locked up. I'll keep you posted. – Scott Bruce Duncan */:-)

Virgo 2002 Edition

About Virgo	Frequently Asked Questions
Inga's Celebration Calendar	Letters from our Readers
Stone of the Sign	The Monthly IEM Get Together
Book Review	The Duncan Domain
Urban Treasure Hunting