O what is laughter Hafiz?What is this precious love and laughterBudding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound Of a soul waking up!
~I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafizby Daniel Landinsky
July 1st is International Joke Day. Who knew?! Every July begins with at least a big smile, though may not contribute to July being many peoples favorite month of the year. That apparently has more to do with summer adventure--sun, sand and play--carefree days and warm exotic nights. When you live near an ocean or any body of water, life tends to be more about going with the flow. The movement and sound of water has a tranquilizing effect. It pacifies the mind and relaxes the body. The movement of water connects us to pre-physical existence, when we are not separate.
July is dominated by the astrological sign Cancer, a water sign. This July 1st, the Sun in Cancer is exactly trined by Neptune in its own sign, Pisces, another water sign. The first part of the month will be experienced as creative imaginings and sensitivity to everything that moves under the surface. Intuition will take precedence over the usual array of thoughts so that actions will unfold with calm directive and assurance; less attachment to separate self, more accepting of that which energizes the ‘circuitry’. The mind loses its place when afloat. Thoughts lose their potency when all is adrift in the vastness of the great sea. All that is known is, that it is.
Fear can arise in the vastness, will arise in the vastness as there is nothing to which to cling—no pretense, no identification, no point of reference. It can make us want to crawl back into our shell until we realize there is no shell to crawl back into.
How do you make God laugh? Say: "This is mine"
The notion of an individual for whom ‘safety’ may have existed is seen as a preoccupation of the mind; the mind that since birth begins to identify self and world. It is all however vastness—the great sea existing in this moment as what is. The thought of separation is just a thought.
We may have talked about the Fool, 0 of the Tarot on a couple of occasions. Presently, we see that he stands on the precipice of the unknown, without a thought or belief in his head that denies him access to freedom. He accepts what is and willingly lets go of attachments that would limit his ‘journey’. He appears to be oblivious to rules and convention but has no need of their structure. As a zero we have the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the ending where one discovers that right here and now is exactly what I have searched for and have always been.
The other two cards for July are the Five of Pentacles: 5 is the number of human creativity and of movement. Though it looks bleak, this card suggests moving from a ‘poor’ place, one of limited self worth and disappointment, to one of greater awareness. The five pentacles in the stained glass window in the background suggest the attainment of something beyond this suffering, that all human beings are.
The Star, XVII: The waters of the cosmos mingle with the waters of the earth. They are, in a sense, one and the same. It is all consciousness in every cell of every thing; awareness that permeates person, place, thing, thought. We transcend the desire nature and simply abide with the ‘life’ that is, unfolding as an expression of vastness. Number 17=8, the number of great success as we use all of our prior experience, a firm foundation established at number 4, from which to attain and hold the knowingness that there is nothing to know. Our hearts are free and laugh aloud!
Old Japanese proverb: Time spent laughing is time spent with god.
