An Interesting Question about the Universe from a Reader…

Here’s the question from a fellow reader who e-mailed this to me:

Here goes, if I can express my question lucidly:

Most of physical matter appears to be contained within something else. For example, protons and electrons are contained within atoms, and atoms are a part of all matter. All organisms found on this planet are contained on this planet which itself is contained within the solar system which in turn is contained within a galaxy which is considered a part of the universe which is thought to be INFINITE. So, going with this theme, in what is the UNIVERSE contained? If it is contained in something bigger than itself, then the universe is FINITE. If our UNIVERSE is contained in something else, then is that SOMETHING ELSE contained within something else, and so on and so on?

Is this a different paradigm for analyzing our ‘UNIVERSE’ around us or Am I Just Being Silly?!! 🙂

Here’s my answer:

There are some interesting new theories about this very question and some answers have come from String Theory. I’ll try to do a descent job of explaining what I’ve read on the subject and of course it will be in layman’s language and hopefully I won’t butcher any of the ideas too badly, so here goes. The first thing about string theory is the ideas in it are complicated and require something like at least 11 parallel dimensions in order for the theory to even work. The string part of string theory is derived from the notion that beyond the smallest known particles like quarks (which behave very unusually and in many ways prove some esoteric ideas, but that’s another story) are the tiniest of the tiniest bits that make up all known things. And once clumped together into something they take on certain characteristics. These strings are ubber tiny strings that vibrate and it is through their vibration that they attract other like strings and make stuff. I love this idea as the universe would literally be made up of inaudible music created from the tiny strings. So these strings vibrate at a certain pitch and collect to make different sorts of bigger compounds.

But the most interesting part of String Theory is the question that it set out to answer which was the notion of how did the Big Bang happen? Or what came before the Big Bang? And something to note here is that the Big Bang is a more complicated idea than most of us are taught, here’s a brief synopsis. All of a sudden space-time blasted into being, it started out very hot and very close together and has been pushing out since then. The part that we often misunderstand is the notion of space-time which is a complicated idea. Literally everything that exits in the Universe, all of time and space was created in that one moment which came from nothing. That’s a pretty heavy and strange idea.

Now the beautiful thing about String Theory, and in my opinion where it dovetails with the metaphors of all religions and the notion of “as above so below,” is the idea that what created the Big Bang was a bunch of universes all sort of floating around in what is now called a multiverse and two of these universes happened to collide into one another thus creating our universe (sort of like sex or the idea of the Goddess and the God or in esoteric Judaic and Christian traditions, the notion of God and his female soul Sophia or the feminine side of God co-creating the Universe).  Of course one then asks where did this multiverse come from and so on which is the appeal of the easy answer/creationism/intelligent design.

Here’s the thing from my own personal experience that leads me to believe String Theory is about as close as we’ve in come, in science, to the truth. When I was 12 my back was fractured and I had a herniated disc. I was put on bed rest for about 7 months. My father was dead by this time and my mother worked, so I spent 95% of my days alone. Besides watching Oprah on my little black and white TV there wasn’t much to do so I spent a lot of time, reading, thinking and meditating. A lot of my meditation was spent on God and how the Universe came to be as I was always psychic and very fascinated by this question. I had started my search for answers at about 9 when I began reading astronomy textbooks to learn about what made up the universe and peer into any clue I could find about how it worked. I found a lot of information about dwarf stars, black holes (which were still theoretical at the time) and approximations of how many stars were in our galaxy (about 300,000) but not much about how the universe came to be which I found very frustrating. I then searched through my  occult books, the bible, mythology, etc.

Again nothing satisfied so I thought about it and spent many days and nights meditating on the question until I came to the knowing that the Universe was like a circle within a circle within a circle. There was no end and no beginning, these circles went on for infinity in every direction. There was no end to how many parallel dimensions as that was infinite as well. Perhaps the greatest epiphany was that God was always and forever, meaning God had no beginning and no end. God was also not a “designer” but an energy source present in everything and everyone and there was no true beginning of time or matter, it just transformed as we did when we die. Hence we as human beings are both finite and infinite as our souls are eternal and part of God’s energy and our bodies are part of the earth which has a finite beginning, middle and end as do all physical things. The energy that makes them is infinite and forever but they have a finite period of time to “live” and develop until the next set of lessons and/or individuation process unfolds.

Of course this brings up the notion of why God would want or need to expand Him/Herself. The answer I came up with was to experience Him/Herself and allow each piece of Him/Herself to individuate and ascend infinitely, reuniting with the Self/God after a period of expansion and learning. This theory would of course mean we reincarnate for as long as we want and perhaps in some cases for as long as we need to.

I hope this makes some sense and is not to confusing.

This is why ancient religions stated “All Gods are One,” and the spiritual seeker is to always see the God/Goddess in everyone he or she meets (-Namaste). This is sometimes hard when dealing with people who are asleep spiritually or run their lives as if they are worker drones or zombies. Those who have yet to awaken to the power and truth of our collective Oneness. Or what some call “conservatives.” I’m not going to go on about the health care zombies right now who basically argue that they have theirs so f everyone else. This is a sad state we are in and one I’ve thought a lot about lately. Is it that there are too many of us on the planet and there are the same percentages of selfish people? Or is it that we are so many we are starting to act like too many rats stuck in the same cage? Even simple courtesy seems to have dissolved into the whole “me first” way of our current world. Not only is this sad on a spiritual level and hurtful to our emotional and psychic development, but it also freaks me out because it makes me think we are calling down the worst possible fate by our behavior and sadly we are all going to have to suffer under it whether or not we partake of this intensely rude and mean spirited selfishness. We are all linked and we will all have to answer to the loud mouths who would rather let a stranger starve on the street than help them. I have to admit that my natural inclination toward feeling most human beings were ultimately good has been replaced by the feeling that there is a range of goodness and most people are heavy into the middle section of gray. I know there are many good, great loving people in the world, it’s just that their voices are often softer then those who are rude and mean spirited, this has always been the case. I wish there was some way to change it.

Many blessings,

Denise

Update on the new astrology, Terrance McKenna, 2012…

There have been numerous trans-Neptunian objects found, some categorized as dwarf planets, some as centaurs or minor planets which are more like a cross between a small planet and comets. So deciphering the objects and their meaning is going to take some time. I’ve also decided to try using sidereal information which is basically the astronomically correct information tweaked for the slow progression of the ages which is basically the tilt of our planet from Pisces into Aquarius. So far it’s about 24 degrees off. There is a branch of modern astrologers who use sidereal information which is also used in Vedic astrology. However this is complicated by the energy invested in the old system which also seems to be fairly accurate about the psychology associated with the old tropical placements.

As we get closer to 2012 I’ve been feeling we are headed for a sort of time warp, not necessarily something we would notice in the ordinary world. At first I likened it to a flat sheet of paper (space/time) that was being bent upward at the corners into the shape of a cup, but now I have the feeling it is most likely a naturally occurring phenomena caused (most likely) by a star turning into a black hole and the ripple caused by the event in space-time which would be more akin to a stone being thrown in water, causing a ripple effect. The original event of the star collapsing into itself and becoming a black hole could have happened 1000 billion years ago, but the disturbance is only now being felt by us as the ripple begins to hit us. This would be an entirely natural phenomena, but not one we would have ever experienced as we are a young race and these events happen over tremendous spans of time.

How exactly it will effect us I’m not entirely sure, it maybe as unnoticeable to the ordinary person as astrology and astronomical calculations shift by a matter of degrees or just seconds, or it may cause a tremendous shift in our planetary motion around the sun. I would imagine it would depend on the size of the space-time wave and also what exactly a wave like that would or could do. Perhaps the Mayans saw the supernova event and realized there would be some sort of ripple effect happening here in 2012. Maybe they knew about space-time waves and guessed from a sudden burst in the sky that this would cause a magnetic disturbance of sorts. I would doubt they knew abut black holes or understood that when a star collapsed on itself it turned into one, but you never know.

Whatever they did know it seems that time (as Terrance McKenna observed) does seem to be speeding up (and that’s not just because I’m getting older). McKenna’s theory that everyday was made up of one day in the past,  one day in the future mixed with the present seems at least symbolically accurate. He believed as we got closer to 2012 time would speed up meaning we would cycle through things that would have taken much longer to cycle through in the past, such as the dark ages in a matter of a few years. I think he was onto something as this feeling I’m getting about the ripple or time-wave feels like that. I think however in his theory we cycled so fast we ended up in a parallel dimension which might be possible but seems doubtful. The universe is dramatic in long epoch time, but not in terms of human life spans.

Many blessings,

Denise

A Theory About the Dwarf Planets

Besides having a sick baby, I’ve been preoccupied with working on a theory involving the dwarf planets so I’m sorry I have been remiss in answering questions and I promise to get back into the swing of it soon. 

This theory is complex and will take some time to work out. In the mean time I’ve been doing a lot of research not just on the planets but on the Gods/Goddesses they are named after and the time period in which the planet was found. It’s interesting to note that a plethora of planets were found just after the turn of this century. Obviously, technology has advanced and this is a large part of the recent discoveries but it’s not all of it. Pluto was discovered in the 1930s during the rise of Hitler, the A-bomb and Stalin. Interestingly it is actually smaller then the recently discovered Eris.

So far their are 8 named dwarf planets (with many more to come over the next several years) and 8 traditional planets. This karmic number and the fact that it is doubled seems significant. Perhaps each sign has a dual or (as I suspect will end up being the case) triple ruler-ship.

My gut tells me there should be three planetary rulers for each sun sign symbolizing our threefold nature; the lower self (the id), the middle self (or ego) and the higher self (the divine self or the super-ego). 

The mix of mythological characters making up this hodge podge of dwarf planets seems to reflect shadow sides and very evolved energy which leads me to believe that we are now entering an age of self-awareness that will lead to an evolutionary shift. We will either be steered down the path toward Armageddon by the nutjobbers (destroying everything) or spring forward in our spiritual evolution and chose life. 

The fact that the outer planets have been making intense aspects in late signs for the past 40 years or so leads me to believe our planet is attracting many old souls to fight for Her and the human race. But I also believe on the other side of that pendulum there are just as many immature, selfish, destructive, chaotic and mean spirited souls (in varying degrees on both sides of course) pushing us toward our extinction. 

So I’m going to just leave off with a few choice pieces of information about the myths of these newly discovered heavenly bodies in hopes that it inspires and illuminates. Over the next few months I’ll try to put all of the information together into some organized thought and apply it astrologically.

Here is some research I’ve gathered if anyone is interested about 2 of the 8. I’ll post more each night so no one gets overwhelmed.

Orcus (Mythology)

In Roman mythology, Orcus was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths, more equivalent to Plutothan to the Greek Hades. The origins of Orcus may have lain in Etruscan religion. Orcus was a name used by Roman writers to identify a Gaulish god of the underworld. The Etruscan so-called “Tomb of the Orcus” atTarquinia is a misnomer, when the first discoverers took as Orcus a figure of a Cyclops. Generalized connotations of “Orcus” have made it a popular name for providing an instant “demonic” atmosphere. InDungeons & Dragons, Orcus is a demon prince, and lord of the undead. Orcus also appears in the gameNetHack. This is in good part because Orcus’ name is the origin of the words “orca” and “orc“; the latter popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien in his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Sedna:

 Sedna is a very significant figure in Inuit mythology. There are a number of different versions of the myth of Sedna. 

As the legend goes, Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl who lived with her father. She was very vain and thought she was too beautiful to marry just anyone. Time and time again she turned down hunters who came to her camp wishing to marry her. Finally one day her father said to her “Sedna, we have no food and we will go hungry soon. You need a husband to take care of you, so the next hunter who comes to ask your hand in marriage, you must marry him.” Sedna ignored her father and kept brushing her hair as she looked at her reflection in the water.
Soon her father saw another hunter approaching their camp. The man was dressed elegantly in furs and appeared to be well-to-do even though his face was hidden. Sedna’s father spoke to the man. “If you wish to seek a wife I have a beautiful daughter . She can cook and sew and I know she will make a good wife.” Under great protest, Sedna was placed aboard of the hunters kayak and journeyed to her new home. Soon they arrived at an island. Sedna looked around. She could see nothing. No sod hut, no tent, just bare rocks and a cliff. The hunter stood before Sedna and as he pulled down his hood, he let out and evil laugh. Sedna’s husband was not a man as she had thought but a raven in disguise. She screamed and tried to run, but the bird dragged her to a clearing on the cliff. Sedna’s new home was a few tufts of animal hair and feathers strewn about on the hard, cold rock. The only food she had to eat was fish. Her husband, the raven, brought raw fish to her after a day of flying off in search of food.

Sedna was very unhappy and miserable. She cried and cried and called her father’s name. Through the howling arctic winds Sedna’s father could hear his daughter’s cries. He felt guilty for what he had done as he knew she was sad. Sedna’s father decided it was time to rescue his daughter. He loaded up his kayak and paddled for days through the frigid arctic waters to his Sedna’s home. When he arrived Sedna was standing on the shore. Sedna hugged her father then quickly climbed into his kayak and paddled away. After many hours of travel Sedna turned and saw a black speck far off into the distance. She felt the fear well up inside of her for she knew the speck was her angry husband flying in search of her.

The big black raven swooped down upon the kayak bobbing on the ocean. Sedna’s father took his paddle and struck at the raven but missed as the bird continued to harass them. Finally the raven swooped down near the kayak and flapped his wing upon the ocean. A vicious storm began to brew. The calm arctic ocean soon became a raging torrent tossing the tiny kayak to and fro. Sedna’s father became very frightened. He grabbed Sedna and threw her over the side of the kayak into the ocean. “Here, he screamed, here is your precious wife, please do not hurt me, take her.”Sedna screamed and struggled as her body began go numb in the icy arctic waters. She swam to the kayak and reached up, her fingers grasping the side of the boat. Her father, terrified by the raging storm, thought only of himself as he grabbed the paddle and began to pound against Sedna’s fingers. Sedna screamed for her father to stop but to no avail. Her frozen fingers cracked and fell into the ocean. Affected by her ghastly husbands powers, Sedna’s fingers while sinking to the bottom, turned into seals. Sedna attempted again to swim and cling to her father’s kayak. Again he grabbed the paddle and began beating at her hands. Again Sedna’s hands, frozen by the arctic sea again cracked off. The stumps began to drift to the bottom of the sea, this time turned into the whales and other large mammals. Sedna could fight no more and began to sink herself.

Sedna, tourmented and raging with anger for what had happened to her, did not perish. She became, and still is today, the goddess of the sea. Sedna’s companions are the seals, and the whales that sit with her at the bottom on the ocean. Her anger and fury against man is what drums up the violent seas and storms . Hunters have a great respect for her. Legend has it that they must treat her with respect. Shaman’s from the world above must swim down to her to comb her long black tangled hair. This calms Sedna down. Once this is done, she releases her mammals to allow the Inuit to eat from the bounty of the sea. It is for this reason in the north that after a hunter catches a seal he drops water into the mouth of the mammal, a gesture to thank Sedna for her kindness in allowing him to feed his family.

This is the legend of Sedna.

Best wishes and many blessings,

Denise

Answering Readers…

The first from Grace:

grace43

 

I am a hobbist genealogist. I have several long deceased relatives I would like to know what they were like. Have you ever done a chart on a deceased person? If I have a date and time of death, how do I use that?  My great grandfather died of swine flu in 1918. His brother died that same year in WWI. I can find military records for Uncle Glenn, but nothing for Grandpa Benjamin. I would love to know more about these two men, but have exhausted all other sources. It seems like their deaths sent the whole family into a downward spiral. I don’t have birth times naturally, but I don’t think that will matter in this case. Can you use dates from the distant past to see how they impacted the future? Thanks! Hi Grace, You can run a solar chart. And yes you can see how they effected the world through their charts, and of course, what sorts of things they went through based on that info. You won’t know exactly what. and when things happened without a birth time, but you can really tell a lot about their personalities; how they interacted with people, their passions, their weaknesses, most definitely. if you want to post their birth dates I can run solar charts for you, and do an analysis to show everyone how this works.   Wyntyr

Hi Denise,  I would love to know your thoughts on the Illinois governor (Blagojevich) scandal. Somehow this man seems so caught up in his ego that he literally doesn’t ‘get’ what he has done and feels like he answers to nobody but himself (is my humble opinion). I hope this won’t drag out very far into 2009 if at all, but most likely there will be a lot of mud sliding downhill for quite some time with this scandal. This time period almost seems like a ‘karmic’ cycle in the world. And, those that are corrupt will definately feel the effects. I personally feel that once Obama and his team get into office, that they are going to uncover unprecedented amounts of previous corruption and scandal that we have NEVER seen in anyones lifetime (especially in the financial, banking, auto industry, etc.). And, they are thankfully the right team to clean it up! Best wishes to you Denise! Hi Wyntyr, The dude looks like a cartoon of a slimy used car salesman. How did this man even win? Seriously, he has such gross energy. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the guy. He’s just a bad stereo type of a political hack. I think he got confused, and thought he was living in the Soviet Union, because how ridiculous is this whole thing? He not only couldn’t sell Obama’s senate seat — I don’t want to even get into how stupid this guy has to be. And yes, I agree with you, we are seeing karma boomerang right now. It’s just the beginning. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the Bush scandals in terms of them getting their due as well. Interestingly there was a planet discovered a few years ago (in our solar system) by Mike Brown professor/scientist from Cal-Tech. There was some debate about whether it was really a “planet” or not because of its size and the fact that it was so far out of orbit. But it is actually bigger then Pluto which is why scientists started trying to say Pluto was no longer a planet. Long story short they decided trans-neptunian planets in the Kuiper Belt would be called dwarf planets, lame but anyway, I e-mailed Mike Brown about the importance of picking the right name, which was his responsibility since he found it, telling him how important a name is, especially to the collective unconscious, blah, blah. I begged him to pick a Goddess name since there were so few and also to try and stay within the same pantheon all the other planets were named for. He wrote me back and told me he was on it. I had suggested a name but there was already an asteroid with that name and they couldn’t have two heavenly bodies with similar names due to some regulation. So he ended up picking Eris, Goddess of strife. This was decided in 2006. Interestingly enough Uranus, ruler of revolutions was discovered in-between the French revolution and our revolution. I don’t think its a coincidence that Eris was found when she was. As I see it she is a warning about the difficulties ahead. I want to do more research on her mythology but to make a long story short I think her discovery was a foreshadowing of a new period, one in which karma becomes more instant, and where reaction follows action almost immediately. I’ll do some research and write a post about this. Here’s a link to basic info about Eris: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet) Bed time. I’m working on a number of posts, one regarding the outer planets and how they effect us and I guess now one on Eris. Best wishes and many blessings to all, Denise

Answering Readers…

Hey everyone,

I’m working on some more posts that clarify astrological points over the next few weeks, so hopefully this will help with my astro talk and also get some of you interested in further investigation of the art/science.

For now I’m answering some readers and the first is from Wei:

Hi Denise: I am not a conspiracy theorist, but the economic turmoil and the violent bubble and bust situations from the dot.com to the most recent real estate and credit crisis wreaks of corruption. It creates paupers and millionaries. My comment is related to a posting you made about how you forsee a different monetary system, a more universal and world market situation. I watched zeitgeist, the movies found on http://www.zeitgeistmovie.comand what I found interesting is the parallel between your comments and how the documentaries notes nefarious desire to create globalization through an universal currency and gov’t with subsequent tearing down of our civil liberties. “Terrorism” which has been happening all over the world now is touted as the new way for bankers to make money because it is a war that you can’t win so it goes on forever. Wonder if you feel there is actually some feeling that globalization is a bad thing. I, for one, find it interesting.  Hi Wei, I’ll have to check out the link. I’ve been too busy to look at it, but I will tomorrow. You know the bible seems to think globalization is bad, but I actually don’t feel that way for a number of reasons. Again, I haven’t seen the documentary, but I often think the knee jerk reaction to globalization is based on this ingrained fear driven into the subconscious of our country via the book of Revelations. Which by the way was prophecy about the end of the Aries age, going into the Pisces, not about this time period despite the fact people of every age have tried to wrangle the prophecies to fit their particular era. And all the fancy metaphors and predictions did come to pass at that time. Especially, if one is a Christian the talk of a Messiah saving Israel should clearly indicate the rise of Jesus, and the emancipation of the Jews from the Egyptians around that period. I remember when I was a kid back in the late 70s (I was on occult mailing lists of course because I tried to join the Rosicrucian’s and many other such groups via the mail) getting a pamphlet put out by the Zionists saying that the beast was the computer (there was really only one big computer that was housed in like a skyscraper or something) and all bar codes had the number 666 as part of their encoding. This computer/beast was going to control all commerce, and people were going to have to eventually wear their mark on their palm, because cards would be too dangerous, etc. People might loose them and then what would they do! Oh, yeah call 1-800-bank-blah, but they hadn’t thought up 800 numbers yet I guess or the idea of replacing cards. Their interpretation was kind of true. Banking is computerized, but we don’t wear the mark of the beast. And maybe the prophets of old did see some weird computer thing in a vision, and were afraid of it, doesn’t mean it is the devil. Let’s not forget it was cool to stone your wife to death, sacrifice your kid if God told you to, and God forbade eating pork. So the fear mongering in the bible extends into many crazy areas. So here are my reasons why globalization is not only not a bad thing: 1) The more we band together as a world the greater our chances for saving the earth. 2) The more we are all interlinked the more we lift each other up, helping the developing world and in turn hopefully, helping them to avoid the errors of the mistakes we’ve made along the way. They also help us. If we do things fairly, we can all benefit from the resources of all nations, and put the best of everyone and everything to work for the whole of the world. 3) Agreeing on international laws which we all have to abide by puts each separate government’s feet to the fire, such as: We violated the Geneva Convention, in my opinion the Bush administration officials (and the President himself) should stand trial for war crimes if he, and/or his people are proven to have OK’d torture. They broke the law. If we can’t do anything in our country to make our government officials accountable then we still have the hope of the world community policing us. The more we (by this I mean countries) hold each other to humanitarian standards, despite the policies of our particular isolated country’s politics, the more we advance humanitarian causes. 4) We are one planet circling around one of approximately 250 billion stars in our galaxy alone. There are billions, and billions of stars and scientists are finding it common for stars to have planets orbiting them. And I’m sure over time we will find solar systems as common as cells in a human body. The chances we are alone in the universe are impossible. The more we see ourselves as one people – one world, the more we are prepared to take the leap forward into the future, advance our sciences, our capacity to travel to other planets and be able to deal with the eventual (if we are not already dealing with it, which in my opinion we are) communication with either extra-terrestrial or extra-dimensional beings.  Of course the down side to a global economy is what we are currently seeing. If one country falls then we see the domino effect. But if we can put laws in place, and make sure anti-monopoly laws are not only put into place, but indestructible via deregulation or otherwise, then the world would thrive in ways no one could imagine possible. However, if we allow the greedy to manipulate the world stage then it would be Soylent Green time. This is the potential threat of a truly united global economy. Luckily, people and country’s are self-interested enough to see this potential and hopefully (if these countries are not run by morons or madmen) protect their people from exploitation. Best wishes and many blessings to all of you, Denise