Videos hosted by Michael Erlewine

If you resonate to this solar flare information I have been posting, if it makes sense to you and you feel like internalizing it a bit, there is one major step you can take, if you can realize it. Understanding it is not hard, experiencing it consciously it a little harder, and realizing it can be difficult. It is worth the effort, so I will describe it to you.

To begin, I would like to share a few experiences and thoughts concerning the structure in space beyond our solar system and how it might be of value personally (or astrologically if you are an astrologer) for learning more about who we are and what on Earth we might be here for.

I first became interested in deep-space astrology, as I have mentioned in earlier blogs, through exploring heliocentric astrology, the astrology of our entire solar system. Early on I was amazed at the difference between my standard geocentric natal chart and some of the other astrological coordinate systems such as the heliocentric and Local Space charts. As I went deeper into my helio chart, I ended up identifying with it as I realized that is who I really am, and have always been. This was a realization, a one-way trip. There is no going back.

At that time my interest in the space beyond and surrounding our solar system was minimal at best. I was put off by the billions of stellar objects out there and, on a more basic level, by the ideas of coldness and blackness I had been programmed to associate with outer space. I sure didn’t want to be out there.

Distant space somehow represented the epitome of "otherness"' and "foreign" to me. I was also embarrassed (in terms of astrological usage) by all of the books I had read on the fixed stars, with the possible exception of L. E. Johndro's book, “The Stars.” How was I to determine the significance of these billions of stars and use them in my practice, when I had enough difficulty just using the nine planets? And then the unexpected happened.

I had a dream, a very special dream. It was not an ordinary dream, but one of those dreams that are more real than waking consciousness and that take months to understand and absorb. It was placed deep in my consciousness. In fact, it was a kind of vision.

In the dream, I was standing outside on a very dark night when the astrologer L.E. Johndro (I had been studying his work closely) appeared to me. His mind was filled with light; moreover there were rays or long stalks of light coming out of his eyes. This strange being looked right at me and spoke but one word, "LOOK!" And then he turned and with his arm pointed directly up to the night sky. I looked up and out there.

As I opened my eyes, the sky was filled with brilliant points of light. The stars and all of this starry material were clustered together to form the great glowing arch of the Milky Way or galactic plane. It was wondrous beyond description and in that instant my heart went out from me and filled this bright hall of space.

Never again have I had the feeling of being here on Earth, warm and trembling before the cold and black of space. In that moment I became the space, the starry light, and reversed my polarity or changed my attitude on the spot. This is the flip I am talking about, the realization that is available to us if we open to it.

I understood in that instant that I was no stranger to this place, but rather a living representative of this mother galaxy, in fact its very child. I was myself the being from outer space I had always wondered about the existence of. Furthermore, I had always been here! I have to laugh at the image of all these scientists searching for intelligent life in the universe when we're it – representative life.

From that night forward I began to venture beyond the familiar zodiac in an inquiry as to the nature and structure of this universe I am born out of. Here is a brief account of what I found:

Most important is the fact that we are an integral part of the cosmos, not some lonely foreign outpost. In fact, each of us is a node or information aggregate and the universe is in intimate contact with itself only through us (or beings like us) by way of our mind and eyes. We are part of the cosmic information conduit, the eyes of the universe and the cosmos (which we are one with) sees through our eyes none other than itself. In other words, we are already the representative intelligence science has been searching the heavens in vain for.

The manifold nature of distant cosmic events happening out there in space is represented through our very self and lives down here on Earth too. The universe lives through us. There is not only a correlation between these seeming remote cosmic events and our person, but an identity as well.

Information coming from the Galactic Center (and elsewhere), carried by electromagnetic and gravitational radiation from every last star and cosmic plane and event, passes through us at all times. We are in some way a node or information complex embedded in the matrix or web of manifestation. And we are looking at our self!

While all that may sound pretty heady, the overpowering idea that occurred when I made some acquaintance with the universe and its structure is that there is no difference between out there and in here. We are already out there! We ARE in deep space and have been there from eternity up until just now. We are no stranger in a strange land. We are an equal part of this universe. We are, as my friend Theodore Landschidt would say, the children of the light.


Our world, our self and relationships, are a perfect reflection of what is here and also what is happening out there, because in-here is also already out-there in space, not an analogy, but an identity. The symbol is real. Black holes, supernovae, quasars, and the like are not just remote cosmic events, but this identical story of the life and death of stars and stellar objects is represented, reflected, lived, and acted out each day in our lives by those of us living here on Earth.

It seems that information somehow circulates through the universe and our identity or sense of our self is this very process of circulation. What we call "identity" or knowing our self (or each other) is not only a personal experience, but a relationship, in fact a circulation and a process of communion or communication – identification! Not only is there a connection between our life and that of our galaxy and universe, but WE are that connection. Talk about removing duality and making the two into one! This is a big example of that.

A study of the structure of the universe, at any level (large or small), is a study of our self, and the guidelines of cosmic structure help to illustrate the specific structure of our self. In summary, the idea that I am unfolding here is: astrology is not only a symbolic system of psychological discussion. The symbol is also, in fact, real. If we say it is an analogy, then the analogy is complete down to the limits of any specific example we might chose. We are all time and space travelers. There are no better words that I know of than these of Emerson:

"All inquiry into antiquity is the desire to do away with this wild, savage, and preposterous There or Then, and introduce in its place, the Here and the Now. Belzoni (an archeologist) digs and measures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes until he can see the end of the difference between the monstrous work and himself. When he has satisfied himself, in general and in detail, that it was made by such a person as he, so armed and so motivated, and to ends to which he, himself, should also have worked, the problem is solved; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs, passes through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to the mind, or are NOW."

-- Emerson, Essay on History.

A process of self-discovery awaits those who would inquire into the nature and structure of this universe. We may read and study the history and record of astrology through all of the books we have. We may return again and again to our favorite passages to make sure of what we have found there. But, sooner or later, each of us must turn away from the book and just LIVE our life. That is why we study astrology in the first place. As my dharma teacher often said to me:

“Michael, someday you must become the book!”

We each must become the book and only that lives which we have known for ourselves to have life, which we have personally lived. As Shakespeare said in one of his early sonnets: "You are no more yourself than you now here live." The philosopher Hegel said the same thing in another way: "We go behind the curtain of the Self to see what is there, but mainly for there to be something to be seen."

There is great value in a reading of the ancient wisdom and documents. What the ancients saw or discovered about themselves, that truth, is still true today. All of the laws of the universe still exist to be known today. Truth lasts and still is. That is the nature of truth.

We are always free to leave off at reading about our life and cast off into an inquiry, our personal inquiry, and to live that life we read about. We can learn to know or experience and finally realize what it is that we are talking or reading about.

[Graphic: one of many star maps that I made back in the day to help clarify what I was discovering.]