Solstices and Equinoxes

We're coming into a very interesting time.

The summer solstice is approaching, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the summer solstice. There are four times of tremendous power that occur every year. There are others that occur at different times, but there are four that you can count on, and those are the solstices and the equinoxes. Without going into the structures of why that is so - it just is - I'd rather look at what it means.

The summer solstice is the time in the physical world of greatest light. The winter solstice is the time of the greatest darkness, if you will. The equinoxes are equal day and equal night in the fall and spring. But while this is occurring in a physical sense, in the physical universe, in the inner universe, meaning in other dimensional planes, something else is happening at that time also. The manifestation may be more sunlight or less sunlight or half and half in the physical world, but in the subtle planes there are doorways and powers that open and come into view. And if we can hook ourselves onto those powers, they can carry us a long way.

Occultists are intrinsically lazy like everyone else. We would much rather hitch a ride than walk - unless we just are in the mood to walk. The way we accomplish things is by hooking ourselves and unhooking ourselves to powers, to forces, to energies. And we focus on those energies, we blend our aura, we extend our luminous selves psychically into those forces and powers and we hitch a ride. When we've ridden to the destination we want to get to and the destination, if we stayed with it, would take us someplace we don't want to be, we let go. We hook ourselves onto things and we let go of things. It's a very unemotional process. We just do it.

The summer solstice is a time in the physical plane of great light. In India, in every yoga center, every master, every ashram has a big celebration. Some celebrate the winter solstice also. The summer solstice tends to get more play. I feel equal about them, to be honest. They're very different.

We have a summer solstice coming now; it's the solstice of 1990. It's a very strong solstice. Just as there are times when there are sunspots, the geysers of fire that spew forth from the sun that are more powerful and they affect the electro-magnetic field of our planet and of our universe, they affect radio waves and all kinds of things - there are times when the sun is very active and there are times when there aren't many. All solstices are not the same. This particular summer solstice is a very, very powerful time. There's a tremendous power that's present. There is in every summer solstice and every winter solstice and every equinox. But this is a very active one; there are a lot of sunspots. There are a lot of pillars of fire.

It's a time when it's easier to change, to erase personal history, to do what I call "transit." It's an astrological term, to go through a transit - that is to say, to shift yourself, to adjust the foreground and the background of your mind, to take aspects of yourself that you don't find interesting, that drain your power, that are just a pain or that are boring and put them in the background, and to bring other things into the foreground. It's a very, very strong solstice. It's like all of them, yet more so.

The last really strong solstice was around '85 in the summer. It's been about five years since we've had one like this. And it's a time, I suppose in a sense - we have the longest day, June 21st or June 22nd, there's more sunlight around - in a way that reflects inwardly because during the summer solstice, it's very easy to see things that might be difficult to see at another time. It's like everything comes out in the wash, if you know what I mean. It's a time when you will find it very easy to see your imperfections and your perfections. It is a time to see what has to be done, and what's done.

What a good occultist does, is they hook themselves to the summer solstice. It's a very powerful time. It's a feeling. You know it's coming internally because your mind is quiet, because you meditate and your life is not filled with a lot of things that distract you, because you're centered and you have your goals set forward and that's what you put your time and energy into. Because you've eliminated anything unnecessary from your life and your mind isn't cluttered, you can feel things that other people don't feel. You can feel the power of the solstice.