What you do counts

By Cal Garrison

This week’s Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Void-of-Course, Virgo Moon that will remain in that mode until it crosses the Libra cusp, at 5:16 p.m. The Moon turned full at 10:35 p.m. on Tuesday night. By the time Good Friday rolls around it will be in Sagittarius, and hold steady in that sign until about 8 p.m. on Easter Sunday.

How are you all doing? Is the quarantine giving you a chance to reflect on your life and make the most of your free time? Are the Easter rituals reminding you that life goes on? Have you been paying attention to the fact that there is a gigantic wake-up call going on, and that nothing is business as usual? As we watch and wait to see how it all comes out in the wash, it seems like people are opening their eyes. In the midst of this personal and collective reality check, I have gotten more questions than usual, so I decided to take one of them and use it as a jumping off place for this week’s column.

This one showed up in the form of a video from one of my clients. Along with the link, he sent a message saying, “This video postulates that everything in life is predetermined and that there is no such thing as free will.” He asked me for my opinion on the subject. I tuned in for a few minutes, picked up on what they were getting at, and shut it off. For those of you who wonder about the gap between fate and free will, here is my take on it.

(What I am about to say presumes that you believe in reincarnation. Many people don’t subscribe to that belief, feel free to skip the rest).

There is a process that goes on between each lifetime; we don’t just randomly pop in and out of successive earthly experiences. The space between one life and the next has its own purpose and is just as important as what occurs on either side of it. About nine months before we are conceived our soul meets up with our higher self, and with the beings who watch over us, and together we weigh in on what our actions in our previous lives have accrued for us.

Because each lifetime is an opportunity to evolve spiritually, this pre-conception pow-wow gives us a chance to weigh the good, the bad, and the ugly from the past lives, and use it to design a curriculum for the upcoming incarnation. At this meeting, the souls of all of the beings who will play a role in our next go-round, raise their hands and agree to take part in whatever our life lessons are about to teach us. Some of them volunteer to play the good guy. Others volunteer to play the bad guy. These things are predetermined, long before we are born. All of it is designed to assist us in evolving closer to the Source.

The moment of conception sets the tone for everything. The astrology of conception is as important as the astrology of our birth. The birth chart is a blueprint of the contracts that we signed with God and our higher self, prior to conception. The positions of the planets at the moment that we inhale oxygen for the first time, delineate whatever those agreements involved.

What few of us are aware of is that as soon as we take our second breath, all of the birth planets begin to move, or inch forward in space. Over time, the original angles and placements are altered. Why? Because here in the Third Dimension, human beings are subject to time and experience. The way the birth chart progresses sheds light on how time and experience expose us to a multitude of conditions that offer our souls a chance to respond, and make our choices, one way or another.

What this means is that, yes, the contracts that we sign prior to conception are definitely fated. The upcoming lifetime gives us up to 100 years to honor those contracts – or not. From that perspective, what happens between birth and death is written in stone. As the planets progress, slowly but surely, through time, their inter-relationships shift and change. At points along the way, the original blueprint gets triggered, and the soul meets challenges that confront it with pressure to make choices, one way or another. It is at these critical moments that our free will comes into play.

In any birth chart, the planets and asteroids are all subject to their own unique rhythms. They cycle around in a set pattern. Like gears in a clock, there are moments in time when the planetary bodies align simultaneously, or phase lock in specific patterns. It is at those points that an experience, or a lesson kicks in, a “test” that was preordained before we were conceived. It may be fate that generates the lesson, but when it comes about, what we choose to do about it is subject to our free will. The spirit will either take the high road, or the low road and that choice will lead us closer to our purpose, or not.

Because the aim of the higher self is to keep each of us in alignment with what our souls contracted to do before we were conceived, what happens after we pass through any karmic checkpoint will be easy or hard – and that all depends on what it will take to keep us on the path, or pick us up, dust us off, and get us back on track. As much as what is ordained by the planets seals our fate, we are the ones who decide which way to go whenever push comes to shove. We can’t blame God or curse fate when life deals us a bad hand because ultimately, our free will is the key to everything.

The bigger question might be: what fuels our free will? In my opinion it is our conscience that animates the free will. We could say that everyone is born with a conscience. Whether that is true or not is open to question, so let’s just say that some people are more conscientious than others. In a given situation all of us are subject to the inner voice that tells us what we need to do, or ought to do. Whether we listen to that voice or not is subject to our free will.

In many situations we will be 100% clear about what we need to do, and follow that guidance. In other situations we will be just as clear, and decide to override it. This means that our conscience is always subservient to our level of conscientiousness. So, what does our conscientiousness hinge upon? I have come to the conclusion that our conscientiousness is a direct reflection of our level of consciousness. And our consciousness is a direct reflection of the extent to which we are connected to the God within.

With Good Friday and the annual Easter rituals on the horizon,what I find interesting is the fact that Good Friday falls on April 10 this year. In the Egyptian traditions April 10 is Thoth’s birthday. On the most mundane level, Thoth is regarded as “The Scribe.” He is the God who recorded and kept watch over the sacred truths. It was he who oversaw “The Word” and  preserved the wisdom that was meant to remind mankind how to maintain a truthful connection between the heart and the mind.

Some say that Thoth was married to the goddess Ma’at. Other sources tell us that Ma’at was Thoth’s mother. Either way the two of them were deeply entwined. Ma’at is understood to be the Goddess of Truth, Justice, and Moral integrity. She personifies all of the elements of cosmic harmony that were established by the creator-god at the beginning of time. Ma’at is the one who endowed the Pharaohs with the authority to uphold the laws of the universe. Whenever anything went awry in the world, it was Ma’at who came along to restore order out of chaos.

It’s quite obvious that the world is in a state of turbulence and change. Underneath it all we are actually at a still point. The fact that everyone on the planet is in quarantine is no accident. In this stillness, between what appears to be chaos and the quintessential order that underlies everything, it is important to remember that the Truth is about to come to light.

I take heart knowing that somehow Thoth, and his ability to maintain the connection between the heart and the mind, along with Ma’at, the queen of Justice.

Let me leave you with that, wish you a happy Easter, and invite you to take what you can from this week’s ‘scopes.