Northwest Passages

"In the morning we set out early and proceeded to the top of the mountain, the highest point of which is an open spot facing the ocean. It is situated about thirty miles southeast of Cape Disappointment, and projects nearly two and a half miles into the sea. Here one of the most delightful views in nature presents itself. Immediately in front is the ocean, which breaks with fury on the coast, from the rocks of Cape Disappointment" (from The Journals of Lewis and Clark).

After ascending a mountain and looking over a Pacific ("peaceful") ocean, a "cape of disappointment" often appears on the shoreline of our future. Any Neptune illusions in our dreams are grounded by an Earth transit (e.g., Saturn) or a volcanic explosion (Pluto).

In 1836, Narcissa Whitman and her husband Marcus left their Upstate New York farm (near my home town) as missionaries to Native Americans in the state of Washington. However, unable to relate their Christian idealism to the Cayuse culture, they were massacred near Walla Walla.

When I was a chaplain at Western State Hospital, Rev. Laura Cameron Fraser made national headlines because of a Christian heresy, i.e., channeling an angel in her Episcopalian church. She resigned and founded an organization promoting spiritual healing and religious freedom.

David Spangler, pioneer of Findhorn who channeled The Birth of a New Age, had moved to her Issaquah, Washington parish community -- and supported Fraser through the controversial publicity. Spangler had left his religious community and was exploring the spiritual dimensions of parenting.

"The efforts of a manager to empower employees more deeply or the struggles of a father to go beyond traditional patriarchal attitudes to express his own nurturing and 'maternal' instincts may not be as dramatic as the allegedly channeled spirit of a 35,000 year old Atlantean warlord prophesying destruction, but they will have a more lasting and transformative effect" ("Defining the New Age," AHP Perspective, December, 1987).

In the 1980s, Neptune moved to an Earth sign (Capricorn, 1984-1999). "Because Capricorn adds structure to Neptunian inspiration, constructive spiritual ideals emerge, ideals that are reflected in the development of world affairs... there is little danger of this generation losing themselves in search of utopian dreams" (Compendium of Astrology by Rose Lineman and Jan Popelka).

Uranus and Saturn were opposing my (10th House) Mercury (and Moon) and squaring Neptune in my First House. The way I appeared to the world (Christian pastor) and communicated (sermons) was being transformed. Pluto was transiting my third House (communication) and trining Mars which rules my ninth (Aries) House of publishing, religion and philosophy.

So, I began submitting book and newspaper column proposals to publishers, fully expecting the Universe to reward me with financial support. Although Neptune transits uncovered my dream, the illusion of becoming a New Age Erma Bombeck or Mike Royko came crashing down to earth.

After deciding not to pursue the hospital chaplaincy, I continued as part-time pastor of a Tacoma church -- which paid for a clairvoyant training program at the Washington Psychic Institute (WPI). However, that income and my United Methodist clergy identity ended when it was learned I was doing psychic readings and heretical counseling in the church office.

As an old career faded and income from writing failed to materialize, I invested in establishing a WPI in Chicago. But, a month after losing my pastor's job, the WPI pulled out of the Chicago venture -- and I was stranded in Chicago. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Chief Sitting Bull's great-great granddaughter (Kathy), whom I was living with, borrowed my car -- which caught fire or "blew up."

Sometimes, our Higher Self creates an unexpected job or relationship loss to move us away from the past to a new experience. Kathy came to the Northwest via a Native American Reservation in South Dakota and public housing in Denver (and Tacoma). She put her several children up for adoption and became involved in WPI.

Understanding painful change is as difficult to comprehend as a Mt. St. Helens blowing up and destroying a national park. The Earth Mother is healing herself (including us Earthlings), rebalancing our energy to accommodate an increase in Spirit (prana) on the planet (and in our bodies).

Pluto's movement into the sign it rules (Scorpio, 1983-1995) was a volatile era of personal and social growth, a death and rebirth transformation for the Aquarian Age. In retrospect, the loss of chaplain and pastor jobs ended an association with religious structures -- which synchronized with the death of the Piscean Age.

There cannot be a real birth without a real death. As Jesus said, old wineskins break when new wine is poured into them. For years, I had been talking of the illusion of Christian clergy, the divinity of Jesus, etc., in sermons and church programs. If we are a Oneness, religious structures (or those not professing spiritual unity) are themselves an illusion.

The exodus from Christianity began in Chicago when Pluto was transiting my Third House (1980-1993, the natural House of my Gemini Sun sign). Pluto square Pluto (1983-1985) "will root out precisely those elements of the past that are not good for you... allow the things of the past to fade and allow the future to be born on their ruins....This transit may also increase your concern about the creative and regenerative processes within the universe and cause you to become interested in the occult." (Planets in Transit by Robert Hand). And ended with Pluto squaring my Ascendant

Astrology transits, programmed by our Higher Selves before we're born, choreograph a healing journey. For example, Saturn opposite the Sun (1985, 1986) "may be a very discouraging time.... other people -- particularly employers and other persons in authority -- may oppose your plans.....a period of endings which will be followed by new beginnings" (Planets in Transit, Robert Hand).

Helen, the volcano's namesake was the mother of Constantine. The daughter of an innkeeper who was divorced by a Roman general when he was made a Caesar. But she gave birth to Constantine the Great, built numerous churches and gave alms to the poor. The sudden divorce released her Inner Fire.

"Cape Disappointment" in a Christian illusion is a perfect heaven, Pope and church projected into the new age as perfect angels, gurus and soulmates. There is, instead, eternal growth. After Richard Bach's auto mechanic left the savior trip in Illusions, he continued learning -- as Jonathan L. Seagull did in Bach's earlier book.

David Spangler said, "I see the new age as a metaphor for the expression of a transformative, creative spirit rather than as a future event." He said a future ideal "becomes a carrier for people's unmet expectations...[which] will always be foreplay in search of a climax, a tension that is never relieved except in disillusionment" (AHP Perspective).

Brock Elk Horn does clairvoyant readings, astrology and holistic counseling that facilitates healing of mind, body and spirit. Telephone: (773) 338-3329. For more information, see the Chicago Pulse - Practitioners in this issue of TMA.