Water Rites: A Ceremony of Communal Intention to Heal Our Waters

'Water Rites' is an intention ceremony I'll be doing with Dan Furst this October. The text of the flyer reads: "On Friday, Oct.7, a day sacred to Venus, people in Omaha who want to honor the Moon and the Divine Feminine, and heal the waters of Mother Earth, will join our intentions in a Water Rites ceremony. Dan Furst and Felina Lune Kavi will guide an evening of clown ritual, breath alignment, chant and movement. If you resonate with a one-night intentional community like this one, please bring musical instruments and voices, and dress in lunar colors of silver, white and blue.

Where: Unity of Omaha, 3424 N. 90th St. When: Friday, Oct 7, 7:00 –9:00pm. We may start outdoors. Dress warm, and bring water. Admission: Donation. We like the Egyptian proverb: “The more you spend, the more God sends.”

Dan Furst is a Moon priest and author of Dance of the Moon. His new book Surfing Aquarius has just been published by Red Wheel Weiser. He’s in Omaha this week to sign his book, do astrocartography and astrology readings, and celebrate the Aquarian values of community, focused intention and festive, passionate magic.

Felina Lune Kavi lives in Omaha and is a Sacred Activist with V.O.I.C.E. (Venusian Octave Inspired Collective Enlightenment). V.O.I.C.E. connects the global community to universal harmonies with Inter-spiritual Activities, Healing Projects, Handfastings, Sacred Circles and Intention Ceremonies. Felina facilitates healing, counsel and guidance through astrology, numerology, cartomancy, shamanic journeying, archetypal exploration and shadow work based on Jungian psychology."

I met Dan Furst in March of 2010 at Next Millennium in Omaha during his book tour for 'Dance of the Moon'. Synchronicity was at hand, because I was at the store in February to purchase a few gifts for the Linkes and my mother, and I was handed a flyer. It sounded interesting, so I decided to attend.

In meeting him, I realized that Dan and I have much in common (from writing, astrology, acting, singing, and teaching...to his particular affinity toward the moon phases and the history and evolution of our ways of marking time). In an astrological reading, he reminded me that my Saturn Return was drawing closer (a return which is now upon me, and exact on October 1st). Saturn returns to the same position on your natal chart approximately every 29.5 years. This is why the transition between the end of our 20s to age 30 is often when we make major life decisions or changes, separate the wheat from the chaff within our own lives, and harvest our highest potential. That is, if we realize that we have this responsibility to do so, and do the hard work that this entails. For those who've coasted through their life thus far avoiding or rejecting the natural maturation process, the Saturn Return can be a sobering...even grueling...experience.

Saturn has earned many nicknames over the centuries...The Great Malefic, The Taskmaster, The Lord of Karma, Father Time, The Teacher, The Harvester, the Restrictor, etc. But one thing is certain, the lessons of Saturn bring us face to face with decisions that have far-reaching implications in our lives. I don't view Saturn as a malefic influence as some astrologers do...he gained that title because the good fortune he brings is often cloaked in hard work and heavy experiences...and, in that way, the difficulties are all that we can see. But I have trained my mind's eye to recognize the light within the shadow of all things...and Saturn's influence, however mired in struggle and exhaustion, strips us down to our essentials to show us who we are becoming.

The Saturn Return is a time to buckle down, get down to brass tacks, get busy and get to work...enough of this hemming and hawing...choose your path and build solid foundations for your future. It's a very fatherly influence...which is why I threw in all of those appropriate fatherly catch-phrases (at least, I can certainly hear my own father's voice in all of that).

Saturn's role as the Cosmic Teacher is the one I resonate with the most. So I thought it was also appropriate that Dan would contact me earlier this year to see if I would like to help him with his book tour and reading schedule while he would be here in October. Being an older and wiser person who has accomplished much with similar interests and skills as my own, he has not only become my friend but also a mentor.

Dan's first book, 'Dance of the Moon: Celebrating the Sacred Cycles of the Earth', taught me much about something I'm very interested in...time (a very Saturnian construct). For more about this book, check out 'Dance of the Moon'.

His new book, 'Surfing Aquarius: How to Ace the Wave of Change', is a guide through the dramatic changes that are already in motion in the Age of Aquarius. For more about this book, check out 'Surfing Aquarius'.

During the week leading up to 'Water Rites', Dan will be doing book signings, talks about living Aquarian, and Astrological chart readings (both Natal Charts as well as Astrocartography). Whether you live in the Omaha area or not, it is worth the trip to join us for this intention ceremony to heal the waters of our world on Friday, October 7th. Everyone is welcome! We hope to see you there!

Love and Gratitude,

Felina Lune Kavi

Aries Ascending

There's no beginning like an end. Today begins a new cycle of Aries influence in the cosmos, but only after one more Piscean lesson.

In about an hour from now, Mercury (the planet of communication) exacts its conjunction with Uranus (the planet of innovation) in the last degree of Pisces. In this degree, discernment is key. Today is the day to strengthen your sense of self and project the image of the person you want to be. This is the first (mental) step toward the transformations taking place once these planets reach Aries. The insight you receive today, whether it is in the form of unexpected, strange, or liberating news, is part of your preparation for what is to come. With Mercury and Uranus (Mercury's higher octave planet) working in tandem, you'll want to keep an open mind this week.

About an hour after that (11:47am), Mercury enters Aries. The key phrase for this transit (which lasts until 5-15, as Mercury retrogrades through this sign between 3-30 and 4-23) is 'new ideas'. The key word for this transition into Aries is 'realization'. During this transit, we have knowledge being channeled from the unconscious to reality. This blossoming awareness provides comfort, and opens opportunities for creativity and independence. Fun, enthusiastic people who stimulate your creative thinking will boost your own unique talents during this time. Attend events or join causes where you can contribute your ideas and energy toward something co-creative. Use the retrograde time (3-30 through 4-23) to break free of habits that are holding you back or weakening your will. When summer rolls around, you'll want to be liberated from those things that aren't working for you...so set yourself up for some inside-and-out 'spring cleaning'.

On Friday (March 11), Uranus enters Aries at 6:49pm. We had a pre-cursor to this transit last year when Uranus waded into Aries briefly (May 27-August 13) before retrograding back into Pisces. But now we're approaching the 7-year long transit of Uranus in Aries...the beginning of an important cycle (individually as well as globally). Significant changes are ahead, and so are a lot of surprises.

Uranus rules inventiveness, social innovation, oddities, surprises, the unexpected, technology, independence, and rebellion. This transit signals a time to break free from limiting situations, ideas, and thought patterns. During this transformative transit, if you ignore the necessary changes in your view and keep doing the same old things in the same old ways, you'll miss a great opportunity to make your life more interesting and meaningful.

Dan Furst on the history of Uranus in Aries:

"The essence of the combination is Change. Uranus is the artist and trickster of Revolution, the one who brings change that is heady and exciting to those who welcome it and are brave enough to play it, and upsetting, even terrifying, to those who resist it, or think they will control it to their ends. When Uranus is in the zodiac sign of the impetuous, desire-driven Warrior and initiator of the new, he tends to witness, and perhaps to provoke, revolutionary changes that can go either way, toward freeing people, or enslaving them in new and more ingenious ways. Some recent exhibits in the Uranus-in-Aries wing of the History Museum:

1927 - 1935: The 1929 crash leads to worldwide depression, war and revolution. The new planet Pluto is discovered in 1930. Japan invades Manchuria in 1931, Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president of the US the next year, and Germany goes Nazi in January 1933. A year later the Red Army in China survives the Long March, and the Stalin dictatorship begins.

1843 - 1851: Socialist and other anti-monarchic uprisings shake the regimes of Europe. The new planet Neptune is discovered in 1846, as the Baha'i movement begins. Civil unrest and the Irish potato blight propel a wave of German and Irish immigration to the USA, which wins a war of expansion against Mexico. The Communist Manifesto is published, and the labor movement begins.

1756 - 1764: Uranus is in Aries during the entire time of the Seven Years' War, as England, reaping the benefits of its recent Industrial Revolution, defeats France and emerges as the world's dominant empire. England imposes in its American colonies the mercantilist laws that will soon lead to revolt when Uranus is in the communicative sign of Gemini.

This is enough to establish the main shape of the picture: transformative events, often involving mass movements of millions of people, sometimes achieving the end of oppressive regimes, but sometimes bringing worse ones. One way or the other, when Uranus is in Aries, especially when he is in a 90° "square" to Pluto in Capricorn in 2012 - 2013, we may feel that we're being swept along by currents that we cannot direct or control. We are in the white water now, and it will get louder. We can choose to navigate it in a strong canoe with fit, resonant, well-equipped friends. We can get inside a barrel and shoot the rapids alone. One way or the other, we're in a fluid, turbulent water environment that requires us to get flexible and inventive if we're going to travel on the water's terms. This is the theme of my book Surfing Aquarius, which Red Wheel Weiser will publish in September."

-Dan Furst's Universal Festival Calendar for March 2011 on Hermes3.net

Dan Furst will be here in Omaha this October for his 'Surfing Aquarius' book tour and we will be planning an event together for the second weekend of October. If you're interested in learning more about the waters ahead, keep your schedule open that weekend and join us in Omaha for a mind-expanding, heart-opening, soul-stirring gathering of Spiritual Activism.

Love and Gratitude,
Felina Lune Kavi