Barbara’s kundalini call reminds me of the early summer day back when I was undergoing my once-in-a-lifetime Uranus opposition to itself (an archetypal time when this electrical 84-year-cycle planet moves 180° from its original position, ages 38-40). Feeling an unaccountable surge of energy, I had climbed to the top of a small, rounded mountain across from the Tetons near where I lived in a yurt in Kelly, Wyoming. Lying prone in a meadow tossed with wildflowers ringed with shimmering, newly-leaved aspen, I slowly and subtly felt moved to make love, to the Earth herself.
“It’s time to intentionally grow by initiating ourselves. Being one with our planet’s intrinsic energy is the key to the next phase of human evolution.”
Kundalini Rising and Astrological Transits
September 5, 2013as
by Barbara Hand Clow
realitysandwich.com
In 1991, I published a book about kundalini rising and astrological transits, Liquid Light of Sex. It explores how kundalini energy is activated during major planetary transits, such as Uranus opposite natal Uranus, known popularly as mid-life crisis. This is when kundalini rises up through the chakras and triggers a spiritual awakening. Often accompanying this “awakening” is a cascade of health, emotional, and relationship issues, as well as extreme anxiety, often referred to as “spiritual emergency.” Frequently, this process inspires people to greater spiritual and societal involvement, which is the focus of my updated and expanded edition entitled Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini.After more than twenty years, many astrologers and students of astrology have discovered my research has helped them to liberate the great potential of kundalini fire. My original goes back to when I was in graduate school studying with Matthew Fox in 1982. At that time, my kundalini fire was so intense that I was shaking a lot and I was very disoriented. Looking back, I say, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” Using this force intentionally enhances individuals and entire cultures. The following article explores the value of awakened kundalini for society as a whole using what I call the planetary-growth hypothesis. When people experience the cleansing power of kundalini rising, they become heart centered and evolve. So the question is, would our cultures evolve if more people awakened? We humans differ from all other species in our ability to observe ourselves within a changing universe. We can think about what we’ve come from and where we may be going. We know cultural and historical records influence the way we live; we have become more self-aware by learning from our past experience. Right now, we are becomingmultidimensional, something I explored in depth in the 2010 edition of Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, where I show that our recent comprehension of quantum and string physics is expanding our consciousness incrementally.
Regardless, patriarchal technological society threatens our planet. Many wonder if we’re losing our survival instincts with people floating around in a mass hypnosis pushing keys in cyberspace while residing in drugged, overweight bodies. Those who allow kundalini energy to move in their bodies often pull out of the mass hypnosis. What does the planetary-growth hypothesis have to do with mass culture?
The answer is, “Everything.” Activated kundalini energy is the source of the survival instinct. When we feel this exquisite life force rising in our bodies, we release eros into the web of life. Many of us have discovered that the major life cycles can be used to enhance personal growth. Our next step is to make the conscious initiation into more evolved states of mind into a cultural intention. For example, it is time to use this knowledge to guide our children. For thousands of years up until very recently, human societies initiated their children to help them navigate key life passages. Children must realize these various aspects of life while they are young; that is what will move cultures and the planet back to balance.
Powerful sexual forces are frequently the cause of radical evolutionary shifts. I’m optimistic about these shifts because the sexual force is greater than the death wish. Activating the primal life force is a doable way to facilitate change in the collective. We can break out of the death grip and activate our life and creativity. We can choose to direct our evolution to the next step—conscious creation.
I’ve found that permanent change rarely occurs in us unless our minds have fully apprehended an insight that offers a new choice. I explore kundalini energy flowing in the body to show how these physical sensations alter the way we think. This teaches you how to read subtle energy. The biological basis of kundalini has not yet been “found” in the body, yet researchers think the trigger for kundalini rising probably is in the brain. Neuroscientists such as Erik Floor and Philip Lansky associate the pineal gland with kundalini rising.
According to ancient Eastern wisdom, the serpent power—kundalini—is coiled in the root chakra and rises up the spine to the head. The latest research on brain biology suggests that the biological release is in the brain. Then, as with all human sensations, what is transmitted from the brain is felt in the body. If the kundalini trigger is the brain, then our mental appraisal of our own evolution is the most liberating way to intelligently reflect on ourselves. What we think is possible will be the next stage of human development.
Worldwide, body/mind healers work one-on-one and with groups in workshops to help many of us clear judgments that block healing. Ecofeminist, Earth-centered communities, and ceremonial events at sacred sites with indigenous people are grounding a new energy form. They remind all of us that we can live in peace and harmony and experience happiness in our individual households again. Surely we didn’t climb up the long ladder of evolution without a reason! I firmly believe that problems start with the individual, and then the outer reality is created by what’s inside each person. Even global problems start with individuals. Each person who takes microcosmic responsibility for the universal problem is part of the solution in the macrocosm. It matters if you eat organically, nurture with kindness, and protect the web of life. The visionary film Avatar is an advanced exposition of this way of being.
How did we lose this? For the last five thousand years, human creativity has been funneled into battles and into building cities and empires. Over time, people came to believe that an “enemy” causes their problems. The new way of thinking suggests we stop pointing the blame at the “other” to take responsibility for what we are doing ourselves, a great shift in problem solving. Those of us who have attained this new perspective need to be gentle with those still trapped in blaming their problems on others, since they don’t know how to stop judging others to blame everyone but themselves for their problems.
Global awareness is breaking down the belief in the enemies “out there.” Banking disasters made people realize that if one fails, all fail. We must look to ourselves for the origination of the problems. These days, many avoid politics based on control and manipulation by finding meaningful ways to help society through healing and social action. The idea that we create our own reality—totally—also can be the source of painful and deep divisions between political types and social reformers, since both groups fail to integrate the inner and outer realities. Ironically, many social transformers can see that how we think creates the results in the polls. However, they avoid examining the contents of their own minds because they rarely pursue serious personal healing to clear inner pain. They feel they don’t have time for personal healing work because they must save the world.
We have come to a point where struggle in the outer world has come to an apex—powerfully and beautifully punctuated by a series of seven squares between Uranus and Pluto during 2012-15. Uranus rules transformation and Pluto rules chaotic change; the squares are forcing everybody to process the consequences of 5000 years of patriarchal culture. Yet, the annealing potency of these Uranus-Pluto squares makes everything feel horrible! I think we will begin to feel better in 2016. [I am interpreting these squares free of charge on my website, handclow2012.com.] To imagine how we are going to get through this, let’s turn to indigenous wisdom that anticipated this tense moment in time.
Many indigenous ceremonies and world cultural events from 1987 to 2012 were based on various readings of the Mayan Calendar as well as ancient prophecies. Harmonic Convergence in August 1987 began this intense phase, and now we are breaking into a new world. The end of this long cycle in 2012 released us to choose conscious participation in other dimensions, such as in the Galactic Center. The biologist Terence McKenna once said we were being pulled to an evolutionary leap by an “attracter”—divine consciousness directing planetary evolution. As we’ve been observing ourselves in evolutionary flow, we’re fascinated by creation stories and archaeological discoveries. But, this is a very dangerous time because male-dominant monotheistic world religions resist the idea of the awakened human. This tension, so apparent in the dire state of world affairs, means we are at the hardest point. The patriarchy cannot continue to poison the world. We must activate feminine powers and use right-brain skills to counteract this imbalance.|
Great power is available to men and women in their activated feminine nature, the creative potential of holistic brain synchronization. When our right- brain intuition works in concert with our highly developed left-brain, we seek a nonviolent and creative culture that can facilitate the complete evolution of consciousness. We refuse to be divided by egoistic separation when we know we are in no way superior to any other elements or species.
The female side, traditionally associated with the right brain, is rich in the archetypes of many dimensions, such as animal totems; the crystalline electromagnetic powers of rocks, gems, and plants; and the consciousness that emanates from the stars. These symbiotic parts of self contain the mysteries of nonhuman forms. We need to learn from the other kingdoms to find harmony with Mother Earth. We will not be able to achieve the next stage of evolution without visualizing, meditating upon, and playing with images of ourselves within the web of all life. All species are required for planetary survival.
The Mayan paradigm is shamanic, that is, a culture that intentionally developed synchronistic thought processes, intuition, and multidimensional perceptions. Shamanic cultures revere the female as the source of life; then male and female together create respect for life. Learning how to utilize kundalini energy creates balance in human societies. It is the way to cause the mass activation of shamanic powers that lie dormant in our bodies. We are the sacred fire. Historically, there is great precedent for the idea that the transformation of the individual is at the core of an enlightened society. There are countless examples of ancient cultures that existed in a state of peace and harmony for hundreds and even thousands of years based on this belief. These cultures have left behind artistic, written, and archaeological records of highly developed shamanic techniques. Mayan and Egyptian cultures abound with such evidence, and the Hopi people of the sacred Four Corners region of the American Southwest still maintain a shamanic culture that is already thousands of years old. Going farther back in time, we all are descended from the people of the Mother Goddess. We still retain this deep memory of how to create and live on the planet in a peaceful, healthy way. From 12,000 to around 3500 years ago, living was primarily peaceful, according to such great feminist scholars as Marija Gimbutas, William Irwin Thompson, Gerda Lerner, Riane Eisler, and Mary Settegast. Birthing, and a sense of all things coming from the feminine, was at the center of this Goddess culture.
Modern people retain very few cultural memories from before 12,000 years ago due to cataclysms that almost destroyed our planet, but the Goddess culture goes way back into the mists of time. The fall of the Minoan culture 3500 years ago ended the primordial Goddess culture with the eruption of a huge volcano on Santorini that threw the Aegean basin into a long dark age. Great fear of nature ensued in the West that eventually led to the bad idea that God created the world for mostly male usage.
The collective wisdom of the Goddess culture has much to offer. From what we know of artifacts, art, myths, and sacred sites such as Çatal Hüyuk in Turkey, Avebury in England, and Knossos on Crete, this culture maintained itself for thousands of years by means ofcollective agreement and order. Respect for life was the basis of life and culture, not control of resources and acquisition of wealth and power. The male warrior protected the hearth while women owned the land, their female bodies, and the children. The existence of this long phase of prehistory is a hopeful indication that we could create such a culture again by men and women unifying their goals.
With the patriarchal takeover of the “civilized” world 3500 years ago, the last vestiges of the Goddess culture were buried at Knossos. Control and fear for survival became the basis of society. The female was suppressed, and trust in the natural cycles of Earth ended. Now that we’ve progressed beyond mere survival, many feel life exists for growth and experience, not for male control. Flowing with the cycles of life is the way to full existence. From what we know of the Goddess culture, the ideal way to live is to honor the female. This approach never puts males in lesser roles than females, since males have the unique power to inseminate life and protect women and children. It does downplay, however, control and dominance.
We don’t have to recreate the rituals of the Goddess cultures—bull dances, hierosgamos (sacred marriage), and the yearly sacrifice of the corn god at harvest time. But, we can enjoy the exquisite primal joy of the goddess—being in tune with the cycles of nature and enjoying sex for pleasure, not just for birthing. After all, the world population explosion means women are not needed just for birthing. Based on what we know about Goddess cultures, sex was free, sensual, and based on pleasure and joy; we all have a deep memory of this. The love of the goddess brings eros back to us in strong kundalini energy and healthy sexuality. It’s time to intentionally grow by initiating ourselves. Being one with our planet’s intrinsic energy is the key to the next phase of human evolution.
realitysandwich.com
In 1991, I published a book about kundalini rising and astrological transits, Liquid Light of Sex. It explores how kundalini energy is activated during major planetary transits, such as Uranus opposite natal Uranus, known popularly as mid-life crisis. This is when kundalini rises up through the chakras and triggers a spiritual awakening. Often accompanying this “awakening” is a cascade of health, emotional, and relationship issues, as well as extreme anxiety, often referred to as “spiritual emergency.” Frequently, this process inspires people to greater spiritual and societal involvement, which is the focus of my updated and expanded edition entitled Astrology and the Rising of Kundalini.After more than twenty years, many astrologers and students of astrology have discovered my research has helped them to liberate the great potential of kundalini fire. My original goes back to when I was in graduate school studying with Matthew Fox in 1982. At that time, my kundalini fire was so intense that I was shaking a lot and I was very disoriented. Looking back, I say, “You’ve come a long way, baby!” Using this force intentionally enhances individuals and entire cultures. The following article explores the value of awakened kundalini for society as a whole using what I call the planetary-growth hypothesis. When people experience the cleansing power of kundalini rising, they become heart centered and evolve. So the question is, would our cultures evolve if more people awakened? We humans differ from all other species in our ability to observe ourselves within a changing universe. We can think about what we’ve come from and where we may be going. We know cultural and historical records influence the way we live; we have become more self-aware by learning from our past experience. Right now, we are becomingmultidimensional, something I explored in depth in the 2010 edition of Alchemy of Nine Dimensions, where I show that our recent comprehension of quantum and string physics is expanding our consciousness incrementally.
Regardless, patriarchal technological society threatens our planet. Many wonder if we’re losing our survival instincts with people floating around in a mass hypnosis pushing keys in cyberspace while residing in drugged, overweight bodies. Those who allow kundalini energy to move in their bodies often pull out of the mass hypnosis. What does the planetary-growth hypothesis have to do with mass culture?
The answer is, “Everything.” Activated kundalini energy is the source of the survival instinct. When we feel this exquisite life force rising in our bodies, we release eros into the web of life. Many of us have discovered that the major life cycles can be used to enhance personal growth. Our next step is to make the conscious initiation into more evolved states of mind into a cultural intention. For example, it is time to use this knowledge to guide our children. For thousands of years up until very recently, human societies initiated their children to help them navigate key life passages. Children must realize these various aspects of life while they are young; that is what will move cultures and the planet back to balance.
Powerful sexual forces are frequently the cause of radical evolutionary shifts. I’m optimistic about these shifts because the sexual force is greater than the death wish. Activating the primal life force is a doable way to facilitate change in the collective. We can break out of the death grip and activate our life and creativity. We can choose to direct our evolution to the next step—conscious creation.
I’ve found that permanent change rarely occurs in us unless our minds have fully apprehended an insight that offers a new choice. I explore kundalini energy flowing in the body to show how these physical sensations alter the way we think. This teaches you how to read subtle energy. The biological basis of kundalini has not yet been “found” in the body, yet researchers think the trigger for kundalini rising probably is in the brain. Neuroscientists such as Erik Floor and Philip Lansky associate the pineal gland with kundalini rising.
According to ancient Eastern wisdom, the serpent power—kundalini—is coiled in the root chakra and rises up the spine to the head. The latest research on brain biology suggests that the biological release is in the brain. Then, as with all human sensations, what is transmitted from the brain is felt in the body. If the kundalini trigger is the brain, then our mental appraisal of our own evolution is the most liberating way to intelligently reflect on ourselves. What we think is possible will be the next stage of human development.
Worldwide, body/mind healers work one-on-one and with groups in workshops to help many of us clear judgments that block healing. Ecofeminist, Earth-centered communities, and ceremonial events at sacred sites with indigenous people are grounding a new energy form. They remind all of us that we can live in peace and harmony and experience happiness in our individual households again. Surely we didn’t climb up the long ladder of evolution without a reason! I firmly believe that problems start with the individual, and then the outer reality is created by what’s inside each person. Even global problems start with individuals. Each person who takes microcosmic responsibility for the universal problem is part of the solution in the macrocosm. It matters if you eat organically, nurture with kindness, and protect the web of life. The visionary film Avatar is an advanced exposition of this way of being.
How did we lose this? For the last five thousand years, human creativity has been funneled into battles and into building cities and empires. Over time, people came to believe that an “enemy” causes their problems. The new way of thinking suggests we stop pointing the blame at the “other” to take responsibility for what we are doing ourselves, a great shift in problem solving. Those of us who have attained this new perspective need to be gentle with those still trapped in blaming their problems on others, since they don’t know how to stop judging others to blame everyone but themselves for their problems.
Global awareness is breaking down the belief in the enemies “out there.” Banking disasters made people realize that if one fails, all fail. We must look to ourselves for the origination of the problems. These days, many avoid politics based on control and manipulation by finding meaningful ways to help society through healing and social action. The idea that we create our own reality—totally—also can be the source of painful and deep divisions between political types and social reformers, since both groups fail to integrate the inner and outer realities. Ironically, many social transformers can see that how we think creates the results in the polls. However, they avoid examining the contents of their own minds because they rarely pursue serious personal healing to clear inner pain. They feel they don’t have time for personal healing work because they must save the world.
We have come to a point where struggle in the outer world has come to an apex—powerfully and beautifully punctuated by a series of seven squares between Uranus and Pluto during 2012-15. Uranus rules transformation and Pluto rules chaotic change; the squares are forcing everybody to process the consequences of 5000 years of patriarchal culture. Yet, the annealing potency of these Uranus-Pluto squares makes everything feel horrible! I think we will begin to feel better in 2016. [I am interpreting these squares free of charge on my website, handclow2012.com.] To imagine how we are going to get through this, let’s turn to indigenous wisdom that anticipated this tense moment in time.
Many indigenous ceremonies and world cultural events from 1987 to 2012 were based on various readings of the Mayan Calendar as well as ancient prophecies. Harmonic Convergence in August 1987 began this intense phase, and now we are breaking into a new world. The end of this long cycle in 2012 released us to choose conscious participation in other dimensions, such as in the Galactic Center. The biologist Terence McKenna once said we were being pulled to an evolutionary leap by an “attracter”—divine consciousness directing planetary evolution. As we’ve been observing ourselves in evolutionary flow, we’re fascinated by creation stories and archaeological discoveries. But, this is a very dangerous time because male-dominant monotheistic world religions resist the idea of the awakened human. This tension, so apparent in the dire state of world affairs, means we are at the hardest point. The patriarchy cannot continue to poison the world. We must activate feminine powers and use right-brain skills to counteract this imbalance.|
Great power is available to men and women in their activated feminine nature, the creative potential of holistic brain synchronization. When our right- brain intuition works in concert with our highly developed left-brain, we seek a nonviolent and creative culture that can facilitate the complete evolution of consciousness. We refuse to be divided by egoistic separation when we know we are in no way superior to any other elements or species.
The female side, traditionally associated with the right brain, is rich in the archetypes of many dimensions, such as animal totems; the crystalline electromagnetic powers of rocks, gems, and plants; and the consciousness that emanates from the stars. These symbiotic parts of self contain the mysteries of nonhuman forms. We need to learn from the other kingdoms to find harmony with Mother Earth. We will not be able to achieve the next stage of evolution without visualizing, meditating upon, and playing with images of ourselves within the web of all life. All species are required for planetary survival.
The Mayan paradigm is shamanic, that is, a culture that intentionally developed synchronistic thought processes, intuition, and multidimensional perceptions. Shamanic cultures revere the female as the source of life; then male and female together create respect for life. Learning how to utilize kundalini energy creates balance in human societies. It is the way to cause the mass activation of shamanic powers that lie dormant in our bodies. We are the sacred fire. Historically, there is great precedent for the idea that the transformation of the individual is at the core of an enlightened society. There are countless examples of ancient cultures that existed in a state of peace and harmony for hundreds and even thousands of years based on this belief. These cultures have left behind artistic, written, and archaeological records of highly developed shamanic techniques. Mayan and Egyptian cultures abound with such evidence, and the Hopi people of the sacred Four Corners region of the American Southwest still maintain a shamanic culture that is already thousands of years old. Going farther back in time, we all are descended from the people of the Mother Goddess. We still retain this deep memory of how to create and live on the planet in a peaceful, healthy way. From 12,000 to around 3500 years ago, living was primarily peaceful, according to such great feminist scholars as Marija Gimbutas, William Irwin Thompson, Gerda Lerner, Riane Eisler, and Mary Settegast. Birthing, and a sense of all things coming from the feminine, was at the center of this Goddess culture.
Modern people retain very few cultural memories from before 12,000 years ago due to cataclysms that almost destroyed our planet, but the Goddess culture goes way back into the mists of time. The fall of the Minoan culture 3500 years ago ended the primordial Goddess culture with the eruption of a huge volcano on Santorini that threw the Aegean basin into a long dark age. Great fear of nature ensued in the West that eventually led to the bad idea that God created the world for mostly male usage.
The collective wisdom of the Goddess culture has much to offer. From what we know of artifacts, art, myths, and sacred sites such as Çatal Hüyuk in Turkey, Avebury in England, and Knossos on Crete, this culture maintained itself for thousands of years by means ofcollective agreement and order. Respect for life was the basis of life and culture, not control of resources and acquisition of wealth and power. The male warrior protected the hearth while women owned the land, their female bodies, and the children. The existence of this long phase of prehistory is a hopeful indication that we could create such a culture again by men and women unifying their goals.
With the patriarchal takeover of the “civilized” world 3500 years ago, the last vestiges of the Goddess culture were buried at Knossos. Control and fear for survival became the basis of society. The female was suppressed, and trust in the natural cycles of Earth ended. Now that we’ve progressed beyond mere survival, many feel life exists for growth and experience, not for male control. Flowing with the cycles of life is the way to full existence. From what we know of the Goddess culture, the ideal way to live is to honor the female. This approach never puts males in lesser roles than females, since males have the unique power to inseminate life and protect women and children. It does downplay, however, control and dominance.
We don’t have to recreate the rituals of the Goddess cultures—bull dances, hierosgamos (sacred marriage), and the yearly sacrifice of the corn god at harvest time. But, we can enjoy the exquisite primal joy of the goddess—being in tune with the cycles of nature and enjoying sex for pleasure, not just for birthing. After all, the world population explosion means women are not needed just for birthing. Based on what we know about Goddess cultures, sex was free, sensual, and based on pleasure and joy; we all have a deep memory of this. The love of the goddess brings eros back to us in strong kundalini energy and healthy sexuality. It’s time to intentionally grow by initiating ourselves. Being one with our planet’s intrinsic energy is the key to the next phase of human evolution.
Image by AlicePopkorn, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.