As you know, New Moons are times of new beginnings. And the first New Moon of a year pushes the new initiatives button into overdrive. Today’s New Moon at 19°13 Capricorn births yet another period that illuminates the volatile, shattering, waning Uranus/Pluto square; for this New Moon’s conjunction is only 4 degrees from conjuncting Pluto and 3° from squaring Uranus. Moreover, Jupiter at 23° of technical, analytic Virgo trines (harmonizes) with this New Moon. And furthermore, Saturn is conjunct Venus in Sagittarius, near exact.

Since I am a Sun/Ascendant and Mars in Sagittarius person, this is a perfect time for me to both indulge in my love (Venus) for large perspectives (Saturn) and to let my mind run wild trying to analyze the contradictions within them.

Oh, but wait! Notice the Sabian symbol for 19-20° Capricorn:

Yes, a hidden choir sings underneath! And this IS a religious service, this pregnant pause of new beginnings, when humanity is just barely beginning to realize that Nature is in charge, and that she is pissed.

The word religious: from “religio,” to BIND BACK, to return. To ground ourselves into this good Earth, this Mother, her endless, generous abundance that has been kicked, scratched, sucked up, poisoned, mined, pissed on, for literally millennia, by only one of her earthling species: human beings.

This is my “world-view,” you might say. And let me tell you, I side with Nature — and the Cosmos in which this “Nature” called “Earth” is embedded.

And so, much to my surprise, I have again decided to attend the annual International UFO Congress in Scottsdale, this year to be held February 17-21. I go with my UFO buddy Joan Bird, of course.

She goes every year. I’m a sometime attender. Not so much for the event any more, as for a chance to hang out with Joan! Oh! But no; I go for the event too, and the fun conversations with others whose minds are open; and especially, since this year I notice a number of presentations that integrate the phenomenology of ET into other disciplines, universes of discourse. I’m happy that ufologists are no longer so focused on defensive justification: mostly through gathering, comparing, and presenting scientific evidence for downed ET craft and their occupants.

International UFO Congress/Speakers

Joan and I began to attend UFO conferences together sometime around the turn of the millennium. Can’t remember exactly when, but we started with the those for “experiencers” put on by Dr. Leo Sprinkle in Laramie, Wyoming. Drawn in the first year, we went again the next year. My original motivation: I wanted to shock my mind wide open — again — and wondered if that would do it. Wondered who the people are who “believe” in UFO.

Now that I’m more seasoned into all this anomalous phenomena, I realize that the question of “belief” is rather naive. Instead, at least for me, the point, indeed, the path — is to continue to open to possibilities — on every level, in every dimension, realizing that there’s probably as much intentional or unintentional disinfo/misinfo sprewing out there as there is “real” info.

And: what that “real” info might be, is not for me to say! There are simply, so many contradictions! And though I’ve long recognized that once we dig down under the foundation of “logic” to embrace contradiction, then ANYTHING FOLLOWS, ANYTHING! — I’m still a creature of this left-brained culture, schooled to try to avoid contradiction if possible, rather than leaning into my field of perception, seeking to enlarge it as well as my heart, to include — WHATEVER!

Indeed, sometimes I think that if it can be imagined, whatever “it” is, then it’s probably manifesting in some universe or other. That any point opens into an infinite space; that any point can be the locus of an infinity of straight lines (linear logics) intersecting through it.

In other words, that there is no such thing as a rock-hard “fact” that can serve as one hard stone in the foundation of the superstructure called “knowledge.”

I’ve called “facts” by the ironic name “factoid” for decades — way before CNN picked up on this coy little word. And to me, “factoid” indicates that no matter how certain or sure some fact or other appears to be, it has a half-life, and will some day fission out of existence.

I embarked upon an investigation into my own inherited and enculturated “belief systems” way back in my 20s. And ever since I have been much more interested in opening my mind and heart even wider than attending to the “justification” of whatever I hold dear.

My job in life is to “open space.” To OPEN UP SPACE. To continuously realize and act as if there’s plenty of room for everything.

Including, apparently the leaks that have sprung on my front porch, now that it has been re-roofed. A complete surprise. It’s raining now, hard, so I know. This is another one of those Uranus/Pluto moments, when the unexpected strikes, big-time.

At first, say in the first hour, I was terrifically upset, my innards churning like they had been struck by lightning.

But now? Oh well!

As my sweet deceased mother used to say, “This too, shall pass.”

And as one of my Sufi teachers put it, while thrumming on some kind of esoteric stringed instrument, just a few months ago, “Be at ease with whatever is arising.”

Here’s a fellow traveler, someone who has also embarked upon this journey of excavating one’s assumptions to dissolve “belief.”

MORE: