Removing Mind from the Stone: Mars Retrograde Trine Saturn

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we're going to take a look at Mars's retrograde in the sign of Gemini as it makes a trine to Saturn in Aquarius. Now this trine has been coming through for a little bit, and you will also be experiencing it, most likely for the remainder of this week. So you may have noticed some of the themes that we're going to talk about today, in other words, in the past week, but you're also very likely to notice them still in the week ahead. And so we're going to take a look at those today.

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Okay, well, I'm going to put the real-time clock up, and we're going to take a look now at Mars's retrograde, making a trine to Saturn. All right, well, this trine is actually coming through technically November 28, which was yesterday. So you can see here is Mars Retrograde in the sign of Gemini making a trine to Saturn, who is now moving direct again at around the 19th degree of Aquarius. But I want to show you how long this transit lasts.

You go back about a week to when it was within three degrees; we're going to give it three more degrees. And so we're going to take it all the way down to about at the beginning of the 17th degree. So this is December 5, which means you have about another full week of these two planets making an aspect to one another. With Mars Retrograde, this is really interesting if we take it back a little ways. You can see the last time that these two planets had made the trine to one another.
And this is late September.

So here you can see there's Mars going through the trine to Saturn in direct motion right around the end of so this is September 28. So September 27, 28th 29th, right around there, Mars made a trine to Saturn in direct motion, and now it's doing so through retrograde motion. So you may notice some carryover from some of the events or psychological themes or experiences in late September. And now, a lot of people aren't going to be able to remember, or the transit may be too subtle to pick up anything obvious. But that's something to think about. But today, what I want to do is talk about it from an archetypal standpoint.

What I want to do first is read to you guys from Renn Butler's Archetypal Universe, his section on Mars Saturn pairings; we're going to start there, and we're going to go beyond that today. But I want to start there because it's a really nice section, and it can just sort of prime the pump. When I was a kid, my grandfather had a cabin on the clam River in Michigan, not too far from Cadillac, Michigan, and on the Clam River and; this cabin was old, you know, and it was like kind of like a hunting cabin, you could call it, and there was literally, in order to get water, you had to it was like a pump in the sink, and you had to prime it and then pump, and the water would come out. And I have such memories of that.

And it's like that image comes to my mind every time that I think about trying to get people thinking about an archetypal combination. Often what we're doing in these videos, if we're, you know, just reflecting a minute on the actual method or approach that I use on this channel, is we are trying to get the archetypal combination of any transit to start flowing with images and to become vivid in your life, and whatever's going on in your life right now. But in order to do that, everything that I'm saying here is, in other words, not really well; this is exactly what's going to happen or the only way it can happen. It's rather like me pouring water in that pump and then starting to pump it, and then water starts gushing out. So what we're really doing in every video on this channel is priming an archetypal pump by pouring some water down and starting to pump it so that the transmission of the archetypes can be made manifest and just start flowing into your awareness as the transit is coming through.

So today, we're going to do that in two different ways. I have a poem that I'm going to read to you from an author that I really liked named John Moriarty. And that's going to be one way that we prime the pump and get the water flowing. But we're also going to use Ren Butler's section on Mars Saturn from his book, the Archetypal Universe.

So here's what he says on Mars, Saturn, which you may notice in the air this week, so to speak. The principles have focused and disciplined action, deliberate and determined outputs of energy qualities of hard work and persistence. The capacity to complete projects, active forbearance, oppressive work regimens, inhibited or frustrated energies, A tendency to feel like a victim while acting as a perpetrator, ongoing bitterness, and hate for harsh boundary collisions. And he goes on to expand upon these in a section that he calls character and themes, qualities of hard work and persistence, deliberate and determined outputs of energy urges to test one's mettle and put one's nose to the grindstone, and ability to confront challenges head-on. Steady perseverance despite problems, instincts to proceed slowly and carefully. Look twice before you're you leap from Charlotte Bronte. Quote, I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of a hill. That was actually from Erma Bombeck.

The development of practical work skills and expectation of concrete results from one's efforts a capacity to complete tasks. The impulse to nail down projects a sense of slow beginnings but sustained endings, the active and deliberate ending of something of value placed on healthy and honest sweat. Manual labor work with metal stone or glass, such as mining, cutting, breaking, grinding, polishing, or hammering. The very Mars, Saturn, roughness, and abrasion work with machinery careers which involve both force and discipline, such as the military or police, and I will add any kind of martial art to that and awareness of the karmic effects of all aggressive actions a fear of acting out ideals of active temperance and forbearance, deliberate nonaggression, almost like you're learning to restrain the will with Saturn, opposition to violence, nonaction, acting as carefully as possible then letting go of the outcome and ability to process stuck energies by coughing, growling, squeezing muscles or shaking fists, dynamic tension, deliberate, willful exhalations like that active contraction leading to catharsis, the deliberate feeling of one's hate in order to discharge it from the system of firm resolve to put the ending of human conflict above winning the battle against fear.

I was driving recently. And I saw a place, and I was confused as to what it was. So I ended up looking it up, and I'm forgetting the name of it now. But it was a place where you could go to literally break things. You go in, and I don't know what, they give you a hammer or some device, and you go into a room, and you literally just break shit. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Is that crazy? Or is that sound like the best idea ever? You know, you know, and I was very intrigued by it. I noticed this place as I was driving over the weekend. And I, of course, took note of the fact that Mars is training Saturn, and the trine from Mars to Saturn is so often about the marrying of the principled, structured, disciplined mature qualities of Saturn with the marshall qualities of Mars, the energetic, willful qualities of Mars.

It's interesting that Mars is such a maverick, such a renegade. People have talked a little bit about, you know, Mars being out of bounds. And that's a whole different concept. But Mars in Gemini could be spoken of as kind of youthful and rebellious in a certain way. Mercury is like that. Double-bodied Air sign like Gemini can be sort of restless and creative but mischievous Mars.

It's interesting to see that energy paired or coupled with the sort of mature, solid Saturn in an Air sign and its own sign. As if any kind of reckless or impulsive qualities contained within that Mars in Gemini right now could be developing better boundaries, or just coming into contact with Saturn could make it a little bit more solid and mature somehow.

Shadow qualities fear-driven action, inhibited or frustrated energies, a sense of being stuck. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons from TS Eliot, the experience of one's job as a grind oppressive work regiments, harsh taskmaster, Spartan, Prussian or tiger style discipline, feelings of grouchiness and irritability, a habit of butting heads and confronting people hammering capacious and mobilization the force and discipline involved in police work or when combined with Neptune undercover cops, dreamers may see stop and start choppy driving batteries withhold and sustain Mars energy, or various red Mars and black Saturn objects. Saturn's correlation with the number two can take the form of unfortunate villains with spiky hair, two frustrated baseball players, or a character poking people with two sticks. These archetypes make dreamers aware of any leftover memories of choking hardened aggression or bitterness inside them so that the energies can be phased and released from the psyche. I find all of that to be really fascinating.

The Mars Saturn field helps journeyers to get serious and face their most challenging inner materials, such as memories of harsh punishment and abuse from childhood claustrophobia and suffocation in the birth canal. As always, sitters need to exercise special care in order not to be perceived as judging or threatening. This would be people trip-sitting someone else who's doing deep work in a psychedelic therapy session in the integration phase of sessions, or holotropic breathwork breathers can work through any leftover pressure with dynamic tension exercises such as pressing their palms together, twisting a rolled up towel, shaking fists, and growling or gently pushing on the muscles on either side of the windpipe to evoke the coughing response. Isn't that fascinating? How physical I love that He has this whole section in every archetypal combination that gets so physical and explores the physical dimension of working with or even releasing certain energies.

So a wonderful reading from Renn Butler to start us off, does that prime the pump? Does that get it flowing? Do you start to feel the Mars Saturn energy now? Trines are of the nature of Jupiter, which means that generally speaking, this combination is constructive. It's a concert; it's a kind of a harmonizing or working together of these principals right now. And so I think; generally, the more positive combinations that Butler mentioned are the ones that we should watch for. Now, I want to read you something that I read. I love this author; his name is John Moriarty. And he wrote a book called Dream Time; actually, this might be a collection of his writings. But there's a short passage that I want to read to you. It's about two and a half pages. And it is called The Sword in the stone.

The Sword in the Stone. This comes from John Moriarty, his Dream Time.
All time is once upon a time at all stages of their evolution and involution; all worlds are once upon a time worlds. All things are once upon a time things. The bucket I take to the well is a once upon a time bucket. I never know till I've hauled it what beckoning is might be in it.

Once Upon a Time, thinks us. Asleep and awake. It dreams us. It gives us. When once upon a time, thinks you dreams, you live you. You are being a man Merlin. You are being a woman Morgan le Fay. It was with Sunday in Camelot. Entering the punctiliously timbered Hall of all heraldries, a squire himself trumpet announced. Announced a great marvel in the river below a great stone and in it to its hilt a sword.

News such as this psalm had been expecting for in Camelot on this great day. It was a custom vulnerably observed that the King and his knights would not sit down to meet till an adventurer had been achieved in procession religiously resplendent, no one showing a gaudy will to when they went down to the river.

Setting his hand to it, Arthur sought to draw out the sword. did likewise, and Lancelot in tournament was tremendous and gorgeous with all he set his hand to it. Hand after hand of great renown in lands, neighborly and Outre Mer, were set to that sword that day but of knights long notorious for strength and valor. There was none that could draw it out.

It was a man newly emerged from nature. A man who, later that morning, would sit unmischiefed. It was he Galahad who drew it out effortlessly so that all who saw it marveled. He drew out petrifying perceptions of it. So hurtfully, hilt deep in it. Out of the rock. Liberated, the rock blossomed into a Linga and Yoni, and in his beast, impotent plant, impotent, rock, impotent world far away. The main med King was healed. Healed, he could see that his sexual wound was an impulse to sexually wound, an impulse he dreaded. Sometimes he would wide awake imagine that this impulse to wound had reified itself anatomically; it had, he would imagine, become a weapon in his phallus. So long unconscious, this impulse to sexually wound could only generate a wound.

But now, 450 and four years after the passion and death of Christ was accomplished, the main med King could see, seeing clairvoyantly, that it wasn't only out of the Stone that Galahad was drawing the sword. He was drawing it out of his phallus. When he'll that last the moment, King came to Camelot. The jousting stopped, troubled and disturbed, everyone could see how like King Arthur, he was troubled and disturbed every night; his sword hanging from his hip could see how like himself, he was something of themselves, something hitherto hidden, hilt deep in their psyches had been drawn out. Taking precedence, the main med King entered the hall Grail brightened Grail fragrant since, with Sunday, he sat unmischiefed in sick perilous a great day the day of the Grail King came to Camelot, keeper of the Grail as heavenly vessel he is in Camelot, a keeper of it also lapsi Excellus, as ordinary earthly stone, as stone below in the river which is one of its blossomings is divine Linga and divine Yoni and now that the stone has been released, now that we have been released, we can build a Buvanashofar temple to this blossoming archetype architecturally in some of its moods, this temple will say the Earth is a state of mind called Maya Shakti.

The Earth is a state of mind called Merlin. The Earth is a state of mind called Morgan le Fay manifesting a call to adventure hitherto unheard of in Camelot. It will seem architectural to suggest that piamater is piamaya, from Fata Morgana to Moksha is the great quest, drawing the sword out of the stone, drawing our petrifying perceptions of it out of it, drawing our hurtfully reductive perceptions of it out of it, drawing our Gorgon gaze so hurtfully, hilt deep in it out of it, drawing out the sword. Drawing out the sword, we see there is no such thing as matter. When we look at a mountain and see matter, it is our own Medusa mindset, not the mountain we are seeing. The mountain is mined in hibernation. Matter is mined in hibernation.

In every mountain and moat of it and every black hole of it, the Universe is sci-verse, and every Mote mountain, moon, and mega galaxy of the Universe being a sci verse is alive. And every Mote mountain moon and mega galaxy has it, the Universe draws breath, and every more mountain moon and mega galaxy of it, the Universe breeds Bremen.

So as they stood speaking in corn, a squire that said unto the King, sir, I bring on to you marvelous tidings, what be they said the King Sir there is here beneath at the river a great stone which I saw a fleeting above the water and air in I saw sitting a sword. Our Big Bang cosmology is the sword in the stone. Our Medusa mindset is the sword in the stone. But we must not be downcast from deep among mountains that breathe bremen he comes in our time, which is once upon a time Galahad will come to Camelot. Love that so much. It's such a beautiful passage from John Moriarty, his book dream time. He is, how can you describe him? How can you describe Moriarty? He's a poet, a philosopher, a mystic? A storyteller? Just one of my favorites.

I have really gotten into him a lot recently. So from that, I want to try to elaborate upon what Moriarty is saying because I think what he is saying I stumbled upon that passage as Mars Retrograde was trying Saturn. And I thought this was the perfect passage for Mars and Saturn and air signs, the signs of mind, and a Mars Retrograde in Gemini trine Saturn in Aquarius can be seen as the sword being pulled back out of the stone symbolically what might that mean for us right now?

So we're going to talk about three ways to keep the mind stuck. Can Stone or three ways that the mind tends to stay stuck in stone, and what it might look like three ways that we'll also visit to draw the sword of the mind from the stone of hardened perceptions or ways of seeing or relating to other people. I think although anything that we visited from Renn Butler could be a relevant way of talking about Saturn and Mars, and I wanted to sort of include that big picture Saturn and Mars again, just to get things flowing. I want to try to focus now on a mind coming unstuck from something as Mars Retrogrades through a helpful trine with Saturn and air signs.

First, we have to say, how does the mind come to be stuck? Whether it's in the way of doing something, seeing something communicating in a certain way, or believing in a certain way. How do we get stuck in ingrained habits of mind or attitude?

One is the curse of literalism. The literal will look at the world and see only the material phenomenon and usually will only look for causal material explanations and will be content to take things exactly as they are or exactly as they are said. So, for example, if you've ever been with a friend, and you notice that they have a slip of speech that's actually incredibly meaningful, and maybe like the skeleton key to unlocking some problem that they're dealing with, and you try to bring their attention to that slip. I don't like using the term Freudian slip, which always, always makes the person feel like they've just revealed something about themselves that is sort of dysfunctional. A lot of the times, when people have a slip of the tongue as they are speaking about something, that will reveal something of the like a pathway to untangling a knot that they're working with. existentially.

Well, have you ever been in a situation where you've tried to point out a synchronicity or a meaningful slip of the tongue, and someone has immediately dismissed you as being crazy? Or, you know, you've got a tinfoil hat on, like, what are you? What are you thinking? And you're so frustrated in that moment because you go, God, if you just wouldn't take things. So literally, if you could only get out of the stuckness of your literal way of seeing and thinking about things.

But this also happens in religious communities; I've been a part of numerous different religious communities who will look at scriptures and take them absolutely literally rather than looking at them imaginatively and symbolically, which is not to say that scriptural stories are imaginary as they have no basis in reality, but that they point to, through symbol myth metaphor, some higher order of reality, or the other dimension in and through which reality is unfolding. If we have imaginal eyes to read it in that way, but I remember people growing up in the Christian church, for example, and to some extent, even in the bhakti yoga community that I was a part of, that would be like, No, look, it's very literal, you know, Krishna really could not have the bat the rope tied around his waist, you know, it would keep being two inches short. And that's literally what happened in this village in Brindavan. Literally, like, okay, you know, like, ah, you know, what do you do, you know, and you don't, you know, I not like trying to speak down to what people believe. And I look if that happened, also, if something literally happened, like Samson, you know, murders a million Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, you know, or something like that. Fine, you know, if Jonah really got spit out of the belly of a whale, fine. I'm, you know, like, crazier things have happened, I suppose. And the Universe is stranger, as Terence McKenna used to say, the universe is stranger than you can possibly imagine.

You know, if you know him, you'll get that. But if so, maybe, but also, don't you get frustrated when people take things too literally, but the thing is, it is so easy. For those of us who have had even a little taste of the symbolic of the imaginative, it's very easy to call out the curse of literalism and others, it is so much harder to stay vigilant about its presence in our own psyches. Taking things literally is something that most of us do all of the time. When we look at the world. And we don't look at it with watchful, attentive, curious eyes, which we'll return to in a minute. So the point is one way of getting the mind stuck in stone is to get caught in only seeing it, you could call it materially, but I mean, sort of like literally or only physically, or without there being any multi-dimensionality to experience or nature or life or the psyche at all.

Number two is the curse of certainty. When you think you know things, in a sense, you've got a full cup. And if you walk around having, you know, I derive my sense of security, pride worth, whatever it is, moxie, I derive it from having a full cup. And that full cup is what I call certainty. And it could be something as certain as like the best path to take to go to someplace on the road, then like that in the car with, you know, my wife, and I'll, you know, and she'll be like, Why are you being a douchebag? And I'll be like, yeah, maybe I should just empty my cup out and let your GPS, which is probably way smarter than me, tell us where to go. Do you know what I mean?

So, you know, it happens to it happens more often than not, the curse of certainty happens in small moments where we act like know-it-alls, you know, on Thursday in our kitchen for 10 minutes. A lot of us know how to avoid it. And like when the spotlight is bright in a meeting at work, and we try to stay humble because there's more at stake for our egos. But I have found the curse of certainty infects us most perniciously in small, everyday ways. And so with the curse of certainty looks like and the way that it keeps us stuck is just by making us confident that we already have all the answers, that having the answers gives you something positive, and that you should defend yourself against uncertainty because it's somehow the equivalent of being less than as a person or a soul.

The third way that our mind can get stuck in stone is the curse of knowledge. And I don't know; I'm differentiating, now, maybe superficially between knowledge and wisdom. I'd say wisdom might be someone who is sensitive, has maybe has a lot of knowledge, but is also very sensitive about how and when to apply that knowledge in the right places with the right people and always with an underlying vibration of humility and carefulness.

So the curse of knowledge is very similar to the curse of certainty. It's about people who, you know, feel socially. And I do this too, you know, I'm more of like Thanksgiving, where with family, and people are talking about things. And I want to make sure everyone. Yes, yes, I've seen that in the news. And I know about that. And isn't it like this, and I made, maybe I just throw out something that I heard someone else says, what I mean, or something that I read? And then it's like, doesn't that sound like an intelligent thought that I have? Do you guys know what I mean? I think we all do it.

And again, most of these curses that keep the mind stuck are not happening in big ways. Like, it's not like you're, maybe you don't show up, you know, every day, although there's no shortage of astrologers or spiritual types, you know, showing up, you know, and being like, this is what this transit means for everyone, we're all going to go through this shift in this transformation. And, you know, it's like, the end, I don't mind astrologers trying to educate people and illuminate transits, for example, but how it's amazing to me, the appearance of certainty, and the like spouting off tons of information. And the way that you know, we cling to that, I, you know, I do the same thing at times. What I mean is I don't think it's bad to be knowledgeable, but what I'm talking about is really
this idea that more knowledge and the ability to articulate more knowledge and information somehow makes you better as a person, it makes you safer, it makes you more lovable. It protects you, you know, and again, I think most of this is small stuff.

For example, here's one way that I find myself doing it often. Someone says something that is interesting, thought-provoking, or original, and rather than appreciating it, I find myself saying, thinking as they're talking, oh, here's what I can say in response to that, that will sort of ping pong the ball backward and be like, Oh, that was interesting. And, you know, and I'm interesting too. Listen to what I just thought or listen to some piece of knowledge, some information that I just pulled from my databanks too, you know, and it's like, you know, how often are we doing that? Do you know what I mean? So one of the ways that we keep the sword stuck in stone is through the curse of knowledge. So that would be the third one, which is the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge, I think, is very much like the curse of certainty, although, to me, the curse of certainty is the one that presents itself in the world. Like, I'm so certain of everything, I believe, maybe a little bit.

We're self-righteous, whereas the curse of knowledge is a bit more like I'm not attached to any of the information I hold. But look at how much of it I hold, you know, any of these things. Again, I don't think a lot of us know how to avoid them, you know, when we're in front of people who might perceive us as arrogant or cocksure, or whatever, but it's, you know, it tends to show up in smaller moments in, you know, like, with the people you live with, or, you know, the places you're most familiar with, you know what I mean.

So, those are the three ways to keep the mind stuck in stone. But I think that there are three ways to draw the sword from the stone. Another way of saying that would be how do we get our mind unstuck from stuck patterns or places?

Number one is to understand that our, when we start to understand that the mind and its processes are like a wishing pool or like a mystical mirror and that, in order to do that, we have to resist the idea of thinking about our mind, literally, our own mind, which means I don't just think of my mind as my mind, my thoughts, my ideas, my cognition, and so forth. But rather that we think about the mind as a kind of oracular medium. And that what comes up in the mind is as much for us as it is something that we are doing or have control over. So it's a kind of feedback; it's something that the images and ideas that appear in the mind.

If we explore them and stay open to an exploration of what comes up in the mind, then our mind becomes imaginal, and our mind becomes oracular. And the way we think, act, perceive, and relate to the world becomes imaginal because the mind starts connecting us to the world, in a divinity degree manner, in an oracular manner. And that is the way, in my experience, that artists tend to relate to the world whether they are overtly spiritual or not. And even curious intellectual agnostics, you know, like people who have no commitment to God whatsoever, but they're just intellectually curious. They tend to observe what comes up in the mind.

There's like a meta-level at which they interact with and reflect upon the images, thoughts, feelings, and ideas that are coming up. In my experience, one of the groups of people who gets this most readily are people who have had some meaningful psychedelic experiences or who have very active dream lives, or who have had breakthroughs in their consciousness, maybe sometimes through trauma, that has sort of shown them that they are not their mind, but they are, they have a relationship with their mind. And they have to work that out sometimes through like a healing process.

Anyway, one of the ways that we can draw the sword from the stone is going to be in terms of understanding the mind as or oracular understanding the mind as an imaginal medium rather than thinking of it concretely as my mind, my physiological organ of perception, and so forth, which goes back to the first curse of literalism. And this is sort of the antidote to it.

The second way to draw the sword from the stone, how to change our mind and have it have a relationship with our mind that's constructive. And when we have an imaginative oracular understanding and relationship with the mind, it's easier to get unstuck. And it's easier to observe when we start getting stuck in things. But anyway, the second method of drawing the sword from the stone is what I call hesitant listening. Now, by hesitant listening, I don't mean that we are hesitant to listen. Instead, I mean hesitant to speak or think, an immediate response to what someone else is saying.

By that, I mean that when we listen, rather than then immediately thinking, how can I insert myself, you know, instantly, we hesitate and are sort of cautious to let our mind jump in and assert something as we're actually listening. This is my experience, the more that I do this, the more it protects me from the curse of certainty because listening and hesitating from drawing conclusions, jumping to conclusions, or forming judgments as I'm listening, the more that I do that, and I do that most regularly, with my clients and students, that's where I have the opportunity to do it most readily. I would say, with my kids, it's harder because it's like, I'm with them so often, and so much that sometimes it's like more of a challenge. But I would say the work is almost identical in that I have to really listen if you know, and the more I do, it's weird. It's like, there's so much self-regulating that goes on, and kids if you just listen. And if you just listen attentively, without letting your mind jump into assert something, even mentally before you speak, if kids can just tell that you're really open and listening, it's oftentimes just that presence that gives them this the feedback that they need to then adjust or modify their thought or learn something or their change their behavior or something like that.

Anyway, I'm not saying I'm just kind of probably suck at it with my kids. But with my clients, it's something I really enjoy. Because every day I'm afforded the opportunity to kind of scrape off the accumulating, like plaque or detritus of certainty, because it grows in us, it grows over time, I just, I think it's like the same thing you have to wash off your car because it accumulates dirt and grime. I think the development of certainty is just as regular and natural as the accumulation of dust and the need to wash your hair. Do you know what I mean?

So I don't think that it's unnatural to develop a sense of certainty. It feels like it's just part of what the mind gravitates toward. But when we listen, it's sort of this, sort of hesitant, listening, hesitant, meaning I'm not going to assert judge determined, I'm just going to listen, that keeps us from the curse of developing certainty. Because if we can also do that same listening when our mind starts asserting things, when the miraculous medium of the mind starts conjuring up fanatical thoughts and sentences and ideas and images, and we just listen, and we pause, we're hesitant to assert anything as a pattern. Even with our own minds, we can sort of keep at bay the curse of certainty. And that, in time, especially if we do it as a practice, can help us to see where we're getting stuck and to draw the stuckness of the sword from the stone.

Finally, very similar to the curse of knowledge and sort of parallel to it. Another way to draw the sword from the stone is to be careful with our speech. So we're careful when listening. And the same thing is true when we're speaking. If we can speak with a kind of careful reflexivity, shamans are great at this.

I feel like shamans taught me this without any kind of explicit teaching, just by the way that they speak. Because when you're in an altered state, in an Ayahuasca ceremony, for example, and you hear a shaman sing or a shaman speak, there is a way in which you can perceive them listening to themselves, like not just their music or their staying in tune with their voice, but like, there is a there are notes that you can hit with your speech, such that what you say comes across musically, there's an there's a rhythm, there's a cadence, and there's, and when people speak that way, they're present. And it's the presence more than how great their vocabulary is, or how great their knowledge is, or right.

So careful speaking is much better than a lot of knowledge. Because someone who speaks with care and like attentiveness as they go along, and you can tell that they're hearing and listening to their own thoughts as they say them. They are aware of the curse of knowledge. They're not trying to sound like something other than what they are, other than what's coming through in the moment. And that carefulness, if it's not sort of overwrought and overdone like you know, I've, we owned a yoga studio for ten years. And I will tell you, there are a lot of yoga studios, there's a lot of yoga teachers that come through, and they're sort of aware that this is how I should be as a teacher, but then they sort of ham it up and method act, you know, and they're like, every word is so mindfully spoken, and it becomes like an, you know, we're not talking about a performance.

I don't want it to sound that way. But what we are talking about is just care and a presence for how we speak, a kind of reflexive listening as we are speaking. If you do that, it will prevent you from the curse of knowledge because better than knowledge is presence and care intending to what we're saying as we're speaking.

That's, in my humble opinion, that sort of what wisdom is like; it could be very knowledgeable, but it's you can tell in the care that a person has for what they're saying that, that they aren't just full of knowledge for its own sake, you know what I mean?

So, in summary, the curse of literalism, the curse of certainty, the curse of knowledge, and three ways, and those keep us stuck, keep the mind stuck. Three ways to draw the sword from the stone imagination, your mind is an Oracle, hesitant listening, and careful speaking.

So I hope that you are able to take something useful from today's exercise; the Universe is a fecund, fertile, participatory, co-creative, amazing place. And to me, then the, we can cease to experience that co-creative flow of life when we let our mind become habituated and, like, stuck and rigid. And what I like about this Mars Retrograde in Gemini training Saturn is maybe that there's an opportunity to draw the sword from the stone. And in drawing the sword from the stone, we can; as John Moriarty said, we can do less violence. And that sounds really kind of crazy to be like, oh, a stuck mental pattern is somehow doing violence, but the sword in the stone is a sexual image.

What does that mean? If we think about it as a concrete image, the sword is stuck in the stone. I think it means that, for example, if we apply this to the rational mind that it is the mind's rational way of being stuck in objectifying literalist, overly confident, certain self-righteous, super knowledgeable states that is somehow objectifying what is ultimately a personal universe. And that universe is trying to court us and have a relationship with us. And for that, the sword needs to be able to come in and out of the stone easily; it can't just get stuck in there.

Otherwise, we're not really making love with the Universe, are we? So in order to change our minds so that our mindset is not participating in the objectification of this beautiful, personal animated Cosmos, we need to sometimes get our minds unstuck. So I hope this was helpful for you, and maybe doing a little of that this week.

That's what's been on my mind; I hope that you were able to take something good from this. Again, today's reading came from John Moriartys Dream Time. It is a beautiful book, but you know, it's, it's deep, and you're gonna read it slowly if you read it at all.

Don't forget; we are en route to 1608. Backers, by January 1, choose a reward when you donate to the Kickstarter, we really appreciate your support. If you like this kind of talk, if you like the passages and the reflections and the way of turning the archetypes. You know, for example, today, four to six hours went into this entire process. And so, you know, every day, it's like that we can't do it without support. So we really appreciate you donating. Find the link to donate in the description of this video or the comments section, and pick up one of my classes or an exclusive reading or lecture that I don't really see anywhere else. And hopefully, we will meet our goal, and if you can't support us financially, we always appreciate your prayers and just good energy. So that's all we've got for today. I hope you guys are having a good one, and we will see you again tomorrow. Bye, everyone.