A-K R: 10.15.22

 


Astro-Kinetic Reflection 

Temporally Conditioned Reverberative Thoughts 

Resulting from Astro-Kinetic Contemplation 



Mars figures significantly in the heavens today.  Mars resides in Gemini communicating significance to a number of planets. Mars is in conjunction with the Moon and in Square with Jupiter. This configuration brings us to an awareness of unconscious subtexts that are upsetting the operative order. Jupiter’s residence in Aries accentuates this, conflict responding to conflict. But this configuration is offset by a more dominate pattern, the Grand Trine involving Mars, the Sun in conjunction with Venus (Libra), and Saturn in Aquarius.  This harmony can be translated as a powerful communication from Mars that begets life (the Sun and Venus) and activates dormant potential (Saturn)




The harmonious trine bring a us to the fruitful aspect of Mars that is easy to ignore. Mars is the God of War and Agriculture, thus he easily signifies chaos and civilization / life and death.  Mars was identified with the Greek god Aries. But the character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart.  Although Ares was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace.  Thus his connotation is more suited to Christian cosmology and theodicy, where good comes out of evil; plowed fields yield crops (life), the chaos of war (death) brings order. (Source: https://bloodmoonintaurus.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-user-guide-to-medieval-cosmology-of.html)






The theme of a theodicy of redemptive suffering looms large in today’s source materials. In today’s Office of Readings Malachi 3:1-24 describes the coming of the redeemer thusly, “Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to the Lord as it should be made.”  Both the refiner and the fuller exercise violent arts to purity and create perfection. 


Today is also the Feast of Saint Theresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church. In her story employs a constant application of suffering which manifests spiritual gifts. Crippling disease in her youth led to her being well educated at home, she was cured after prayer to Saint Joseph. Her mother died when Teresa was 12, and she prayed to Our Lady to be her replacement. She entered a Carmelite house at 17.  Soon after taking her vows, Teresa became gravely ill, and her condition was aggravated by the inadequate medical help she received; she never fully recovered her health. Only after this did Theresa begin receiving visions.


 In her  most famous mystical experience, the transverberation (commemorated on August 26th), she had a vision of being stabbed in the heart by an angel.  She describes the experience thusly, “I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God.” 





Today's meditation reminds us that if we meet trial and tribulation, the scripture’s promise from Genesis 1:31 holds true, “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” With faith, fortitude, and beatitude we can ultimately experience God’s plan for us and be a sign of the cosmic balance of chaos and order, suffering and sanctification. 


--For more Astro-Kinetic Reflections see the  Astro-Kinetic Reflections: Date Log

   

Source Material:

Liturgy of the Word

Liturgy of the Hours

Saint of the Day

Phase of the Moon




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