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THIRD SUPER FLARE IN 24-HOURS

At 9:10 PM EST Monday, a huge (and the largest so far) X-Class solar Flare reached a peak, making this the third immense flare in 24-hours! Two of these three flares are large enough to make the Top Ten List of this entire solar cycle which began January 8, 2008, and will peak sometime in mid-2013. Let me try to put this in perspective.

First of all, in my experience sudden intense solar events trump or are greater sources of change than even eclipses, which is saying something because eclipses are traditionally powerful. So here in the middle of a triple-eclipse time we have (so far!) three X-Class solar flares and possibly more in the offing.

The idea is that these intense solar events are instruments of change, change injected suddenly into our mindstream that we have no choice but to assimilate, hopefully creatively, but you can be sure these flares will change our life direction in significant ways, even if it takes some time for those changes to be apparent. This is seed change.

And don't look for outward signs because you would miss my point. Strong solar change is as inward as we are ourselves. As I keep pointing out, with solar change it is we, ourselves, who are changing, and that is hard to observe if we are what is changing, and that is the case here. We kind of have to ride it out and tend to lose awareness at these times quite easily. We are rocked (or knocked) to sleep by the shockwaves of solar change.

Influx of change, even intense change, is natural, but by definition interruptive of the status quo. And once again this brings the "Self" into focus. I hate to always beat on the self, but as far as interpreting or assimilating intense solar change, the bottleneck always comes down to the effects of change on our self, because the self always ends up being (or trying to be) the filter of change.

We know ourselves to some degree. The self does not like to be arbitrarily changed and solar flares are nothing but pure change injected into our time and space. As usual, the self wants to be the arbiter of all change, and that is not possible with flares, except retrospectively. Like a mirror, we tend to only see or witness solar change as it is reflected in alterations (or disruptions) in our self.

As mentioned, the self apparently always seeks to control change, to limit or eliminate unwanted change to tis status, but with strong solar flares that is just not possible. The result at these times is that some anomalies appear and are evident, chinks in the airtight armor of the self, and even with minimal awareness we can sense or watch the self break down and attempt to reform, like a stuck record.

In other words, intense solar changes can be overwhelming, causing us to just shut down or lie down, and so on. We somehow just have to withstand these inner shocks out-breaking at times of strong solar activity. It can be (at least for me) a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

I do my best to share these thoughts with those of you interested, but at the same time I am riding out the changes, the same as you are.

Considering phrases like self-centered, self-indulgent, self-interested, self-seeking, self-serving, selfish, self-loving, self-absorbed, self-worth, self-determination, and so on, it is an interesting exercise to look up the definition of the self in a dictionary.

Self as a Noun:
"A person's essential being that distinguishes them from others." If I dig a little deeper into the etymology of the word "self," I find that the root of the word means "separate" or "apart."

So, the self is separating, what distinguishes one from others, or what separates one from the whole. This is a western definition, since the Buddhists would not credit the self with having a "being," as in being existential. As mentioned in a previous blog, the self is our own creation (at least what if consists of), and like a ventriloquist's dummy (we are supposed to be the ventriloquist), we fall into listening to and following its directions. It wants to be our boss. So it can be a kind of Franken-self, if not seen through. This is why making the self transparent is so important in mind training and many spiritual disciplines. We need to see beyond our self to the awareness we actually are. That is our true vantage point, but I won't belabor this point here.

I wanted to make sure you knew about these three huge solar flares and could incorporate that knowledge into however you are taking the changes. I always find these times, rare as they are, wonderful. As I am of a liberal persuasion, I tend to welcome change, and do my best to assimilate it creatively, to use it like the martial art Aikido to better direct my life. I would rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.

Yet, although I do my best to study these solar changes, I too am swept up in them like all of you. Maintaining awareness at the flood stage of solar influx is not easy and requires the ability to swim in the stream of the mind.

Lest you think I am some kind of expert, I had to take some three naps yesterday, just because I could not manage to do much else because of the mind storms. I know. Color me crazy, but also hang on to your hats!

[Here is a graph of the spikes of the three X-Class flares, so you can see they are considerable excursions from the norm.]