I heard of a consultation recently where the client, who had chosen 3 Rescue (Deep Magenta) bottles, was told by the Practitioner “You have a hard life.” My friend wanted to know if there was another way, more positive way to understand Deep Magenta.

I told her Deep Magenta is different from all other colours, it does not represent a part of the spectrum of light (as do the other colours) it represents the whole of it. Deep Magenta is the fullness of energy from which the light (and therefore all colours) emerge. When any colour is brought in contact with Deep Magenta, as in a Rescue bottle, that colour is brought back into connection with its source. It is like that colour comes home to receive caring and love. The deep magenta restores the power of that colour.

A good analogy is sleep. I think deep magenta is like sleep. We all need it. There is no shame in it. And in sleep, at a certain point, we disappear. There is no dreaming, no self, no consciousness, just Nothing. Sleep is like going back to zero. And, in that Nothing, I believe our consciousness is reunited with the Source. So in the morning we may wake up refreshed, feeling better, ready for another day. Sleep is just like the Rescue, the Deep Magenta.

So when Rescue bottles appear in a choice it can be a very positive thing. It expresses the bringing of part of our life back to the source to be re- nourished, re-energised, restored. And whatever Rescue bottle is chosen, it will be the top fraction that gives the clue as to what is being restored. But that is another article …

Equilibrium Journey continues to deepen my understanding of individual bottles while also offering fascinating insights in to the system as a whole. Here is one example that has arisen in a recent course.

41 42 and 43

When we look at the 40’s as a sequence we have to think about B4. The 40’s develop the theme of the 4. In Equilibrium 4 is the Yellow / Gold. This combination also connects with the Tarot card of the Emperor - the one who rules this world. For a long time I had a question about B4.

Why does B4 contain two colours not one?

B2 is Blue / Blue and B6 is Red / Red. So why should B4 be Yellow and Gold rather than simply Yellow / Yellow? In time I came to realise that the two colours here was perfect. The clue was in the Tarot card of the Emperor where he is wearing armour on his legs. Despite all his power he remains afraid. This is the consequence of the ego ruling the conscious mind while the soul remains buried in the unconscious. Yellow over Gold.

An echo in the 40s

Imagine then how immensely I was when I finally realised how amazing it is that this Yellow / Gold theme returns so strongly at the start of the 40s sequence. 41 is Gold / Gold and 42 is Yellow / Yellow. The very two colours of B4 appearing again! But even more fascinating is that this time the relationship between these two colours is changed: here it is not Yellow over Gold but now Gold preceding Yellow. When we consider the meaning of number this change is very significant because it says that gold - as the 1 - is more important than the yellow which now follows as the 2.

Healing the Emperor

This change in relationship between Gold and Yellow is in fact the solution to the predicament of the Emperor. While yellow relates to our sense of self, but a self that is limited to this space and time; gold is something more - it relates to a deeper level of consciousness - the soul level. The understanding is that while the yellow self is something we experience in this life, the soul is something that journeys from life to life. If the Emperor within us can bow to the soul within then his fears of this life will diminish as this life becomes a learning experience for the soul more than a challenge for worldly success alone. From an Aura-Soma point of view it is entirely fitting that the gold should lead the yellow. And this change in relationship between ego and soul makes possible the next step. The 43.

Turquoise and Individuation

What then of the 43 Turquoise / Turquoise?  For 1, 2, 3 we can think “Ready, Steady, Go.” 3 is the flow that follows from 1 and 2. So here we have 41, 42, 43. Gold is now the main actor, the ego is following the main action, and 43 then becomes the process the flow that arises from this.

From a soul point of view however we don’t come to earth to be right or powerful, we come here to (amongst other things) evolve as a soul. This is the individuation process that Carl Jung first indentified and which is now an important idea in Aura-Soma too.
And the key is that this process relates to the soul not the ego. The soul is the 1, the ego follows as the 2. So the soul is the main subject of the turquoise individuation process. Amazing these three colours should follow each other in this way with these numbers!

41, 42, 43.
Soul, ego, individuation.
Gold Yellow Turquoise.
It is a perfect fit of Aura-Soma colour, number and life!

And 44?

Well with its pale colours it is almost the exact opposite of what you would expect from a double Emperor. Yet the perfection of Aura-Soma continues. As the emperor bows his ego to his soul and surrenders to the teaching evolving energy of turquoise he is transmuted through trust. The very thing that caused the Emperor to wear his armour - his fear - is now dissolving. The Emperor bows to above. And in so doing he is opening the door for the Master sequence that begins at 50.

Final Thoughts

The deeper I go with Aura-Soma the more it amazes me. The perfection of the sequence is a revelation to me. As I say when introducing the Equilibrium Journey concept, it is the Equilibrium sequence itself which is the greatest teacher, and the sequence itself is Aura-Soma’s most treasured book. The Equilibrium courses are the chance to read and learn from this most amazing book. Courses are in Japan February 4 – 7 and in Holland in September.

Russia: Red or Olive?

Russia is so easily thought of as red yet there remains a question: why then is it’s international dialling code +7?  B7 is the Yellow / Green combination in Equilibrium and it shakes to an olive colour – a very different energy to red.

Something Red: the People

There are so many red features to Russia, especially in the Soviet times. On the surface we notice the red flags, red stars, and the communist ideals of comradeship, collaboration, one big caring family where all contribute and all benefit.

A potent symbol of Russia: the red star

Something Olive: Samorodok

This word describes someone, usually a creative type such as an artist or poet, who makes their own success in life through a great talent. This talent in turn has to be valuable to and enrich the society around them. Literally samorodok means a large nugget of gold. However it also has some resonance with B7 – the yellow / green - because of the theme of finding your way – being true to the potential of your life. You would think samorodok would be encouraged in a communist society …

Red: Centre of Gravity

Red is the colour of matter, and density of matter creates a gravitational pull. Russia, and previously the Soviet Union, are vast territories, full of energetic, forceful and disparate peoples. To hold such an entity together requires huge force, hence the tendency in Russia to have a strong centralising force, often with a man of power at the centre.

One example of the centralising force in Russia is the Russian railway system. All train tickets, no matter where they are issued, are printed showing Moscow time. If I were to board a train in central Siberia at midday the ticket will show the departure time as 07.00 – and even the clock on the station platform will show 07.00. Yet all around the city people will be sitting down to lunch. The power of the Russian centre!

This gravitational force also manifests in society. People have to hold together - the vastness of the wilderness and the harshness of the winters requires people to come together to survive. Nature is powerful and individuals are small in the face of it. Staying together can be more important than personal freedom.

Olive: Maslanitsa

With the end of Russian winter there is another 7.  Maslanitsa is a 7 day event leading to (if you are a christian) a 7 week fast up to Easter. In secular Soviet times it became a celebration of the end of winter and the start of spring. 7 days and 7 weeks – think B7.
Moreover B7 is itself a combination very resonant of Springtime. The sun returns and the earth is green again, yellow flowers dance in the spring sunshine.  Even B7’s place in the sequence speaks of spring. It is preceded by B6 the Red / Red which indicates that energy is buried in the earth. With B7 life springs forth from the earth again.

Red within Olive

As Maslanitsa approaches its climax men engage in public “play” fights, it seems to me an echo of males competing for dominance at the start of the mating season. Physical strength and power - red - is important to the Russians even if it is a game. How easy can it be to break free and live your own way when fighting is a rite of passage to the new life?

Men fighting during Maslanitsa

The truth of this can be seen in Russia’s recent history. It seems that with the collapse of the red centralising power of the communist system in the early 1990s there was a heady burst of olive possibilities, for a while there seemed to be no borders and yellow green possibilites for growth in many directions seemed possible. And yet, within this time there developed a Maslanitsa - type fight as the newly emerging powerful, oligarchs, politicians and others, engaged in a red struggle to be top dog in a new hierarchy.

Thus even in the very midst of the olive opportunity the red remained a determining force in Russia. Now the olive time seems to have passed - a new power structure is established and red has been reborn at the heart of Russia. The centralising force is strong once more.

“Shtobi ne bilo vainy”

Yet the olive dream remains. There is a Russian toast. Shtobi ne bilo vainy It may be translated as “May the war never happen.” It expresses the wish of people to live free from struggle. To be free to live their own way. Freedom from war is an important condition for samorodok to appear and flourish.

Both Red and Olive?

Russia is a country in which there are two poles of colour; red and olive. Red is the necessity of the past and the refuge of the present, yet olive continues to offer the dream of a future potential. In theory red can nourish olive, fuel its growth. To honour and integrate these two forces, find a way for them to work in harmony, nourish each other could be the great work of the Russian people.

December's Blue Moon - Image courtesy of Benedict Yeoman

Perhaps you heard, the 2009 New Year’s Eve Full Moon was a blue moon. The rarity of such an event falling on such a symbolic night - New Years Eve - got me thinking. A blue moon comes only once every 2 - 3 years. It occurs because, while there are 12 months in a year, there are 12 lunar cycles plus an extra 11 days. A blue moon then is when there is an extra full moon in any one month. In December the two were on the 2nd and the 31st.

December 2 Full Moon - reflected in Danube

Blue or Betrayer?

Why blue? The theory is that the name was not originally “blue” the colour, but an old English word “belewe” which means “to betray”. This makes sense for example when we consider that in olden days the moon was an important time keeper for farming cycles, each season having three full moons: early, mid and late. An extra full moon in the year will create confusion in the timing. For example: “Three winter full moons already but still too cold to plant our seeds – shouldn’t Spring be here by now?“  It is ironic that this use of blue as a corruption of “belewe” would mean that blue here represents the very opposite of its usual association - “trust.”

Whether this is the real origin of the phrase “blue moon” or not, one thing is sure - a blue moon year carries the energy of 13. And traditionally 13 certainly does coincide with untrustworthiness. 13 is superstitiously unlucky, just as Eve was the temptress, black cats are to be avoided and wise women are witches! Yes 13 is all things feminine and therefore to be put down.

The antidote - a positive wise woman

And so it was wonderfully refreshing that this New Years Eve the BBC aired a radio programme entitled “Blue Moon” which shared one wise woman’s project to honour this special event.

Elspeth Owen is an artist, and although she is 71 years old, she is spending the whole period from the first December full moon (on the 2nd) to the blue moon on the 31st, living entirely outdoors. Her project is to bury 14 white necklaces, one each night, for the 14 nights of the waning moon - the period when the moon shrinks. With the beginning of the New Moon she then retrieves each of the necklaces again, one by one, one per night. Her focus throughout this process will be “taking care” – both of herself and the necklaces.

She was a vibrant woman refreshingly unconcerned by any need to be rational. It was delightful to listen to her with her wonderful laugh which reminded me of Claudia Booth’s. The programme was a great antidote to the traditional negative associations of 13 and the feminine.

Tzaphkiel as Mother

And it seems to me that Elspeth’s story provides an insight into the nature of Tzaphkiel, just as did the film Avatar which I wrote about in the previous post. In the case of Elspeth’s project I believe it is an enactment of the Divine Mother aspect of Binah. Let me explain …

Elspeth began by making the 14 white necklaces – here she is Mother as creator.
She then births her creations into the world. She does this by burying them through the period of the waning moon - now she is Mother as birth giver.
Finally she retrieves and resurrects the necklaces - she completes the process as Mother the nurturer.

This project can be seen as a metaphor for the Creator’s relationship with the created. Souls are created through Binah, the Divine Mother, in order that consciousness may be enter into matter. Souls then travel further from the Divine by entering Matter in our case the human experience. It strikes me that at both the level of soul and the human being our deepest need and desire remains the same. We wish to be loved and remembered. What could be worse than being forgotten by your mother? I have seen film of grown men in orphanage / institutional homes in eastern Europe saying that all they want is to be reunited with their mothers. I have also heard that when soldiers call out with their dying breath it is invariably to their mother. Why would souls be any different in their relationship to the Source? Binah is the sphere of the mother and Tzaphkiel is its presence. It seems to me that Elspeth’s project re-enacts the archetypal mother myth of creation, dispersion and reunion.

The perpective of the Divine

Most satisfying of all, the  aspect of Elspeth’s project that bothered me the most is actually the key. Elspeth started her process on the Full Moon. This is the absolute opposite of my normal way to approach lunar cycles. Usually I associate beginnings with the New Moon, the process reaching a fruition with the Full Moon and then suffering a decline again with the waning moon.

Elpseth began her project in the totally opposite place!  But I see now that by burying the necklaces first and then resurrecting them again she is providing a metaphor for the process of consciousness entering into form, from the Heavenly perspective rather than the earthly. Brilliant. How Tzaphkiel!

B107 Tzaphkiel

Conclusions and a link

Though the film Avatar will probably grab me more – I am sure this radio programme will be the more heart-warming, humbling and enriching.

If you would like to listen to the radio programme - it is 30 minutes long - you can follow this link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00pdjy1

Don’t delay too long, like a blue moon it may not come around again for a while.

I wish you all a happy, feminine and wise New Year.

The latest Equilibrium bottle - B107

Opalescent Turquoise / Deep Magenta

In my previous post on B107 I wrote about the silence, the mystery and the unfamiliar in Tzaphkiel.

Also on Tzaphkiel’s role as the intelligence in Binah that enables spirit to create and enter matter.

Here are some further ideas on the times in which B107 has been born.

Synchronicities

What is the big world event this week other than birth of B107? Well yes the Copenhagen Climate Conference but, putting that aside for a moment, it is the release of 2009’s most awaited film:

Avatar

The most expensive film of the year - if not the decade, the release of this film has been postponed time and again. It is finally released tonight, the very first Friday following the birth of B107. Its central premise, the reason for the name of the film itself, fits absolutely with the theme of Tzaphkiel: the possibiilty of light / consciousness to enter form. (the word avatar derives from the ancient indian language of sanskrit and signifies the appearance of a god in this world, its deeper root meaning to “descend” or “cross over” ) So tonight the gift of Tzaphkiel will be shown to the world even if those who see it have never heard of Archangels, Kabballah, Aura-Soma or B107.

In case you do not yet know about the film - it is the story of a human being who enters a specially created body, the Avatar. This new body with its sparkling blue skin (the film company’s exact words! ) enables the man to enter and live in another world. From the colour of the Avatar being almost exactly the same as the top fraction of B107, to the strange, other-worldliness of the Avatar’s appearance resonating with the unfamiliar energies behind B107, these are amazing coincidences.

From this basic premise Avatar develops into an action movie, a love story, with themes of finding the courage to do the right thing, choosing harmony with Nature, and fighting the commercial / industrial powers that see the world purely as a commodity without respect for life.

All this of course leads us to …

The Copenhagen Climate Summit

The other big world event this week – and even as I write this world leaders are frantically searching for a wording that all countries can sign to. The possibility of stepping in to our light potential is very acute just now. The Climate Summit is the test of whether we are willing to work towards a better future together. Will there be an agreement to co-operate or not? Is it possible there could be a deal that is fair to both rich and poor, to both industrialised and developing nations?

Gretel and Hansel

Questions like this bring to my mind Gretel and Hansel, B92 and B93. The coral for co-operation between male (turquoise) and female (olive). We have the rich northern hemisphere (male) and the underdeveloped southern (female) hemisphere. The main divide in this Summit has been between rich and poor nations. For once the poor nations operating in a more democratic voting system of one country / one vote have found more voice and power. We have to learn to honour not only the Earth on which we live but also each other. The northern hemisphere has taken the most in the Piscean Age, will it now be able to allow a redress of balance?

What have B92 and B93 to do with B107? Well the fact that B107 contains turquoise creates a significant echo to B92 and B93. Why? Because if we look at the three most recent bottles B105 Coral / Coral, B106 Pale Olive / Pale Violet and now B107 Opalescent Turquoise / Deep Magenta, we find a repeat of the coral - olive - turquoise sequence! These three colours in B92 and B93 opened the door to B94 and the Archangel sequence in Equilibrium. Now we come to, what in theory at least, could be the completion of the Archangel sequence (with Zaphkiel there is finally an Archangel bottle for each sphere of the Tree) and, with this possible completion, we see in Copenhagen a possible turning point for humanity to step up to collective challenge and opportunity.

Planetary Consciousness and the Turquoise Ray

The Aura-Soma New Aeon Tarot image for the Turquoise Master - Maha Chohan - shows a being that is dreaming this world. (I say this because you can see that planet Earth sits in Maha Chohan’s 8th chakra.) As delegates sit in Copenhagen it strikes me that to truly care for the Earth we have to not only respect each other (B92 and B93) but it will also be really helpful to enter into resonance with the planetary consciousness itself. This Tarot image shows that it is the Turquoise Ray which is the key to planetary consciousness and, now with the birth of B107, we have been given the rescue energy for this Turquoise Ray.

I just found this quote on the internet from Pablo Solon, the Bolivian ambassador at the United Nations in New York. He said “…we must begin to change our relationship to nature in this new century. The main way to do that is to recognize that not only we humans have rights, but also that our Mother Earth, our nature has rights, rights that we must respect.” He went on to say, though not in these words, … it is not a question of trading numbers such as carbon credits between rich and poor, but a change in our hearts about our relationship to the earth itself.
This is the best of planetary consciousness in a turquoise week!

This leads us back to Avatar! A man entered another body and consequently changed his consciousness, his priorities and, ultimately, his choice of actions.

Finally

So it is beautiful that this turquoise rescue appears as a support for the light within us
The part that can say “Yes we can.” Of course we don’t know what is really important here, a “Yes” or a “No”. Perhaps a disappointing “No” from Copenhagen will fuel the pressure for a stronger “Yes” at the end of B107’s time.

So we come to more of Mike’s words on the themes of B107: “Where we have become over-identified and fatigued by circumstance — losing sight of our bigger purpose — the rescue aspect of the Turquoise of B107 invites us into the grace of unfoldment and the wonder of allowing ourselves to simply step into the flow of our fulfilment..”

This is the key.

Read the rest of this entry »

A new Equilibrium bottle was born 14th December 2009

It is a new and mysterious colour – this opalescent turquoise. Like sunlight shining through the sea … like foam … like bubbles in the frothing wave. Yet when the bottle is turned on its side and viewed from above then this opalescence becomes like a field of stars strewn across the universe.

Something unfamiliar

I was lucky to be shown the bottle by Mike even before it was released. He told me then this long birthing period from 19 November to 14 December had been helpful because the energy behind this bottle is very unfamiliar for us on Earth. And now this bottle is born I still find this so. Mostly I find myself silent in the face of it. Ideas and thoughts seem irrelevant with this combination. Silence is more powerful. Silence, it seems, speaks volumes.

Silence in the face of wonder

Speaking of which … on the night of the bottles birth, by chance I saw an episode of a TV series called Defying Gravity. I had not seen the previous episodes, but the one i saw Episode 9 (titled Eve ate the Apple) is the point in the story when the main characters - the astronauts on a space mission to travel the solar system - discover they are carrying a mysterious life form in their ship. It is connected to life forms on other planets and communicates through an ethereal kind of singing. As this lifeform is revealed to the astronauts, all they can do is stare upon it in silence and wonder. It has a form, yet its form is always changing, like water flowing, always turning in on itself. It is something, mysterious, enchanting and incomprehensible. This image brought back to mind Mike’s words to me about the unfamiliarity behind this latest bottle.

Energy becomes Form

This may seem a random association to the new bottle but there is further connection. Mike made several mentions in the oficial announcement of the new bottle that the Tzaphkiel energy is supporting the light-being dimension of ourselves. For example he said “Each of us is a gossamer light-being, fragile within the density of our physicality.” In some way this lifeform in the space ship brought together energy and form into one image – it made more explicit the meeting between these two worlds.

Tzaphkiel, Binah and the Mother

What is really interesting is that Tzaphkiel is the Archangel associated with the sphere of Binah in the Tree of Life. And it is Binah that provides the bridge between spirit and matter, energy and form. Binah is part of the top triangle of the Tree of Life. This triangle is one of pure spirit, and yet within this triangle Binah is also home to the principle of Universal Mother. It is this principle of Mother in spirit which makes it possible for energy to take on form. Just as a human mother provides the growing space in her womb for new life to take form, so Binah provides the energetic field for matter to be created. This is the Mother behind all mothers.

Tzaphkiel is the intelligence or being within this sphere and the one that holds this possibility. Tzaphkiel and Binah provide the field which allows the light to create and enter into the material world. In Mike’s words, “Tzaphkiel as the Divine Mother comes in compassion to help us birth the light body from within the chemistry of our physical bodies.”

In the next post connections between B107 and world events this week …

There is a big question in physics. “Why does time seem to flow in one direction only?” From a mathematical point of view it should equally be able to flow from future to past.

A simple answer?

I have been considering this question through this autumn and there seems such a simple explanation. Time flows forward because the universe is expanding. Einstein showed that space and time are two parts of entirely one whole. Thus if the universe expands only outwards from the Big Bang, then time too must flow in the direction of expansion.

In the flow

I guess i can’t be right - but through this process there have been several moments when i felt as if I were flowing with time, like a surfer riding a wave, a wave in time. Even when I stood still, I sensed I was in this movement, a movement that had no past and no future, but is always just now.

Space gets in the way

I realised the distraction is space. The fact that I am able to choose to move in three dimensions: forwards and back, left and right, up and down, makes it seem that when I choose not to move in any direction then I must be in stillness. But this is not so. Even when I do not move in space still I am flowing in time. Space and time are two parts of one whole, like complementary colours, to have a position in space i must also have a position in time. And even if i do not move in space still time flows. And this wave of now i can never leave. Time is to life on earth as water is to the fish. Being in time we do not see it. But it is the movement we never leave our whole life long.

The future

There is much more … but that is for a later NOW.

Cows have feelings too

It was front page news recently in a local Japanese newspaper that cows who receive and are called by, a name produce more milk. Is it pink that they feel cared for? Do they have a (yellow) sense of self that responds to attention? Mooooving on to a related theme …

His Dark Materials

This is a prize-winning trilogy of three books by Phillip Pullman that addresses a host of cosmological questions in the form a children’s adventure. A vital subject in the adventure is what the author calls “Dust” A kind of golden energy, invisible to the naked eye, which surround anything that has consciousness invested in it. There is a lot of Dust around people for example, but it also clusters around human-made objects, since they have received conscious attention.

A Blackbird

These two pieces of information come together when I consider an insight I had during a pre-class walk one sunny Tokyo morning. As I returned to the hotel, I noticed a bird fluttering in a bush beside the road. I also noticed my mentally naming it – “Blackbird” and the fact that I was turning my consciousness towards it. In that moment I understood that our seeing the world with consciousness bestows consciousness upon the world. This fits Pullman’s idea of the presence of Dust that is so vital to all the worlds in his books.

Djwal Khul

I remember that I associated this realisation with Djwal Khul. I think because with DK we talk about “Objective seeing” - seeing things objectively, just as they are
without bringing any need, expectation or interpretation to them. It is a way of seeing which will give maximum support for all things to unfold just as they wish.

In this context it is interesting to note that since the early days of Aura-Soma DK has been connected to the gold as well as the Emerald Green. Perhaps it is for this reason …

And so

The importance of names, the gift of consciousness, the freedom to unfold truly …
My latest course, Equilibrium Journey, draws on many ways of looking as it seeks to understand the bigger story revealed through the Equilibrium sequence. Along with colour and number, names play an important role. It has caused me to wonder about the names of the bottles. No doubt they are all perfect, but I wonder if they are an outer name, and that perhaps there may also be inner names for each bottle which have yet to be revealed …

I saw it was the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down yesterday. I was surprised to note the date. 9th November 1989. According to the English way of writing dates that would be: 9.11.89 How strange both capitalism and communism should have suffered attacks on such important symbols on dates with the same number – 9.11 !!!

We all have walls

Speaking of walls I had a kind of “wall-coming-down moment” on a Rainbow Evolution course I presented this weekend in Switzerland. It was the last afternoon of the course and, as I collected the names for the student’s certificates, I had the idea to give one to myself too. Perhaps it was because I had enjoyed and learnt a lot from the course, perhaps it was because there was a collective, intimate feeling in the group, perhaps it was because we were exploring the coral energy just then in the course – and coral is a colour for being part of something …

Struggle

Anyway, whatever the reason that inspired me, I told the group I would make a certificate for myself too. But then while the students were working in pairs and I was filling in the certificates, I felt quite uncomfortable. How could I sign for myself? Was I being presumptuous, arrogant even? You see the coral master is Sanat Kumara and it is the last of the Cosmic Master Beings. After SK comes Maha Chohan, and this is the Greater Teacher. With the coral ray and Sanat Kumara we arrive at the point where we are ready for life itself to become our teacher. Could I really sign to that?

Relief

After tea break we had a feedback session and students shared their experience form the coral exercise. I also shared and told them about my process with the certificate. With a wave of enthusiasm they declared they would all sign it for me. And that’s what happened, I passed it around and they all signed it.

Certificate with student signatures

Wall coming down?

Well it is a vital part of coral that we help each other, we are interdependent. If I had stayed in my yellow-thinking-prison about whether I could sign for myself, the breakthrough would not have come. By opening the wall of my ego and sharing my situation with the group the perfect solution came. The gift of that experience was the reminder that i am just a human being, we are all part of the circle of humanity.

There is a new government in Japan. A party that did not exist two years ago has swept to power. There is a very interesting interpretation to be taken from the colour and shape of the symbol that has been chosen by the Minshu political party. It is fitting with their promise to the Japanese people. A message of change and new beginning.

The two red circles of the Minshu symbol

The symbol shows two red circles meeting on a white background. The red circle is an echo of the sun on the Japanese flag – and thus associates the Minshu party with Japanese identity. However the presence of the second red circle indicates something new is happening. We should pay attention. Something new is being added to the traditional situation.

Look more closely and you will see the lower circle has a shaky edge. Why? What can this mean? The lower circle seems to be more energetic, the shaky edge seems to express movement, as if this second circle is vibrating with some kind of energy. This second circle is alive. The message is the Minshu party is vibrating with energy, an energy they can bring to Japan.

Even in England the Japanese election result was treated as big news. It was described as a political earthquake. We were told that for 50 years Japan had had only one party in government, and the result was that everything had become very fixed: politics, big corporations, the bureaucracy, nothing could move anymore in this power structure. This election result has broken an important part of this fixed power structure, something new can now grow. A shaking energy has been brought to what used to be very solid. The symbol with its vibrating red circle hovering over the traditional fixed red sun perfectly expresses this new (red) awakening energy.

There is more though. See the white space where the two circles overlap. As the energised red begins to overshadow the original circle a white process happens. White is clearing, cleansing - like a blank page, white offers a fresh start for a new story. As the Minshu party move to the centre of the Japanese picture, more and more of the original red sun will be bathed in white. There will be a clearing from which a new start may be made. This is what the Minshu party and this election result offers. A fresh start from which Japan can emerge reenergised. This seems to be what so many people hope for.

Colour, shape and resonance offer insight into the messages of the symbols around us. They allow us deeper understanding of the messages offered to us. Look around and enjoy.