Wednesday 29 May 2013

Where Does The Time Go? A Metaphysical Blog, by Shawn M. Cohen

Time by Alan Parsons Project from the Album, "Turn of a Friendly Card" 1980.

I have not written on my blog for months, in fact since December last year, 2012.
 I started with great enthusiasm which is so true to my Aries nature and then I got distracted with other things. So typical of my sign!  But I awoke this morning, a rainy, bleak, cold London morning at the end of May(!) with this song "Time" in my head. I could not even remember who wrote it all those years ago but I knew the song...the words were circling in my head..."Time, keeps flowing like a river to the sea..."
    It may be because I am thinking about my teenage daughter, now age 16, who will be graduating in June from secondary school (or what I called High School,being American) and then going to her Prom with her boyfriend.

"Time marches on, Time waits for no one"...wasn't she just a little girl all dressed in pink as we walked hand in hand to her ballet classes? Time...where did it go? 

  And like many people my age...(another story, my age!)  my own mother is coming up to her 89th birthday in November! How she outlived so many others is beyond me! Her time may be shorter but she is still here, amazingly enough.
   Within all these time markers;  our age, our children growing up, our parents becoming old...there is the sense of what is it all about? I can't help but look back. It is all part of this mindset of people my age...what is my age? I don't feel any older then when I was attending a Led Zeppelin  concert in Pittsburgh, Pa., my hometown, with my best friends in 1973! I was just about 17 then...close to what age my daughter is now. But oh, how the world has changed since then!! " Take me back to the time of my youth," sings Led Zeppelin..."take me back. " But you can not go back...not even when you are helping your daughter with her Prom dress!   My mind begins to compute the rationale for the time gone by:
You were a hippie, you did not go to your Prom in 1974. Your boyfriend, having graduated 2 years before you and on your insistence , was waiting for you in Los Angeles, California where The Door's* music was blasting out of open top red Corvettes or sunshine yellow VW Beetles cruising down  Sunset Strip. In your time, your way shower was Joni Mitchell who was  singing about the Ladies of the Canyon,and expressing so many feelings and you could not wait to get to Laurel Canyon just to see it for yourself and by the way, Crosby, Stills and Nash were touring with or without Neil Young then. Either way, you were sure they all lived in L.A.and that is where the action was, that was what cool was all about. One of your best girlfriends, who had moved out there before you and now also your boyfriend from Pittsburgh were both there and you could not wait until High School graduation just so you could be there, hanging out with them both. You did not want to go to some old fashioned corny Prom! So you left the day after High School graduation, leaving friends and family behind and went to L.A. to live, 3000 miles away, age 18. You were so brave, looking back....but nobody mentioned this to you at the time. By the way, remember when you wanted to be a writer?? 

Time is a funny thing, it distorts and it reverberates. Memories are the sanctuary of Time. They are the Akashic Records in our brains. They measure everything against our own experiences. In that time, I was this way. Now, in this time, I am that way. But have I grown? Am I a Grown UP? Has my Soul developed and matured? Am I better than I once was or am I in denial, just chugging along, day after day, hamster on a wheel of endless time until one day the wheel ceases to turn??  Can we really say? If not us, then who? Who will speak for us and about us after we are gone and will it be the truth or just pretty lies? One thing is for sure, making my way into my life's journey, the path I chose, the people I chose to share it with...some friends, some enemies, some within my own family...it has never been an "easy time". I was wondering what my so called "retirement" years will be like?? Right now, as it stands, there are no plans and no ways to retire. I did not choose that path, you know, paying into a retirement fund, gold watch and all...no, not for me. I chose to be a way shower, a light worker, a pioneer of consciousness as my spiritual helpers like to call me. Ha! I laugh. You're kidding me, right? No, they say..no, that is what you are... a born communicator! Ha, Ha, bloody Ha!Ha!  But they insist. Ok, I get it, I did walk a totally unfamiliar path. After that boyfriend died, I needed to know. I saw his spirit. It was all too much and too shocking for words. I needed to know.Nothing and no one would stop me. Searching for the truth; Why we are here? Do we go on afterwards? What is the purpose to life? All those big questions. It was my wish to know and I did what it took to know. I put in the TIME into my spiritual seeking, education and practice and finally my awakening.  My TIME was used up in travelling the world, not all of it, but a good chunk of it, exploring, researching, falling in and out of love, gaining experiences, knowledge and helping others, serving others, being there for those who needed me, being the spiritual teacher, counselor and adviser I came to be.  Those times, looking back, were some of my happiest. That Pioneering Aries energy was at an all time high. Active and happy and free. The Metaphysics school I found in California in 1980, which was the same time this song by Alan Parsons Project came out. Funny that, eh? Time comes full circle. My daughter will be home soon from her revision studies for her GCSE's. I had my SATS when I was her age. But she and I live in London and she goes to school in the British system. Who would have ever figured I would have ended up here? 29 years here now and that is a long time, in anyone's calculations! I came here at age 29 in my first Saturn Return*, in 1985 and soon it will be my Second Saturn Return* at age 58....I have lived half of my life in America, where I am from, and half of it in Britain. How is it possible so much time has gone by? But it did. I can only hope I have used it wisely.
 Well, would you look at the time!? I have to get ready. My daughter is coming home soon from school and we are going Prom shopping and I am not quite ready. Time, also to feed our cat, Romeo. I must leave you now to ponder the meaning of time in your own life. May it be memorable.

Addendum: On May 20, 2013, the great Door's *founder and keyboardist Ray Manzarek passed to that great Gig in the Sky, age 74, from bile cancer. When our youth Icons slowly move on to the next journey, "breaking on through to the Other Side" it can be a shock, a wake up call. One can not help but remember how much influence one little rock band had in memories to one's youth..and maybe even the sound track to one's whole life. RIP Ray and thanks for the music and memories! "When the music's over, turn out the lights." Jim Morrison and the Doors.

The Saturn Return* happens when you are roughly age 29. It happens to everyone about that time, a 2 and a half to 3 year process, happening once every 29 years when the planet Saturn in your own Natal Astrology Chart, returns to the exact location it was when you were born. Saturn is the great planet and marker of TIME and MATURITY and it also has influences for Karma and placement in career, even parenting. I wrote about it because it was the thing in 1985 which put me where I obviously needed to be and my own Saturn is in Sagittarius, in my 10th house of my natal astrology chart. This is the house of career and Sagittarius is a sign who explores truth (key words: I SEEK) and the love of travel and foreign climes. Henceforth, I ended up teaching Metaphysics in a foreign country, many in fact, and living here. That we get another shot at it again in our Second Saturn Return* is a way for us to take stock, see what else is left to do, or get a second chance at doing what we have not been able to do thus far.  This allows us to get that long lost dream going again or to change directions completely and have a do over, a new beginning or finally get the accolades and rewards for services rendered to a long career path. Many may become Grandparents in this time and I can add this is true of some of my friends from whom I grew up with. It is surely a time of second chances, if you have done the "work" and put the "time" in, which Saturn, ruler of both, will justly give (finally!)  rewards for!

(C) Shawn M. Cohen    
May 30, 2013 London, UK.
Fair usage act for video of  "TIME" , no copyright infringement intended.