Is Empathy our fulcrum point?
Week 10--in which we begin to remember what we never quite forgot...is that empathy?
Beautiful Ones,
Last week, I shared my two mantras for 2025: I’ve written about the first, “Beautiful people do not just happen” several times. Today, I want to dive into my second because it feels like an oracle for the moment and for the entire year.
"I am beginning to remember what I never forgot."
Remember has layer upon layer of meaning. Layers that are beginning to unravel and reveal truths that have been kept hidden for ages. Every day this week it seemed there was another life-altering, often shocking, revelation. All coming at the speed of love. Although by midweek, it felt like I couldn’t possibly absorb one more startling new awareness, they kept coming, and I think I know why.
This is a time of not just upheaval; we’ve been through plenty of that.
No, this is something else altogether.
And we cannot—must not—look away. Nor can we assume the chaos will end if we repeat our positive affirmations or work a little harder to ascend out of our bodies. I have said for years that the time of spiritual practice for personal improvement, power, or gain is over. That kind of self-help actually isn’t spirituality. It’s materialism dressed up as spiritual practice.
But I am not saying the time of spirituality is over. Oh no. Quite the opposite.
I am saying this is the time to practice real spirituality.
- This is the time to remember ancient knowledge—knowledge that Mystic Witches and Oracles and Myrrhophores have treasured for eons.
Knowledge you hold—whether you realize it or not.
- This is the time to fall into the arms of original prayer before religion choked out the magic.
Prayer you remember—whether you realize it or not.
- This is the time to open Her ancient Libraries of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, and listen to the elements.
Skills you once had—although you think you have forgotten.
- This is the time to gather with Mystic friends. This is the time to heal the wasteland.
Somewhere deep inside, you remember how to do that.
In just the last week, the good guys and the bad guys got up and changed seats. In a matter of days, the United States abdicated the sacred role it has held since World War II supporting and expanding democratic order, health, and peace around the world, especially in Europe and with our neighbors.
Can this really be happening?
Can eighty years of alliances, trade, and mutual prosperity crash over night?
It would appear so. So what do we do?
Hannah Arendt, considered one of the most influential philosophers and political theorists of the 20 century, reported from the frontlines of totalitarianism:
“The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.”
Her quote matters because just this week Elon Musk, the rich man holding the puppet strings in Washington, said:
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
When I read these two quotes side-by-side I had to ask:
Is Empathy our fulcrum point?
That took me to the Thesaurus.
Synonyms for Empathy:
kindness, clemency, mercifulness, grace, magnanimity, understanding, compassion, generosity, humanitarianism, philanthropy, humaneness.
Antonyms for Empathy:
ruthlessness, retribution, violence, revenge, cruelty, vengeance, retaliation, punishment, savagery, vindictiveness, vitriol, brutality, viciousness.
Yes, I think it's clear: Empathy is our fulcrum point.
The antonyms are, unfortunately, perfect descriptions of what is being praised and promoted in the United States and wherever fascism is rising.
To help me understand this moment, I’ve been paying close attention to what experts in astrology and science say about this wild year.
- Astrologer Michael Lennox described what’s happening as an “extinction grab.”
- The systems theorist Ervin Laszlo calls this moment a “bifurcation point.” He said we have to choose: the road to extinction or the road to wholeness, oneness, and harmony.
It’s so interesting that two such different experts are pointing to a fulcrum point of empathy and mercy, or retribution and cruelty.
I am ashamed of my country. And afraid. But also—and this is what matters—totally energized to do the holy work that must be done.
I’ve been doing this work for two years, offering the first four prayer intensives on intuition, threshold crossing, original prayer and Myrrhophore anointing in The Witch Sequence.
Last Sunday we had a profound Opening Ceremony for ART 5. We took the first steps in a divination intensive unlike anything you or I have ever experienced.
This is not, as the car commercial said, your father’s divination. Or your mother’s. Unless you mean your ancient mothers. Your mothers before religion. Then, yes, this is absolutely your ancestral mother’s divination!
So, you might ask, if no one has experienced divination like this, if it hasn’t been taught in any of our religious traditions, if there are no manuals, then how can Cathy Stevens Pratt and I invite you to join this intensive on Divination?
The answer is both simple and head scratching:
We are not teaching anything.
Nor are you learning anything.
Together, in the Theatre of the Miraculous, we are remembering what we never quite forgot.
You and I have carried this oracular knowledge lifetime after lifetime.
- Her Library of Fire has held this ancient knowledge in its ashes waiting for each of us to learn how to call the Phoenix to rise.
- Her Library of Air has carried its song waiting for us to learn how to hear.
- Her Library of Earth has carried this knowledge for eons, waiting for us to learn how to feel.
- And Her Library of Water has held the memory of every wise woman and creature in all time, waiting for us to learn how to remember.
This is what we are doing in ART 5 and you are welcome to join us.
Please note ART 5 will never be repeated live. If your heart longs for this ancestral remembering of you natural divinatory abilities, please join us now. (Everything is recorded and the Resource Page will be available for at least two years.)
Our first Learning Gathering is today, Sunday March 9 at 2p eastern.
If you register by 2p, follow the link on your receipt to get the zoom for today’s gathering. And don’t worry if you can’t be with us live, it’s being recorded and will be on our Resource Page on Monday.
Plus, I offer a special Watch Party every Tuesday at 6pm eastern. The Watch Parties are small and intimate and fun. I highly recommend them. Check out the ART 5 page for all the details.
There's more. What can I say, it's a big week.
Monday at 3pm, we have the 2nd LIVE Q&A for the 2025 Forecast—A New Universe Asks to Be Born in You—with Star Sister Marcia Wade, shamanic astrologer Emma Kupu Mitchell, Cathy, and me.
Register today or Monday by 3 and I’ll get you the Zoom link. And again, don’t worry if you can’t be with us live, it will be recorded. And there’s more to come. It’s a rich and radical forecast. Perfect for a wild and rich year.
I leave you with this powerful quote from animist and oracular medium, Shannon Willis, who wrote a beautiful post for International Women’s Day. I’m going to read the entire post in our ART 5 Learning Gathering, but here’s the line that jumped off the screen for me.
"Patriarchy is not just a system; it is a severing. A forgetting. A cutting away of relationships that once held us in reciprocity."
THAT is what we are beginning to remember in ART 5. Sure sounds like empathy, deep abiding ancient empathy, to me!
to beginning to remember what we never forgot
Janet
website: janetconner.com
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