with Emily Baumbach

Email or mail your universal or personal question to
Emily Baumbach, Causalworks, 1551 Norwood Avenue, Boulder, CO 80304 USA. If your question is about your personal astrology chart and you're OK with it appearing publicly in this column, send your question in with your complete birth data (date, time and place of birth). You can also subscribe to Expansion newsletter and get a new Q&A from a new reader each month. Thanks.

Q: The crocodile whisperer is interesting from all kinds of viewpoints. The croc either sees the man as an easy source of chicken or it really did respond to his care and love. Perhaps the man did spend a lifetime on the reptile planet. (E, via email)

[Our questioner's email had information and photos of a Costa Rican man - the Croc Whisperer - who healed a crocodile from a gunshot wound to the eye, then continued to feed and nurture the croc for a decade; now they are pals.]

A: Chito the Croc Whisperer is a Young King with Priest essence twin, Goal of Dominance and Perseverance Mode who has mastered the art of interspecies communication by working with his Instinctive Part of Center - something most of us ignore in this modern world. Because the croc is an Instinctively Centered life form, Chito has been able to recode his own Moving Centeredness for brief moments in order to read the body language and consciousness of the croc.

In the same way, animals who hang out with people can step into human consciousness for brief sparking moments, even though the natural instincts usually take over again. When this happens, people and animals are Pivotal Facilitators for each other: creating a pivot shift in awareness.

Herps like alligators, snakes and crocodiles don't live in a reality of trust. People can and do live in circles of trust. Because of Pocho's limited circuitry, it took Chito 10 years to re-imprint Pocho with at least some semblance of trust, which is focused at the moment solely on Chico.

Life forms that live in trust are the evolutionary future of the world, and it's probable that a lot of Instinctively Centered life forms will eventually be phase out. Interspecies telepathy is a new frontier that will soon become a normal part of daily life, especially as the world shifts more solidly to Mature and then Old Soul-hood. In the future we'll see more and more YouTube videos of dogs nursing piglets, hamsters snuggling up with cats, baby moose playing with dogs, etc. - bridges between species that welcomely dissolve this life's seeming separateness and alienation. The lizard planet (like our own planet) exists in our minds. The nature of Greater Mind is linkage and union

Q: What is your definition of Part of Fortune, and how do you know where it is when it isn't in the ephemeris? (J, via email)

The Part of Fortune is one of the hundreds of Arabic Parts originally taught by an 11th Century astronomer, Al Biruni (a mathematician Scholar in the Michael System). Among other Arabic Parts such as the Parts of Marriage, Death, Illness and Children, the Part of Fortune is the most popular because it's where the goodies of the universe flow into your life. It points to a place of very good karma, where you get to draw on your good karmic bank account for support during the lifetime.

The Part of Fortune isn't a physical planet but a hypothetical point in space in your astrology chart. Because it's not an object, it's not found in an astrology atlas (ephemeris), which as you know is a planetary GPS telling you where planets can be found in the sky.

The Part of Fortune is calculated for daytime births by taking your Ascendant, subtracting your Sun, and adding your Moon. If you were born at nighttime, take your Ascendant, add your Sun, and subtract your Moon. If that's too much Scholar spaghetti, just look at your astrology chart for the symbol for the Part of Fortune, which looks like a circle with a cross inside it. [Note to everyone: If you want to know where your Part of Fortune is, I'll calculate your chart free of charge, no problem.]

Pay attention to the House where your Part of Fortune lies - not so much the Sign it's in. For instance, if you have Part of Fortune in your 8th House in Pisces, the 8th House will be important but Pisces not as important. The Sign will add flavor but the main meaning will come from the House placement. Here's a quick guide to the Part of Fortune in the 12 Houses:

1st: prosperity from appearance.
2nd: prosperity from self effort.
3rd: prosperity from siblings and community.
4th: prosperity from a home, real estate and parents.
5th: prosperity from children, risks and creativity.
6th: prosperity from good hard work.
7th: prosperity from a life partner.
8th: prosperity from inheritance, insurance, partner's money.
9th: prosperity from global affairs.
10th: prosperity from corporations, the government and your parents.
11th: prosperity from friends and teammates.
12th: prosperity from places of seclusion (hotels, spas, retreat centers).

Q: In Advaita [nonduality], it is stated there is an endless wheel of birth and death. This seems different from the Michael Teachings, [where] a fragment completes the grand cycle and reunites with the Tao. How is it possible to be identified as an individual soul again? How then to be sure that I had two previous grand cycles on this planet and one on another? (W, via email) (edited for length)

Think of yourself as Harry Potter, and your various lifetimes as Harry Potter movies. Think of your grand cycle as the complete edition of all Harry Potter movies. That is False Personality going through a cycle of lifetimes. Now think of yourself as J. K. Rowling, and the books "you" write as reflections of your own tendencies, wishes and dreams. That is your Essence. When Essence has things to do, it creates illusory characters that resemble itself. When Essence is done, it stops creating characters that resemble itself. Because Essence is the author of you, it retains full authorship rights. It can stop creating you or recreate you at its pleasure. "It" is what you came from, and "it" is your guardian, your guide, your Home, your True Being and your Self. It is so profoundly simple that it is the same Source of everything - No difference, no "thing." When all the Harry Potter movies have been made, and all the Harry Potter books have been written, where does Harry Potter go? Nowhere. He is merely a collection of Harry Potter-like thoughts that exist in availability. Anytime J. K. Rowling wants to resurrect Harry Potter, she can put him back on the wheel - on another planet, as a girl, as an old man, a sentient lion or a Transcendental Soul. She can have him dissolve into infinity then appear again in a 1st level Infant prequel. She can play around with time and reality all she wants. That's her delight.

Rather than ask others if you've lived on another planet, do your own research, and be honest. If it is true, something inside you will know it. If it isn't true, then you can always "write" yourself there. Thanks for your question.


Q: I keep wanting enlightenment but never really get there permanently. My visions of awakening keep disappearing. They're replaced with dullness and normal life problems that I can't seem to solve. What's the best way for me to evolve? (L, from personal conversation)

You must know by now that you have knowing already inside of you. Your visions of awakening are the inner earthquakes that follow on the heels of moments of pure knowing, but the visions aren't pure knowing itself. Visions come and go. They help give the mind images it can hang onto, so that it can translate the untranslatable into forms that are comfortable.

Your oscillations on the spiritual path are temporary. They're teaching you compassion, and will keep you (as they do to all of us) from being arrogant or controlling. Eventually all your desires will die down naturally, and permanent awakening will be there instantly like a deep, profound, baby simple freshness. All you have to do between now and then is absolutely love truth again, and again, and again.

Shortly you'll discover that most of your patterns are unnecessary drudgery, a panoply of multiplier functions in the preset lifestyle formulas that have become grossly automatic. When you set aside Automatic, you become less dense. When you become less dense, you become more free. When you become more free, you can travel through the up-and-down oscillations of your life with a steady, subtle, lovely hum of sameness and stillness that is pleasing and soothing to the soul. Remember the Hum as much as you can and you'll be in good shape.

You're learning how to catch yourself from getting caught in your own Super Ego trap, and this is great work that takes time when done well. Step back from this trap and enjoy the wholeness of yourself exactly the way you are this moment, right now. Relax and let the enlightenment timeline unfold at its own pace. Don't rush, don't hurry. Remember to hum.

Q: If Ignorance is Bliss, does that mean that Complete Ignorance is Completely Blissful? Do people really want to be Completely Ignorant? Some people do, some people don't. That's their decision. (A, via email)

Not knowing that you don't know, and thinking you do know, is knowing nothing. That's ignorance. Not knowing anything, and not thinking anything, that's complete ignorance. Knowing that you know nothing, and that you have nothing figured out, is knowing something. That's innocence. Knowing that you have everything, that's bliss. Knowing that everything is nothing, that's complete bliss.

Ignorance is contorted bliss. Ignorance lacks discernment. Ignorance hides, shuts down and tries to be inert. Eventually, ignorance has to open and evolve --- and no one has any control over this process. What looks like personal choice is actually a conscious shift of direction in tandem with the creative life force behind and underneath all form. The rate of evolution in this process means nothing.

Innocence is fully present, open and alive and simple. It can look like staring, but it's actually delicately responding to everything simultaneously. That's what's called knowing.

Bliss is a temporary state when desire ceases. Desires usually come back, then you seek the satisfaction of those desires. Once satisfied, again there's temporary bliss.

Complete bliss is the cessation of all desire. It comes when you realize the world "out there" is a cartoon, a continuously swirling projection of the contents of your own mind. Who can prove for sure that it exists?

Here's an example: If you go to the Mt. St. Helens volcano cam, you can usually see the mountain. Once in awhile, a snowstorm will cover the camera with icicles, and all you can see are icicles. Ignorance would say, "The world is an icicle." Innocence would say, "I believe there is a world beyond the icicles, although I cannot prove it." Bliss would say, "Time for tea and toast." Complete bliss would remain silent. It simply sees the icicles, camera lens, mountain and personal reactions as an eternally-changing "outer" panorama of something that is also, literally, nothing. Great Zen koan question, and thanks for sending it in.

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