Grace…
I think if we’re honest, most of us aren’t very clear about what that word even means.
This article aims to bring the meaning of “grace” down to earth in a way that makes it more tangible, recognizable, and real (while still leaving ample room for the metaphysical mystery of grace). In so doing, I hope to explain how astrology relates to grace as well.
Grace Is Elusively Obvious
Most people must have a fuzzy conception of grace, at best. You can surely imagine many people’s eyes glazing over if the word ‘grace’ were to pop up unexpectedly in conversation. How many times have you even become a bit foggy at the mention of that word yourself? (Perhaps you’re already feeling a little of that fogginess right now!)
Grace sounds like a really good thing to have, but what and where is it?
The truth is that grace is hiding everywhere, right in plain sight. It is one of the most prevalent, familiar and fundamental elements of our daily lives, even though we don’t notice it staring us right in the face every day.
OK, so grace is everywhere, but what is grace?
Here’s my simple definition of the word:
“Grace” is our word for the goal-oriented metaphysical principle that favors the evolution of life.
There’s Massive Grace In Gravity
OK, we’re getting closer now. We have a definition of “grace,” and an idea that grace is virtually everywhere, but can we actually pick out specific reflections of grace?
Yes. Grace is ultimately what makes the laws of physics conveniently conducive to life. Take gravity, for example. Whether we believe in the Big Bang Theory or some other creation story, we have no idea why the strength of gravity in the universe just happens to fall into a “Goldilocks Zone,” resulting in a “just right” universe that neither crushes itself, nor flies apart, before it has a chance to form the stars and planets that host life. We can think of this “lucky accident” as an effect of grace.
Astrology As an Example of a Goal-Oriented Super-Physical Law
Astrology is a science of how life is orchestrated by super-physical law. The fact that such a science exists at all is a powerful suggestion that the universe is structured with, or around, a goal of favoring the evolution of life. Astrology describes a set of super-physical laws that appear to stem from an understanding of life (how it develops and functions, what it needs, etc.), which is strong evidence that some sort of life-favoring goal is reflected by those laws. If astrology works here on Earth, then we have every reason to think that it applies throughout the cosmos. The impact of the legitimacy of astrology is therefore enormous, since by itself astrology offers enough evidence to confirm that a “goal-oriented metaphysical principle that favors the evolution of life” (our working definition of “grace”) presides over the entire universe.
As a reflection of goal-oriented super-physical law, astrology provides evidence of grace’s existence in the universe.
Flushing Out the Grace In Water
Other such manifestations of grace constantly surround and permeate us, though they go almost wholly unnoticed as well.
Take water, for example. The strength of hydrogen bonds is also right in the Goldilocks Zone for life. Hydrogen bonds just happen to be weak enough to allow water molecules to “unglue” from each other easily, but strong enough to make water molecules want to stick together. This is why water flows rather than dispersing like dust. Considering that every single biological process inside our bodies occurs only in water, the fact that hydrogen bonds also fall into a Goldilocks Zone for life is another incredible manifestation of grace.
So, every time you move a muscle (to breathe, chew, walk, talk, read, or grab something), and every time your cells generate the energy that fuels your body (enabling you to read this article!), you are experiencing grace—right inside your own body!
Think about that!
Really. Take some time to reflect on how your body simply cannot operate without the grace in water for a single moment. Period.
Why Grace and the Theory of Evolution Are Not Incompatible
The Theory of Evolution primarily uses the idea of “random genetic mutations” to explain how complex life like us developed. But, a little discussed fact about the Theory of Evolution is that these genetic mutations need not be random. This possibility has been all but ignored by modern science.
Given the almost unfathomable complexity of the biological systems that are said to have evolved from single-celled organisms (as exemplified in this Harvard video), science should at least not completely rule out the possibility that a non-random influence played a role in the development of life. Grace would be an influence of precisely this kind.
Consider this: if random mutations drive evolution, then it is totally bizarre that we can recognize musical octaves (pairs of notes in which one note’s frequency is twice that of the other’s). Why should we be able to hear any relationship at all between a note of one frequency and another note of twice that frequency? Why would humans evolve the ability to hear a doubled frequency through random genetic mutations? Nothing about our survival requires that we especially distinguish a 2:1 ratio in sound frequencies. This is a glaring, but totally overlooked, indicator that something more than genetic mutations and natural selection is at play in life’s evolution—something goal-oriented, with an aim of enabling us to hear octaves and other natural harmonics.
So, our ability to distinguish music also appears to be a manifestation of grace. Perhaps that is why music is so commonly incorporated into religious practices.
Just Ask for Grace, All the Time
OK, we now have a definition of grace, specific examples, and an argument for its existence, but how do we maximize grace? Accepting that grace exists is wonderfully liberating and uplifting, but it also raises the question of how much any given situation can benefit from grace. Grace seems to want to support life (remember, you already have a lot!), so I believe that the best and easiest way to get more grace is simply to ask for more grace. Our connection with grace must be very simple and primal. So, try just asking grace itself to “grace this moment,” or use any variation of this request that feels more natural for you.
You can’t overdo it, because there’s no limit to how much better off you could be, so why not ask for grace as much as possible?
Christ’s advisement, “Ask, and it shall be given,” probably wasn’t just an interesting factoid he wished to share about prayer; it more likely was an exhortation to ask.
The only caveat I can see here is that grace seems to favor life only in certain ways. My own experience leads me to believe that grace favors what we might call “pure” life, not every possible way that life could be favored (after all, some of our pursuits are cancerous to life, either literally or figuratively). Perhaps grace only favors things that are an intrinsic part of life’s evolution (safety, material sustenance, understanding, discovery, social interconnectivity, etc.)
To me, this means that if we ask for grace while identified with the pure life within us, then our purer (healthier) interests and pursuits will be favored more by grace. In other words, ask for grace as the most pure living being you can be in the moment. To my mind, this means that our request for grace will be more powerful when we are more innocent, humble, and life-affirming (benevolent, benign, open-hearted, forgiving, etc.). Then ask only for things that affect life at the purest levels (i.e. things that you feel are truly beneficial to you and other living things). Try it, and see for yourself!
Astrology As a Medium of Grace
Astrology itself can be used as a vehicle for grace, too. This isn’t as easy as simply asking for grace, but it is often still worth the effort. Astrology is like a window (and mirror) that allows us to more clearly perceive our environment. The fact that we even comprehend this abstract window at all is grace, and the clarity it affords can be a form of grace as well, provided we orient ourselves properly towards our astrological reflection and tides. This is why I posted the article, “Surfing Your Astrology” and why I typically spend half of every 90 minute initial reading with clients constructing an “astrological portrait” (or mirror reflection) of them from the elements of their charts. Understanding influencing energies enables us to orient in ways that harness those energies, where we otherwise would drain our resources in blind resistance to those energies. The resources we save, which have both material and psychological benefits, are thus a gift of grace from astrology.
A Potential Proof of Grace: The Prevalence of Complex Life
I think we need to open our minds to the possibility that, even if evolution is true, the genetic mutation that drives evolution may not be as random as modern science believes. If, in fact, some kind of metaphysical intelligence at least occasionally (if not constantly) influenced the development of life in the universe with the goal of benefiting that life, then those benefits could rightly be labeled, “grace.”
Interestingly, if it turns out that life is common in the universe, rather than being a rare accident that was fairly unique to this planet, then the typical objection from those who deny the existence of grace would instantly evaporate. Skeptics invariably appeal to the “law of averages” to dismiss the suggestion that grace explains how life managed to form and evolve in the universe. They usually point out that, if the universe is big enough to host virtually every possible combination of events, then life was bound to emerge somewhere in the universe exactly as it has on Earth. In other words, if the odds of our ecology arising are a gazillion to one, and you have at least a gazillion possible places in the universe for such an ecology to evolve, then the odds are that our ecology would evolved somewhere in the universe at least once.
The skeptics’ stance is based on the assumption that complex life is extremely rare. However, if complex life like ours is fairly prevalent in the universe, then the law of averages actually has the opposite impact, and instead supports the conclusion that something goal-oriented (like grace) helps life evolve.
How Astrology Implies the Prevalence of Complex Life
I think that the legitimacy of astrology (as a science, not as it is practiced in every instance) requires us to assume that complex life evolves fairly consistently throughout the universe, even if such life manifests in limitless diversity. Astrology is the science of how life is orchestrated by super-physical laws. The fact that these super-physical laws exist at all is a powerful suggestion that life is widely distributed throughout the universe and is similarly governed by those laws. Why would astrology exist and apply to laws that govern only one solar system in the universe? The specifics of how our astrology affects us may indeed be particular to our solar system, but the fact that astrology works at all has nothing to do with our planet’s location in the cosmos (note: astrology may not actually be a “cause” of life events, but may rather just systematically correlate with those events; in either case, the science of astrology shouldn’t be limited in scope to Earth and our little solar system).
Are We Close to “Proving” the Existence of Grace?
Give my last point, I actually suspect that as a species we are approaching a period in which we will become aware that life is fairly prevalent elsewhere in the cosmos. I think such a revelation is most likely to occur in the kind of Saturn-Ketu periods that I wrote about in last month’s blog posts. A high percentage of the “other worldly” events in recent history seem to have occurred in those periods, like meteor impacts and breakthroughs around space flight (for example, in the next Saturn-Ketu cycle, a large asteroid will miss Earth so narrowly that people will be able to see it with their naked eyes!).
Astronomers already claim to be closer to deducing if life exists on any of the countless planets they have recently found in other star systems (as our instruments get closer to being able to detect the atmospheric free oxygen that marks out living ecosystems). If we do not achieve such a revelation in the present Saturn-Ketu cycles (i.e. by 2019), then I think we are likely to do so in one of the subsequent Saturn-Ketu cycles soon to follow (e.g. 2028-31, 2039-42). This ultimately will have the effect of indirectly proving that abundant grace accompanies life, as I’ve explained above, because a universe of abundant life can’t be obtained by the mechanism of “random genetic mutations.”
So, the “final frontier” of space may soon bring the reality of grace down to Earth for us, so that the existence of grace eventually becomes common knowledge.
But we needn’t wait for scientific discoveries to prove to us what, if we only look more closely, we can clearly see for ourselves! So, see the grace all around you every day, and thank your lucky stars for every moment of the blessed life you live!