As summer winds down and autumn nears closer, I personally look forward to the change. Sometimes, any change will do. The past months have been an intensely challenging time of upheaval on our beloved planet. So many people everywhere are going through personal crises. During such times, I turn to my spiritual teachers for comfort and guidance. For example, A World in Transition: Finding Spiritual Security in Times of Change is one of my all-time favorite books of wisdom by Paramahansa Yogananda. I want to share with you an inspiring quote from this book by Sri Mrinalini Mata, current leader of the Self-Realization Fellowship:

“Man is harassed, unhappy, worried, tossed about by the constant change and turmoil of this world…The ills of society and the world will not be cured by conferences and talk of cooperation and peace if the very persons at the negotiating table have not the peace of true selflessness in their hearts. Nor will peace and prosperity be brought about merely by legislation…the only way this world will change, the only way man is going to be freed from this misery and disturbance, which is day by day poisoning his life and happiness in a slow death of disillusionment, is when he, as an individual, will change himself..in the stillness of meditation.”

Same old story, right? We must change ourselves, through our own efforts, that we may change the world. With themes of change in mind, I have written a blog about a significant astrological transition that just began on August 6, 2013, the Jupiter Return in the horoscope of the United States. I believe that this new cycle officially ends the post-9/11 “dodecade” (a 12-year cycle that transpired since the last Jupiter Return that occurred two weeks before 9/11-2001) and that this recent Jupiter Return ushers in a brand new era. If you read the article, you will see that I interpret this event as a significant and positive development. Though turmoil and destruction will always be part of this temporal world, I have come to trust the divine plan here and believe that progress is being made somewhere all the time.