7 Words

7 Words Principles and Practices

The 7 Words System is defined by the idea that, beneath all the apparent complexity of human associations, there are only seven core gestures of communication; they are encapsulated by the 7 primary words and accessed by 28 keywords. These 7 archetypes of expression are the essential themes within all relations—they convey the necessary stages that healthy exchanges go through, because they are the foundation of all thoughts, ideas and behaviours. By deepening our understanding of these fundamentals, we can come to clarity, truth and completion in all our dealings.

So begins the introduction to this workbook for students of the 7 Words method.

The structure of the book itself is a guide to the principles being shown, since each of the chapters is an expression of each of the words. There are exercises throughout the book so that students are able to test their understanding before progressing further, although the layout lends itself well to skipping about according to personal inclination. The book contains all the course material for the Distance Learning Programme that leads to certification. The system itself is a practical method by which all aspects of life can be more clearly understood and managed, avoiding errors of omission, confusion and misunderstandings between people.

There are sections on

• Wordbending
• Open-mindedness
• The Mystery of 7
• Meditations
• Open-heartedness
• Case Studies
• Keys to Relationship
• Decision-making
• Authentic Communication
• How to Create your Life
• Career Strategies
• Science and Religion
• The Global Perspective

It costs about $17 / £9 plus shipping

Management Mastery in 7 Words

My background includes a wide variety of experience in management and I have owned a successful government-approved electrical testing laboratory which employed 40 people; also I qualified as a Certified Accountant and ran a management consultancy firm. It’s been over 20 years since I gave up that life style and since then I’ve been almost constantly studying and experimenting with new ways to organize things so that goals can be realized without the need to abuse people or the environment.

I have developed a business model—and proved its workability—from two tried and trusted systems, one ancient and one modern. The 7 Words system is a new management philosophy based on what is basic, stable and true. It works. It’s also harmonious with other people, other companies, environmental considerations and spiritual principles.
           
The model begins with the assertion that every communication and every behaviour can be understood as an expression of one of these 7 primary words—
No Hello Thanks Goodbye Please Sorry and Yes
—and that many endeavours are flawed because of the failure to appreciate the need to address each and every one of the 7 aspects in all situations. Also many messages are significantly misunderstood partly because we have no common agreement about what the words actually mean.

By studying these simple ideas, we can reduce two of the most significant and prevalent obstacles to success in management: errors of omission and communication blunders.

Management is about handling change; excellent management is about handling change elegantly; management mastery is about the journey from No to Yes being a delightful expression of wisdom and expediency. The journey is a good metaphor, because it suggests a starting point and a destination bridged by an adventure. We start with No. Where we are is not where we want to be—our situation can be improved, and we want to improve it. We aim to get to a place where we can say Yes to our circumstances...

The book Management Mastery will be available later this year

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7 Words Synopsis

This period of history is so fraught with danger that many people are justifiably concerned that their way of life is permanently at risk from climate changes, war and pollution. The problem lies in the way we think. Humanity has misunderstood the nature of reality and is now facing the inevitable consequences of having ignored all the signs that indicated that a new paradigm had to be found. If we are collectively to change how we think, there needs to be some way that explains all of our experiences and is reasonably satisfactory to power-possessors and their advisers: scientists, sociologists, philosophers and religionists—whether Moslem, Christian, Jew or Buddhist.

The 7 Words System offers this. It is defined by the use of 7 primary words—No, Hello, Thanks, Goodbye, Please, Sorry, Yes—and their 28 related keywords. This text explains the principles and how they can be found useful in practical applications—individually and collectively for worldly and spiritual purposes.

Words are powerful. They shape the way we think and therefore how we act. If we misuse them by the employment of propaganda, deceit and sensationalism, then the mind becomes confused. Such confusion and the related suspicion can never lead to harmony and trust. To end war we must speak truth. Life is constantly changing; empires come and go and beliefs constantly shift—and yet there are some fundamentals that never change. These are universal laws—and one of them is the law of 7. Intuitively we have understood the mystery of this number and it appears in our collective mythology repeatedly—including even the days of the week, which were created as seven without solid reasoning. We can look differently at all aspects of life when we look through the lens of 7. We can see what is actually going on in any system and in any communication by analysing its components into each of the 7 words.

Each of us has our own individual strengths and weaknesses. Some are strong with No, weak with Hello; some good at Goodbye, and reluctant to say Sorry. A questionnaire has been devised, researched and statistically validated, which has the capacity to lead a person very quickly to an incisive degree of self-awareness. It can also be used as a tool for practitioners in one-to-one sessions of psychotherapy, also in group work and in relationship counselling. Data has been collected from which charts are drawn to show how certain types of people—for example those who pray, those over 40 and those who are happy—have characteristics that are measurable in terms of the 7 Words. 

In corporate management, and in the context of our career decisions, there are many benefits. Employment profiling is useful for both employer and employee—if you are weak on Hello then it may be inappropriate to become a receptionist. The 7 stages of management are made clear—and are applied in personal and business strategies as a way to effect changes quickly, clearly and cleanly without omitting any essential aspects of the process.

At a higher level, we can see that there are new ways to comprehend global issues and therefore new approaches to address the major problems of our times.

             War relates to No
             Media Corruption relates to Hello       
             Poverty relates to Thank You
             Environmental Issues relate to Goodbye          
             Human Rights relate to Please 
             Tyranny relates to Sorry
             Persecution relates to Yes
           
Having redefined the problems we are to deal with, we now need to strengthen our faith that we can take action and expect results. In this, we call upon the wisdom of Sheldrake and Matsui, who show that…

1. Thought impinges upon matter
2. We can influence distant things by resonance

…from which we deduce that humanity’s polluted thinking actually can be healed quickly enough to save ourselves from a dark future. It’s not too late!

Much of the 7 Words text is given to a full and detailed study of what the primary words have come to mean and—because they have never been taught properly—this differs from what we might expect. This examination goes deeply into each of the 4 keywords for each of the 7 primary words so that we can focus precisely upon their meanings, and therefore have the wherewithal to come to a mutual understanding about the building blocks of our thoughts, therefore our language, therefore our intentions and our conscious actions.

Looking from the 7 Words perspective, we learn to see agreement between things that seemed very different, for example science and religion, Islam and Christianity—and we encourage people to develop their capacity for optimistic reframing through self-analysis and meditation. In conclusion it is proposed that we can understand our history in a new way, in which the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions are understood as stages of the development of humanity’s consciousness. This enables us to put into new perspective the current crisis we are facing, to learn what we need to do and to begin the reorientation necessary to create a wholesome future together on Earth.

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Life Partnership in 7 Words 

There’s a big difference between a casual love affair and a relationship where both are hoping to be together in the long term. Life partnerships are much more committed, serious involvements that touch upon all aspects of our lives. We share much more than just the occasional night together; usually we share a home, our big decisions, money and friends; we share our hopes and fears and we offer care and support for each other and our children. It is often the foundation upon which we build the whole of our lives. And yet, are we really sure that both parties want the same thing?

Previously the stereotypical man would want someone to do his washing and to accommodate his sexual needs, the woman focusing more on her need for emotional responsiveness and fatherly support. There may well be a lot of this still underlying the interaction between partners, yet times have changed and now other ways have been found that our grandparents would have found truly bizarre. A love relationship is now seen as a very special form of life experience, which is challenging and requires us to learn skills to cope well with the issues that arise. This can so often be difficult and confusing, so it’s helpful to have some kind of guidelines to navigate through the stormy waters.

One model that works well is based on the idea that there are seven distinct aspects of relationship, and all of them are important to get right; none are avoidable! Some of us are strong with one and weaker with another—you may recognize yourself—and each of the lessons relates to a very simple word. The words are: No Hello Thanks Goodbye Please Sorry and Yes. Here’s a quick run-down of the basics:

No is first and foremost. Unless we draw the line somewhere we constantly feel in danger of being invaded. We have to tell our partner what is absolutely out of bounds, to draw the boundaries clearly and enforce them consistently.
Hello is to do with being open to consider new ways of living, having a healthy curiosity, trying something that may have seemed scary or boring before, looking for something of interest in every aspect of our partner’s life and friends.
Thank You must surely be said often if we want our partner to feel appreciated and not taken for granted. Little tokens of love can be given—flowers, sweets, words and touch—because it softens the hearts to do so.
Goodbye moments are the watersheds in life—and either we take them together or we separate. Life is always about moving on and we often have to make important decisions, always there are some very big and challenges in every long term relationship—so perhaps we can learn to see them as examinations that test our level of commitment, tests that make us ask ourselves about whether to move together or to move apart.
Please Relationship is essentially about cooperation—a sharing of visions and intentions. Actually we all need help to fulfil our life goals, whether this is ‘making a million’ or creating a joyful home, so it is crucial to learn how to win cooperation. This is achieved to a significant extent by blending visions together.
Sorry. So much could be softened in life if only we could all learn to say Sorry more convincingly! It is inevitable that we will hurt each other because we’re all sometimes insensitive—and yet this doesn’t have to lead to resentment and the resultant bitterness. That can be easily avoided with a sincere timely apology. Saying Sorry is not admitting guilt or worthlessness; it’s just to do with acknowledging a degree of insensitivity.
Finally, Yes. It’s true that we have every right to expect to get what want out of life—and yet it’s truer to even to say that it won’t always happen. Being able and willing to accept whatever comes is a secret that can lead to a much greater sense of relaxation, and this enables us to adopt a more tolerant attitude with our loved ones.

So. Look at the particular areas of your partnership where you experience difficulty with one of these words, and give it some careful thought—ask yourself what? how? when? where? who? and why? It is worth the effort because it’s so very important. Remember too that it is probably a lot easier to change things in yourself than another—and anyway as soon as you change yourself in a real way, then it’s almost certain that your partner will too. You can begin to see your relationship as a series of life lessons that show you how to progress in life and in love from No to Yes; from rejection to acceptance; from the tight pessimism of contraction to the unlimited optimism of expansion. It’s better that way!

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The Mystery of 4 and 3

The 7-fold patterning that intuitively pleases us so very much is frequently studied by esotericists like Rudolf Steiner and Madame Blavatski. Many a student has been introduced to the concept of four elements: Earth, Air, Water and Fire and possibly their connection with the four conditions of life: Sensation, Thought, Feeling, Action. These can be easily matched with our first four words, to give us:

The other three words can be aligned with another well-celebrated mystery—that of threeness:

We affirm our vision of a new future and intend it into being, perhaps consciously using prayer (Please). There’s always someone who prefers that we don’t satisfy our personal goals, thinking that their own will suffer—and so either they or we are hurt or disappointed (Sorry)—until the way is found for agreement (Yes) and both sides are happy.

Pythagoras considered 7 the perfect number, because it included both the square and the triangle, which he saw as perfect figures. A modern mystic would want to balance Sensing (Being) with Doing, and Thinking with Feeling; also she would aspire also to be aware simultaneously of the three aspects of all energy movement: ‘Love, Lover and Beloved’ for example.

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Planets and the 7 Words

In early days, astronomy and astrology were the same thing and the ancients evolved meanings for the planets along the lines ‘as above, so below’: whatever pattern is anywhere is everywhere. Childlike Mercury was Hermes to the Greeks and a quick-witted communicator, businessman and trickster, ideally placed in a city. Venus had passion in her loves and hates, naked and powerful she was instinctual and natural. Mars was seen as a disciplined warrior who protected and resisted, though when self-control floundered, he could be cruel and selfish. Jupiter meant well and, out of a deeply felt emotion, would distribute largesse, occasionally dangerously incautious when flinging his thunderbolts about. Saturn’s slow path across the heavens translated into the gait of an old man, rigid and serious like death—a preserver of the customs that bind together a community. Apollo was the shining centre of primary importance—the truth of a person, and the Moon was illusion, a pale reflection of the true light and could be seen in the face of the faceless masses, those who tolerate everything.
So they found these associations:

We could meaningfully suggest that the Monarch is the final No-sayer, the masses accept everything and say Yes, town-dwellers like saying Hello to people, country-dwellers value beauty more (Thanks), knights are forever resolving things and moving on (Goodbye), priests pray (Please) and ministers are the king’s conscience (Sorry).

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Astrology

Horoscopes

A horoscope is a symbolic map of the heavens at a particular moment, for example the birth of a child, and from this map an astrologer can say something about the tendencies of a person, aspects of their personality and certain periods of time when life throws up special challenges and opportunities.

An astrological consultation with James can be life-changing, and often is a turning-point because of the special insights that arise. Typically one will take between 1½ and 2 hours and is best focused by having a particular question to start with.

AstroDrama

This is a technique where a horoscope - usually one of the persons acting - is set into dramatic form by a small team of actors. Each one plays a particular planet, and are given only a few simple instructions about how to start acting it. The facilitator sets up the relationships between the planet-actors and supervises the process, which unfolds spontaneously into a startling expression of the subject-person's characteristic behaviours. From this are gained great insights and the possibility of making changes in how we want to be in the world. The actors develop quite a surprising degree of awareness about themselves too.

Planetary Walks

Sun        

Expressing the Sun as a walk, one is sure, steady of purpose, far sighted toward the fulfillment of one’s life purpose. The chest is open, shoulders back, head proud, eyes a little above the horizon. There is no social contact although a moderate smile shows friendliness and goodwill to all.
The Sun is the one who chooses, who commands, organizes, encourages, vitalizes, the most important of all the planets, the essence of one’s true nature, spirit in form. Look at the Sun in the sky. It has no embarrassment, no modesty, and no self-doubt. It is. It is absolute.
With Venus the Sun can become radiantly beautiful and needs to be careful of narcissism; with Mercury there can be very active mental ability, with Jupiter a great majesty, with Pluto a highly conscious power to influence others and control events.

Moon    

Moon is deep within, walking with an awareness of what is felt, the atmosphere, the hidden nuances, undercurrents. She flows into spaces, avoiding disharmony seeking to meditate, moderate, and modulate. Always responsive she reflects her environment, subjectively and unconsciously choosing what makes her comfortable and safe.
As a baby the Moon is trusting and needing to be nurtured, giving a pure innocence in return. As a Mother the Moon yearns to give what once she yearned to receive, the perfect rounded gentle all-fulfilling breast of Mother love. She is compassion itself. She softens, mutes, touches with a grace born of knowing how we are all suffering and, as Kwan Yin, seeks to answer all our cries.  

Mercury 

Mercury is the communicator, quick, quick thinking, quicksilver, amoral, darting through thoughts, never a moment without change. The barterer, businessman, peddler and djinn, happy to trade – goods, ideas, words, always interesting, interested, talking and thinking. See Mercury in the marketplace, checking out lots of little bits of information, and not attached, ever restless, moving only for a short time in any direction.  In Aries it is sharp-tongued, in Scorpio profound and hidden, in Aquarius brilliant yet unreasoned, in Capricorn ponderous and reasonable.

Venus      

Mars

The Mars walk is rather military in style with a strong steady rhythm in step with the group. Aspects of Mars’s energy are expressive of masculine vitality, strength of a unified purpose to achieve a team objective in obedience to a higher principle – the general of an army or the Sun in the planetary hierarchy.
A weak Mars shows in depression or aggression, a well-balanced Mars in assertiveness, a highly evolved expression is devotion to God or to a task. As with an army, the purpose of this energy in an individual is to guard the boundaries. An impressive martial force will keep unwanted outside forces from crossing the frontier, thus obviating any need for aggression or submission. A devoted or assertive person is rarely invaded and knows how to maintain personal space easily.
Mars has endurance, is not especially social, enjoys male company and is a little reluctant to bend its nature to accommodate more subtle energies. It enjoys Pluto, is very compatible with the Sun and willingly serves Jupiter. With Venus it is greatly softened, often into humour.

Jupiter   

Jupiter embraces all things and all beings in its ever-expanding scope of awareness, drawn increasingly towards an integrated unity of cosmic understanding. The walk is unhurried, imperial, neither social nor antisocial, involved yet above its subjects, above its kings. He is emperor, The Lord of Majesty and Splendour, the perfecting of one’s individuality, the golden years of success, repute, nobility, dignity, the aristocracy of the soul.
In Sagittarius, it’s vision is unbounded; in Cancer, the Divine Mother is accessible; in Taurus, bounteousness takes physical form in a cornucopia of abundance; in Gemini common sense is a philosophy, moral judgments are suspended.

Saturn

The Saturn walk is slow. It is a careful, serious walk. Each cautious step is in itself an achievement and not ever unbalanced. One is constrained to acknowledge the certainty of limitation, the imminence of death, the satisfaction in fulfilling one’s duty - not only to God, also to those for whom one is responsible.
 A Virgo Saturn is extremely orderly, meticulous and a list-maker; in Leo it can be magisterial, autonomously dispensing summary justice, in Pisces one’s disciplines are all too ready to soften and forgiveness is ever present; in Libra one may be skilled in the arts of diplomacy, discernment and justice.

Uranus 

Uranus is free, inspired, spontaneous, unfettered by ideas, beliefs, morals, and ambitions. It is fast, immediate, sudden, unexpected and even shocking, bringing a touch of the wild energy, the joker, the fool, and the magician.
Its walk is unformed without pattern, no rhyme nor reason – now here now there, now fast now stopped, backwards, spinning, out of the bounds, detached, always guided by the inner knowing awakened by the 3rd eye concentration.
None of the other planets seem to relate particularly well to Uranus – except Mercury whose big brother it is and perhaps Neptune and Pluto as a group experience

Neptune              

The mystery of this concentration is awakened through the visualization of a flow of sparkling light rising to the crown then falling as light over the body, the walk itself is sensitive to feelings “out of this world”. Hard reality is dissolved and a more cosmic consciousness settles upon the group. Individuality here is at a minimum of all the planets, one drifts into and out of the atmospheres, attunes to the music of the spheres, forgives, forgets, foregoes.
In life Neptune is not easily assimilated into work-a-day matters and so can express in the less enlightened behaviours under influence of drugs, fantasy, alcohol, television and self-betrayal. Through meditation and surrender, the higher vibrations of Neptune lead towards the practice of fana, annihilation of ego in the spiritual sense.
A most wonderful combination practice can be achieved with Pluto in an advanced group, since Neptune is not in any way threatened by the power of Pluto and simply responds to the deepest beauty found in truth.

Pluto

Walking to embody Pluto with consciousness is more feasible as a group attunement, using the simultaneous 3-fold focus of attention: earth, heaven and group heart-connectedness. The eyes are open and yet not outwardly directed, seeing without looking. The step is quite slow and very sure. It is the atmosphere, which is most noticeable – it is rather awesome, serious, and it could be seen as threatening or ominous.
Pluto seeks truth through deep involvement, it has no sense of ethics or personal feelings, using individuals as channels in order to act out historical imperatives; such people feeling driven by a force far beyond their control or comprehension. The energy is extremely intense, unmitigated and almost always overwhelming (except to Neptune and Uranus).
Pluto type people are powerful, charismatic, disinclined to obey convention, can be somewhat controlling – and are often controlled by a fascination with power. They’re seen in the inner circle making the decisions that effect lives and destinies

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Pluto in Capricorn

January 2008 to March 2023

Very soon Pluto will change signs again, and such an event can sometimes be dramatic—as it was in 1914 and 1939. We know that the movement of celestial bodies are rhythmic; they circle the sun smoothly and always return on time, therefore to guess at the future we need to look at the past with rhythm in mind. It takes about 246 years for Pluto to complete its orbit around the Sun and re-enter any particular sign of the zodiac, so to study what happens when it does requires us to look at the history books and sift through for clues.

It seems that issues have arisen that touch upon what people can and cannot do—played out by the powerful authorities that influence the march of history. Some of the events have been quite pivotal in the development of religions; others have had great impact upon political matters and marked the rise and fall of a few impressive empires; a few were indications of shifts of attitude. In different ways these were all expressions of the reformation of the fabric of social structure—the underlying issue of how to develop civilization.

Always there was something to make a profound impression on history during Pluto in Capricorn. In every case there has been a major development of awareness experienced by humanity, as vast tidal waves rippled across time—waves of social change as transformative and enduring as Buddhism, Christianity, discovery, schisms, wars and empires. These seminal events are examples of what has occurred:

            Confucianism begins in China
            Buddhism enters China
            Rome begins its dominance
            Rome takes Britain
            Christian Mission of St Paul begins     
            Goths take Rome
            Marco Polo enters China
            Luther seeds Protestantism
            Cook arrives in New Zealand and Australia
           
Looking back one Pluto cycle to see what happened last time, we notice that the seed was planted for the birth of an empire. The Boston Tea Party was the refusal of Americans to pay British taxes, their will to independence, and the beginning of a power that dominates today’s world.

The hard events that are written down are simply clues pointing to underlying streams of humanity’s ideas, expectations and destiny—which find their way into our books according to the selective processes of commentators, who have no way to put them into context. For example, we can learn about the fact that during the 1340’s the population of Europe was devastated by plague—an event whose implications are resonating strongly 600 years later because it killed off so many small villages that vast migrations towards cities began, and the stage was set for the Industrial Revolution—leading inexorably towards climate change—because a city-based population tends strongly towards machinery and away from relationship with land.

This was truly a Capricornian expression, yet more like Neptune in its insidious hidden eating-away process, and indeed Neptune was in Capricorn then—and subsequently during England’s 1664 plague and again for the Aids scare of 1984. Also an earlier plague in 542 AD that eventually killed off 50% of Europe’s people was said to be the cause of the migration of the Goths who fled the rats and went on to take Rome in 546. And on the same theme, the pied piper of Hamelin was another story of rats and big societal changes, based in 1284 when Pluto was in Capricorn. Is it too fanciful to suggest that rats are the antithesis of government, representing the absence of good order? Failure to clean up the mess we make is surely as much to do with rats as it is to do with climate change.

The challenges that we could expect to come up during the intensely saturnine years of a Pluto Capricorn transit are those things that hold in place our sense of security on a society level—our social security. We include government, banks, laws, institutions, corporations, and structures of all kinds, including religion and even morality. Some of these will have to go through watershed-level shifts. What is essentially unhelpful has to wither and fade.

I think it would be naïve for us to trust in the system—it’s dying!

Some realistic possibilities:

• USA loses superpower status, a bad loser.
• China becomes a major economic power
• Political reorientations
• Climate change polarizes countries into different alliances
• Insurance industry rocked by cost of natural disasters
• Religious crises
• Islam asserts itself, fearing the loss of oil-based influence
• Mass migrations because of climate change
• Rats proliferate
• Widespread disease
• Poverty and starvation in the West
• Medical services under great strain
• Pensions inadequate, the old suffer
• Breakdown of law and order

            However, it is for us to find a way to express our need for structure and yet find ways to keep it clean—in other words light and honest. That is the challenge of our time. It cannot be ignored or postponed; within the next 20 years we will have had to come up with new ways to govern ourselves, and probably to clean up our religious practices too. Unfortunately however, since we can’t reasonably expect the powers-that-be to roll over and accept it all, there may be a tussle—the normal tight grip of those in power will become stronger as they feel the challenges come.

We have to build new structures of governance as the old ones collapse; we have to replace other institutions that have failed too—insurance, pensions, religions, banks, schools—anything that governs us and yet currently lacks human decency. There may be a great deal of discomfort and inconvenience for most of us, some more than others, so we have to find forbearance, tolerance and a profound degree of dignity and respect for others during the troubled times ahead.

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Neptune enters Pisces ...4 April 2011

We have a couple of stelliums. The first—Neptune, Chiron and Venus spanning only 8 degrees at the beginning of Pisces—is remarkable because for the first time since 1861 Neptune is at home again in its own sign. Chiron is there too and the so trigger is released on all the ‘60’s Kids who aren’t kids anymore – the generation who were born when the world woke up 51 years earlier are having their Chiron return in Pisces.

If that’s not enough—how about a 6-planet Aries line up with Uranus, Mars, Moon, Sun, Jupiter and Mercury all energetically signaling a new beginning? It takes no profound insight to talk of a New Era opening.

Good enough? Well we also have Pluto in Capricorn squaring things and Saturn in Libra opposing things so all in all I’d say the time is ripe for something rather serious, profound and important to occur! And there will probably be more friction between powerful opponents both with God on their side

Link to chart

Time Twins: An Astrologer’s Viewpoint

A number of people have been brought together on-line by the organisation called Time Twin, whose purpose is to study the phenomenon that people born at the same time very often share some exceptional similarities in their life circumstances and characteristics. Here is one way to look at this, an astrologer’s view.

It’s central to the ideas of astrology that a person’s nature and circumstances are seen in some way to reflect the planetary positions at the moment of their birth. Typically astrologers are not concerned about why this is true, they just notice that it is true and study in extraordinary detail the precise ways in which this phenomenon expresses itself.
In order to study the birth moment a map is drawn up for the positions of planets at the time of the baby’s first breath, and this map—the horoscope—is creatively understood according to principles that have been handed down for 5000 years from the Babylonians, then re-examined and reinterpreted in this modern era.

There are 3 main factors to look for when considering a horoscope:
The placement of planets in Zodiac signs (e.g. “Moon in Cancer”)
The mutual angle that is measured between 2 plants, called the aspect (e.g. “Sun square Pluto”)
The placement of planets in Houses (e.g. “Mercury in the 7th”)
Whereas the first two of these are not overly dependent upon the precise moment of birth—signs and aspects—the third is. So 2 people born 24 hours apart will share most horoscope factors except house positions, which would only be identical in exceptional circumstances. We can therefore assume that our time twins share signs and aspects with us—but not house placements. The crucial thing to do with Houses is the Ascendant, or the first house ‘cusp’, which is considered of major importance in determining personality, and so it can be easily seen that however similar the twins are, there will almost always be the key factor of the Ascendant and Houses to make a difference.

Having put a few constraints in place, now let’s consider some possible explanations for the startling and often bizarre ‘co-incidences’ that are being observed, and we can do this more easily with an actual example. Two middle-aged men, one is English whom we’ll call Bill and the other a Russian called Igor. They share all the planetary signs, including the Taurus Moon, although Bill’s Ascendant in Capricorn differs from Igor’s in Taurus—so all the House positions are different. Let’s begin by listing the coincidences:
They are or were both…
· businessmen in manufacturing
· healers with their own unique method
· with knee injuries
· with similar back injuries
· obsessively punctual
· built like trolls
· married to virgo women who share a birthday (though not time twins)
· musical
· engaged in strong sport (Bill rugby, Igor kick boxing)
· creatively artistic (Bill with music composition and Igor political cartoons)
· seriously investigated by government (Bill Inland Revenue and Fraud Squad, Igor KGB)

An astrologer could explain all of this because of their shared:
Taurus Sun conjunct Mars, square Pluto
Taurus Moon trine Virgo Saturn
Capricorn Chiron square Aries Jupiter
Aries Mercury sextile Gemini Venus

As a matter of further interest, another man was found having the same birth time: Time Triplets! Although in this case Joe’s Moon is in Gemini, he is also (like both) a rugby player who has also been in trouble with a government (in his case in Africa), and like Bill, has written a book, is a part-time teacher in a developing country, is dedicated to fight against injustice and towards raising awareness of environmental issues. We may notice that a couple of these things were more easily achieved outside Russia, and so more likely to be shared by the two westerners rather than with the Muscovite. There are other similarities, though less noteworthy. All in all these 3 men have truly extraordinary similarities, though their lives are being lived out very differently in England, USA and Russia.

If we were to convince anyone that astrology is the main factor that explains these phenomena, we would need to study the timing of things more closely. This is because above all, astrology is a study of time cycles. A ‘transit’ is the temporary passage of a planet today over a planet mapped at birth in the horoscope, and is thought to indicate the timing of certain psychological changes or events. Any significant transit will hit both of the twins’ charts at the same time, so we should expect similar events to unfold simultaneously in each case. This is especially true if Saturn is involved, and probably when Jupiter returns at age 12, 24, 36, and 48 etc…although it will also be observable with the slower planets too.

In summary, it does seem that there is a strong case to support the idea that astrology has a lot to say in explanation of why this happens, and yet a rigorous scientific analysis backed up with statistical evidence has not been carried out. More research is needed and there’s a lot of work to be done before honestly we can say that we understand what’s going on here…instead of 12000 people we want ten times that number before we are able to offer a convincing argument. Meanwhile what a fascinating study to engage in…so please help us to collect the data and tell your friends to sign up!

Go to www.time-twins.com for a very interesting look at some real life examples of people with identical or similar horoscopes, and where you can find whether you have your own time twin somewhere on the planet!

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Other Topics

The Golden Rule

Various authors over several thousand years

… the ethic of reciprocity …is found in the sacred scriptures of almost every religion in the world. It has been called the most concise and general principle of ethics people can live by.

Jesus Do unto others as you would have others do unto you
Aristotle 384 BCE We should conduct ourselves toward others as we would have them act toward us.
Baha’i Epistle to Son of the Wolf And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbour that which thou choosest for thyself.
Aristippus of Cyrene365 BCE Cherish reciprocal benevolence, which will make you an anxious for another’s welfare as your own.
Buddhism The Buddha Treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
Aboriginal Chief Dan George We are as much alive as we keep the Earth alive
ChristianityMatt 7:12All things whatsoever ye would then men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Confucianism Analects ‘Shu’: do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.”
Confucius 500 BCE Do not unto another that you would not have him do unto you. Thou needest this law alone. It is the foundation of all the rest.
HinduismThe Mahabharata This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain.
Islam Hadith No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
Jainism In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self.
Judaism The Talmud What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.
Judaism Whatever thou hatest thyself, that do not to another.
Pittacus 650 BCE Do not to your neighbour what you would take ill from him
Sextus (Pythagorean) 406 BCE What you wish your neighbours to be to you, be also to them
Sikhism. Guru Arjan Devji, 259 Don’t create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone
Taoism Regard your neighbour’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbour’s loss as your own loss.
Thales 464 BCE Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing
Wiccan Rede And it harm none, do what thou wilt.
Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria) One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it himself to feel how it hurts.
Zoroastrianism Shayast-na Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.

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Types of questions

Open-ended questions - broad in nature, ‘opens the door’, generates free thinking, allows freedom in responding /determining the amount and kind of info to give
“Tell me about yourself.”
“Tell me about your administrative duties."
“How would you characterize your managing style?”

Closed-ended questions - restrictive in nature ‘keeps door fairly closed’, asks for narrow, structured response-often a single, one-syllable, direct answer. Limits answer options, often supplying all possible answers in the question
“How long have you held this position?”
“Did Ms. Adams hire you?”
“ How would you rank these in order of your frequency of using them on the job? …speaking writing listening reading”

Direct questions - requests verifiable facts/statistics, info, opinion, or conclusions
Requires specific responses
“What company did you last work for?”
“What do you think was the major reason for the restructuring of your company?”

Indirect questions -does not require a question mark; yet, it encourages discussion of a particular topic
“I wonder what it's like to travel on the job.”
“It must be at least a two-hour drive for you to get to your office.”

Double questions - asking two questions with the second almost identical to the first or asking two questions with the second dissimilar to the first or either question incomplete “Are you going to retire? Are you going to leave this position?”
“Where is corporate headquarters? Is it far from here?”

Leading questions - leads the interviewee to a response; the interviewer suggests implicitly or explicitly the answer he/she expects/desires
“You like close detail work, don’t you?”
“You don't really feel that tax shelters are justified, do you?”

Neutral questions - gives the interviewee freedom to respond as he/she desires
“How do you feel about close detail work?”
“What is your opinion of tax shelters?”

Mirroring (reflective) or summarizing - reflects or summarizes a series of questions and answers or pieces of information to insure accurate understanding. Used to acquire more detail, to get the interviewee to expand on an answer, to keep the interviewee talking
“Okay, Bill, let me see if I have this correct. First, you …?”
“You have never been a salesperson before?”

Primary question - introduces topic of discussion/new areas within a topic [or category such as education, experience, etc.]
“Tell me about your last accounting position.”
“What advice can you give me about breaking into this field?
Secondary question - follows up / probes response to primary question or another secondary question Useful in “digging” for reasons, supporting ideas, justifications [why?], personal feelings
Primary: “During your academic preparation for this career, what courses did you find most helpful?”
Secondary: “Of those , which was most helpful?”
Primary: “Are there any courses that you didn't take but now wish you had?”
Secondary: “How would that course have helped?”

Secondary questions are useful when interviewee's response is
a. superficial
“Tell me more about …”
“What happened after …?”
“How did you react to . . .?”
“Explain further the point ….”
“Could you give me an example of that?”
“Would you mind telling me more about your interest in …?”
b. vague
“I'm not sure I understand your point.”
“What did you have in mind when you said
c. suggestible (suggests a feeling / attitude)
“Please define ‘middle management’ for me.”
“Just how large is your department?”
“How do you feel about that [react to that]?”
“Why do you think that happened?”
“What do you mean by ‘seems’?”

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Unicorn Camps History

It is quite possible that the story I’m telling has its roots in 1954, the year Jack Kerouac published On The Road. He was the first ever backpacker and began the process of making popular a new ethos in western consciousness centered around freedom of the individual. This new way found expression in music, fashion, speech patterns and attitudes to relationships, work and home that startled the conservative majorities in society. With Bob Dylan, The Doors and The Beatles, a million voices joined together in claiming the right to a new way live. Festivals were to be seen springing up everywhere and the richness of human experience bopping into a new dimension.

Twenty years after these first festivals, a newly conceived type of gathering was nudging its way into existence: camps. They had their background in festivals and green gatherings and yet were fundamentally different in their purpose, which was education and personal development and in their approach, which required that people took an active part in what went on.

In 1983/1984 the first camps were introduced as weekend events whose purpose was to learn astrology and circle dance and were facilitated primarily (as I understand it) by Palden Jenkins and Colin Harrison in the garden of author and playwright Jeremy Sandford. From these came the Glastonbury Camps, the first major weeklong events of this type. Around this time the expansion was really quite vibrant with a strong feeling of excitement and expectancy in the air. Dance Camps were developed - Marion Violets in France, the Welsh Dance Camp, a bit later Dance Camp East and the Oak Dragon’s Nanteos Camp that coincided with the Harmonic Convergence. A small yet important addition to this list was the first UK Dances of Universal Peace Camp in Bristol, led by Amida Harvey

A few months later, also in Bristol, the first Unicorn events took place - a weekly group of people sharing a wide range of healing and teaching techniques as a way of developing a wider awareness of the wealth of new perspectives and also as a training in group facilitation.
The following year, in 1988 this theme was taken into the format of a camp and the first Unicorn Solstice Camp was held at Sancreed, which lies in the most south-westerly tip of England, at the heart of a fistful of ancient monuments that make this a truly remarkable area for students of the subtle forces of the earth. A few years later the Unicorn Land Trust was created to buy our site and so be able to plant a small tree-sanctuary and learn how to care for the Land.

Celebrations of the Celtic/pagan festivals at Beltane, Solstice and Lammas became key features of the programme as the years unfolded and today the Lammas Family Camp remains one of the most joyful and wholesome ways for kids and parents to spend time living in an outdoor community near the beaches and cliffs of Cornwall. The DUP camp began in a millionaire’s back garden in '93 and, on outgrowing that, moved to its current location at Child Okeford where we feel truly blessed to have a lovely organic farm and nearby swimmable river.

In ’96, a revisioning of the Unicorn Camps took place, after which the various camps no longer came under one umbrella of management. While Raaja was a couple of years away from his German camps, and with Jilly and Mark focusing on Sancreed, Nickomo, James, Bob and Jenny became the core-group for the DUP and Voice camps. Nickomo was at that time a member of the acappella group ‘The Beachpersons’, which included Chrys Blanchard, Jackie Roxborough, Nick Petts, Rasullah Clarke and Tony Wrench, each of whom were also workshop leaders in their own right. All the members were very experienced with camps, and had often spoken of running a camp together with Voice as its main focus. The other Unicorn core-group members were keen to make this idea a reality, and so Unicorn Natural Voice Camp was born. It began in ’97 as a four-day event, built around the teaching and performing talents of the Beachpersons, with the help of some of their friends and contacts from the newly established Natural Voice Practitioners Network. Although the Beachpersons stopped performing together in ’00, they still contribute individually to the quality of the camp, which has grown to become the phenomenally successful event that has become the regular summer holiday for so many singing friends each year.

Unicorn Camps

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Unicorn Land Trust

The ULT is an informal group of individuals who have jointly purchased a small plot of land in Cornwall. The purpose of the trust is to maintain the land as a beautiful site in keeping with the magical surroundings in West Penwith. There are many special qualities in this region, which is quite unlike any other part of the world. The natural beauty is extremely varied. Within a few miles in any direction one can find hills and valleys, moorland, coastal paths, sandy beaches and dramatic cliffs.  There is a great abundance of wild flowers and animal life hidden in the many tracks and lanes that criss-cross the whole area.

It has a truly remarkable range of ancient site and places of special character. Here are stone circles: Merry Maidens, Nine Maidens, Boscawen-un…fogues at Pendeen, Lamorna and Carn Euny… Lanyon Quoit, Men-an-Tol, St. Michael's Mount, Stone age settlements, sacred wells at Madron, Euny and Sancreed…

The Unicorn land has been the home of many Solstice camps over the years and more recently where we celebrate Lammastide. In 2 small areas dedicated to the purpose, we have planted 200-300 trees that require a certain amount of care and attention, we keep the weeds down, the fences secure and the arboretum stocked. We enjoy working in harmony with the Earth.  Members are welcome to join if they have participated in camps at Sancreed and are willing to help with the work. The first stage is to come to one of the Lammas camps.

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