When we think of fallout, we often think of a nuclear explosion. At least those born of my generation are inclined to do so because we were introduced to the word at a very early age and it came attached to fearful warnings and threats of a nuclear attack. There are all kinds of fallout, however, though it is hard to separate the word from the sense of dread with each example. This is a picture of a volcano erupting. Fallout here is, in part, ash and it is no less terrifying an event than a bomb exploding. Here there is no enemy for a human being to shake an angry fist at while planning to retaliate and seek vengeance. It is nature of which we are a part. It is an aspect of nature we are acculturated to fear even though it is within us. When a volcano erupts, we may feel betrayed by what we like to think of as benign and somewhat beautiful to behold. In fact, nature is a sumamabitch who has no dog in our race to sweet dreaming when we look close. Nature is not to be feared but respected, revered and appreciated as it is.
Hafiz is talking here about holy fallout and it reminds me of these days of destruction/reconstruction that we find ourselves in. It is a reality that things build up and then they break down. Bodies do this with age and planets do this with evolution. The earth is a being and they have their cycles of life. In astrology there is a maxim about this part of human life. It is ruled by Pluto in some types of astrology. Pluto (who was discovered by humans just two years prior to the discovery of nuclear physics, allowing humanity to replicate this kind of plutonian destruction) has come to represent this process of destruction and reparation.
When the planet Pluto aspects a person's chart there is generally an immense change happening. It can be in a person or a country or a landmass or a political system. It is not little like an earthquake, riot, war or a flood; it is devastating enough to provide a complete renewal necessitating a new beginning. Fortunately it takes Pluto about 250 years to travel through each of the twelve zodiac signs so the pain and devastation is not enough to blow humanity from the planet completely. It is just enough to move a mountain or melt an ice cap here and collapse a continent there. Fortunately, humans do not live long enough to experience a personal Pluto return but we cannot avoid our part of this process as everyone has Pluto somewhere in their chart and it is chatting up some other planet influencing events in our lives.
Pluto gathers entire generations under its watch. In a chart it is like entering the game space of Clue. When you begin, you go into it knowing a nefarious crime is hiding in the lifetime(s) and the birth chart helps us identify if it was Colonel Mustard, in the library with a candlestick or Miss Scarlett, with a lead pipe in the Conservatory...you get the idea... Once revealed, we can release having to drag that darkness forward to re-enact. Someone or something always is omitted from possibilities in going on to progress and rebuild when Pluto is involved.
They say no man's an atheist in a fox hole. Well, no one is a skeptic within the path of a Pluto transit. Hitting full on an undeniable reality is what Hafiz is talking about here. Nature, being the universe in this, always bats last. We forget until we are forced to remember that there are energies far beyond our comprehension at work in the world and there can be comfort in the recall that nothing of the love that we share in the world is lost in our darkest hour. Love is Hafiz' holy fallout. The message here? Create as much love in the world as you can and you will be seeing it when you need it most even though it may not take the form you expect. Love still holds fast to its intention of abundance.
Thank you for listening.
https://pixabay.com/music/id-109186
Video: I've watched this animation A Day In Pompeii by Zero One Animations - who are located in Melbourne, Australia - many times and each time I am struck by how slow devastation in this dimension actually is compared to how we imagine it when brooding about it. It is slow, yet terrifyingly deliberate and complete. So many of the clearly annihilating things in this world give us adequate advanced warnings to those paying attention and many of us fear for our lives so deeply that we do not bother to heed them.
The original post in this series of poems by Hafiz (including an addendum regarding the authenticity of these poems) can be found here. Also, my thoughts on this series a year into theses poems, HERE.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz and translated by Daniel Ladinsky can be purchased here.