Wednesday 12 April 2000 AD

15 April 1452
Leonardo Da Vinci's Birthday

Terence McKenna (1947-2000)
died 3 April 2000

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Welcome to Issue #2 of the Universal Quest Newsletter

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."-Plato

Dear fellow Questors

Saturday is the birthday in 1452 of Leonardo Da Vinci, the great Italian artist, architect, philosopher, astronomer, anatomist, engineer, inventor, aircraft designer, theatrical producer - the first true Renaissance Man. At the time of his birth, Italy and other European states had become the center of most of the World's accumulated knowledge as the Church, royalty and wealthy merchants had acquired all available manuscripts from antiquity through any means possible. Europe was buzzing with new ideas and interpretations translated from ancient Greek and Arab writings.

Today we use the term "Renaissance Man" loosely to describe anyone that lives a multi-faceted or multi-disciplined life and demonstrates an understanding of the underlying principles behind all things. This is a mistake. To be a Renaissance person today, we would have to explore areas that are outside most of our grasps. We live in the age of specialization and most of us could not begin to grasp the vast breadth of knowledge available to explorers and scientists today. It would take many lifetimes to become a Leonardo in this new millennium. Most of us are accidental tourists who take fragments of understanding and try to integrate some of the perceived underlying principles into our everyday lives. It is not easy. One of our ambitions at Universal Quest is to make those explorations easier for you by condensing these vast ideas and new discoveries into a digestible form that allows you to explore them and their broader implications in your own way and at your own pace. Enjoy the quest.

Raja Choudhury,
founder

Terence McKenna (1947-2000)
The psychedelic shaman and visionary Terence McKenna relinquished his body at 2:15 a.m. pacific time on April 3, 2000. He died at peace and with people whom he loved and who loved him. McKenna spent many years exploring the effects of hallucinogenic plants on shamanic rituals in South America and put forward a theory on the role of natural hallucinogens in the evolution of human consciousness. McKenna was also a proponent of the theory that a major transformation in Earth's history and in human consciousness will occur on December 21, 2012, the Mayan calendar end-date.

Read a full tribute at http://www.universalquest.com/mckenna.htm or visit Terence McKenna Land at http://deoxy.org/mckenna.htm

13 April 1743
Birthday of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and an influential political philosopher. Jefferson was the son of Peter Jefferson, an early settler and leader in Albemarle County, Virginia, and Jane Randolph Jefferson. Though his father left him considerable property, the inheritance for which Thomas Jefferson expressed most gratitude was his father's determination that he should have a sound classical education. As one of the founding fathers of the United States, Jefferson penned most aspects of the Declaration of Independence and expressed the ideal that every man had the right to freedom for the "pursuit of happiness". Jefferson was a Freemason and it is no coincidence that much of the declaration has a lot in common with the ideals of Freemasonry.

Read the complete Encyclopedia Britannica profile
Get a complete set of links on Thomas Jefferson at http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/
Find our about the PBS film on Jefferson's life at http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/

Thursday 13 April
In the Hindu calendar, this day is Ramanavami, considered to be the lunar birthday of Rama, one of the most powerful and beloved avatars of Vishnu the Creator.

Friday 14 April
Marks the ancient Norse festival of Sommarsblot which celebrates the approach of summer.

15 April 1452
Birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci - best known as one of the greatest Italian artists of the Renaissance, and also as a brilliant scientist, architect, and inventor. He lived in Florence, Rome, and other European cities during his life, and created such famous paintings as the "Mona Lisa." But he had other interests: the human body's inner workings, the building of bridges and highways, and how humans could achieve flight. He explored almost every field of science, did experiments, and designed machines well before their time --a helicopter, a flying machine, and a machine gun--all in the 15th and 16th centuries. Leonardo left 7,000 pages of notes on his scientific endeavors, research on rocks, water, light, animals, plants, and human anatomy. His skills included arranging festivals and staging large theatrical productions. His last words were, "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have."

See a great collection of Leonardo Da Vinci's work at http://www.davinci-museum.com/davinengl1.htm

Saturday 15 April
In the ancient Egyptian calendar, this day begins the month of Payni, sacred to Horus, with feasts of Horus and Bastet, the cat-headed Neter who is the benign form of the formidable lion goddess Sekhmet.

Sunday 16 April
In Christian calendars, this is Palm Sunday, celebrating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

Calendrical Complications and Moveable Feasts
February 2000 should have included a leap day, because any year divisible by four has an extra day. On the other hand, century years, ending in double zeros, ordinarily do not have a February 29; 1700, 1800, and 1900 didnÕt have this additional day. But once every four centuries, the double-oh year is a leap year, and 2000 is one of them, so there was a February 29 this year? This mystery also explains why although the Winter Solstice, Christmas and New YearÕs Day are the same festival, they are celebrated on different days within a ten day period.

Read more about this at http://www.universalquest.com/calendar.htm

Homeopathy is a major healing therapy that typifies the ideas of holism. The German physician and chemist Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) created Homeopathy, based on the principle that "like cures like," meaning that a micro-dose of a substance that causes a particular disease activates a curative process for the same symptoms. He used miniscule "potentized" doses, diluted successively many times, to deliver the remedies on an energetic level rather than chemically, which thereby eliminated toxic side-effects. In his day, as today, the cures of orthodox medicine are chemically powerful and debilitating in their own right, and Hahnemann became disillusioned with these dangerous practices.

The substances used for homeopathic remedies are from animal, vegetable and mineral sources. It is both powerful and safe. It was only with the rise of the American Medical Association and the pharmaceutical industry around the end of the 19th century that joined in lessening its influence (because it wasnÕt profitable enough) that it became considered fringe or alternative. Fortunately it is now regaining its place among the most valuable therapies we have.

To find out more or to contact a local practitioner contact The North American Society of Homeopaths (NASH) at http://www.homeopathy.org and to purchase Homeopathic medicines try http://www.mothernature.com
For further information read, Richard Grossinger, "Planet Medicine."

A Poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861 -1941)

On the Nature of Love From Chaitali (1896)

"The night is black and the forest has no end;
a million people thread it in a million ways.
We have trysts to keep in the darkness, but where
or with whom- of that we are unaware.
But we have this faith- that a lifetime's bliss
will appear any minute, with a smile upon its lips.
Scents, touches, sounds, snatches of songs
brush us, pass us, give us delightful shocks.
Then peradventure there's a flash of lightning:
whomever I see that instant I fall in love with.
I call that person and cry: `This life is blest!
For your sake such miles have I traversed!'
All those others who come close and moved off
in the darkness- I dont know if they exist or not."

Translated from Bengali by Ketaki Kushari Dyson.
Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 May 1861 in Calcutta. He was India's greatest modern poet and the most creative genius of the Indian Renaissance. Gitanjali(1912), Tagore's own transalation of the poetic prose from the Bengali Gitanjali(1910) won him the Nobel prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore died on 7 August 1941 in the family house in Calcutta where he was born.

New Buddha: Three Times the Size of the Statue of Liberty
British engineers have been given the task of designing the world's biggest statue, intended to stand well into the next millennium. The 150-metre bronze Maitreya, or Future Buddha, will be three times the height of the Statue of Liberty. It will be built at Bodhgaya, in northern India. The world's tallest Buddha, in Tokyo, is 118.2 meters high.

Read the full article at http://www.universalquest.com/bigbuddha.htm

Heavenly Hysteria: Prophesy vs Astronomy

Next month, the sun and six of the planets will line up like cosmic billiard balls in a configuration that doomsayers warn could shift the Earth's poles, trigger earthquakes, ruin the stock market and usher in the Age of Aquarius, if anyone survives.

Astronomers are bracing for the May 5-16 alignment, too, but not out of fear. They will be busy debunking the end-of-the-world predictions, just as they did when the planets lined up in 1982, 1962 and about every 20 years before that. "If people are determined to be anxious about something, I think it would be a lot better if they were anxious about their driving on the freeways," said E.C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

The sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will all align, but the show will be obscured by the sun's glare. So if there is to be any earthly excitement, it will have to come from all those quakes, tidal waves and volcanoes. There's no risk of a collision: Mars is 216 million miles away, Jupiter 543 million miles away and Saturn 927 million miles away. Still, the planetary alignments always bring doomsday predictions.

A book ominously titled "5/5/2000 : Ice, The Ultimate Disaster" predicts the alignment and increased solar activity will unleash a complex chain of events causing the Earth's crust to slide and poles to shift.

"Quite frankly, it would be a geological Armageddon," author Richard Noone said. "You'd have volcanism going on globally. Earthquakes beyond the scale anything Richter ever dreamed of. Tsunamis hundreds of feet high, sweeping hundreds of miles inland."

Astronomers scoff at the theory, but astrologers say the alignment signals a change from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. And that's not good. The "pileup of energy" is going to lead to "some very serious reversals in the stock market," said astrologer Norman Arens, who also predicts cataclysmic quakes, floods and volcanoes and a movement away from Christian principles.

Mr. Krupp dismissed the doom and gloom but said if the end of the world is near, so what? "There's no reason to get upset about it. If it is the end of the world, there's very little you can do," he said.

[COMMENT : According to all scientific almanacs, the Sun currently enters the Constellation of Pisces on March 10-11, which is ten days BEFORE the Vernal Equinox. As the Sun is "preceding" or "precessing" backwards through the 12 Constellations at the rate of one degree every 72 years (for a total Precession Cycle of 25,920 years), then the Constellation of Aquarius will not be aligned with the Vernal Equinox for another 72 X 10 or 720 years, i.e., in about 2720 CE. Tsk, Tsk.]

Courtesy of Associated Press, 9 April 2000. Comment by Roberto Solarion.

Astrology Week

(These interpretations are more potent for those whose Suns are in the same signs. All times are EDT: +1 for CDT, +2 for MDT and +3 for PDT)

April 15th, 16:28 PM
Mars conjunct Saturn in Taurus
Financial inhibitions lead to tighter and more controlled ways of expressing yourself. Toughness and concentration bring successes only through the application of hard work. You have a tendency towards fanatacism, but when it is controlled, you gain objectives and accomplish much.

April 16th , 4:32 AM and 22:09 PM
Mercury in Aries semi-square Uranus in Aquarius and Venus in Aries trine Pluto in Sagittarius
Act on intuition and let haste or erratic ideas change the way you express yourself. Even disruptions and unwanted visits tell you valuable things about yourself and your plans. Disputes just highlight your own indecision and variable ideals. Exceptional attractiveness and artistic talent becomes compulsively directed towards public display. Magnetic feelings of great intensity lend themselves to fanatic attachments and wild sexuality, if you get lucky.

April 17th, 00:55 AM
Mercury in Aries sextile Neptune in Aquarius
Your imagination, vision and presentiments may appear fantastic, but can be the source of sudden ideas and inspirations. The intellectual must be derived from the spiritual by understanding that psychic communications are deeply personal perceptions.

The Shaman Lights a Candle
The continuing millennial conjunction of Pluto and Chiron brings to our immediate attention a potent transformation in progress. On March 27th Chiron's movement ahead through the zodiac temporarily stopped. Chiron says, "Let's stop right here, right on the threshold of a shift in consciousness. ItÕs an initiation point, a place that needs resolution and healing in order to open us to a more expanded reality. Chiron in its shamanic way manifests meaningful metaphors, clues to the meaning of the change for you. What was going on in your life that weekend, and in the days since then?

Read the full article at http://www.universalquest.com/chiron.htm
Exerpted from a Chiron newsletter from Kelley Hunter kelleyh@viaccess.net

About Universal Quest

Raja Choudhury : Founder/Publisher
A T Mann : Co-Founder/Editor
Kelley Hunter: Contributing Astrologer
Mary Diener : Marketing and PR

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