13. Karmic Cycles & Open Key Periods

© 1999 Athene Bitting

XIII

Karmic Cycles & Open Key Periods

Lecture based Questions:

1. A Physical Incarnation is made up of energy segments called karmic cycles. Each has a spiritual purpose and season.

A. How many karmic cycles are there? What are they?

Every birth year (from birthday to birthday) is divided into seven parts: Gathering, Learning, Bonding, Ripening, Guided Challenge, Open Key, and Enlightenment.

2. Do the lengths of each cycle vary? What determines their length?

Yes, they do vary in length from year to year. The shortest segment would be under 40 days and the longest would be over 52 days. What you do and how you respond to your life situations determines the length of the following cycle. It is possible to breeze through the first six stages and finish out the year with a long enlightenment phase, if you are very teachable and objective. Remember that your feelings are hormonally generated—not something to claim as your identity.

3. How do these cycles relate to spiritual illumination and initiation?

They are intertwined with these two events, but they are not the same types of manifestations. Illumination can seem like a random event. It is a tool of opportunity for the Hierarchy for the purpose of spreading a message through a useful individual. You could call it being touched by the finger of God or the Spirit of Truth. Initiation is an earned accomplishment, gained by accumulating personal power through suffering and wisdom. The birth year cycles are stages of enlightenment —transformation through insight and truth. Each year brings us up another notch in wisdom, power, and depth.

4. What are the characteristics of an Open Key or Non-Guided Period?

Usually at the approach of one’s birthday (roughly 100 days before the day, lasting perhaps 52 days), an Open Key period is always accompanied by a sense of profound loss.

During this time, the Awakener (Remliel) Angel disintegrates all calcifications of the personality—namely, what we call the identity. It is an opportunity to get to know the real self under all the trappings of society and civilization. If a person has become attached to certain identity markers (such as a pet, a public image, a car, a career), such items may be removed from his/her life in order to effect a change in consciousness. Sometimes the loss is temporary, sometimes it ushers in a new era of lifestyle. Loved ones, money, property, and careers can all be taken from us, if we take them for granted as a part of who we are. Sometimes the losses can be traumatic. The result is that we feel mushy and vulnerable.

Much of the crusty Astral crystalized opinions of who we think we are get removed. This porous state allows Light to enter the aura. We can pray for guidance during time and receive it immediately. We can avoid much upheaval during this period by working ahead of time on discarding our identity fetishes and by maintaining a porous aura as a matter of habit.

5. Scrying Exercise: Tea Leaves

After one has drunk a cup of tea (which was brewed from loose leaves), turn the cup upside down onto the saucer and turn the cup anti-clockwise three times. Then turn the cup back upright and inspect both the saucer and the cup for patterns in the tea leaves. The patterns will prompt certain notions to you.

6. Why and how does this work? What would be the most appropriate use of this technique?

The Spirit of Truth will find you no matter where you look. The unconscious mind projects images into the patterns of the tealeaves that correspond to key people and circumstances that need attention. Just as the Tarot does, this brings into focus what is not conscious. You connect with the Astral Body and feel the meaning behind the symbols.

7. Draw or describe one of your helpers.

You can do it! Screw yourself in and take a minute.

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My Life in Short Chapters

Confucius said that to understand the rhythms of life and the universe is to control the world as though it were a toy in your hand. These are the karmic cycles that characterize the rhythm of physical incarnation. They are seven in number, and range from under forty to over fifty-two days long. We study them to understand our places in the course of life’s events. In the archetype for your present life, the Kindel Archangel and yourself have keyed in the catalysts and scenarios for the following stages, which repeat until the end of the incarnation.

1. Gathering or Exploration

Here a person chooses certain elements and people to be part of his or her environment, and also karmic circumstances gravitate to her or him. This may be an emotionally calm time (relatively speaking) or there may be some fear of the unknown.

2. Learning

One receives realizations about the workings of the world, instinct, logic, and also about universal laws from the people and the karmic circumstances now involved in her or his life. The Spirit of Truth is heavily involved during this phase. The learning process may be painfully or eagerly accepted, depending on the attitude of the acolyte. At any rate, a real change of perception always takes place as one acknowledges contact with truth.

3. Bonding or Claiming

We could call this a second round of choosing. One learns how to value certain lessons and people. He or she creates an Astral bond with loved ones by connecting filaments to their astral bodies or by creating “calling card” thought forms that stay in the auras of their bond-mates. This sets karmic energy in motion that actuates more lifetimes together.

The acolyte recognizes the value of certain spiritual paths, and makes a conscious decision to pursue them.

4. Ripening or Integrating

In the end, each of us will be a composite of the best elements of all the people we have ever loved. All of our experiences lead us to better understand life and the laws of the universe. The principles of the universe are intricate and many.

As we become integrated with each path of wisdom, the learning experiences received without resistance become stored as power symbols in the Mental and Astral auras. Power symbols are thought forms with the energy of a knowledge that one has consciously assimilated.

The acolyte feels successful on some levels, and identity hooks have been connected to things, people and activities. In other words, the acolyte has created a sense of identity dependent on her or his environment.

5. Guided Challenge or Testing

How these powers are utilized is subject to test. The test is not of skill or knowledge. The test is integrity and spiritual awareness, humility and patience, responsibility and commitment to The Way. The hormonal system is stimulated to activate strong emotions in the tested. How a person responds to these emotional situations determines the next course of learning. The Guardian or Watcher Angels communicate constantly with their wards during this time. You could call it a trial test for the next period.

6. Open Key or Non-Guided Challenge

React with will force, or act with faith and prayer. This is the test of the open time. All Angels and Helpers step back and observe the acolyte as everything that has identity value withdraws from his or her life. In worldly terms, this time can be filled with feelings of profound loss. Also, many people who have been diverting one’s energy from The Way will leave through physical absence or emotional betrayal. This allows the acolyte to analyze his or her position in life and adjust for the new directions that will be offered as life choices. This cycle is associated with the days prior to a birthday.

Although the tested may feel empty of inspiration and separated from the presence of God, prayer will reveal that Angelic and other help is only a request away. It is well to note that these are important challenges in which the personality chooses between The Way and a downward path.

Actress Halle Berry summed up the purpose of such a time in her interview with PARADE magazine (August 22, 1999). This is a woman who has risen from a childhood of abandonment and hardship into a series of stellar worldly successes. She had created an image of success in her daily expectations. Speaking of her divorce, she said,

I thought, This is not what my life is supposed to be, I felt like a failure…I’m stronger for the experience, and I learned a lot. I have no regrets…When you’re not the one trying to leave, you can feel worthless…I’d been used to succeeding. I thought I could not go on. But, in that moment, my faith kicked in. Something made me know I am worth it, I deserve to live, and I have a lot to offer…All these great women came to my rescue.

When her efforts in marriage did not pay off in a lasting relationship, her confidence and identity were challenged. We can admire that she was able to trust in the experience, leading her to new strength and direction.

If one chooses to use will-force and attempt to manipulate a situation, the focus is short-ranged (on the experience of loss). She or he attempts to use personal power to influence the physical environment and the emotional trend is resistance. The tested entertains the illusory right to ownership and makes inner and outer demands. All Helpers remain at a distance as the metaphysical energy of the tested pushes outward and away from Light.

If the choice is faith in Divine Provision and prayers for guidance and help, the focus is higher, on the end of suffering through spiritual change, blessings, and assistance. There is an inherent vision of the rhythm of fullness and loss. This attitude of Holy Expectancy creates a metaphysical receptor, allowing the benediction and guidance of the loving Angels and Helpers to reenter the events.

7. Enlightenment or New Vision

Out of the rubble and ashes of one’s former milieu, the consciousness arises in an altered form. If faith has been validated and maintained, the acolyte receives a new sense of purpose, meaning, and direction. If one has chosen the bitter and angry path of will-force, the karmic cycle has already begun; the acolyte will experience many levels of conflict and loss until she or he can understand the connectedness of our lives and the importance of nonresistance as a metaphysical law.

From this new (immediate or eventual) perspective the acolyte develops power, ability, and strength in the next round of karmic cycles.