To Lie, To Live, To Believe

Our brains are naturally wired to recognize patterns, find connections between seemingly unrelated things, and draw analytical conclusions from our observations. We all use this ability every day without even knowing it.

It is a talent we inherited from our ancient ancestors. Professor Robert C. Barkman explains that “pattern recognition was key to the survival of our Neanderthal ancestors, allowing them to identify poisonous plants, distinguish predator from prey, and interpret celestial events. Today, pattern recognition plays new, but just as important roles in diagnosing diseases, inspiring new ways to safeguard data, and discovering new planets.”

This amazing ability is however seldom mentioned or considered in spiritual and metaphysical circles. But Spirit has over the years guided me towards greater spiritual insight and metaphysical understanding by taking me on interesting journeys of analysis and pattern recognition towards profound insights and relevations.

For example, while meditating during Easter a few weeks ago, my guides took me ‘down a rabbit hole’ on the decisive word believe. The first insight I discovered was that right in the middle of the word ‘believe’ there hides another, more disheartening little word: lie.

Of course, ‘believe’ is a good word. It is the cornerstone to faith and living a spiritually empowered life. But the hidden word ‘lie’ inside it reminds us that we must also have a living faith for it to be authentic and powerful. And, if you drop the letter ‘v’ into ‘lie,’ it becomes the word ‘live.’

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe ~ Mitch Albom

Truly living our faith and practicing our spirituality empowers us to escape the dark power of lies and self-deceit. Paul the Apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.”

Therefore, if we are compassionate, kind, tolerant, generous, caring, and charitable towards others, we harness the positive power of belief. In doing so, we transform ‘lie’ into ‘live’ and ‘believe,’ and thus crusade for truth. We convert deceptive self-delusion into benevolent manifestation, destiny, and merit. But if we deceive ourselves into thinking that God, Source, Spirit, the Divine will simply wave a magic wand based on our entitlement without merit, then we live a lie.

The ‘v’ also represents Aries, the Ram’s horns, the zodiac sign associated with Easter, Passover, and Ramadan in 2023. Chiron also transits in this sign until 2026, reminding us to fight for the right to be true to ourselves.

Standing up for oneself in proper assertion requires personal development and self-care, and that’s what Chiron the asteroid is all about. Taking forty-nine years to journey through all twelve signs, it spends the most time in Aries, the sign of self, where its tour lasts eight years. Chiron spends the least time in Libra, where it only sojourns for two years.

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe? ~ Yann Martel

The asteroid is named after a wise centaur in Greek mythology known as Chiron who was a master of the healing arts. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung referred to him as the archetypal Wounded Healer, because Chiron suffered a painful, incurable wound when he was struck by one of Hercules’ arrows.

Chiron exposes our ‘wounds’ around our 50th birthday, when we experience our Chiron return. If we’ve done our midlife transformational work leading up to this milestone, our Chiron return may be experienced as a celebratory jubilee, known as such in the apocryphal Hebrew Book of Jubilees. But if we’ve not done the work, our Chiron return will haunt us like an incurable wound.