In 2002, my four friends, baby daughter and I moved from Prescott, Arizona to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We had conducted a long search of 25 locations before we knew we had found home. When we originally moved to Eureka Springs in 2002, it was with the intention to build a Meditation School and to base the curriculum around our deep connection to Mother Earth, otherwise referred to as Gaia.  We bought 22 beautiful acres that had everything we needed to house ourselves and a school.  Our first several years were occupied with remodeling our two homes and getting businesses established.  During this time we allowed a neighbor to keep a small herd of horses on the acreage we intended to build the Meditation School.  One of my great joys during that time was to go out and play with the horses, giving them treats, nuzzling, brushing and walking around with the herd just to see the land as they saw it.

Our land is at the bottom of a mountain and it slopes ever downward in a westerly direction.  Walking it was quite a workout initially as there were no trails.  Gravity persuaded us to walk downhill, but to get home we had to walk up again through tall grass, shrubs and wooded areas.  The first thing I noticed about the horses was that they were very efficient mowers, and that they had made some very good trails traversing the land from north to south and back again, with short links between them making the pitch of the land very walkable. I didn’t think there were any flat areas on our school property but the horses found one and made their camp there under the shelter of a huge Cedar tree.  They found many other treasures as well, like a seasonal creek, a spring fed pond, unusual rock formations and an old cemetery, all of which had become invisible with a nearly impenetrable overgrowth of briars, vines, fallen trees and poison oak.  The horses ate their way into these places making them visible again.  To my great delight, they showed me just how beautiful our school grounds could be with a bit of cleaning up and good management.  It was then the plan took shape for the meditation sites and walking trails.

Everyone in the group was busy with starting their new businesses so we hired Tim Riley, a professional arborist and fledgling landscaper to help me realize the vision for our land.  Even as it began to take shape over the next four years, I was thinking of the land as grounds for the school.  I even had a spot picked out to build the school on, but as my relationship with the land deepened through the years of walking, working, meditating and following horses around on it, the plan changed.

The Spirit of the Land (Gaia) had awakened and I would converse with her regularly.  During the Spring of 2005 I had a series of conversations with Her that changed everything.  I sat in the area that I had planned to build the school on and told her about it.  She had been very helpful over the years in making suggestions about how to develop trails or improve the pond or where to find special meditation sites or natural materials to build or decorate with.  She also pointed out healing herbs and where to grow new varieties.  We had established a reliable working relationship by the time I started telling her about the school I wanted to build.

When she asked what the school was for I told her it was to help people remember who they really are and help them reveal their Eternal Self.  It would encourage them to be Conscious Planetary Souls and to live their lives as planetary evolutionaries. It would help them reconnect with Gaia (Mother Earth) and to learn their lessons directly from her. The school will help students discover their evolutionary niche in the biosphere, evolve their singular potential and achieve the peak evolutionary aim for our species, as well as aiding Gaia with Her own evolutionary goals.  In other words, the School of Planetary Tantra is intended to aid us in becoming the True Human Beings Gaia has intended.

After telling Her all about it, a vision of our finished pond filled my mind.  (A pond that wasn’t created till a couple of years later.)  As if in fast-forward I saw the pond change with the seasons and years, alive with new growth on the trees and ground and the mating songs of frogs and birds, fish emerging from hibernation, Herons standing at the edge, the lush growth of aquatic plants and flowers, replaced by hot sultry Summer days when the pond shrinks and the spring dries up, followed by Fall rains and Winter snows and freezes.  When it was clear and alive in my inner vision she asked me to put up the vision of the School beside it, so that I could see them side by side.  She then asked me “Which of these best reminds you of your Eternal Self?” Looking at these images side by side made it extremely clear to me that although my design for the school was pleasing it lacked the livingness and vitality of the pond.  The pond was clearly my choice.

From that point on I knew that the land itself was the School and that there would be no central building.  The Spirit of the OMS collaborated with me in finding, uncovering and cultivating a total of 14 major meditation sites, linked by walking trails, into which we encoded the curriculum of the 7 Principles and the first 14 of the 28 Rites of Group Evolution.  Thus, each meditation site is like a classroom for pondering the Rite associated with it.  They are multi-dimensional, multi-sensory, experiential, learning environments for each of the Rites.

It was also in the Spring of 2005 when the name for the School began to impress my consciousness.  The Aldebaran School of Planetary Tantra.  Aldebaran is the alpha star of the Bull (Taurus) Constellation, also known as the Eye of the Bull and the Eye of Revelation. It is referred to by astronomers and cosmologists as the Eastern Royal Star , one of the four Royal Stars considered the sentinels watching over other stars.  It is also known as the Buddha’s star, the Star of Illumination, and God’s Eye.   It was during the full moon of the Bull that I received a clear meditative impression that the School was somehow linked with this star and that our name for the School should include it.

Over time I discovered more about the the starry inspiration for the school. According to esoteric astrologer Temple Richmond, Aldebaran embodies in a concentrated form the entire evolutionary lesson coded in the constellation and sign of Taurus, teaching of the necessity to move ourselves away from the more primitive physical impulses of selfishness and separation, and to replace those impulses with a sense of the greater cosmic Whole and one’s place therein. Aldebaran rouses in us a vision of far distant evolutionary possibilities, and consequently to undertake a determined and steady forward movement on the evolutionary path, in service to the Divine Plan, no matter what the immediate dangers and difficulties might be.  It affects the Eye Center, pulling aside the curtains of matter shrouding the central mystery of existence, and in so doing, exposes the workings of Divine Intent to full view.  It also brings about the reorientation of force necessary to move from control by the separative will to cooperation with the Cosmic Will.  It does this by enhancing or increasing the presence of spiritual light in us, and ridding us of those factors which impede spiritual evolution.

Additionally, Aldebaran has been identified by astronomers as the ALG, the Apex of our Local Group. In the current cosmological model, the entire universe is expanding, with galaxies drifting away from each other like spots on an expanding balloon but “in local regions,” there is contraction. Our region, defined by about 24 galaxies dominated by the mated pair of the Orion and Andromeda galaxies, is such a region. All the galaxies in our local group of 24 are converging toward a central point, the ALG, located in the ecliptic degree of the star Aldebaran.

On a personal note, through the use of Star Based Astrology I discovered the astounding fact that I was born with the earth conjunct Aldebaran. In Star Based Astrology we look at the Earth placement to get a read on your purpose, your truth, on what you stand for in the ultimate reckoning.  Imagine my surprise!

The Aldebaran School of Planetary Tantra has evolved over time. For many decades I have traveled the country giving lectures and conducting training that now serves as the foundation for Planetary Tantra. Now, I am preparing an online approach in order to reach as many as possible. Please sign up for our newsletter and/or join our Face Book so that you will know when we will begin offering online courses.

For more information, please email info@openairmditation.com   Please note that courses will continue to be donation based.