I was caravaning back after a month of very high adventure from Southern Mexico the night before New Year's Eve in 1968. On the outskirts of Mazatlan, we pulled into a small cantina for food and debate about whether or not to continue North toward home, or make camp. I was losing the argument to stay. Kit and Bill were dying to see their girlfriends" who expected them at a party, and my partner John was somewhat torn and neutral. My voice of reason tried to explain that we could spend the weekend and experience how this culture brought in the new year, renew our expiring travel cards and insurance, and even get some more dolphinesque surf as we made our way casually back home. "But I want to start out 1969 in the United States," won out. So we split up with the three of them traveling together in Kit's bug, and myself alone in my VW van.

I decided to caravan North with them for a while with the idea of camping at Playa Novillero, about 75 kilometers up the road. I'd been there before and knew it was peaceful and safe, and would likely be serving up some sweet little beach break waves for breakfast. We were rolling over windy hills and dales on a narrow two lane road separated on both sides from the land by barbed wire fencing. It was one of those crystal clear full moon desert nights with the stars bursting out of the giant sky. I remember I was listening to Salt of the Earth from the Stone's new Beggars Banquet 8-track, and feeling really good. I began to see a mysterious light over each rise in the hills out in the distance on the roadway; I couldn't tell what it was. My friends were about 200 yards behind me.

As I came over the next rise, suddenly the light was blinding. In a micro-second glance, I saw a large cattle truck taking up most of the road, staring me right between the eyes. I couldn't get by him on the right, so with a last ditch survival attempt, I cranked the steering wheel to the left, while simultaneously opening my driver's door–performing a James Dean-style el rollo out the door and on to the land–letting the van get eaten by the truck.

The next thing I consciously remember was awakening to quite a bizarre scene. Several federales were busy splitting up my possessions; my cameras, clothes, guitar, and money. A wrecker had the back end of my van raised, and was rapidly removing the motor. When they noticed I was stirring, one of them cried out, Jesus Christo él no esta muerto! They had pronounced me dead about a half an hour before, and had commanded Kit, Bill, and John, to leave.

Which seemed like eternity to me. I don't even recall hearing the impact. I just remember the magnificent blue Earth shrinking, and the Full Moon getting bigger and closer–until I had fully fused with this dimension before gliding beyond. In flight, the movie of my entire life flashed before me in fast forward. Then, I remember soaring through space cradled in divine grace, as I expanded into the planets and stars. I felt blissful, peaceful, and fully joyous. I had no fear as I floated freely in this interstellar dimension, feeling like I was merging with a family of light beings–a greater and brighter consciousness which was welcoming, loving, nurturing, caring, and all knowing. Infused with golden-silver light, surrounded by swirling silence in timelessness, I felt like I was being guided somewhere, though my destination was unknown. There was no differentiation between the cosmos and my psyche; they had been engaged and married as though each fiber of my being was connected to a different star. One thing which left an indelible impression on me was the complete interconnectedness of all of the energy in the universe. Another was how vibrantly alive the figures of the constellations of the zodiac were, and how thoroughly intertwined I felt with their energy. I realized that the universe was a conscious living being, whose essence was imbedded in my cellular memory. The imprint of a vision was forged in my soul, which I will share with you throughout my writings.

A heavier flash of density pulsed through my being, which carried a question and required a decision. It seemed to ask whether to continue to let go, or whether to hold on and go back. I recall making the choice to let go, but I began to be pulled back toward Earth, back to my body.

Things started happening very fast. They loaded me in a truck and took me to the Red Cross hopsital in Mazatlan. In the middle of the night they stitched up my knees and dressed my bruises. From their conversation outside the door, I could hear they were planning to take me to jail in the morning, where I would await a trial about my accident. I decided to escape.

I made it out of the hospital and down to the beach. All I wanted to do was jump in the ocean. I frolicked in the glassy sunrise surf which elevated my mood, then came ashore and fell blissfully asleep tucked away underneath the pier. I was awoken suddenly to gunpoints in my back and face by three federales, who led me by foot to the jail.

The jail was a 25' by 25' room with a large drain hole in the middle. Prisoners would sit on the floor around the perimeter of the room, with the exception of one who was in a narrow solitary confinement cell. He would awaken every now and then, scream out viva la revolucion, run to the other side of the cell, where he would bang his head against the cement wall to knock himseslf out. He kept doing this periodically, like a rooster greets the dawn. Scorpions, who like urine, would occasionally peek out of the drain hole in the middle of the room, which served as our bathroom.

I was seated in lotus posture rising into meditation when I felt an itch on my left side underneath my ribs. It was a scorpion who flipped over and got in a little sting, right about the time I knocked him away. It seemed as though the mixture of blood, adrenalin, and scorpion venom was rushing like a hot snake to my head. I jumped up on the bars and started shaking them furiously screaming at the sargeant to set me free! As I shook the bars I could see the cement around them crumbling and the bars loosening, just as 5 federales came over and opened the barred gate to release me at gunpoint.

Anda le pues commanded one of the federales. We marched out of the jail and down the street in front. We continued walking up the hill several hundred yards, where at the top I saw a large building, which was to become my indefinite new home–the Mazatlan State Prison. Now this was heaven compared to the jail. There was an outdoor courtyard in the sunshine, and I could hang out there all day, and watch the stars at night. The perimeter of the courtyard was lined with rooms where the inmates would live. Drug dealers, thieves, rapists, murderers, wife beaters, counterfeiters, and various other outlaws made up the population, though all were very friendly and welcoming to me. I knew most of their names and did their astrology charts. I would spend my days like an iguana in the sun, doing yoga asanas, meditating, cleaning my wounded knees with lemons and salt, playing a guitar, listening to and telling stories, practicing my spanish, and praying to be set free. As the days melted into more days, it was a strange feeling not knowing if I would ever be released.

About three weeks later, I was called into an office where to my surprise, they had one of my favorite t-shirts and two pairs of my blue jeans. The captain informed me that my case had gone before the magistrate. They had decided that the accident was no contest, with neither party at fault, and I would now be free to go. He told me they had found $33 among my possessions, the precise price of the bus ticket they had purchased for me for the 28-hour ride up to the border at Tijuana. My Lucky Stars were starting to sparkle.

The bus ride was endless. We had been driving for about 14 hours, when the driver finally made a stop in Hermosillo to crash out in a little dorm space behind his seat. I had been fasting for about ten days and was starving. There was a little cantina where the driver had stopped, and I decided I had to eat. The only thing on the menu was steak, and though contrary to all the rules of any of the dietary regimens I knew, I negotiated a trade for my spare pair of blue jeans and ate it, and it was really good. Once back on the bus I found a paper bag, and wrote a poem on the back of it to my partner John:

I made it to Tijauana, where I hitchhiked up to Encinitas to Swami Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship, which has one of North County San Diego's premier surf spots right out in front. It was breaking a clean 3'-5,' and I was able to borrow a board and paddle out. I cannot describe how ecstatic it felt to make the bottom turn on the first wave I rode, and carve it up to the end. I was grinning so hard, I think I bent my face permanently out of shape. Oh how good it was just to be alive!

After the surf session, I went up to the shrine to meditate. Right next to where I was sitting was Yogananda"s book, Authobiography of a Yogi, a book I had read on the beach in Mexico. I picked it up and casually opened it right to the page which said, "an individual is born at that time and place when the celestial rays are in perfect harmony with his individual karma." I remember thinking that he had put that very well.

During my meditation my mind was thundering with reflections. I used to think that it was important to pay my dues. Then I thought that I must have paid off some heavy karmic debts. But then I realized that the most important thing in life was simply to pay attention.

I returned home to Isla Vista near Santa Barbara, where I worked at Sun and Earth natural foods. It was incredibly heart warming to get bear hugs from friends who had thought I'd passed on, and to realize I was genuinely missed. Though I had lost everything material I had owned, I knew I had gained a treasure chest of riches, which I would never lose.

We erected a geodesic dome in the garden of Sun and Earth which was separated into twelve sections, one for each of the signs of the zodiac. A metal sculptor carved out beautiful astrological glyphs, and we planted the herbs and placed the stones and glyphs which corresponded with each of the signs and its ruling planets. In the center was a fire pit surrounded by a hexagon of benches where we would have metaphysical discussions, and I could do astrological readings.

So I started my life all over again. Cleansed from my past by the death of the accident, I was reborn to the life I came here to live, empowered with a new appreciation for each and every breath of life for which I would be blessed. Sure, I"d been doing the right things–yoga, meditation, music, exercise, good diet, some social interaction, and good deeds–but it took this experience to forge my spiritual committment from 98 to 100 percent. I had undergone a true initiation and genuine Grand Catharsis.

That was almost 25 years ago now. I imagine my own awakening through death was symptomatic of the global Uranus/Pluto conjunction of the late Sixties–the first of several massive waves of planetary consciousness which has swept through our souls in the last thirty years. So many transformations and awakenings, deaths and rebirths; so much brilliant light erupting out of darkness, was reflected in this shockwave of global awakening, amidst a climate of repression. Since then, I have filled my life with a rigorous higher and alternative education, lots of great adventures, many creative and meaningful projects, and have been an active astrologer, metaphysician, and writer throughout.

Certainly one doesn"t have to endure such a traumatic encounter as my Mexican adventure to wake up. Every day we endure a menagerie of ups and downs, births and deaths, rebirths and transformations. Every moment we make choices which shape our lives and those we contact, and in any moment, we possess the infinite capacity for transformation. But I relate this experience because it is analogous to the larger circumstances in every arena of life right now: Our personal, social, economic, political, environmental, and spiritual lives are in a process of change, so intense and accelerated that I call it, The Grand Catharsis.

This planet is in a severe crisis in all of these areas. We are also in a period of accelerated cataclysm. This is no coincidence: Cataclysm is the progenitor of spiritual awakening. For when catastrophe strikes, our true spirituality shines, thrusting us out of our programmed agendas into the service of the moment for our brothers and sisters, in our family of man. Through adversity true friendship is born. Human nature shows that when we are at our worst, it brings out our best.

At this point in time, it is a value system which celebrates the acquisition of material things and by extension, greed–rather than the enhancement of the quality of life, which is gratefully dying. A material view of history, life, and the universe is being replaced by a spiritual perspective. We are all spiritual beings having some human experiences for a brief flash of time here on this Earth. But out of the ashes, I am confident that a much more awakened and attuned world will emerge–like a butterfly from chrysalis–in the very near future.

One of the many gifts of astrology is timing. The popular aphorism, ‘timing is everything,’ is truly an observation that everything in nature is based on a timing frequency through cycles. These cycles can be observed in the growth and development of virtually everything, and predate and influence the evolution of human culture and civilization. People and cultures living in harmony with their natural cycles are successful.

Let"s consider three astrological corollaries for both non-astrologer"s understanding and astrologers" reflection, to boost your enjoyment of this material. First, the planets are external counterparts of internal elements of our personal psychology. Second, according to planetary protocol, the further a planet is from us, the more powerful it actually is within us. Thus, tiny Pluto, though 3.5 billion miles from the Sun, is the deepest and most powerful archetype for transformation within human consciousness. Third, there is a mutual synchronicity between the external movements of the planets, and our lives here on this Earth: ‘As above, so below.’ We are all a unique blend of stardust, dancing through our changes with the music of the heaven"s rearrangings.

The following chapters began as an updated anthology of several of the most requested articles I have written and published over the last twelve years, during this awakening period, when several waves of consciousness have crested. Each was centered around significant flashpoints in our current and future history–interwoven from many perspectives. I believe that all knowledge is one, but has many languages and dimensions. My gift is to bridge many layers and speak on many levels simultaneously. We need to know where we"ve come from and how we"ve grown, to gain the empathic understanding of where we"re going, what to look for, and how to best deal with it. Astrology helps us to understand the intricate matrices of cycles within cycles; one of the reasons why history, up to a point, repeats itself. Much new material has been added to create a mosaic–a past, present, and future chronicling of planetary consciousness–and a guided tour of its amazing unfoldment through this remarkable period in our Earth history.

You will find quite a diversity in each of the chapters, both in their content and style. There is a progressive advancement throughout the book, with an invisible charge programmed between the lines. This is, and is not an astrology book, and is designed for anyone to be able to read. Astrology means the study of the stars, and as you will see, I take both a conventional, and an expanded unconventional approach. Some of the chapters are not even astrological, while others are deeply embedded with the sacred science, as well as various other sources. My intention is for anyone to be able to understand and enjoy this material on many levels, and for the most burning issues of the present and future to validate themselves and be understood. A few of the articles, like The Grand Planetary Alignment, are more astrophysical than astrological in scope, providing some clarity and a cornerstone for a grounded understanding of the ominous Earth-change issue. Astrology Hits the Big Time provides validation for the science of the stars, and strong ammunition to disarm the skeptic–or perhaps expand the naysayer"s mind. The Prediction Wars chronicles a critical phenomenon, destined to resurface, and illuminates fresh views demanding discriminating reflections on some important lessons. Waves of Light and dark reflects on many key flashpoints on our consciousness journey, including crop circles, ET"s, ancient civilizations, and our galactic connections, The Stars of Saddam, penned at the beginning of the Mid-East crisis centers on a key karmic lynch pin whose final chapter may still be dawning, and clearly validates the power of predictive astrology–as does The Magic 90"s which previews this decade. The Capricorn Challenge is critical, because the 80"s and 90"s were so saturated in Saturnian energy, and its transformation toward the Uranian and Aquarian. The AstroPolitics series examines America"s astrology, political figures, and structures from a deeper, metaphysical point of view to go beyond popular resources, and provide a frame of reference to envisage the future. The Grand Catharsis Formula captures the flavor of the Uranus–Neptune conjunction, and underscores some central dynamics of human nature and future change. SuperConjunction 1994 focuses the themes of this period, and is somewhat of a living miracle in astrological prognostication. In one chapter I even take you surfing, not just because it is a dolphinesque love of mine which I"d like to share, but because it provides a centerpiece for the environmental issues we all face–as well as three key attibutes of life–timing, balance, and loving intention. Great Balls of Cosmic Fire illuminates a current cataclysm, which was also a signature event in our vault in consciousness, with potent future reverberations. Visions of Aquarius and Free at Last are almost a book in themselves. They gaze into the future and synthesize all of this material to help create some perspectives on how the true new age and the future will unfold. Each chapter is intended to inspire, remind, teach, refresh, entertain, surprise, and hopefully even amaze you with illuminations on both the changes and leaps we are making in our consciousness, and our lives. Whether you are a newcomer or an oldtimer to astrology, I blend and mix the symbolic sacred science of the stars into the brew, so you will enjoy and be enriched by the adventure. So come travel with me back and forth through time. We are alive during the most thrilling of times. The following chapters are an interdisciplinary and multidimensional chronicling of key flash points in our current and future history, using creative celestial navigation to take you along with me on a fascinating and meaningful journey through our Grand Catharsis into a new millennium and another age.

Ken Kalb

July 11, 1994

Aguada, Puerto Rico

--Flaming Arrow